Читать книгу The Mesnevi - Maulana Jalal al-Din Rumi - Страница 40

One day, a very learned professor brought all his pupils to pay their respects to Jelāl.

On their way to him, the young men agreed together to put some questions to Jelāl on certain points of Arabic grammar, with the design of comparing his knowledge in that science with that of their professor, whom they looked upon as unequalled.

When they were seated, Jelāl addressed them on various fitting subjects for a while, and thereby paved the way for the following anecdote:—

“An ingenuous jurist was once travelling with an Arabic grammarian, and they chanced to come to a ruinous well.

“The jurist hereupon began to recite the text (of Qur’ān xxii. 44): ‘And of a ruined well.’

“The Arabic word for ‘well’ he pronounced ‘bīr,’ with the vowel long. To this the grammarian instantly objected, telling the jurist to pronounce that word with a short vowel and hiatus—bi’r, so as to be in accord with the requirements of classical purity.

“A dispute now arose between the two on the point. It lasted all the rest of the day, and well on into a pitchy dark night; every author being ransacked by them, page by page, each sustaining his own theory of the word. No conclusion was arrived at, and each disputant remained of his own opinion still.

“It so happened in the dark, that the grammarian slipped into the well, and fell to the bottom. There he set up a wail of entreaty: ‘O my most courteous fellow-traveller, lend thy help to extricate me from this most darksome pit.’

“The jurist at once expressed his most pleasurable willingness to lend him that help, with only one trifling condition—that he should confess himself in error, and consent to suppress the hiatus in the word ‘bi’r.’ The grammarian’s answer was ‘Never.’ So in the well he remained.”

“Now,” said Jelāl, “to apply this to yourselves. Unless you will consent to cast out from your hearts the ‘hiatus’ of indecision and of self-love, you can never hope to escape from the noisome pit of self-worship,—the well of man’s nature and of fleshly lusts. The dungeon of ‘Joseph’s well’ in the human breast is this very ‘self-worship;’ and from it you will not escape, nor will you ever attain to those heavenly regions—‘the spacious land of God’” (Qur’ān iv. 99, xxix. 56, xxxix. 13).

On hearing these pregnant words, the whole assembly of undergraduates uncovered their heads, and with fervent zeal professed themselves his spiritual disciples.