Know that in each ‘Flash’ of these ‘Flashes’ some hint is given of that Reality which transcends differentiation, whether you call it Love or Attraction, since there is no dearth of words; and some suggestion is made as to the manner of its progress in diverse conditions and cycles, of its journey through the degrees of dissociation and es­tablishment, of its manifestation in the form of ideas and realities, of its emergence in the garb of Beloved and Lover, and finally of the absorption of the Lover in the Beloved formally, of the inclusion of the Beloved in the Lover ideally, and of the comprehension of both together in the Majesty of its Unity. There divergences are reconciled, ruptures are made whole, the Light is concealed within the Light, and the Manifestation lies latent within the Mani­festation, while from behind the pavilions of Glory is cried:

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O, is not all save God hollow and vain?

The identity [of each] disappears [in the other], leaving neither sign nor trace, and they merge in God, the One, the All-compelling.

The derivation of both Lover and Beloved is from Love, which, in its Abode of Glory, is exempt from differentiation, and, in the Sanctuary of its own Identity, is sanctified from inwardness and outwardness. Yea, in order to display its perfection, in such way as is identical with its Essence and [equally] identical with its Attributes, it shows itself to itself in the Mirror of Loverhood and Belovedness, and reveals its Beauty to its own Contemplation by means of the Seer and the Vision. Thus the names of Loverhood and Beloved-ness appeared, and the description of the Seeker and the Quest became manifest. It showed the Outward to the Inmost, and the Voice of Loverhood arose: it showed the Inmost to the Outward, and the name of Belovedness was made plain.

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No atom doth exist apart from It, that Essence single:
'Tis when Itself it doth reveal that first those ‘others’ mingle.
O Thou whose outward seeming Lover is, Beloved thine Essence,
Who hitherto e'er saw the Object Sought seek its own presence?

Love, by way of Belovedness, became the Mirror of the Beauty of Loverhood, so that therein it might behold its own Essence, and by way of Loverhood the Mirror of Belovedness, so that therein it might contemplate its own Names and Attributes. Although but one object is beheld by the Eye of Contemplation, yet when one face appears in two mirrors, assuredly in each mirror a different face appears.

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The Face is only one, yet multiple
When thou in many mirrors see'st it.

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O how can ‘Otherness’ appear when whatsoe'er existeth here
In essence is that Other One becoming to our vision clear?”

Shaykh Abú Ḥámid Awḥadu'd-Dín of Kirmán was, like 'Iráqí, a follower, and, indeed, as it would appear from Awḥadu'd-Dín of Kirmán the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá, * a personal friend or dis­ciple of the great Shaykh Muḥiyyu'd-Dín ibnu'l-'Arabí, and had met (according to the same authority) that wild mystic Shams-i-Tabríz, the inspirer of Jalálu'd-Dín's Mathnawí and Díwán. He was also ac­quainted, as some assert, with Awḥadí of Marágha and with 'Iráqí himself, whom, in his heedlessness of appearances and passionate admiration of beauty, he somewhat resembles. Shaykh Shihábu'd-Dín, who, for chronological reasons, cannot be the famous Suhrawardí, strongly disapproved of him, called him a “heretical innovator,” and refused to admit him to his presence, on hearing which Awḥadu'd-Dín recited the following Arabic verse:*

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“I mind not that bad names thou dost me call:
I'm glad that thou shouldst mention me at all.”

Jámí apologizes for him for “contemplating the Truth through the medium of its Manifestations in Phenomena, and beholding Absolute Beauty in finite forms,” and adds that, being asked by Shams-i-Tabríz what he was doing, he replied, “I am contemplating the Moon in a bowl of water,” meaning the Beauty of the Creator in the beauty of the creature; to which Shams-i-Tabríz replied, “Unless you are afflicted with a carbuncle on the back of your neck, why do you not look at the Moon in the sky?” Similarly Mawláná Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, being told that Awḥadu'd-Dín sought the society of the beautiful, but with purity of purpose, exclaimed, “Would rather that his desires had been carnal, and that he had outgrown them!” Awḥadu'd-Dín expresses his own point of view in the following quatrain:

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“Therefore mine eyes insistent gaze on forms
Because the Idea itself displays in forms:
We live in forms; this World's the formal World:
The Idea we thus must needs appraise in forms.”

Apart from a few quatrains cited in the Nafaḥátu'l-Uns of Jámí, the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá of Riḍá-qulí Khán, and other biographical works, Awḥadu'd-Dín seems to have left little save a mathnawí poem entitled “The Lamp of Spirits” (Miṣbáḥu'l-Arwáḥ), from which long extracts are given in the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá and the following eight couplets in the Nafaḥát (pp. 688-9):

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“While the hand moves, the shadow moveth too:
What else, indeed, can the poor shadow do?
'Tis but the hand which makes the shadow fall,
The shadow, then, no substance hath at all.
To call ‘existent’ what no Being hath,
Save through another, is not Wisdom's Path.
Absolute Being only wise men call
Being, and naught save God exists at all.
That which existent but through God became
IS NOT in truth, but only IS in name.
And yet the Artist loves His work, 'tis clear;
There's none but He, so be thou of good cheer.
Himself at once the Truth doth hear and tell
The Face He shows He doth perceive as well,
Know, then, by Allah, for a certainty
That nothing else existence hath save He.”

Mention should also be made of Awḥadu'd-Dín's disciple, Awḥadí of Marágha, also called of Iṣfahán, because, though a Awḥadí of Marágha native of the former place, he passed a consider­able portion of his life and died at the latter. * Little seems to be known to the biographers of his circumstances, but the prevalent opinion is that he died in 738/1337-8. His chief poem is an imitation of the Ḥadíqa of Saná'í entitled Jám-i-Jam (the “Cup of Jamshíd,” also known as the “World-displaying Glass”), of which copious extracts are given by the biographers, and of which I possess a good manuscript. * Dawlatsháh, followed by the Haft Iqlím, states that this poem was so popular that within a month of its production four hundred copies of it were made and sold at a good price, but adds that in his time (892/1487) it was seldom met with and little read. This seems to have been the only mathnawí poem he wrote, but he also left a díwán, estimated by Riḍá-qulí Khán, the author of the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá, to contain six or seven thousand verses, * including qaṣídas and quatrains, of which a selection is given by the biographers. The following may serve as examples of his style:

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“How long wilt pride in beard and turban take?
That Friend adopt as friend: all else forsake.
With stir and movement fill thy heart with pain:

The soul in rest and quiet strength doth gain.
All scent and hue of self do thou efface,
That HE may clasp thee tight in HIS embrace.
Till thou art contrite vainly shalt thou seek
In truth the beauty of that lovely cheek.
If thou canst do what He enjoins on thee
He'll do what thou dost ask assuredly.
He's kin enough: all else forsake forthwith:
When wilt thou free thyself from kin and kith?
Ask of thyself, when from thyself set free,
God-vexer, where and who thy God may be?
Who is't in thee who speaks of ‘us’ and ‘me’?
Who fixed the evil and the good for thee?
If there are ‘others,’ prithee point them out:
Art thou alone? Then wherefore ‘others’ flout?
To be united is not as to see:
In this my speech is no hypocrisy.
Were sight and union one in fact and deed
The eye on looking at the thorn would bleed.
A cup he gives thee: spill not, drink it up!
Hold fast when I bestow another cup!
One is the Master's Face: pluralities
From Mirror and from Mirror-holder rise.
One the King's portrait and the coining-die:
Numbers in gold and silver coinage lie.
One sap supplies the flower which doth adorn
The rose-bush, and the sharp and cruel thorn.
Orange and fire alike * their hue derive
From that life-giving sun whereon they thrive.
A thousand circles issue from the point
What time the compass doth enlarge its joint.
The world entire reveals His Vision bright:
Seek it, O ye who are endowed with sight:
All things His praises hymn in voices still,
Sand in the plain and rocks upon the hill.”