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yourself in strife? As far as I am concerned, I can assure your Exalted Highness, that I am happy and content in the respect I command
far and wide, and that everyone carries out my wishes. No governor, potentate, or seigneur is higher than the Hand which God has given me. Please permit me, Sire, to live as I am, so that I may enjoy the life as you are enjoying the fruits of your kingdom. Despite your being a ruler, you feel no disgrace in kissing the hem of my sleeve, that is far purer than the dirty lips, yellow teeth, and putrid breath that you enjoy each night, and which do not repulse you with their staleness. Pray then to God that He may guide you rightly and grant you the happiness of this world and the Hereafter and strengthening of faith. Make my prayers the food for your afterlife. Mu'izz al-Dawlah heard the speech of the savant very attentively, and in his heart welled up so much respect for the savant that he cried, stood up, kissed his eyes and head, and sent him to his home with the utmost respect. This incident is epitomised in the following brilliant couplet by a poet: "Guard your blessing as sins expend blessings."
You can hope for religious and other-worldly redemption only by acting upon the purport of this verse. The blessed are happy with their fellowcreatures and with what God has given them. Pause
All human beings have but one ancestor. They bear the same form
and yet they are consumed by envy and animus against each other, since it is inherent in the nature of man to be different from the other in temper and disposition. This has been happening from the time of Adam: the sacrifice of one is accepted, that of the other is not. Were there no fear of God or that of a just ruler, then each man would have treated the property and the belongings of the other as his own. So long as a king is not true to his command, word, and promise, he
cannot function politically. This is the reason why governance has not remained confined to tribes but to specific families. And it does not become restricted to families but to an individual belonging to that family, to the individual who surpasses others in that family. Through him it passes to his family, and especially his heir. Thus the country becomes theirs. Divine Assistance and God's Command direct that members of a certain family be provided with the right to rule, as in the case of the monarchs of Persia, or as in the case of the Quraysh who held the right to Caliphate and Imamate, or as in the instance of those persons whose love and affection is, for the people of Islam, a pathway to God, or in the people of Tibet who hold the belief about Khaqan the First that he was the son of the sun, and who appeared upon earth accoutred in |
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