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In this work, the wise poet expounds on the benefits of ascending the mansion of eternity and forsaking the doings of this illusionary world. ON THE BLIND MEN AND THE AFFAIR OF THE ELEPHANT. “There was a great city in the country of Ghûr, in which all the people were blind. A certain king passed by that place, bringing His army and pitching his camp on the plain. He had a large and magnificent elephant to minister to His pomp and excite awe […]. A desire arose among the people to see this monstrous elephant, and a number of the blind, like fools, visited it, every one running in his haste to find out its shape and form. They came, and being without the sight of their eyes groped about it with their hands; each of them, by touching one member, obtained a notion of some one part; each one got a conception of an impossible object, and fully believed his fancy true. […]” ON THE ABOVE ALLEGORY. “One talks of ‘the foot,’ the other of ‘the hand,’ pushing beyond all limits their foolish words; that other speaks of ‘fingers’ and ‘change of place’ and ‘descending,’ and of His coming as an incarnation. Another considers in his science His ‘settling himself’ and ‘throne’ and ‘couch,’ and in his folly speaks of ‘He sat’ and ‘He reclined,’ making of his foolish fancy a bell to tie round his neck. ‘His face’ says one; ‘His feet’ another; and no one says to him, ‘Where is thy object?’ From all this talk, there comes an altercation, and there results what happened in the case of the blind men and the elephant. Exalted be the name of Him who is exempt from ‘what’ and ‘how!’ The livers of the prophets have become blood. Reason hamstringed by this saying; the sciences of the learned are folded up. All have come to acknowledge their weakness; woe to him who persists in his folly! Say, it is allegorical; depend not on it, and fly from foolish conceptions. The text of the Qur’ân – we believe it all; and the traditions – we admit the whole of them.” ON THE STEPS OF ASCENT. “[…] The first step towards it is serenity, according to the attestation of the lord of knowledge; and after it thou come to the second step, the wisdom of life, of form and matter. Know thou the truth, that there is not in the world for the offspring of Adam a better staircase to mount the eternal Heaven by than wisdom and work. The wisdom of life makes strong the mind for both the upper and the lower abode; strive thou in this path, and although thou do not so in that, yet thou shall not do amiss. […]”
