The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) · 20 of 37 · tr. E.H. Whinfield
STORY VIIIa
The Harper.
In the time of the Khalifa 'Omar there lived a harper, whose voice was as sweet as that of the angel Israfil, and who was in great request at all feasts.
But he grew old, and his voice broke, and no one would employ him any longer.
In despair he went to the burial-ground of Yathrub, and there played his harp to God, looking to Him for recompense.
Having finished his melody he fell asleep, and dreamed he was in heaven.
The same night a divine voice came to 'Omar, directing him to go to the burial-ground, and relieve an old man whom he should find there.
'Omar proceeded to the place, found the harper, and gave him money, promising him more when he should need it.
The harper cast away his harp, saying that it had diverted him from God, and expressed great contrition for his past sins.
'Omar then instructed him that his worldly journey was now over, and that he must not give way to contrition for the past, as he was now entered into the state of ecstasy and intoxication of union with God, and in this exalted state regard to past and future should be swept away.
The harper acted on his instructions, and sang no more.
Apology for applying the term "Bride" to God.
Mustafa became beside himself at that sweet call, His prayer failed on "the night of the early morning halt." He lifted not head from that blissful sleep," 1 So that his morning prayer was put off till noon.
On that, his wedding night, in presence of his bride, His pure soul attained to kiss her hands.
Love and mistress are both veiled and hidden, Impute it not as a fault if I call Him "Bride." I would have kept silence from fear of my Beloved, If He had granted me but a moment's respite.
But He said, "Speak on, 'tis no fault, 'Tis naught but the necessary result of the hidden decree, 'Tis a fault only to him who only sees faults.
How can the Pure Hidden Spirit notice faults?" Faults seem so to ignorant creatures, Not in the sight of the Lord of Benignity.
Blasphemy even may be wisdom in the Creator's si ht, Whereas from our point of view it is grievous sin.
If one fault occur among a hundred beauties 'Tis as one dry stick in a garden of green herbs.
Both weigh equally in the scales For the two resemble body and soul.
Wherefore the sages have said not idly, " The bodies of the righteous are as pure souls." Their words, their actions, their praises, Are all as a pure soul without spot or blemish.
'Omar rebukes the Harper for brooding over and bewailing the past.
Then 'Omar said to him, "This wailing of thine Shows thou art still in a state of ' sobriety."' Afterwards he thus urged him to quit that state And called him out of his beggary to absorption in God: "Sobriety savours of memory of the past; Past and future are what veil God from our sight.
Burn up both of them with fire!
How long Wilt thou be partitioned by these segments as a reed?
So long as a reed has partitions 'tis not privy to secrets, Nor is it vocal in response to lip and breathing.
While circumambulating the house thou art a stranger; When thou enterest in thou art at home.
Thou whose knowledge is ignorance of the Giver of knowledge, Thy wailing contrition is worse than thy sin.
The road of the 'annihilated' is another road; Sobriety is wrong, and a straying from that other road.
Themes
◆Anthropomorphismtheology
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
God is referred to as 'Bride' and 'Mistress,' attributing human relational roles to the Divine.
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 harper casts away his harp and is told to burn up past and future, letting go of attachments.
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.
Faults are described as negligible compared to beauties and only faults to the ignorant, not in the sight of the Lord.
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 reed metaphor ('partitioned by these segments as a reed') alludes to the separation from the divine source or bed.
Ecstatic, non-rational receptivity to the divine figured as drunkenness — Plato's symposium wine, Rumi's sukr, Eckhart's 'sober drunkenness'; the passive/receptive metaphor for divine encounter, distinct from divine_madness's active possessing rapture.
[auto] The passage contrasts 'sobriety' with 'intoxication of union,' favoring the latter as the higher spiritual state.
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.
[auto] Omar explicitly instructs the harper on the 'road of the annihilated' as distinct from the state of sobriety.