Effort Is Proven Superior to Trust
From Rumi’s Masnavi (مثنوی معنوی), Book 1, section 51 of 171: How the superiority of exertion to trust in God was established (مقرر شدن ترجیح جهد بر توکل). Below, each of its 12 couplets is given in Persian, followed by R. A. Nicholson’s English translation.
How the superiority of exertion to trust in God was established مقرر شدن ترجیح جهد بر توکل
زین نمط بسیار برهان گفت شیر
کز جواب آن جبریان گشتند سیر
The lion gave many proofs in this style, so that those necessitarians became tired of answering (him).
روبه و آهو و خرگوش و شغال
جبر را بگذاشتند و قیل و قال
Fox and deer and hare and jackal abandoned (the doctrine of) necessity and (ceased from) disputation.
عهدها کردند با شیر ژیان
کاندر این بیعت نیفتد در زیان
They made covenants with the furious lion, (ensuring) that he should incur no loss in this bargain,
قسم هر روزش بیاید بی‌‌جگر
حاجتش نبود تقاضای دگر
(That) the daily ration should come to him without trouble, and that he should not need to make a further demand.
قرعه بر هر که فتادی روز روز
سوی آن شیر او دویدی همچو یوز
Day by day the one on whom the lot fell would run to the lion as (swiftly as) a cheetah.
چون به خرگوش آمد این ساغر به دور
بانگ زد خرگوش کاخر چند جور
When this cup (of death) came round to the hare, the hare cried out, “Why, how long (are we to endure this) injustice?”
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by: Reza about (category: Masnavi)
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