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THE TABJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ (XVII) 81

4. What shall the skilled craftsman do in a case Avhere his
tools have declared themselves to be working mischief ?
5. Turn aside, for their tents are on the right of the vallej’^ .
Qod bless thee, O valley, for what thou containest!
6. Thou hast collected a folk Avho are my soul and my breath
and the inmost core of the black clot in the membrane
of my liver.
7. May my love bo unblest if I do not die of grief at Ildjir or
Sal' or Ajyad !

C o m m e n t a r y
1, The Divine Spirit which speaks in Man and is charged
with the governance of this body says to the camel-driver,
i.e. to God’s summoner who guides the lofty aspirations in
their journey heavenward, ‘ Do not hasten with them, for
I am hampered by this body to which I am tied until death.’

3. ‘ Who will pity and help me Z’ He refers to the decree
of God
4. He says, ‘ What shall I do ? Though I am able to quit
the bodj’- at times, i.e. in moments of passing away and
absence iUill) under the influence of ecstasy, •my

aim is to depart entirely; and, moreover, at such moments
the sensible world exercises a powerful attraction upon me.
This attraction (here called “ his tools ”) .spoils what I am
endeavouring to do, and disturbs my state of pa.ssing away
and absence in order to bring me back to the body.’
5. ‘ Their tents,’ i.e. the abodes of these aspirations, which
not a lucjis for anj’thing. Knowledge of God is the utmost
are in their knowledge of God, not in God, since He is

goal to which contingent being can attain, and the whole
universe depends on knowledge and on nothing else.
‘ On the right of the valley,’ referring to the occasion when
God spoke to Moses at Blount Sinai (Kor. xix, 53).
‘ What thou containest,’ i.e. Divine, holy, and Mosaic kinds
of knowledge.
7. ‘ llajif.’ i e. the intermediate world