Link to Chester Beatty Digital Collections

Oration (non dramatic)

Hikayat (Anecdote)

I remember when I was a lad, I was a devout worshipper in wee hours of the night, an avid abstinent ascetic.

One night, in the company of my father, did not sleep a wink, the Noble Qur’an at my side, meanwhile some people around us fast asleep.

“Not even one from these wakes up to pray a short morning prayer, and all in such heedless sleep that you might say they are not asleep indeed dead!” I said to father.

Father replied: “Dear precious child, my life, my spirit, would have been better if you had also slept, not backbiting people!”.

Sees not the boaster other than his own Self
A mere figment of imagination within himself

Yet if you are endowed with the eye of reality
You shan’t see anyone more helpless that your own Self

متَعَبّد

Mut’abbid: Devout Worshipper

شَبْ خيزْ

Shab Khiz: someone who stays up during the night till early hours of dawn
Shab means night and Khiz means rise

مولِع

Muli’: crazy or passionately fond of something or someone, avid perhaps fitting for this context

زُهْد

Zohd: asceticism, Zahid ascetic

پرهيز

Parhiz: abstinence

جان

Jaan: Spirit, life, some endeared as precious of as one’s life and spirit

ای جان پدر; ای فرزند عزیز من ، تو روح و روان من هستی . (ناظم الاطباء).
-آشنای جان ; آنکه یا آنچه جان به او انس دارد. مطبوع . مورد پسند. دل پذیر:
بی بوی تو کاشنای جان است
رنگی ز حیات جان مبینام .

خاقانی .

-آفت جان .
-از جان ; از صیمیم قلب:
من از جان بنده سلطان اویسم
اگرچه یادش از چاکر نباشد.

حافظ.

 

پردهٔ پندار

Parde-eh Pendar: Veil of Imagination, in this context a negative connotation of figment of imagination

چشم خدا بيني

Chashm-e Khoda Bini: The eye that sees like God, or the eye that sees what God sees, metaphor for seeing the reality of things

With thanks to Moya Carey, Curator of Islamic Collections, Chester Beatty, Dublin  

© 2019-2002,  Dara O. Shayda

License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/