1916.] Quatrains of Abu Sa'id bin Abil Khair. 211 



63. 



Last night when I was passing through the street of my love> 



Knowest thou what business I was after ? 



I was led astray, a victim of her broken promises ; 



I was wandering round the hill of my desire. 



64. 



Between my friend's two eyes — from nun to mim 

 Thou seest an alif drawn on the silvern page of his face. 1 

 No- No — I am wrong: by a wonderful miracle 

 'Tis the Prophet's finger which has split the moon in two 



65. 



For a long time we have been drunk with the wine of Unity 

 We have broken the glass of Plurality that these people held 



out to us. 

 They talk falsely who say there is 'Annihilation.' 

 So long as there is God, we, too, ■ exist ' in this battle-field of 



life. 



A whole treatise might be written round this 

 quatrain which deal? with some of the fundamental 

 conceptions of Sufiism. The first hemistich of 

 another of Abu Sa'id's ruba'iyat (211 in 'Abdul 

 Wali's collection) has the same " argument" ; 



Till you leave Plurality, you cannot reach 



Unity ; 



you leave your 



a man of God. 



wi 



That is, till you cease from regarding the diverse 

 creations of the world as having each a separate 

 identity, you cannot reach the -stage when you 



wi 



things, and their identity with God; "the off- 

 shoots will hide you from the Tree whence they 

 spring ' ' (Lawdih-i-Jdmi, page 22). ■ Self ' is one 

 of the phenomena from which you must flee, 

 else you will be blind to your true relationship with 

 the One. This is the "annihilation," or rather 

 M passing away," of Self. 



What, then, does Abu Sa'id mean by this denial 

 of that verv "annihilation" ? He cannot pos- 

 sibly have meant to reject the universal doctrine of 



Mim, and Alif are letters of the Arabic alphabet ; the firs* 

 *■*. oiL liL-P. nirrles. the third i3 a straight line. 





