50 THE MASNAYVI, [BOOK 1.
Story XIII. The Prophet's Scribe (p. 81).
The Prophet had a scribe who used to write down the texts that fell from his lips. At last this scribe became so conceited that he imagined all this heavenly wisdom proceeded from his own wit, and not from the Prophet. Puffed up with self-importance, he fancied himself inspired, and his heart was hardened against his master, and he became a renegade, like the fallen angels Harut and Marut. He took his own foolish surmises to be the truth, whereas they were all wide of the mark, as those of the deaf man who went to condole with a sick neighbour, and answered all his remarks at cross purposes.
How philosophers deceive themselves (p. 32).
On the last day,[1] “when Earth shall quake with quaking,”
This earth shall give witness of her condition,
For she “shall tell ont her tidings openly,”
Yea, earth and her rocks shall tell them forth!
The philosopher reasons from base analogies
(True reason comes not ont of a dark corner);
The philosopher (I say) denies this in his pride of intellect.
Say to him, “Go, dash thy head against a wall!”
The speech of water, of earth, of mire,
Is audible by the ears of men of heart!
The philosopher, who denies Divine Providence,
Is a stranger to the perceptions of saints,
He says that the flashes of men’s morbid imaginations
Instil many vain fancies into men’s minds,
But, on the contrary, “tis his perverseness and want of faith
Which implant in himself this vain fancy of negation,
The philosopher denies the existence of the Devil;
At the same time he is the Devil's laughing-stock.1 Koran xcix. 1-4,
