How a father enjoined his daughter to take care lest she should become with child by her husband.

(3716) There was a Khwaja who had a daughter with cheeks like Venus, a face like the moon, and a breast as silver.

(3717) When she reached maturity, he gave his daughter to a husband: as regards social rank the husband was not a match for her.

(3718) When a melon is ripe it becomes watery and goes to waste and ruin unless you slice it.

(3719) Since it was necessary, he gave his daughter to one who was not her match, in fear of the evil.

(3720) He said to his daughter, “Guard yourself from this new bridegroom, do not become with child;

(3721) For your marriage to this beggar was by necessity; there is no constancy in this vagabond fellow.

(3722) Of a sudden he will jump off and leave all behind: his child will remain on your hands as a wrong.”

(3723) The daughter replied, “O father, I will do service: your counsel is acceptable and prized.”

(3724) Every two or three days the father would enjoin his daughter to take precautions;

(3725) She suddenly became with child by him: how should it be both the wife and the husband are young ?

(3726) She kept the child hidden from her father, till the child was five or six months old.

(3727) The discovery was made. “What is this ?” asked her father; “did not I tell you to adopt withdrawal from him ?

(3728) Truly my injunctions were wind ! My counsel and exhortations have been of no use to you.”

(3729) “Father,” said she, “how should I guard myself ? Man and wife, beyond doubt, are fire and cotton.

(3730) What means has the cotton of guarding itself from the fire, or when is there carefulness and caution in the fire ?”

(3731) He replied, “I said, do not go near him, and do not allow his seed to enter you.

(3732) She said, how could I know the moment of climax ?

(3733) It is hidden and difficult to anticipate’”

(3734) He replied, “When his eyes have the look of daggers, it is the time for ejaculation.”

(3735) She said, “Until his eyes begin to look daggers my own eyes are blind and closed in passion.”

(3736) Not every despicable understanding remains steadfast in the hour of desire and anger and combat.

Description of the weak spirit of the Sufi who has been brought up in ease and has never struggled with himself or experienced the pain and searing anguish of love, and has been deluded by the homage and hand-kissing of the common and their gazing on him with veneration and pointing at him with their fingers and saying, “He is the most famous Sufi in the world to-day”; and has been made sick by vain imagination, like the teacher who was told by the children that he was ill. In the conceit of being a warrior and regarded as a hero in this Way, he goes on campaign with the soldiers engaged in the war against the infidels. “I will show my valour outwardly too,” says he; “I am unparalleled in the Greater Warfare: what difficulty, in truth, should the Lesser Warfare present to me ?” He has beheld the phantasm of a lion and performed imaginary feats of bravery and become intoxicated with this bravery and has set out for the jungle to seek the lion. The lion says with mute eloquence, “No, you will see ! And again, no, you will see !”

(3737) A Sufi went with the army to fight the infidels: suddenly came the clangours and din of war.

(3738) The Sufi stayed behind with the baggage-train and tents and invalids, the horsemen rode into the line of battle.

(3739) The earth-bound heavies remained in their place; the foremost in the march, the foremost in the march, rode on.

(3740) After the combat, they came victorious: they returned in possession of profit and with spoils.

(3741) They gave a present, saying, “You too, O Sufi !” he cast it out and would not take anything.

(3742) Then they said to him, “Why are you angry ?” He answered, “I have been deprived of the fighting.”

(3743) The Sufi was not at all pleased with that act of kindness, because he had not drawn the sword in the holy war.

(3744) So they said to him, “We have brought prisoners in: do you take that one to kill.

(3745) Cut off his head, in order that you too may be a holy warrior.” The Sufi was somewhat pleased and encouraged;

(3746) For, though the ritual ablution water has a hundred excellences, when it is not obtainable one must make use of sand.

(3747) The Sufi led the pinioned prisoner behind the tent in order to wage the holy war.

(3748) The Sufi tarried with the prisoner a long while; the party said, “The dervish has made a long stay there.

(3749) An infidel with both hands tied ! He is ready for killing: what is the cause of this delay in slaughtering him ?”

(3750) One of them went after him to investigate: he found the infidel on the top of the Sufi,

(3751) Like a male (animal) upon a female, and the infidel couching upon the dervish like a lion.

(3752) With his hands tied, he was gnawing the Sufi’s throat in obstinate strife.

(3753) The infidel was gnawing his throat with his teeth: the Sufi lay beneath, senseless.

(3754) The pinioned infidel, as a cat, had wounded his throat without a lance.

(3755) The prisoner had half-killed him with his teeth: his beard was soaked in blood from the throat of the dervish.

(3756) Like you, who under the violence of your pinioned fleshly soul have become as senseless and abject as that Sufi.

(3757) O you whose religion is incapable of a single hillock, there are a hundred thousand mountains in front of you.

(3758) You are dead with fear of a ridge of this size: how will you climb up precipices as a mountain ?

(3759) The warriors, by zeal, at that very instant ruthlessly put the infidel to the sword.

(3760) They sprinkled water and rose-water on the face of the Sufi that he might recover from his unconsciousness and the.

(3761) When he came to himself, he saw the party, and they asked him how it had happened,

(3762) “God ! God ! What is the matter, O worshipful one ? By what thing were you made so senseless ?

(3763) Was a half-killed pinioned infidel the cause of your falling into such a senseless and abject plight ?”

(3764) He replied, “When I attempted his head in anger, the impudent fellow looked at me queerly.

(3765) He opened his eyes wide at me: he rolled his eyes, and consciousness vanished from my body.

(3766) The rolling of his eyes seemed to me an army: I cannot describe how terrible it was.

(3767) Cut the story short: from those eyes I became so beside myself and fell to the ground.”

How the champions counselled him, saying, “Since you have so little heart and stomach that you are made senseless by the rolling of a captive and pinioned infidel’s eyes, so that the dagger drops from your hand, take heed, take heed! Keep to the kitchen of the Sufi convent and do not go to battle lest you incur public disgrace !”

(3768) The party said to him, “With such a stomach as you have, do not approach the battle and war.

(3769) Since you were sunk and your ship wrecked by the eye of that pinioned prisoner,

(3770) How, then, amidst the onset of the fierce lions, to whose swords the head is like a ball,

(3771) Can you swim in blood, when you are not familiar with the warfare of men ?

(3772) For the pounding noise made by blacksmith’s hammers is banal in comparison with the clang of smiting necks.

(3773) Many a headless body that is quivering, many a bodiless head on blood, like bubbles.

(3774) In war, hundreds of death-dealing are drowned under the legs of the horses in death.

(3775) How will wits like these, which flew away from a mouse, draw the sword in that battle-line ?

(3776) It is war, not supping wheat-broth, that you should turn up your sleeve to sup it.

(3777) It is not supping wheat-broth; here eye the sword ! In this battle-line one needs a Hamza of iron.

(3778) Fighting is not the business of any faint-heart who runs away from a spectre, like a spectre.

(3779) It is the business of Turks (Turkan), not of Tarkan. Begone ! Home is the place for Tarkan: go home !”

Story of Iyadi, may God have mercy on him, who had taken part in seventy campaigns against the infidels and had always fought with his breast bare, in the hope that he might become a martyr; and how, despairing of that, he turned from the Lesser Warfare to the Greater Warfare and adopted the practice of seclusion; and how he suddenly heard the drums of the holy warriors, and the fleshly soul within him urged him violently to take the field; and how he suspected his fleshly soul in desiring this.

(3780) Iyadi said, “Ninety times I came unarmed, that perchance I might be wounded.

(3781) I went unarmed to meet the arrows, in order that I might receive a deep-seated arrow-wound.

(3782) None but a fortunate martyr attains unto receiving an arrow-wound in the throat or any vital spot.

(3783) No place in my body is without wounds: this body of mine is like a sieve from arrows;

(3784) But the arrows never hit a vital spot: this is a matter of luck, not of bravery or cunning.

(3785) When martyrdom was not the lot of my spirit, I went immediately into seclusion and forty days’ fast.

(3786) I threw myself into the Greater Warfare in practicing austerities and becoming lean.

(3787) There reached my ear the sound of the drums of the holy warriors; for the hard-fighting army was on the march.

(3788) My fleshly soul cried out to me from within: at morningtide I heard with my sensuous ear, ‘

(3789) Arise ! It is time to fight. Go; devote yourself to fighting in the holy war !’

(3790) I answered, ‘O wicked perfidious soul, what have you to do with the desire to fight ?

(3791) Tell the truth, O my soul ! This is trickery. Else why would you fight ? the lustful soul is quit of obedience.

(3792) Unless you tell the truth, I will attack you; I will squeeze you more painfully in maceration.’

(3793) Thereupon my soul, mutely eloquent, cried out in guile from within me,

(3794) ‘Here you are killing me daily, you are putting my (vital) spirit (on the rack), like the spirits of infidels.

(3795) No one is aware of my plight— how you are killing me without sleep and food.

(3796) In war I should escape from the body at one stroke, and the people would see my manly valour and self-sacrifice.’

(3797) I replied, ‘O wretched soul, a hypocrite you have lived and a hypocrite you will die: what are you !

(3798) In both worlds you have been a hypocrite, in both worlds you are such a worthless creature.’

(3799) I vowed that I would never put my head outside of seclusion, seeing that this body is alive,

(3800) Because everything that this body does in seclusion it does with no regard to man or woman.

(3801) During seclusion the intention of its movement and rest is for God’s sake only.”

(3802) This is the Greater Warfare, and that is the Lesser Warfare: both are work for Rustam and Haydar.

(3804) Such a one must stay, like women, far off from the battle-field and the spears.

(3805) That one a Sufi and this one a Sufi ! Here’s a pity ! That one is killed by a needle, while the sword is this one’s food.

(3810) Another Sufi entered the battle-line twenty times for the purpose of fighting.

(3811) Along with the Moslems when they attacked the infidels; he did not fall back with the Moslems in their retreat.

(3812) He was wounded, but he bandaged the wound which he had received, and once more advanced to the charge and combat,

(3813) In order that his body might not die cheaply at one blow and that he might receive twenty blows in the battle.

(3814) To him it was anguish that he should give up his soul at one blow and that his soul should escape lightly from the hand of his fortitude.

Story of the warrior who every day used to take one dirhem separately from a purse containing silver and throw it into a ditch for the purpose of thwarting the greed and cupidity of his fleshly soul; and how his soul tempted him, saying, “Since you are going to throw into the ditch, at least throw it away all at once, so that I may gain deliverance, for despair is one of the two reliefs”; and how he replied, “I will not give you this relief either.”

(3815) A certain man had forty dirhems in his hand: every night he would throw one into the sea-water,

(3816) In order that the long agony suffered in deliberation might become grievous to the illusory soul.

(3817) He advanced with the Moslems to attack, in the hour of retreat he did not fall back in haste before the enemy.

(3818) He was wounded again, he bound up those too: twenty times were the spears and arrows broken by him.

(3819) After that, no strength remained: he fell forward the seat of truth because his love was true.

(3820) Truth consists in giving up the soul. Listen, try to outstrip in the race ! Recite from the Qur’án men who have been true.

(3821) All this dying is not the death of the form: this body is like an instrument for the spirit.

(3822) Oh, there is many a raw one whose blood was shed externally, but whose living fleshly soul escaped to yonder side.

(3823) Its instrument was shattered, but the brigand was left alive: the fleshly soul is living though that on which it rode has bled to death.

(3824) His horse was killed before his road was traversed: he became naught but ignorant and wicked and miserable.

(3825) If a martyr were made by every bit of bloodshed, an infidel killed also would be a Bu Sa’id.

(3826) Oh, there is many a trusty martyred soul that has died in this world; it is going about like the living.

(3827) The brigand spirit has died, though the body, which is its sword, survives: it is in the hand of that eager warrior.

(3828) The sword is that sword, the man is not that man; but this appearance is a cause of bewilderment to you.

(3829) When the soul is transformed, this sword, namely, the body, remains in the hand of the action of the Beneficent.

(3830) The one is a man whose food is entirely love; the other is a man hollow as dust.

(4237) Be a friend and become quit of sour qualities, so that you may eat sugar even from a jar of poison.

Ya Ali Madad