Inspirations

clear sight of hell and heaven and what’s between.

I’ll show the seething reservoir of Kawsar,

whose sound and water hit their ears and faces.

And those who run around it parched with thirst,

I shall identify them clearly there.

And now their shoulders rub against my shoulders;

their screams are penetrating both my ears.

Before my eyes the folk of Paradise

embrace each other of their own free will.

They visit one another’s place of honour,

and then they plunder kisses from their lips.

My ear is deafened by the noise of sighing

of wretched men and cries of “I am suffering.”

These words are hints and I would speak in depth,

but yet I fear I might annoy the Prophet.’

He spoke like this, half-drunken and half-mad.

The Prophet turned his collar up at him.

He said, ‘Beware, hold back, your horse is hot.

When “God is not ashamed!” has struck, shame goes.

Your mirror has been sprung out of its case –

how can the mirror contradict the scales?

How could the scales and mirror stop the breath

to spare someone offence and spare their feelings?

The scales and mirror are the brilliant touchstones

were you to use them for two hundred years.

If one should say, “Conceal the truth for me,

display the increase, don’t display the loss”,

They’ll say, “Don’t mock your own moustache and beard,

the scales and mirror, counsel and deception!”

Since God has elevated us so that