________________
APRIL 1910.)
SARMAD: HIS LIFE AND EXECUTION.
125
16 Say; who is in the world that has not committed a sin ? He who has sinned not: say; how could he live? I do evil and thou requitest with evil: Then bay ; 'what is the difference between me and thee?
17 Sometimes thou art a cypress, sometimes a hyacinth and sometimes a jasmine, Now a mountain, a wilderness, and at another time a flower-garden. Now thou art the light of a candle, now the scent of the rose, Sometimes thou art in a garden, and sometimes in an assembly.
. . . 18 Sarmad! thou hast done strange injury to the religion. Thou hast bartered thy faith for one with an intoxicating eye. With supplication and belief-thy entire wealth Thou didst go and squander on an idol-worshipper.
Notes.
1. Mulla Sadruddin Shīrāzi was a great scholar, who flourished during the reign of Shah Abbās I. His books are still taught to advanced Arabic students. Mirza Abu'l Qāsim was of Fandarsak in Astarabad, in Persia. He, too, flourished at the time of Ābbās I. He travelled extensively in India. He was asked why he did not go on pilgrimage to Mecca. He replied that there goats were sacrificed, and he did not like to take the life of a living being. It would be interesting to study the life and teachings of these two scholars, which exerted, no doubt, powerful influences in moulding the future character of their papil, Sarmad.
2. Cf. Sadi
که پیش آمدم گفتم اوست
که هر کس
...
ندالی که چون من رسیدم بد وست
"Do you not know that when I reached the Friend,
Of anyone that came before me, I said. It is He.'?" 3. I have not seen this letter in any book, but it is remembered for the beauty of its style. I am afraid that some passages of the letter have escaped my memory. Cf. the following in Jāmi's Satāmān and Absal in Fitz-Gerald's translation:
If I - this Dignity and Wisdom whence ?
If thou - then what this abject Impotence ? Also
Whether I be I or no: If I - the pumpkin why on you ?
If you - then where am I, and who? 4. Ka'ba—the inner part of the temple at Mecca. Hajrul Aswad, or the black stone, has come down from the time of heathenism, and is venerated by the Mecca pilgrims.
Quatrain 7. Khuda is used in a double sense. Kkuda = God, and Khud- = self-comer.
Quatrain 10. Sarmad's Sartor resartus', or clothes philosophy, has been very beautifully expressed in this quatrain.
Quatrain 14. Sarmad, who was himself a great poet, pays a well-deserved compliment to two of the greatest poets of Iran - Khwaja Hāfix of Shiraz, a master of the ghazal, and Hakim Omar-al-Khayyām of Nishapūr, whose quatrains are the delight of both East and West.
Quatrain 15. The Devil fell for refusing to pay homage to Adam at the command of God.
Quatrain 18. In this, Sarmad apparently mentions his prosperous days at Tatta, his love for Abhai Chand, his neglect of business, and his renunciation of the exoteric religion of Islam.
