EPILOGUE
OF
MOULAVI NAZER USHRUF,
 
Editor of the Persian text of the Dabistán, printed in Calcutta.*
 

In the name of the bountiful and merciful God.

After the praise of God, who is acquainted with things future and invisible, who painted the tables of existence of mankind, and in the Dabistán exhibited the truths of things by the information of names and by the representations of intellect, and put his mark thereupon; who bestowed on man, susceptible of guidance, the pittance of the verse:

“Whom we had taught wisdom from before us.”*

He, the unity in whose being all the imaginable unities are lost, and the multitudes of contrary sects and religions are the exhibitions of his attributes.

QUATRAIN.
 
“Neighbor, companion, and fellow-traveller, all is he;
In the habit of a beggar, and in the satin of a King, all is he;
He is in the concourse of divisions and concealed in the mansion of reunion;
By God all is he; certainly, by God, all is he.”

Prayers of the pious, salutations of the saints, sacrifice for the holy spirits of the prophets and apostles, blessing and peace be upon our prophet and upon them! who are the guides of the roads, those who walk before us on the ways, parts of the whole.

The meanest of the weak servants in the post of ignorance, taking upon himself to offer a noble present to the lordship of the country of God's crea­tures in the empire of positive truths, and of the throne-ornaments belonging to the district of subtil­ties, represents, that the power of the omniscient and bountiful God (be his majesty displayed and his mercy diffused upon all!), has gratified the species of mankind, according to the exigency of natural genius, and the propensity of mind; and according to the choice of a special rule and the assumption of a particular religious opinion of each, in such a man­ner that a troop, having been invested with the gar­ment of lawful religion, and another people with the golden texture of a convenient doctrine, they may become the manifestations of the lights of his perfect power and glorious miracle, and he knew by immediate knowledge, that such various kinds and cameleon-like forms, by which the inscrutable essence of his majesty can be viewed by glimpses, are means of possessing eternal beatitude, and obtain­ing the blessings of another world, inasmuch as the meanest of those who acquire the beauties of knowledge having arrived from the defile of ignorance and listlessness to the large expanse of the city of science and knowledge, may enjoy the advantages of con­cord, friendship, and society with each other.

In this manner, one day, when the discourse fell upon this subject in the service of the master of favour, the head of the sages of the age, the une­qualled jewel of the multitude of the possessors of beneficence, the ornament of the council of experi­ence and of success, the splendor of the assembly of the distinction of merit and of happiness, the man of exalted designs, knowing the enigmas of science and wisdom, and endowed with eminent virtues, WILLIAM BAYLEY SAHEB,* (may his prosperity be everlasting in the ways of celebrity), I expressed my sentiments as follows: That whích embraces the dif­ferent tenets and sects, demonstrating in what respects they are either agreeing or conflicting with each other, is an object not destitute of difficulty nor of pretension; but the book called Dabistán, is incomparable for the assemblage of various tenets, and of general and particular creeds. Direction was therefore given that, as to execute the transcription of such a book is, on account of the errors which may be committed, an object of hesitation and reflection, it should therefore be drawn in the form of print. As obedience to the order of a lord is praiseworthy, necessary, important, and not devoid of various manifest advantages, therefore was printed the beforesaid copy, which is replete with the fun­damentals of each religion and sect, and a collection of the dogmas of all creeds and sects explicitly and distinctively, in order to diffuse the useful notes and disseminate the precious gems in such a manner, that the colleagues in study may derive from the reading of this work an abundant advantage, and a sufficient satisfaction. Thus, a multitude of copies in this country, which came under the view of the editor, contained numerous errors, alterations, and contradictions of vicious expressions; afterwards, with extreme care and pains to obtain the authentic copy which had come into my possession from the town of the King of the World (Delhí), the doubts and faults have been, as much as possible, discarded, and the editor carried it to a manifest correction. Besides, on account of different idioms and techni­cal phrases of each sect, the understanding and inter­pretation of frequent expressions of this book were difficult without having recourse to dictionaries; on that account, and for the convenience of those who consider and the utility of those who investigate, the editor, having inquired and examined as much as was possible, by means of the most esteemed books, such as dictionaries, interpretations, and commentaries of the learned of each sect, fixed the meaning of difficult words at the end of this book in some separate leaves, in such a manner that, with­out trouble and useless prolixity, the brides of those ideas may become manifest upon the exalted bridal seats of intelligence.* Moreover, for ranging the the vocables, the editor adopted the mode that under the first letter should be placed the chapter, and under the second letter the section, and he appended this vocabulary to the end of the book. He made also a list of errata, and concluded with an epilogue, in order that all those who reason and discuss upon these typical matters, may have the facility of understanding them. Thus, from God we expect grace and certain direction to righteousness and to favour.