Lesson 2: The physicians fail to cure the handmaiden; the king prays and dreams of a friend of God

When the king saw the helplessness of those physicians, he ran barefoot towards the mosque.

He entered the mosque and went towards the mihrab ˹, the prayer niche˺; the place of prostration was flooded with the king’s tears.

When he came to himself out of the flood of annihilation ˹or selflessness before God˺, he loosed his tongue sweetly in praise and glorification ˹of God˺.

saying, “O ˹God,˺ whose least gift is the kingdom of the world, what shall I say, since You know what is hidden?”

“O You who are always the refuge of our need, once again we have lost the way.”

“But You said, ‘Though I know your secret, at once make it plain on your outward being too.’”

When he raised a cry ˹of lament˺ from the depths of his soul, the sea of Forgiveness ˹and Mercy˺ surged.

In the midst of weeping ˹and lament˺ sleep carried him off; he saw in a dream that an elder ˹of spiritual rank˺ appeared.

He said, “O king, good tidings! Your prayers are granted. If tomorrow a stranger comes to you, he is from us.”

“When he comes, he is a skilled physician; know him to be truthful, for he is trustworthy and truthful.”

“In his cure see absolute magic; in his temperament see the Power of God.”

When that promised hour arrived and day broke, the sun ˹rose˺ from the east and burned away the stars.

The king was waiting in the lookout ˹of the palace˺ to see what had been shown to him in secret.

He saw a man of great learning and worth, a sun amidst a shadow.

He was approaching from afar like the new moon; he was ˹both˺ nonexistent and existent, in the form of imagination.

In the ˹human˺ soul imagination is like something that both is and is not; ˹yet˺ see a world moving upon an imagining.

Their peace and their war are ˹founded˺ upon an imagining, and their pride and their shame are ˹born˺ of an imagining.

˹Yet˺ those imaginings that are the snare of the friends of God are the reflection of the moon-faced beauties of the garden of God.

That imagining which the king had seen in his dream was appearing in the face of the guest.

Instead of the chamberlains, the king stepped forward; he went to meet the guest from his own unseen.

Both were seafarers who had learned to swim ˹in the sea of Truth˺; both souls were sewn together without sewing.

˹The king˺ said, “You have been my ˹true˺ beloved, not that ˹handmaiden˺; but in the world deed arises from deed.”

“O you who are Mustafa to me, while I am like Umar — I gird myself ˹with resolve˺ to serve you.”