1 - O Light of the Truth, Husámu’ddín, bring (into verse and writing) this Third Book, for “three times” has become a sunna.

2 - Open the treasury of mysteries; in respect of the Third Book leave excuses alone.

3 - Thy power flows from the power of God, not from the veins which throb because of (bodily) heat.

6 - The power of Gabriel was not from the kitchen; it was from beholding the Creator of existence.

13 - Oh, alas, the area of the people's understandings is exceeding narrow: the people have no throat.

14 - O Light of the Truth, through the keenness of thy perception thy sweetmeat bestows a throat (even) on (one dull as) stone.

15 - Mount Sinai in the (Divine) epiphany gained a throat, so that it quaffed the wine; but it could not bear the wine.

16 - Thereby the mountain was shattered and cloven asunder.

19 - This He bestows at the time, when you become Majestical and become void of vanity and deceit,

20 - So that you will not tell the King's secret to any one, nor pour out sugar before flies.

31 - This world and its inhabitants are (in the end) dispersed; that (other) world and its travellers are continuing (for ever).

32 - This world and its lovers are cut off; the people of that (other) world are eternalised and united.

47 - And, though she bar its way to her teat, may open up for it the way to a hundred gardens (of delight)?

48 - Because the teat has become to that feeble (infant) a barrier (separating it) from thousands of pleasures and dishes (of food) and loaves (of bread).

49 - Our life, then, depends on weaning. Endeavour (to wean yourself) little by little. The discourse is (now) complete.

Story of those who ate the young elephant from greed and because they neglected the advice of the sincere counsellor.

69 - Hast thou heard that in India a sage espied a party of friends?

70 - Left hungry, lacking provisions, and naked, they were coming from travel on a far road.

71 - His wisdom's love was stirred (within him), and he gave them a fair greeting and blossomed like a rose-bush.

72 - “I know,” he said, “that anguish has gathered upon you from this Karbalá (of suffering) in consequence of hunger and emptiness;

73 - But, for God's sake, for God's sake, O illustrious company, let not your food be the young of the elephant!

74 - The elephant is in this direction that ye are now going; do not tear in pieces the elephant's offspring, but hearken (to me).

75 - The young elephants are on your road: to hunt them down is what your hearts desire exceedingly.

76 - They are very weak and tender and very fat, but their mother is searching (after them and) lying in wait.

77 - She will roam a hundred leagues' distance in quest of her children, moaning and making lament.

78 - Fire and smoke issue from her trunk: beware of (hurting) those pitied (cherished) children of hers!”

79 - O son, the saints are God's children: (both) in (their) absence and presence (He is) well aware (of what befalls them).

80 - Do not deem absence (from Him) to be the result of imperfection on their part, for He takes vengeance for the sake of their spirits (which are one with Him).

81 - He said, “These saints (prophets) are My children in exile, sundered from (My) dominion and glory;

82 - (They are) despised and orphaned for the sake of probation, but secretly I am their friend and intimate.

83 - All of them are supported by My protections: you may say they are in sooth parts of Me.

84 - Take heed! Take heed! These are My dervishes; they are a hundred thousand thousand and (yet) they are one body.”

90 - Hundreds of thousands of prophets who worshipped God— truly there have been chastisements (inflicted by them) in every generation.

180 - He (God) said, “O Moses, beseech Me for protection with a mouth thou hast not sinned withal.”

182 - When didst thou sin by the mouth of others? Invoke (God) by the mouth of others, crying, “O God!”

184 - Ask pardon by a mouth with which thou hast committed no sin—and that will be the mouth of others.

185 - Or (else) make thine own mouth pure, make thy spirit alert and nimble.

The remainder of the Story of those who molested the young elephants.

105 - “The elephant takes a sniff at every mouth and keeps poking round the belly of every man,

106 - To see where she will find the roasted flesh of her young, so that she may manifest her vengeance and strength.”

107 - You eat the flesh of God's servants: you backbite them, you will suffer retribution.

108 - Beware, for he that smells your mouths is the Creator: how shall any one save his life except him that is true (to God)?

109 - Woe to the scoffer whose smell shall be tested in the grave by Munkar or Nakír!

110 - There is no possibility of withdrawing the mouth from those mighty ones, nor of sweetening the mouth with medicinal ointments.

111 - (In the grave) there is no water and oil to cover the face, there is no way of evasion (open) to intelligence and sagacity. Returning to the Story of the elephant.

138 - Said the sincere adviser, “Hearken to this counsel of mine, so that your hearts and souls may not be afflicted.

139 - Be content with herbage and leaves, do not go in chase of the young elephants.

140 - I have put off from my neck (I have discharged) the debt of admonition: how should the end (final result) of admonition be aught but felicity?

141 - I came to deliver the message, that I may save you from (fruitless) repentance.

142 - Beware! Let not greed waylay you, let not greed for victual tear you up by the roots!”

143 - This he said, and gave a farewell and departed; their famine and hunger waxed great on the way.

144 - Suddenly, in the direction of a highroad, they espied a fat young elephant, newly born.

145 - They fell upon it like furious wolves, ate it clean up, and washed their hands.

146 - One of the fellow-travellers did not eat (of it) and exhorted (the others to abstain), for the sayings of that dervish were remembered by him.

147 - Those words hindered him from (eating) its roasted flesh: old intelligence bestows on thee a new fortune.

148 - Then they all fell down and slept, but the hungry one (was awake) like the shepherd in the flock.

149 - He saw a frightful elephant approaching: first she came and ran towards him who was keeping guard.

150 - She smelt his mouth thrice: no disagreeable smell came from it.

151 - She paced round him several times and went off: the huge queen-elephant did him no hurt.

152 - She smelt the lips of every sleeper, and the smell (of her young one's flesh) was coming to her from each of those slumbering men.

153 - He (each man) had eaten of the roasted flesh of the young elephant: the (mother) elephant quickly tore him to pieces and killed him.

154 - At once she set about rending the people of that company one by one, and she had no awe of (doing) it.

155 - She tossed each one in the air recklessly, so that he dashed on the earth and was cloven asunder.

158 - The mother of those young elephants will exact vengeance: (her) retribution will slay him that eats the young elephant.

159 - O eater of bribes, thou eatest the young elephant: from thee too the Master of the elephant will wring the breath.

160 - The smell put to shame the deviser of fraud: the elephant knows the smell of her child.

167 - If thou take oath, saying, “When have I eaten them? I have abstained from onions and garlic,”

168 - The breath of thy oath will inform (against thee) and will strike upon the noses of those who sit beside thee.

169 - Many prayers are rejected because of the smell thereof: the corrupt heart shows in the tongue.

171 - (But) if thy words be wrong and thy meaning right, that wrongness of expression is acceptable to God.

Explaining that in the sight of the Beloved a fault committed by lovers is better than the correctness of strangers.

172 - The veracious Bilál in (uttering) the call to prayer used, from ardent feeling, to pronounce hayy as hayya,

173 - So that they (some people) said, “O Messenger (of God), this fault is not right (permissible) now when ’tis the beginning of the edifice (of Islam).

174 - O Prophet and Messenger of the Creator, get a muezzin who speaks more correctly.

175 - At the commencement of religion and piety, it is a disgrace to mispronounce hayy ‘ala ’l- faláh.”

176 - The Prophet's wrath boiled up, and he gave one or two indications of the hidden favours (which God had bestowed upon Bilál),

177 - Saying, “O base men, in God's sight the (mispronounced) hayy of Bilál is better than a hundred há's and khá's and words and phrases.

178 - Do not stir me to anger, lest I divulge your secret—(both) your end and your beginning.”

Ya Ali Madad