Muʿāwiya and Iblīs

Called to Good, Kept from Better

Then ‘Azázíl said to him, “O noble Amír, I must lay my deceit before (you).If you had missed the prayers, you would then from heartache have uttered sighs and lamentations,And that regret and that lamentation and that (sorrowful) yearning would have exceeded (in value) two hundred litanies and prayers.I awakened you in fear lest such a sigh might burn the veil (of formality),In order that such a sigh should not be yours; in order that you should not have any way to it.I am envious: from envy I acted thus. I am the enemy: my (proper) work is deceit and malice.”He (Mu‘áwiya) said, “Now you have told the truth, you are veracious. This (deceit) comes (naturally) from you: to this you are adapted.You are a spider, you have flies as your prey; O cur, I am not a fly, (so) do not worry.I am a white falcon: the King hunts me. How should a spider weave his web about me?Go now, continue to catch flies as far as you can: invite the flies to (partake of) some buttermilk;And if you call (them) to honey, that too will certainly be lies and buttermilk (fraud).You awakened me, (but) it (that awakenment) was (really) slumber: you showed (me) a ship, (but) that was (really) a whirlpool.You were calling me to good for the purpose that you might drive me away from the better good.”
Masnavi II.2780–2792 · tr. R. A. Nicholson, 1926

First attested: 1278The text is Mathnawī II.2780–2792. No autograph survives. The oldest witness is the Qoniya (Konya) manuscript, which Nicholson designated G and describes as “transcribed in A.H. 677-A.D. 1278”, five years after Rūmī died. He translated Books I and II in 1926 from other copies; in 1930 he printed an Appendix “showing the changes required in order to bring the translation of Books I, II and III (vv. 1-2835) into agreement with” G, and it lists no change for these lines. Every English phrase quoted here is Nicholson's, from the 1926 translation.
Claimed: the 1260sasserted by Rūmī's own proem to Book II dates its beginning: “The date of beginning this gainful (spiritual) traffic was in the year six hundred and sixty-two” (II.7, Nicholson 1926) — A.H. 662, a year that began in 1263 and ended in 1264; C. E. Wilson's commentary (1910, p. 5, note 11) gives it as “the year 1263 A.D.” Book II carries no later date, and Rūmī died on 17 December 1273.

Both sides argue from the Prophet. Iblīs opens with “Make haste to perform your devotions before the time is past” (II.2613), Arabic inside the Persian, which C. E. Wilson's commentary sets beside a Tradition beginning ʿAjjilū bi-ṣ-ṣalāti; Muʿāwiya presses him with another: falsehood is disquiet in men's hearts, truth a joyous tranquillity (II.2733–2734).

Mathnawī II.2612–2613 and II.2733–2734 (Nicholson 1926); C. E. Wilson, The Masnavi, Book II, vol. II: Commentary (1910), pp. 320–321, note 1790.

Iblīs wakes Muʿāwiya for prayer, then confesses why: the sigh for a missed prayer outweighs two hundred.

Mathnawī II.2604–2792. Muʿāwiya, the first Umayyad caliph — Nicholson's “the Amír” — is asleep behind a palace door fastened from inside when a man wakes him and vanishes. Behind the door he finds Iblīs, hiding his face in the curtain. Iblīs says the time for prayer is ending and quotes the Prophet; pleads that he was once an angel and a lover at God's court; and claims God made him the touchstone of false coin and true. Muʿāwiya grants the words and refuses the speaker, and tests him by the Prophet's saying that falsehood is disquiet in the heart and truth a joyous tranquillity. After a tale of a latecomer whose sigh for a missed prayer another man buys with his own prayers (II.2771–2779), Iblīs — ‘Azázíl, “the name of Iblís before his fall” in Nicholson's footnote — confesses. The passage is that confession and Muʿāwiya's reply.

Light

Iblīs is given real eloquence — “How should (one's) first love go forth from (one's) heart?” (II.2619) — and the Amir answers him not by denying it but with a test anyone can use: falsehood leaves the heart disquieted, truth leaves it at rest (II.2734).

Shadow

Read carelessly, it makes the missed prayer the better prayer. And its hero, blessed in Rūmī's headings with “may God be well-pleased with him!”, is the caliph whom Sunnīs honour as a Companion and Shīʿī Islam reviles for opposing ʿAlī.

Sources and verification4 sources · 5 links

Primary source

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī; trans. Reynold A. Nicholson, The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmí, vol. II: containing the translation of the first & second books (E. J. W. Gibb Memorial, New Series IV.2), 1926, Book II: the tale at lines 2604–2792 with Rūmī's prose headings; the passage quoted at 2780–2792; Iblīs's opening at 2612–2613; his plea at 2617–2621 and 2672–2673; Muʿāwiya's reply at 2652 and his test at 2733–2734; the sold sigh at 2771–2779; the footnote on ‘Azázíl at 2780; the Book II proem at 7verse_text, and every English phrase quoted in the entry. Nicholson's footnote to ‘Azázíl reads “The name of Iblís before his fall.” The headings bless Muʿāwiya with “may God be well-pleased with him!”; the heading before II.2771 reads “The excellence of the remorse felt by one who was sincere (in his devotion) for having missed the congregational prayers.” Line 2770: “what is (ritual) prayer in comparison with the (spiritual) glow of humble supplication?”
He has said, ‘Falsehood is (the cause of) disquiet in (men's) hearts’; he has said, ‘Truth is (the cause of) a joyous tranquillity.’
Reynold A. Nicholson, The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmí, vol. IV: containing the translation of the third & fourth books (E. J. W. Gibb Memorial, New Series IV.4), 1930, Introduction dated Cambridge, April 1930; Appendix, pp. 484–496, “Showing the changes required”That the Qoniya manuscript G was transcribed in 1278, and that the 1930 Appendix of changes G would require in the English of Book II lists none between II.2776 and II.2800, so the passage stands as printed in 1926.
Showing the changes required in order to bring the translation of Books I, II and III (vv. 1-2835) into agreement with the text of the Qoniya MS., designated as G, which was transcribed in A.H. 677-A.D. 1278.

Scholarship

C. E. Wilson, The Masnavi, Book II, vol. II: Commentary, 1910, pp. 320–321, note 1790 on the Arabic words of Iblīs's opening, and p. 320, note 1786 on Muʿāwiya (Wilson numbers his own notes, not Nicholson's lines)That the Prophet's saying Iblīs quotes at II.2613 is Arabic in the Persian text, and that Wilson sets it beside a Tradition beginning “‘Ajjilū bi-’ṣ-ṣalāti”; and (note 1786) that Muʿāwiya was “the first Khalif of the Umaiya dynasty”, who succeeded in 661 and died in 680.
The Arabic words are “‘Ajjilu ’t-tā‘ata qabla ’l-faut.” There is a Tradition

Muʿāwiya and Iblīs

Called to Good, Kept from Better

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