Say: My Lord increase me in knowledge!

قل ربّي زدني علماً

Quran 20:114

 

My Lord increase me in bewilderment in Thee!

ربّي زدني فيك تحيراً

-Saying of the Prophet Muḥammad

Rumi

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment

for cleverness is mere opinion and bewilderment is vision.

زیرکی بفروش و حیرانی بخر

زیرکی ظنست و حیرانی نظر

 

Ibn al-‘Arabi

“Now guidance is that man should be guided to bewilderment, and know that the affair is bewilderment and that bewilderment is unrest and motion, and that motion is life, without stillness and so without death, and is existence without non-existence.”

“And thus there is nothing but bewilderment, shattering one’s vision, although the one who knows what we are saying shall not be bewildered.”

“…Drowned in the sea which the knowledge of God is, and which is bewilderment”

Hafez

As the sprout of bewilderment, your love came

As the perfection of bewilderment, your union came

Many a drowned one, in the ecstasy of union

to whom in the ecstasy itself, bewilderment came

Neither union nor united remain

where the specter of bewilderment came

Show me one heart on his path

in whose face no mole of bewilderment came

From every direction that I listened

the sound of the question of bewilderment came

From head to foot, Hafez’s existence

In love, a sprout of bewilderment became

 

Original:

عشق تو نهال حیرت آمد         وصل تو کمال حیرت آمد

بس غرقه حال وصل کآخر        هم بر سر حال حیرت آمد

یک دل بنما که در ره او     بر چهره نه خال حیرت آمد

نه وصل بماند و نه واصل       آن جا که خیال حیرت آمد

از هر طرفی که گوش کردم            آواز سؤال حیرت آمد

شد منهزم از کمال عزت         آن را که جلال حیرت آمد

سر تا قدم وجود حافظ          در عشق نهال حیرت آمد

 

Ibn al-Fāriḍ

Translation:

Give me an excess of love for you, bewildered

And have mercy on a heart scorched by a glance of your love

And if I ask to see you truly

Then allow me, graciously

And let not your answer be, “Thou shalt not see“

O heart, you have promised me to be patient in loving them

So be sure to bear it do not dismay

Passion is life, so die in it lovingly.

 Your duty is to die and be absolved

 My heart, say to those ahead of me, and those behind me,

Whoever has seen the sacrifice of my sorrow

“Follow my example and listen to me

And tell the tale of my love amongst mankind”

I was alone with the Beloved and between us there was

A secret more subtle than the dawn breeze when it blows

And he allowed my eyes a glance

So I became famous, having been unknown before

I was awestruck between his beauty and majesty

And tomorrow, the tongue of my state will explain

Turn your gaze to the beauties of his face,

Where all beauty has been gathered

If all beauty were perfected into one form

on seeing him, it would exclaim [in wonder],

“There is no god but God, and God is greater.”

 

 

Original:

زِدْني بفَرْطِ الحُبّ فيك تَحَيّرا          وارْحَمْ حشىً بلَظَى هواكَ تسعّرا

وإذا سألُتكَ أن أراكَ حقيقةً          فاسمَحْ ولا تجعلْ جوابي لن تَرى

يا قلبُ أنتَ وعدَتني في حُبّهمْ          صَبراً فحاذرْ أن تَضِيقَ وتَضجرا

إنَّ الغرامَ هوَ الحياةُ فمُتْ بِهِ             صَبّاً فحقّك أن تَموتَ وتُعذرا

قُل لِلّذِينَ تقدَّموا قَبلي ومَن        بَعدي ومَن أضحى لأشجاني يَرَى

عني خذوا وبي اقْتدوا وليَ اسمعوا             وتحدّثوا بصَبابتي بَينَ الوَرى

ولقد خَلَوْتُ مع الحَبيب وبَيْنَنَا              سِرٌّ أرَقّ منَ النسيمِ إذا سرى

وأباحَ طَرْفِي نَظْرْةً أمّلْتُها               فَغَدَوْتُ معروفاً وكُنْتُ مُنَكَّرا

فَدُهِشْتُ بينَ جمالِهِ وجَلالِهِ             وغدا لسانُ الحال عنّي مُخْبِرا

فأَدِرْ لِحَاظَكَ في محاسنِ وجْهه            تَلْقَى جميعَ الحُسْنِ فيه مُصَوَّرا

لو أنّ كُلّ الحُسْنِ يكمُلُ صُورةً                    ورآهُ كان مُهَلِّلاً ومُكَبِّر