Читать книгу The Holy Qur-an: Text, Translation and Commentary - Abdullah Yusuf Ali - Страница 15

C. 11.—At length came the time when the Voice of Unity

Should speak and declare to the People,

Without the need of Priests or Priest-craft,

Without miracles save those that happen

Now and always in the spiritual world,

Without mystery, save those mysteries

Which unfold themselves in the growing

Inner experience of man and his vision of God,—

To declare with unfaltering voice

The Unity of God, the Brotherhood of Man,

And Grace and Mercy, Bounty and Love,

Poured out in unstinted measure for ever and ever.

C. 12.—And this great healing light shone

Among a people steeped in ignorance,

Brave and free, but without cohesion or union,

Simple and rude, but with an easy familiarity with Nature,

Accustomed to Nature’s hardships and her rugged resistance to man,

But dreaming of the delights of gardens and fruitful fields,

Cruel, yet with a rough sense of equality,

And wielding a tongue, flexible, beautiful,

And able to respond, with brevity and eloquence,

To the sublimest thoughts which man could conceive,

C. 13.—Who were lit to be vehicles of this light?—

Not men intoxicated with words and mysteries,

Men whom politics had debauched or tyranny had subdued,

Men whose refinement had ended in vices,

Who saw Nature only through books or artificial conceits,

Or in moods which bred softness, indolence, or luxury,

Who spoke of love and justice, but practised

Gross selfishness between class and class,

Sex and sex, condition and condition;

And had perverted their language, once beautiful,

Into jargons of empty elegance and unmeaning futility.

C. 14.—For the glory of Hellas, and her freedom and wisdom had departed;

Rome’s great systems of law, organization and universal citizenship

Had sunk into the mire of ecclesiastical formalism,

And dogmatism, and exclusive arrogance;

The living fire of Persia’s Prophet scarce smouldered

In her votaries of luxury;

In India, countless castes and kingdoms

Cancelled the unity of Buddha’s teaching;

The wounds of China had not yet been healed by T'ang culture;

And Japan was still a disciple of China.

C. 15.—Then in the sacred city of pagan Arabia,

Shone a light that spread in all directions.

It was centrally placed for the bounds of the world

Of men’s habitations in Asia, Europe, and Africa.

It made the Arabs the leading nation of culture and science,

Of organized enterprise, law, and arts,

With a zeal for the conquest of Nature and her mysteries.