M6:1008 — لب ببند اینجا و خر این سو مران / رفت این صدیق سوی آن خران

Translation: Close your lips here, and do not ride your donkey this way; (for now) this Siddiq (Abu Bakr) went towards those donkeys (unperceptive ones). Meaning: In this verse, after extolling the immeasurable and ineffable spiritual worth of humanity, Mowlana rhetorically silences himself. He implies that such profound truths cannot be fully articulated, and then pivots to a narrative about Abu Bakr, who confronted those lacking spiritual discernment, metaphorically called "donkeys," while they were torturing Bilal.

This particular couplet in the Masnavi serves as a critical turning point and a direct instruction from Mowlana to pause. Prior to these lines, he had been expounding upon the unique station of humanity in existence, drawing upon the Quranic phrase ʾaḥsan taqwīm (the best of creation). This human being, a "precious jewel," holds a rank higher than the Divine Throne itself, transcending both imagination and thought. Indeed, Mowlana suggests that the true worth and measure of this ʾaḥsan taqwīm is so immense that if he were to fully describe it, both he and the listener would "burn"; our comprehension falls short, and its articulation is simply impossible.

At precisely this juncture, Mowlana addresses both the reader and himself, saying: "Close your lips here, and do not ride your donkey this way." This command to "close one's lips" signifies the language's inadequacy in describing humanity's sublime station. The admonition "do not ride your donkey this way" metaphorically warns against approaching such profound matters with merely a partial, analytical intellect or animalistic sensory perceptions. The "donkey" here symbolizes a lack of discernment and an inability to distinguish true value, much as Mowlana previously noted that a donkey perceives a horse-bead and a jewel as one, for "God has not placed in the animal's head / The concern for ruby or pearl." Discussions of ʾaḥsan taqwīm and the "precious jewel" of humanity demand a different ear and a different eye, which "donkeys" lack. In other words, one cannot enter the realm of such profound truths with a "donkey-like" mind and its limited perceptions. This mirrors the difference, as thinkers like Max Weber have observed, between the natural and human sciences: an animal sees a piece of paper in a box merely as paper, while a human recognizes it as a "vote." This act of attributing meaning and making distinctions is unique to human consciousness and the "rational soul."

Suddenly, Mowlana shifts his narrative path, declaring: "This Siddiq went towards those donkeys." A narrative pivot occurs. "This Siddiq" refers to Abu Bakr, the great companion of the Prophet, renowned by the epithet Siddiq (the truthful, the great confirmer). "Those donkeys" refers to the polytheists who were torturing Bilal, the Prophet's muezzin. Mowlana, with profound subtlety, employs the very word he used to halt his discourse on human grandeur, now to describe those who fail to comprehend the worth of a great human being like Bilal and instead oppress him. These "donkeys" are those who do not grasp humanity's true value, that it is ʾaḥsan taqwīm itself, and who, with an animalistic and unseeing perspective, resort to cruelty and injustice. Abu Bakr, returning from the Prophet's presence, "ecstatic, intoxicated, and filled with fire," went to this group to defend Bilal. The action of this Siddiq demonstrates his comprehension of humanity's true worth, unable to tolerate the indifference of the "donkeys." This verse, thus, artistically portrays "lack of insight" as the essence of the "donkey-like" perspective, which not only fails to grasp the highest truths of existence but also proves incapable of perceiving human dignity and virtue, leading inevitably to oppression. What was "inexpressible" then manifests itself here as a story of the confrontation between insight and its absence.

Key takeaways

• The articulation of ultimate truth and the station of humanity transcends the capacity of language and partial intellect.
• The use of "donkey" to denote both the limitations of human perception and the unperceptive oppressors creates a deep link between epistemology and ethics.
• Lack of insight is not merely a cognitive failure; it can lead to oppression (as seen with Bilal), stemming from a failure to recognize true human dignity.
• Mowlana, echoing philosophical discussions, distinguishes human from animal perception through the capacity for "attribution of meaning" and "discernment."
• The Siddiq (Abu Bakr) symbolizes the human who understands true values and does not remain silent in the face of human degradation.