The Book of Rumi Page 4

  “I'm dying!” moaned the sick man.

  “Thank God!” the deaf man said jovially, and continued with his next question, which he had duly prepared: “What did you eat last night?”

  “Poison!” retorted the old man, already upset by the first answer.

  “Bon appétit!” the deaf man responded obliviously.

  The sick man, made even more upset by the last comment, bit his lips to stop himself from swearing at his annoying visitor. The deaf man, though, continued with his inquiries: “Which doctor is treating you?”

  “Azrael, the Angel of Death!” snapped the sick man.

  “May he be blessed. His presence is always good news; whomever he visits is cured of all his pains and aches forever!”

  Unaware of the damage he had done to his sick neighbor's state of mind, the deaf man took his hand and shook it firmly before taking his leave, believing that he had done his neighborly duty and brought the sick man much joy and relief.

  Chinese and Greek Painters

  Chinese painters and their Greek counterparts in Asia Minor had been great rivals since the beginning of time, each considering themselves superior to the other. No one was truly able to say whose style was more sophisticated or which painters' works were more beautiful. This rivalry had gone on for much too long, and the sultan of Rûm, in Asia Minor, had become weary of the tireless backbiting on both sides.

  Finally, he decided to stage a competition to establish once and for all which painters were the most accomplished and the worthiest of their time. The sultan decided to assign two of his empty cottages, which faced each other on the palace grounds, to the two groups of competing contestants. The Chinese were to occupy one cottage, while the Greek painters were to live and work in the one opposite. They had one month to present their projects to the sultan.

  The Chinese were eager to begin work and asked for numerous colors of paint, immediately setting out to draw their designs on the walls of their house. The Greeks asked for nothing. They had brought with them special stones for polishing the surface of the walls. Shortly after arrival in their cottage, they began the grueling task of rubbing down the residue of many years of rot and decay that covered all the walls in their cottage.

  It took the Greek painters countless hours of arduous work to remove the effects of many years of wear and tear on the aged walls, old paint and mildew that they scrubbed and polished over and over again. Meanwhile, their Chinese counterparts were busy applying layers and layers of paint, beautifying their own designs as they covered over what remained of the old paint.

  The Greek painters were well aware of the art of the Chinese and were familiar with their methods. The Chinese, though, had no idea what the Greeks were up to. People were impatient to see what the great artists of their time had been working on and could hardly wait a day longer. After a month of labor, at last the artists were ready to show their masterpieces to the ultimate judge, the sultan.

  The judging day was upon them, and both groups of painters impatiently awaited the sultan's arrival. Musicians filled the palace grounds, and people danced and made merry while awaiting the final results to be called out. The sultan eventually arrived with his entourage and went directly to view the Chinese chef-d'oeuvre. The designs and the colors applied to the walls of the small cottage had transformed it into a grand palace of dreams! He had never seen such beautiful art in his life and was astounded. It took the sultan a very long time to detach himself from the beauty that surrounded him and to step outside the cottage.

  Having seen what the greatest artists might possibly achieve, he was now exceptionally curious to see what the Greek painters had created. Reluctantly, he left the cottage of the Chinese painters and walked across to the other cottage, which was hidden from view by an enormous curtain. He ordered the curtain to be drawn back and instantly understood the miracle that the Greek painters had achieved.

  Before the sultan stood the decrepit cottage, which in fact no longer seemed old or dilapidated. The mildew and stains of the past had been patiently and laboriously removed. The artists had scrubbed, polished, and refined the walls to the extent that everything, including the Chinese paintings in the cottage opposite, was perfectly reflected onto them, exemplifying their purity. The work of the Chinese painters, in all its complexity and beauty, was manifested in the art of the Greek painters' simplicity and transparency, thus rendering it unfathomably more glorious.

  The sultan could not hide his amazement at how the Greek painters had managed to re-create beauty in its purest form, creating the perfect state. He had no doubt which group had the superior artists.

  The Lover Who Was Nothing

  A man, desperately in love, arrived at the house of his beloved and enthusiastically knocked on the door.

  “Who's there?” asked the lady.

  “It's me,” declared the man, full of hope.

  “Go away, there's no place for someone like you in this house!” she responded, her voice laced with sorrow. “You're naïve and not yet ready, just like an uncooked meal! You declare yourself as ‘me’ and still proclaim your undying love for me? A lover who only sees himself is no lover at all but needs to roast in the fire of separation until he's properly cooked!”

  She refused to open the door, and the distraught man eventually backed away from the house. Soon after, he left the town for an unknown destination in some faraway land. Burning with the pain of separation, after a year of traveling from place to place he gathered his courage and approached his beloved's home once again. Apprehensively but politely, he knocked on the door.

  “Who's knocking at this hour?” asked the lady impatiently.

  “No one! The one on this side of the door is also you!” expressed the man humbly.

  “Now that you've stopped seeing only yourself, you've become me at last! Two people could never exist in this house simultaneously, but now you may enter.”

  She cautiously opened the door and let her lover inside.

  “Now you're welcome in this house. There's no difference between us anymore; no longer are we the rose and the thorn. We are one and the same.”

  Spitting at Imam Ali

  In the early years of Islam in the Arab lands, the newly converted Moslems waged many wars with others who did not yet believe in Islam, people widely known as infidels. In one war, Ali, the prophet's son-in-law, who was a very competent warrior, came face to face with another capable soldier. Ali succeeded in bringing his opponent to his knees in a short, sharp fight and raised his sword to take the man's life. The proud soldier believed that his end was imminent, and all he could think to do was take one last spiteful action: he spat at Ali, right in the face. Ali immediately withdrew his sword and stepped back, sparing the man's life.

  The subdued warrior was stunned; he had expected the worst and now was perplexed that he was still alive. He needed an explanation; he needed to know why Ali had taken pity on him. Before Ali could walk away from their encounter, the warrior called out to him: “Ali, you had drawn your sword to finish me off but changed your mind. What made you drop your weapon? What did you see in me when we fought that made you lose interest and spare my life? You had the upper hand; you'd won the fight. What else was more important than finishing me off? What suppressed your anger at that instant?”

  “I only fight for God,” responded Ali. “I'm God's servant; I'm not in the business of saving my own skin. I'm God's unbeatable lion, not a whimsical warrior of passion! Not words but actions speak for my belief. The sword might be in my hand, but it is God who strikes. Just like the wind that cannot move a mountain, I too shall not move other than by God's will.

  “Anger makes most kings lose their heads, but anger is my obedient slave! It's indeed my patience that has freed me from the yoke of anger. My sword does not kill; instead, it bestows life! You spat at me, and thus raised an issue that did not directly involve God; and I never fight for any reason other than God. Your spitting aroused my ego and thus sparked off my anger
. Had I used my sword, I would have been fighting half for God and half for my ego! That's why I thought it best to withdraw my sword.”

  Ali then turned to walk away, without looking back.

  The Snake Catcher and the Thief

  A petty thief was feeling supremely fortunate because, earlier that day, he had succeeded in stealing a massive snake from a snake catcher. Little did the witless thief know that it had been the snake catcher's first catch, and even less was he aware that the snake's venom was deadly! Meanwhile, the snake catcher was himself oblivious to his luck in losing the snake, of whose danger he was himself unaware. Distraught at his loss, though, he schemed about how to find the thief and retrieve his precious catch, which he had hoped would fetch him a tidy sum.

  Not long afterward, the snake catcher was making his way into town, toying with various plans to catch the thief. All of a sudden, he saw the thief's dead body by the roadside and recognized him instantly.

  “It must have been my snake that took his life!” the snake catcher gasped as he spotted the tracks the snake had left by the side of the corpse as it wiggled away. “I prayed so hard to find this poor soul and get my catch back, believing I'd been cheated. Praise to God that my prayers went unheeded. While I thought I had lost a salable snake, in fact I had gained back my life!”

  Many are our wishes and prayers that, beyond our ability to see, will only bring us loss or death, which God Almighty turns a deaf ear to simply out of His benevolence.

  Jesus and the Skeleton

  Jesus often traveled from place to place, and various people tended to accompany him for parts of his journey. On one occasion, as he was leaving a small village, a young man began to follow him. Not long after they had set out, the young man spotted the bones of some anonymous creature in a ditch. His curiosity was raised, and, believing that he had discovered an abandoned human skeleton, he started to poke the bones with his stick.

  “Are you not the greatest prophet on the face of the earth?” he asked Jesus. “Then you must know the secret of bringing back the dead!”

  Jesus ignored his comment, but the man persisted: “Please, great prophet, teach me how to give life to these useless bones, so that I too can say that I've accomplished a worthy deed.”

  Jesus was annoyed and continued to ignore the young imbecile, but the man wouldn't relent and repeated his request again and again. Jesus was beginning to lose patience, and, sure enough, he eventually snapped: “Be quiet, this is no task for a fool! This work requires a soul purer than rainwater, a self more sentient than angels. You must live many holy lives before you can even be considered a candidate for such a job. Let's just imagine for argument's sake that you found a suitable staff, but where now is Moses to achieve the miracle?” Jesus tried his best to make the simpleton grasp the importance of the issue.

  “All right, since you think that I'm not good enough to know the secret prayer, then you do it. You give these bones life!” he repeated unrelentingly.

  Utterly puzzled, Jesus wondered why this apparently ego-ridden man was so bent on bringing these dead, forsaken bones back to life. He turned to God, imploring Him to divulge the reason for this challenge, and soon he heard a voice in his head:

  “The piteous always drive themselves into a rueful state. They plant seeds but sow thorns. And those who sow thorns have no place in the divine Garden. In their hands, every rose will become a thorn. If they fall in love, their beloved will turn into a venomous snake, for their spirit is dark and nasty. Their talent is in creating poison, unlike the true alchemist, who turns everything into precious gold!”

  Quite curious by now, Jesus decided to fulfill the young man's demand, hoping to discover the purpose of this predicament that he found himself in as well as ridding himself of the fellow's exasperating company. Thus, he uttered the prayer to raise the dead and blew it onto the shattered bones.

  Unbeknown to Jesus and the young half-wit, the bones were not those of a man but of a fierce black lion. In no time, the lion, raised from the dead, snapped the young man's head off, broke his arms and legs, and shredded his body. Standing a few paces away, Jesus witnessed the attack in awe. Cautiously, he approached the lion: “Why did you tear this poor man apart? He just made me give you back your life!”

  “I decimated his body because he had made you angry, O great prophet!” said the lion obediently.

  “Then why don't you eat his flesh?” inquired Jesus.

  “It's not my fate today to be nourished by his body!” replied the grateful lion, who then turned around and walked toward the distance.

  The King's Falcon

  The king had a deep love for falcons and was indeed an accomplished falconer. He kept a separate area of his palace dedicated to his outstanding birds and visited them regularly. One afternoon, after he'd finished some routine business with his advisers, he decided that it was the perfect time to fly his favorite falcon. But, alas, when he entered the enclosure he saw that the bird had escaped!

  The falcon, having been reared in the palace all her life and cared for tenderly by the king himself, had somehow gotten out and lost her way, and had ended up at an old woman's cottage. The woman was preparing a pot of soup for her family when she caught sight of the astounding bird perched on her wall. She felt sorry for her and grabbed her by the talons, tying them up with a piece of string so she couldn't fly away, and began to stroke her beautiful feathers.

  She decided, though, that the bird's long, unkempt feathers needed pruning, so she cut them as short as she thought appropriate. Then she noticed the bird's talons and thought it best to cut them as well, for they seemed not to have been trimmed for a long while. The entire time she tended to the poor falcon, she stroked her caringly and whispered to her sympathetically: “Where have you been, little one, that they've treated you so badly? Look how long your feathers and nails had grown! You should've flown to Mother much sooner.”

  The lost falcon was now trapped for good, unable to fly or climb away. Meanwhile, the king and his soldiers had searched the entire county for her and were returning to the palace empty-handed and downhearted. As they rode through the last village on their route, all of a sudden, the king caught sight of his poor falcon, who didn't look anything like her old, beautiful self but was still completely familiar to the king. In the midst of the smoke and dust of the old woman's poor hut, the bird had lost her glory; the glamour of the palace had been completely washed away.

  Tears welled up in the king's eyes, and he spoke: “This is your punishment for being ungrateful and forsaking my blessing. Ending up in this disgusting hut with this old, ignorant woman is what you truly deserve!” The king reproached his bird while stroking her injured feathers lovingly.

  The falcon was shamefaced and looked at her master with utter surrender and regret. If only she could speak, she would tell the king how sorry she was for being so naïve and ungrateful. Without words, she begged the king for forgiveness, admitting that she had taken her noble stature for granted.

  With her expressive eyes, she confessed that even though she'd lost her feathers and talons, she was not unduly distressed because they would eventually grow back; she implored that she would gladly tolerate the pain of her diminished grandeur in the meantime, because she knew that the king was a merciful master! If only the king could find it in his heart to forgive her transgression, just this once!

  The Shaykh and the Tray of Sweets

  There was once a famous shaykh who was revered by everyone in the small town where he lived, but he was always in debt. Renowned for his generosity and selflessness, he gave away to the poor everything that he was given by the rich. With the last donation he had received from a wealthy patron, he built a Sufi House, leaving himself with nothing to spare. He remained untroubled, though, as his debts had always been paid through the grace of God—until then! His life's end was approaching, and he lay in bed contentedly, melting away like a candle, while his creditors gathered around him, sour faced and desperate, as they had
no hope of collecting what was owed to them.

  “Look at these untrusting fellows!” he thought as he watched them from his sickbed. “How could they not trust that God will repay my measly debt?”

  In a trice, he heard a child's voice outside selling sweet halva. The shaykh ordered his manservant to purchase the entire tray, hoping that perhaps when the angry creditors ate something sweet they would not glare at him with such bitterness and disdain. The servant bargained with the child and bought the whole tray for half a dinar, setting it down before the men. The shaykh graciously invited them to enjoy it. When the tray was polished clean, the boy asked for his money.

  “How do you expect me to pay you?” the shaykh retorted. “I'm on my deathbed; go away, leave me in peace!”

  Frustrated and overcome with grief at his loss, the boy hurled the empty tray onto the floor, wailing uncontrollably. He cried out, wishing that his legs had been broken or that instead he had gone to sell his sweets at the bathhouse rather than at this wretched Sufi House with its freeloading mystics. A crowd gathered around the boy as his sobs echoed throughout the neighborhood: “Great shaykh, I assure you that my master will murder me on the spot if I return empty-handed. How can your conscience permit this injustice?” he pleaded with the shaykh as he stumbled up to his side.

  “What are you conjuring?” protested the creditors at the dying shaykh. “You've already usurped our wealth. How could you now bring such misfortune upon this poor lad?”

  Impervious to the men's retorts and pretending to be unaffected by the weeping boy, the shaykh pulled his quilt over his head and slept soundly. The boy remained beside him, weeping until the next prayer time, and the shaykh did not glance at him once.