Читать книгу The Kashf al-mahjúb: The oldest Persian treatise on Súfiism онлайн

10 страница из 90

And peace be upon His Apostle, Muḥammad, and his family and his companions and his wives!

`Alí b. `Uthmán b. `Alí al-Jullábí al-Ghaznawí al-Hujwírí (may God be well pleased with him!) says as follows:—

I have asked God’s blessing, and have cleared my heart of motives related to self, and have set to work in accordance with your invitation—may God make you happy!—and have firmly resolved to fulfil all your wishes by means of this book. I have entitled it “The Revelation of The Mystery”. Knowing what you desire, I have arranged the book in divisions suitable to your purpose. Now I pray God to aid and prosper me in its completion, and I divest myself of my own strength and ability in word and deed. It is God that gives success.

Section.

Two considerations have impelled me to put my name at the beginning of the book: one particular, the other general.^[17] As regards the latter, when persons ignorant of this science see a new book, in which the author’s name is not set down in several places, they attribute his work to themselves, and thus the author’s aim is defeated, since books are compiled, composed, and written only to the end that the author’s name may be kept alive and that readers and students may pronounce a blessing on him. This misfortune has already befallen me twice. A certain individual borrowed my poetical works, of which there was no other copy, and retained the manuscript in his possession, and circulated it, and struck out my name which stood at its head, and caused all my labour to be lost. May God forgive him! I also composed another book, entitled “The Highway of Religion” (Minháj al-Dín), on the method of Ṣúfiism—may God make it flourish! A shallow pretender, whose words carry no weight, erased my name from the title page and gave out to the public that he was the author, notwithstanding that connoisseurs laughed at his assertion. God, however, brought home to him the unblessedness of this act and erased his name from the register of those who seek to enter the Divine portal.