Praise of God and the Prophet, and the Reason for Writing

Praise of God and the Prophet, and the Reason for Writing

*Al-hamdu lillahi alladhi ja'ala fi as-sama'i burujan wa ja'ala fiha sirajan wa qamaran muniran* [Arabic, after Quran 25:61: "Praise be to God, who set in the sky great constellations, and set in it a lamp and a shining moon"]

A poem:

Boundless praise to that pure God
Who made the heavens and showed them forth,

And made the constellations in them,
Whose height the mind cannot attain;

He gave their splendour to the sun and moon,
On which depend the morning and the evening.

And besides these, what rare things He has made, the fineness of whose workmanship no one has fathomed! And if you consider carefully, what thing is useless? The very thing that everyone calls bad brings to light matters beyond description; as with womankind, whom everyone calls bad and thinks a nose of wax, which turns whichever way it is turned and, at the least coaxing, is caught by a trick. Yet such is the glory of God, may His majesty be exalted, that in them are found qualities of such firmness that great men of high spirit grow dizzy searching for them. In short, whatever the Creator has made, He has made matchless. If you look with the eye of unity, He alone is present in everything. As Mir Hasan of Delhi says, a verse:

In short, there is nothing empty of Him;
He is no thing, yet He is in every thing.

But one needs eyes that see; our eyes are blind; what shall we see? So it is right for a man, when something is beyond his understanding, not to say a word but to keep silent.

In praise of the Chief of Creation, the Essence of Existence, the Pride of the First, the Seal of the Messengers, the Beloved of the Lord of the Worlds, His Holiness Ahmad the Chosen, Muhammad the Elect, God bless him and his family and his companions and his household, and God's pleasure be on them all: Mir Shams-ud-Din Faqir has composed a fine *ruba'i* (quatrain) on his blessed glory. *Ruba'i* [Persian]:

"Before all the proud kings you came,
Although you appeared at the last;

"O Seal of the Messengers, I have learned how near you are:
You came late, because you came from far away."

And the stanza that Shaikh Sa'di, God's mercy on him, composed in his blessed praise is accepted by the Almighty and pleasing to the Lord of both worlds. I have written that stanza too, for the blessing of its words, and the Prophet's pleasure in it is plain as well. A stanza [Arabic]:

"He reached the heights by his perfection;
He dispelled the darkness by his beauty;

"All his qualities are beautiful;
Call down blessings on him and his family."

And by this verse the qualities of the Prophet are plainly revealed: that the excellences gathered in all the prophets were in his blessed person alone. A verse [Persian]:

"You have the beauty of Joseph, the breath of Jesus, the white hand of Moses;
What all the fair ones have together, you have alone."

And this *ruba'i* was composed by my honoured teacher, whose pen name is Qalaq, and many people have liked it; so it too has been written here. *Ruba'i*:

"O Seal of the Messengers, how can I, heart-wounded and helpless,
Make the praise of you that is your due?

"The truth is that no beloved of God
Like you has been, or is, or ever will be."

In praise of the great and noble Companions, through whom the faith of Muhammad shines to this day and will go on shining till the Day of Judgement. A verse [Persian]:

"The lamp, the mosque, the prayer niche and the pulpit:
Abu Bakr, Umar, Usman and Haidar."

God Most High has praised them in many places in the Holy Quran. Thus in the Sura of Repentance the Creator revealed this verse in praise of Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq, God be pleased with him: "*Thaniya ithnaini idh huma fi al-ghari idh yaqulu li-sahibihi la tahzan inna Allaha ma'ana*" [Arabic, Quran 9:40: "The second of two, when the two were in the cave, when he said to his companion, 'Do not grieve; God is with us'"]; and the praise of all the Companions is plain in the Sura of Victory, from "*Muhammadun rasulu Allah*" [Quran 48:29: "Muhammad is the Messenger of God"] to the end of the sura. When God, may His majesty be exalted, Himself praises someone, who is anyone else to move his tongue? They are suns and moons whose light will last till the Day of Judgement. May God bless us and you all. A poem:

Greetings and peace upon the Prophet's Companions,
Who without doubt are the root and branches of Islam;

And may God's mercy be upon his family,
Through whom the kingdom of guidance was ordered.

The Reason for Writing

The humblest of servants, all fault, a sinner and evil-doer, hoping for the forgiveness of the Forgiver, Hafiz Muhammad Amiruddin, whose pen name is Maani, son of Hafiz Ghulam Nizamuddin of Delhi, God forgive us, says: there is an elder of ours in Delhi who has a heartfelt love and close bond with my honoured father. Once in former days he had heard from my father's lips the story that is written in these pages. It was a long time ago. Now this gentleman, the fame of whose kindness, humanity, gentleness, compassion and favour runs from east to west, of a very high family, trusted at the royal court, connected for generations with the Blessed Fort [TN: the Red Fort of Delhi], who was present at court with honour and dignity and was often honoured with titles and robes, and kept that same standing to the very end [TN: of the Mughal court]; and today too, by God's grace, has such access to the ruler of the time as no one else has; whose royal title I do not remember through my forgetfulness, but who is famous far and wide, not only in Delhi but in all countries and in the English dominions, by the title of Nawab Nabi Bakhsh Khan Sahib; glory be to God, so well-mannered, high-spirited, unique in generosity and courage, gentle in nature, sound in judgement, peerless in resolution and daring, endowed with every quality, in whose blessed person God Most High has gathered all virtues, may God increase his rank and dignity: in the month of Muharram 1287 of the Prophet's Hijra he sent a letter to this effect: "In former times I heard a wonderful story from your lips; if you still remember it, out of our old affection have it copied and send it to me." Although my honoured father's health had been poor for two months with fever and other ailments, yet because of the letter from my respected uncle, who was bound to us by love as well as by kinship, he thought it a great blessing that this gentleman should write even in that state, and said to this humblest one, "Take ink and pen and sit by me. As I speak, you write it down." Your servant made excuse upon excuse, being deprived of reading and writing; for this sinner has no share in reading and writing and through his ill luck is deprived of this great blessing. But because my revered father insisted, thinking that "the command comes before courtesy," I thought in my heart: "If you write as your honoured father says, these enchanting words of his will remain as a memorial." With this thought, on Sunday the first of Muharram 1287 of the Prophet's Hijra [TN: about April 1870], as he directed, I began to write in this manner, and named this tale *Qissa-e-Maqtool-e-Jafa* (The Tale of the Victims of Cruelty), with the chronogram title *Fasana-e-Gham Amud* (A Tale Steeped in Grief). Before this I beg the men of wisdom and insight, by the eternal God, that this helpless one is utterly ignorant and incapable of reading and writing and has no discernment; but through the blessing and influence of the company of my honoured teacher I have picked up a smattering of Urdu. Even that is such that I write wrong spelling and wrong style; and when I write, what am I to write? Second, as a master has said, "Man is made of error and forgetfulness": if anywhere an idiom is against everyday usage, for God's sake let them cover the fault, and act on Sa'di's saying, God's mercy on him. A verse [Persian]:

"You too, if you see something bad in a writing,
Act as the Creator of the world acts with His creatures,"

and let them look at it with an eye to correction and gladly put it right.