Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

Let us closely observe

what the devil s happening tot he world -

how Virtue and Rectitude seem

to have flown - not that the fleeting world

itself has changed its nature

but that people s temperaments have undergone

some transformation.

Your body

in the Child of Nature, babe of the Spheres,

its state forever shifting under Heaven -

one can only imagine therefore that you

- who were so subtle - have fallen

into such a carnal and inferior state

because the spheres themselves have somehow

gone awry.

Humanity (by way of simile)

was like an ALEEF

Arabic alphabet -ALEEF- placed here

Erect and straight -

how could the letter of humankind

have been itself to the hump

Arabic alphabet - NUN - placed here

Of a NUN?

Virtue and learning have become the slaves of Bread

the dough of knowledge cut with fraud and deceit.

Piety and justice are broken pots and pebbles,

ignorance and stupidity taken for gold and the precious Pearl.

You!

Chameleon World!

Woe to him

who falls for your seductive routines -

he who cannot see the way round you

with the candle of REASON

trips and falls. There s nothing left

for you here: humanity has absconded

from the last human being.

All deeds are but cruelty, con and cant

all words but fraud, perfidy and crime.

I swear one would scarcely know the difference

if the world had already fallen to the rule

of all the devils of the Inferno.

Stupidity has reared itself into the heavens,

humanity and nobility hidden themselves in some cave.

The sirocco of petty meanness blows hot across earth,

everything good wilts and decays.

As for the province of Khorasan, once

the Abode of Learning, it has become

a cavern of sordid and effeminate demons.

Balkh!

The House of Wisdom -

And now

fit for the axe, its fortune topsyturvy

turned upon its head. Khorasan

once the kingdom of Solomon - how

has it become the domain of Satan?

One might think the land had become a maw

which gobbled Religion, or that Religion

in Khorasan has become the companion of Qarun

(that miser whom earth swallowed

with all his wealth). Aye, Khorasan

serves a fit example for the house

of the sinister Qarun.

Tatars

were their slaves, but they have become

the Tartars valet - is not the star

of Khorasan afflicted by some evil conjunction?

The Kipchak lout has proclaimed himself

a nobleman, while the Duke has become

the Tartar s girlfriend s butler.

The talentless have made themselves the Emirs

virtue shrinks and mediocrity swells itself.

You

may mortgage your soul

But I

shall not pawn myself to the world;

you may trust the wolf, but the wise

will keep his distance.

Your miserable mind

has become a fetid slime in a corpse

of ignorance, tyranny and evil;

in your greed you prefer the wicked Zahhak

to Feraydun the Just. So much the slave

of desire: my hart chokes with bood

in pity of you who sold yourself

like 100,000 others for a taste of lust.

Try to reform yourself. Think of great men

like Aaron the Alexandrian. Aaron

was made Aaron by knowledge. Garments

are cleaned with soap; wisdom

is the best detergent for the Spirit.

He who makes wisdom his prop

is saved from the fire of ignorance.

Listen

my son

to a father s advice

for my own days have been made auspicious

because I heeded helpful words

and my subtle spirit soars above the spheres

through knowledge

even

If my body

lies chained

imprisoned

beneath the earth.