The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) · 9 of 37 · tr. E.H. Whinfield
STORY IV
Another Tyrannical Jewish King. A certain Jewish king, the same who is referred to in the Sura "Signs of the Zodiac," I made up his mind to utterly exterminate the Christian faith, and with that view he set up a huge idol, and issued commands that all who refused to worship it should be cast into the fire. Thereupon his officers seized a Christian woman with her babe, and as she refused to worship it, they cast the babe into the fire. But the babe cried out to its mother, "Be not afraid, the fire has no power to burn me; it is as cool as water!" Hearing this, the rest of the Christians leapt into the fire, and found that it did not burn them. The king reproached the fire for failing to do its office, but the fire replied that it was God's servant, and that its consuming properties were not to be used for evil purposes. It then blazed up and consumed the king, and all his Jews with him. Second causes only operate in subordination to, and form the impulsion of, the First Cause. Air, earth, water, and fire are God's servants. To us they seem lifeless, but to God living. In God's presence fire ever waits to do its service, Like a submissive lover with no will of its own. When you strike steel on flint fire leaps forth; But 'tis by God's command it thus steps forth. Strike not together the flint and steel of wrong, For the pair will generate more, like man and woman. The flint and steel are themselves causes, yet Look higher for the First Cause, O righteous man! For that Cause precedes this second cause. How can a cause exist of itself without precedent cause? That Cause makes this cause operative, And again helpless and inoperative. That Cause, which is a guiding light to the prophets, That, I say, is higher than these second causes. Men's minds recognize these second causes, But only prophets perceive the action of the First Cause. Praise compared to vapour drawn upwards, and then descending in rain. Though water be enclosed in a reservoir, Yet air will absorb it, for 'tis its supporter; It sets it free and bears it to its source, Little by little, so that you see not the process. In like manner this breath of ours by degrees Steals away our souls from the prison-house of earth. " The good word riseth up to Him,"2 Rising from us whither He knoweth. Our breathings are lifted up in fear of God, Offerings from us to the throne of Eternity. Then come down to us rewards for our praises, The double thereof, yea, mercies from the King of Glory. Therefore are we constrained to utter these praises That slaves may attain the height of God's gifts. And so this rising and descent go on evermore, And cease not forever and aye. To speak in plain Persian, this attraction Comes from the same quarter whence comes this sweet savour.3 *NOTES: 1. Koran lxxxv. 2. Koran, xxxv. II. 3. Sweet savour, i.e., the joy of heart experienced by the offerer of prayer when his prayer is accepted of God. See Book II. Story XVII.
Themes
◆Anthropomorphismtheology
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The fire speaks and replies to the king, attributing human-like agency and will to a natural element as God's servant.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
The fire waits to do its service like a submissive lover with no will of its own, mirroring the ideal state of surrender.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The passage asserts that all second causes operate only by the command and subordination of the First Cause, ordering the cosmos toward divine ends.
Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.
The tyrannical king and his followers are consumed by the fire as a divine verdict against their evil purposes.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
The fire refuses to burn for evil purposes, suggesting that evil is a misuse of divine tools rather than an inherent property of creation.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
Fire is described as a submissive lover with no will of its own, serving as a metaphor for the self-effacement required in divine service.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The earth is explicitly called a 'prison-house' from which the soul's breath must be lifted away to return to God.