(1)

The text here given is that copied for me at Máhán on August 9, 1888. Of the 50 verses which it contains only 24 are given in the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá, which only adds one or two new verses, but in some cases adopts a different order, besides supplying a few variants. The poem is not to be found at all in the lithographed edition.

(Translation)

“I see the Power of the Maker; I see the state of the time.
The state of this year is of another sort; not like last year and the year
before do I see it.
These words I speak not from the stars; rather I see them from the
Creator. *
When 'ayn,rá and dál (= 274) have passed of the years I see wonderful
doings.
In Khurásán, Egypt, Syria and 'Iráq I see sedition and strife.
I see the darkness of the tyranny of the lands' oppressors boundless
and beyond computation.
I hear a very strange story; I see vexation in the land.
War, strife, mischief and injustice I see on the right and on the left.
Looting, slaughter and many armies I see in the midst and around.
I see the servant like the master; I see the master like the servant.
They impress a new superscription on the face of the gold; I see his
dirhams of short weight.
I see the dear friends of every people grown sorrowful and abased.
Each of the rulers of the Seven Climes I see involved with another.
I see the face of the moon darkened; I see the heart of the sun trans-
fixed.
The appointment and dismissal of officials and agents, each one I see
twice repeated.
In Turk and Tájík * towards one another I see enmity and strife.
I see the merchant left friendless on the road at the hands of the
thief.
I see from small and great much cunning, guile and trickery.
I find the condition of the Indian ruined; I see the oppression of
Turks and Tartars.
I see the Holy Place fearfully desolated, the abode of a number of evil
men.

Some of the trees of the Garden of the World I see springless and
fruitless.
If there be a little security, that too I see within the borders of the
mountains.
A companion, contentment and a [quiet] corner I now see as most to
be desired.
Although I see all these sorrows, I see the [final] joy of the sorrowful.
Grieve not, for in this trouble I see the harvest of union with the
Friend.
After this year and a few years more * I see a world like a [fair] picture.
I behold this world like Egypt; I see Justice as its stronghold.
My king and his ministers are seven; all of these I see triumphant.
Such as rebel against my immaculate Imám I see ashamed and dis-
graced.
On the palm of the hand of the Cup-bearer of Unity I see the pleasant
wine.
The friendly foe-destroying warrior I see as the comrade and friend
of the friend.
I see the swords of those whose hearts are hard as iron rusted, blunt
and of no account.
The beauty of the Law and the splendour of Islám, each one I see
doubled. *
I see the wolf and the sheep, the lion and the gazelle, dwelling
together in the meadow.
I see the treasure of Chosroes and the coin of Alexander all put to
good use.
I see the roguish Turk drunk, I see his enemy with the headache born
of wine.
I see Ni'matu'lláh seated in a corner apart from all.
When the fifth winter has passed I see in the sixth a pleasant spring.
The vicar of the Mahdí will appear, yea, I see him plainly.
I see a king perfect in knowledge; I see a leader endowed with dignity.
I see the servants of His High Majesty all wearing crowns.
For forty years, O my brother, I see the cycle of that Prince continue.
When his cycle ends victoriously, I see his son as a memorial of him.
I see a king perfect in knowledge, a ruler of noble family.
After him will be the Imám himself, whom I see as the pivot of the
world.
I read ‘M. Ḥ. M. D.’: I see the name of that famous one.*

I see his aspect and attributes like the Prophet: I see knowledge and
clemency as his distinctive signs.
I see again ‘the White Hand’ * (long may it endure!) conjoined with
Dhu'l-Fiqár. *
I see the Mahdí of the time and the Jesus of the age both royally
riding forth.
I smell the rose-garden of the Law, I see the flower of Religion in
blossom.”

These “apocalyptic” poems, however, though they have attracted most attention in Persia, constitute but a small Pantheistic poems fraction of the whole. Most of Ni'matu'lláh's verses illustrate the doctrine of Waḥdatu'l-Wujúd (Pantheism), while a certain proportion (in which again the Bábís see an allusion to their founder) use the favourite illustration of the “Point” (Nuqṭa), of which the circle is only a manifestation; just as the letter alif is, in the world of calligraphy, a manifestation of the diacritical “point,” which shares with the mathematical “point” the same title. A few specimens will suffice for the purpose of illustration.

(2)

“King and beggar are one, are one; foodless and food are one, are one.
We are stricken with grief and drain the dregs; dregs and sorrow and
cure are one.

In all the world there is naught but One; talk not of ‘Two,’ for God
is One.
Mirrors a hundred thousand I see, but the face of that Giver of Life
is one.
We are plagued with the plague of one tall and fair, but we the
plagued and the plague are one.
Drop, wave and sea and the elements four without a doubt in our
eyes are one.
Ni'matu'lláh is one in all the world: come, seek him out, he is one,
is one.”

(3)

“The Point appeared in the circle and was not; nay, that Point
produced the circle. *
The Point in its revolution becomes a circle in the eyes of him who
measured the circle.
Its beginning and end joined together when the Point measured the
completion of the circle.
When the circle was completed, the compass put its head and feet
together and rested.
We are all without Being, without Being; we are without Being and
Thou art Existant.
I called the whole world His dream: I looked again, and lo, His
dream was Himself.
Sweeter than the sayings of our Sayyid Ni'matu'lláh has heard no
other words.”

(4)

“Know that the Named is one and the Names a hundred thousand,
That Being is one, but its aspects are a hundred thousand.
Its Form is the Glass, and its Meaning the Wine,
Although both are one substance in our eyes.
Perceive in two one unit and two units; *
Search it out well, for I have told you a good bit.
Without His Being all the world is non-existant,
Of His Being and Bounty the world is a sign.
The world arises from the diffusion of His universal Being;
Whatever thou seest is from His universal Bounty.
His Ipseity is essential, while our Ipseity
Is but casual: be annihilated, then, from this annihilation!
The Ipseity of the world is the veil of the world:
Nay, the world itself is the veil of the world.
This veil is eternal, O my soul,
O my Friend of God, and O my Proof!
I tell thee the state of the world in its entirety,
So that thou may'st know the state of the world, and so farewell!”

The lithographed edition of Ni'matu'lláh's poems contains approximately some 14,000 verses, including a number of quatrains, and from the following verse it would appear that his literary activities continued until he had reached a very advanced age:

“The Living and Eternal [God] hath vouchsafed to this servant ninety
and seven years of pleasant life.”

2. Qásimu'l-Anwár.

The next poet of this epoch who claims our attention was like the last a Sayyid and a mystic. The main facts Qásimu'l-Anwár concerning his life are thus summarized by Rieu. * “He was born in Saráb (Saráw) in the district of Tabríz in 757/1356, and had for religious instructors Shaykh Ṣadru'd-Dín Ardabílí, an ancestor of the Ṣafawís, and after him Shaykh Ṣadru'd-Dín Yamaní, a disciple of Shaykh Awḥadu'd-Dín Kirmání. After staying some time in Gílán he went to Khurásán and settled in Herát, where he lived during the reigns of Tímúr and Sháh-rukh. There disciples flocked to him in such numbers and he acquired so great an influence as to give umbrage to the sovereign. 'Abdu'r-Razzáq relates in the Maṭla'u's-Sa'dayn that in 830/1426-7, Sháh-rukh having been stabbed in the mosque of Herát by a certain Aḥmad-i-Lur, * Sayyid Qásim was charged by Mírzá Báysunqur with having harboured the intended assassin, and was obliged to leave Herát * and repair to Samarqand, where he found a protector in Mírzá Ulugh Beg. He returned, however, some years later to Khurásán, and took up his abode in Kharjird, a town in the district of Jám, where he died in 837/1433-4.”

The intimacy of Qásimu'l-Anwár's relations with Shaykh Ṣadru'd-Dín of Ardabíl, the ancestor of the Ṣafawí kings of Persia, is abundantly confirmed by an unpublished Relations of Qásimu'l-Anwár with Shaykh Ṣadru'd-Dín Persian work on the genealogy of that dynasty entitled Silsilatu'n-Nasab-i-Ṣafawiyya, of which I possess a manuscript from the library of the late Sir Albert Houtum Schindler. In this MS. (ff. 27^b—28^b) the poet is mentioned as one of the Shaykh's most enthusiastic disciples, and an account is given of the rigid discipline whereby he attained in the great Mosque of Ardabíl to that vision wherein he beheld himself distributing the light to his fellow-disciples, whereby he earned the title of Qásimu'l-Anwár (“the Apportioner of the Lights”). On the death of Shaykh Ṣafí, the father of Shaykh Ṣadru'd-Dín, he composed the following verses.*