How Hamza, may God be well-pleased with him, came to battle without a coat of mail.

3419- Whenever at the end (of his life) Hamza went into the ranks (on the battlefield), he would enter the fray (like one) intoxicated, without a coat of mail.

3420- Advancing with open breast and naked body, he would throw himself into the sword-bearing ranks.

3421- The people asked him, saying, “O uncle of the Prophet, O Lion that breakest the ranks (of the foemen), O prince of the champions,

3422- Hast not thou read in the Message of God (the Qur’án) ‘Do not cast yourselves with your own hands into destruction’?

3423- Then why art thou casting thyself thus into destruction on the field of battle?

3424- When thou wert young and robust and strongly-knit, thou didst not go into the battle-line without a coat of mail.

3425- Now that thou hast become old and infirm and bent, thou art knocking at the curtains (doors) of recklessness,

3426- And with sword and spear, like one who recks of naught, thou art grappling and struggling and making trial (of thyself).

3427- The sword hath no respect for the old: how should sword and arrow possess discernment?”

3428- In this manner were the ignorant sympathisers giving him counsel zealously. The reply of Hamza to the people.

3429- Hamza said, “When I was young, I used to regard farewell to this world as death.

3430- How should any one go to death eagerly? How should he come naked (unarmed) to meet the dragon?

3431- But now, through the Light of Mohammed, I am not subject to this city (the world) that is passing away.

3432- Beyond (the realm of) the senses, I behold the camp of the (Divine) King thronged with the army of the Light of God,

3434- That one in whose eyes death is destruction—he takes hold of (clings to) the (Divine) command, “Do not cast (yourselves into destruction),”

3435- And that one to whom death is the opening of the gate—for him in the (Divine) Allocution (the Qur’án) there is (the command), “Vie ye with each other in hastening.”

3437- Welcome, O ye who regard the (Divine) grace! Rejoice! Woe (to you),

3441- Your fear of death in fleeing (from it) is (really) your fear of yourself. Take heed, O (dear) soul!

3457- When a man has sown a prostration (in prayer) or a genuflexion, in yonder world his prostration becomes Paradise.

3458- When praise of God has flown from his mouth, the Lord of the daybreak fashions it into a bird of Paradise.

3462- Delight in devotion became a river of honey; behold your (spiritual) intoxication and longing as a river of wine.

3485- Deem the Light to be a water, and cleave to the water withal: when you have the water, be not afraid of the fire.

3404- Till, one night, there was shown to her (the vision of) a garden everlasting, verdant, delectable, and ungrudged.

3405- I have called the Unconditioned Bounty a garden, since it is the source of (all) bounties and the assembly of (all) gardens;

3406- Otherwise, (it is that which) no eye hath beheld: what place is there for (how is it proper to speak of) a garden? God hath called the Light of the Unseen “a lamp.”

The means of preventing one's self from being swindled in sale and purchase.

3494- A certain friend said to the Prophet, “I am always being swindled in commerce.

3495- The deceit of every one who sells or buys is like magic and leads me off the track.”

3496- He (the Prophet) said, “When thou art afraid of being duped in a commercial transaction, stipulate (that thou shalt have) for thyself three days (in which) to choose,

3497- For deliberation is assuredly from the Merciful (God); thy haste is from the accursed Devil.”

3498- When you throw a morsel of bread to a dog, he (first) smells, then he eats, O careful one.

3499- He smells with the nose, we too (who are endowed) with wisdom smell it (the object submitted to us) with the purified intelligence.

3500- This earth and the (heavenly) spheres were brought into existence by God with deliberation (extending) to six days;

3501- Otherwise, He was able—“Be, and it is”—to bring forth a hundred earths and heavens (from non- existence).

3502- Little by little till forty years (of age) that Potentate makes the human being a complete man,

3503- Although He was able in a single moment to set flying (raise up) fifty persons from non- existence.

3504- Jesus by means of one prayer was able to make the dead spring up (to life) without delay:

3506- This deliberation is for the purpose of teaching you that you must seek (God) slowly without (any) break.

3507- A little rivulet which is moving continually does not become defiled or grow fetid.

3508- From this deliberation are born felicity and joy: this deliberation is the egg, fortune is like the birds (hatched from the egg).

3509- How should the bird resemble the egg, O obstinate one, though it is produced from the egg?

3510- Wait till your limbs, like eggs, hatch birds ultimately (at the Resurrection)!

3515- In the bazaar the people go (about their business) all alike, (but) one is in glee and another sorrowful.

3516- Even so in death: we go all alike, (but) half of us are losers and (the other) half are (fortunate as) emperors.

How Bilál, may God be well-pleased with him, died rejoicing.

3517- When Bilál from weakness became (thin) as the new-moon, the hue of death fell upon Bilál's face.

3518- His wife saw him (in this state) and cried, “Oh, sorrow!” Then Bilál said to her, “Nay, nay! (Say), ‘Oh, joy!’

3519- Until now I have been in sorrow from living: how shouldst thou know how delightful death is, and what it is (in reality)?”

3520- He was saying this, and at the very moment of saying it his countenance was blooming with narcissi, rose-leaves, and red anemones.

3521- The glow of his face and his eye full of radiance were giving testimony to (the truth of) his words.

3527- His (Bilál's) wife said to him, “(This is) the parting, O man of goodly qualities.” “Nay, nay,” said he, “’tis the union, the union (with God).”

3528- The wife said, “To-night thou wilt go to a strange country, thou wilt become absent from thy family and kindred.”

3529- “Nay, nay,” he replied; “contrariwise, to-night in sooth from a strange country my spirit is coming home.”

3530- She said, “Where shall we behold thy face?” He answered, “In God's chosen circle.”

3531- His chosen circle adjoins you, if you look upward, not downward.

3532- In that circle the Light from the Lord of created beings is gleaming like the bezel (dimond) in the circle (of the seal-ring).

3533- “Alas,” she said, “this house has been ruined.” “Look on the moon,” said he, “do not look on the cloud.

3534- He has ruined it in order that He may make it more flourishing: my kinsfolk were numerous and the house was (too) small.

The (Divine) wisdom in ruining the body by death.

3535- Formerly, like Adam, I was imprisoned in grief; now East and West are filled with my spirit's progeny.

3536- I was a beggar in this dungeon-like house; (now) I have become a king: a palace is needed for a king.”

3537- Truly, palaces are the place for (spiritual) kings to take their pleasure in; for him that is (spiritually) dead a grave is a sufficient house and dwelling.

3538- To the prophets this world seemed narrow: like kings, they went into (the world of) spacelessness.

3539- To the (spiritually) dead this world appears splendid: its external (aspect) is large, but in reality it is narrow.

3540- If it were not narrow, for what reason is this lamentation? Why has every one become (more) doubled (bowed with affliction) the more he lived in it?

The question of the faná and baqá of the dervish.

3699- The speaker said, “There is no dervish in the world; and if there be a dervish, that dervish is (really) non-existent.”

3670- He exists in respect of the survival of his essence, (but) his attributes have become non-existent in the attributes of Him (God).

3671- Like the flame of a candle in the presence of the sun, he is (really) non-existent, (though he is) existent in (formal) calculation.

3672- Its (the flame's) essence is existent, so that, if you put cotton upon it, it (the cotton) will be consumed by the sparks;

3673- (But) it is (really) non-existent: it gives you no light: the sun will have naughted it.

3674- When you have thrown an ounce of vinegar into two hundred maunds of sugar, and it has become dissolved therein,

3675. The flavour of the vinegar, when you taste (the sugar), is non-existent, (though) the ounce exists (as a) surplus when you weigh.

3676- In the presence of a lion a deer becomes senseless: her existence becomes a (mere) veil for his existence.

Ya Ali Madad