M1:2451 — کافر پیر ار پشیمان می‌شود / چونک عذر آرد مسلمان می‌شود

In the preceding verses, the husband, a poor Sufi, has been arguing with his wife about their poverty. He initially resisted her demands for worldly provision, but now he has had a change of heart, realizing his resistance was a form of spiritual pride. He sees her nagging not as a worldly distraction but as a divine signal calling him to humility and surrender.

He compares his own stubbornness to a kind of spiritual infidelity (kufr). Now, he repents before his wife, asking her forgiveness. This couplet is the core of his apology, functioning as a theological analogy for his own situation. He argues that if even a lifelong, aged unbeliever can be accepted into the fold of Islam simply by repenting and making an appeal (ʿudhr), then surely his own, much smaller 'sin' of stubbornness can be forgiven. The image of the 'old unbeliever' (kāfir-i pīr) emphasizes that the duration or gravity of the error is irrelevant in the face of sincere remorse.

For Rumi, this is a universal principle of divine mercy. God's grace is so vast that it can erase a lifetime of wrongdoing in an instant, provided the repentance is genuine. The husband applies this cosmic principle to his domestic dispute, transforming a personal apology into a profound statement about the nature of divine forgiveness and the path of return to spiritual submission (Islām).