1. O earth of the Highland, mayst thou be a blessed highland! May the rain-clouds water thee abundantly with shower on shower!
2. And may he who has greeted thee for fifty years greet thee once and twice and then once again!
3. I crossed every desert and wilderness to meet her, riding on the big-humped she-camel and the old dromedary,
4. Until the lightning shone from the direction of al-Ghaḍá, and its coming in the night has increased the passion that I felt before.
1. 'O earth of the Highland,' i.e. the understanding in the corporeal world.
'The rain-clouds', i.e. Divine Knowledge.
2. 'He who has greeted thee,' i.e. the Truth, which bestows spiritual gifts.
3. 'I crossed every desert and wilderness,' i.e. I suffered austerities and mortifications of the flesh.
'The big-humped she-camel,' i.e. the religious law.
'The old dromedary,' i.e. the matured and experienced mind.
4. 'The lightning,' i.e. the luminous radiance of the most inaccessible veil of the Divine glory.
'Al-Ghaḍá,' phenomenal existence.
'Coming in the night,' i.e. in the darkness of the phenomenal world.
1. O my two comrades, approach the guarded pasture and seek Najd and yonder sign that marks the way,
2. And come down to a well at the tents of the curving sand and beg shade of its ḍál and salam trees.
3. And whenever ye come to the valley of Miná—for then ye have come to that in which is my heart's being—
4. Deliver to all who dwell there the greetings of love from me, or only say, 'Peace be with you!'
5. And hearken what they will reply, and tell how one who is heartsick
6. Complains of the ardours of love, while he is hiding nothing, seeking information, and asking questions.
1. 'O my two comrades,' i.e. his understanding and his faith.
'The guarded pasture,' i.e. the veiled glory of God.
'Najd,' i.e. sublime knowledge.
'Yonder sign,' i.e. inductive knowledge.
2. 'A well,' i.e. the source of eternal life.
'At the tents of the curving sand,' i.e. in the presence of Divine mercy.
'Beg shade,' etc., i.e. seek delight in the knowledge that bewilders the intellect and is exempt from all limitation.
3. 'The valley of Miná,' i.e. the abodes of the Heavenly Host and of the Divine Names assembled for the purpose of manifestation.
4. 'Or only say,' etc., i.e. if they are not pleased to receive my greetings, then make no mention of me.
6. 'Asking questions,' i.e. touching the malady with which he is smitten, viz. the obstacles that hinder him from attaining to the object of his desire, notwithstanding that love has intoxicated his whole being.
1. The dearest place on God's earth to me after Ṭayba and Mecca and the Farther Temple is the city of Baghdán. 1
2. How should I not love the (City of) Peace, since I have there an Imám who is the guide of my religion and my reason and my faith?
3. ’Tis the home of a daughter of Persia, one whose gestures are subtle and whose eyelids are languid.
4. She greets and revives those whom she killed with her looks, and she conferred the best (gift) after beauty and beneficence.
1. 'Ṭayba' (Medina), i.e. the station of Yathrib from which they return with utter failure to attain to true knowledge of the most glorious God, as Abú Bakr said, 'perception is
the incapacity to achieve perception.' This involves seeing God in everything.
'Mecca,' i.e. the perfect heart which contains the Truth.
'The Farther Temple' (Jerusalem), i.e. the station of holiness and purity.
'Baghdán,' i.e. Baghdád, because it is the abode of the Quṭb, in whom is the perfect manifestation of the form of the Divine presence.
3. 'A daughter of Persia,' i.e. a form of foreign wisdom, connected with Moses, Jesus, Abraham, and other foreigners of the same class.
'Whose eyelids are languid,' i.e. she is tender and merciful.
4. 'The best (gift) after beauty and beneficence': Gabriel said, 'Beneficence consists in thy worshipping God as though thou wert seeing Him,' and he added, 'for if thou seest Him not, yet He sees thee.' Hence 'the best gift' after beneficence is God's vision of thee.
1. My soul be the ransom of fair-complexioned and coy virgins who played with me as I was kissing the Pillar and the Stone!
2. When thou art lost in pursuit of them, thou wilt find no guide but in their scent, the sweetest of traces.
3. No moonless night darkened o’er me but I remembered them and journeyed in moonlight.
4. Only when I walk in their company of riders does the night seem to me like the sun in the morning.
5. My love urged me to dalliance with one of them, a beauty who hath no sister in humankind.
6. If she unveils her mouth, she will show to thee what sparkles like the sun in unchanging radiance.
7. The whiteness of her forehead is the sun's, the blackness of the hair on her brow is the night's: most wondrous of forms is she—a sun and a night together!
8. Through her we are in daylight during the night and in a night of hair at noon.
1. 'Virgins,' i.e. Divine sciences embodied in the world of similitude.
'As I was kissing,' etc., i.e. in the station of Divine allegiance.
2. 'Their scent,' i.e. their traces in the hearts of the gnostics who know them.
3. 'No moonless night,' i.e. the darkness of ignorance or bewilderment.
7. 'The blackness of the hair on her brow,' i.e. the mysterious sciences of which she is the bearer, e.g. the Traditions respecting assimilation,
8. 'We are in daylight during the night,' etc., i.e. in the essence of the case God's invisibility is His visibility, and His visibility is His invisibility, if we regard Him and not our own reason.
1. Between Adhri‘át and Buṣrá a maid of fourteen rose to my sight like a full moon.
2. She was exalted in majesty above Time and transcended it in pride and glory.
3. Every full moon, when it reaches perfection, suffers a waning that it may make a complete month,
4. Except this one: for she does not move through zodiacal signs nor double what is single.
5. Thou art a pyx containing blended odours and perfume, thou art a meadow producing spring-herbs and flowers.
6. Beauty reached in thee her utmost limit: another like thee is impossible.
1. 'Between Adhri‘át and Buṣrá': he mentions these places because they mark the farthest point reached by the Prophet in his Syrian journey.
'A maid of fourteen,' i.e. the perfect soul. Four is the
most perfect number, and ten consists of four numbers, viz. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4, and fourteen is 4 + 10.
4. 'Nor double what is single,' i.e. she is in the station of Unity and no one is joined with her, for she is not homogeneous with anything.
5. 'Blended odours and perfume,' i.e. Divine sciences and influences.
6. 'Beauty reached in thee her utmost limit,' as Abú Ḥámid (al-Ghazálí) said, 'A more beautiful world than this is not possible. Had it existed and had God kept it to Himself, He would have shown avarice which is incompatible with His liberality and weakness which is contradictory to His omnipotence.'
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