M6:1034 — قهقهه زد آن جهود سنگ‌دل / از سر افسوس و طنز و غش و غل

Translation: That hard-hearted Jew burst into guffaws, Out of gloating, mockery, deceit, and malice. Meaning: This verse describes the hard-hearted Jew's loud, triumphant laughter, stemming from his belief that he had shrewdly outmaneuvered Abu Bakr in the transaction for Bilal, thus securing a substantial profit.

This verse vividly portrays the folly of 'form-worship' (ṣūrat-parastī) and 'epistemic ignorance' (jahl-i maʿrifatī). The Jewish slave-seller of Bilal bursts into guffaws. This laughter, as Rumi and later Abu Bakr Ṣiddīq explain, is not born of genuine joy, but a mixture of 'gloating, mockery, deceit, and malice' (afsos-u ṭanz-u ghash-u ghal). He believes he has cleverly outmaneuvered Abu Bakr, both gaining more money and successfully selling a 'worthless' slave at an exorbitant price while retaining a 'superior' one. He sees himself as astute and Abu Bakr as naive, having been profoundly 'duped' (maghbūn).

I interpret this as the crystallization of the 'hard-heartedness' (sang-delī) mentioned in the verse. A stony heart obstructs the eye of insight, preventing the perception of inner values. This Jew sees only Bilal's 'color' (lawn) and outward form, not his 'soul' (jān). In his view, Bilal is a 'black-faced' (aswad) slave worth 'not even half a danq,' whereas Abu Bakr is attuned to his 'soul' and values him as equivalent to 'the two worlds' (du kawn). This is the fundamental divergence between 'seeing the inner' and 'seeing the outer' that Rumi tirelessly emphasizes.

Rumi later in this story uses the metaphor of 'blackened red gold' (zar-i surkh-i siyāh-tāb) to liken Bilal to pure gold deliberately blackened to protect it from thieves and plunderers. This Jew is, in essence, a 'knowledge-thief' (ṭarrār-i maʿrifatī); he fails to recognize this pure gold because his heart is 'hard-hearted' and his gaze is fixed solely on 'form.' Abu Bakr, in response, calls him 'dull-witted' (ghabī), for he has exchanged a 'jewel' (gawhar) for a 'walnut' (jawz). This guffawing laughter is, in reality, the laughter of ignorance at gnosis, and the laughter of the form-worshiper at truth. In Rumi's worldview, such individuals, whose eyes are deprived of seeing the inner essence, consider themselves clever, but are in fact the most unfortunate of all.

Key takeaways

• The ignorance of externalists regarding inner essence.
• The triumphant laughter of the unseeing at the insightful.
• Deceit and mockery born from greed and superficial perception.
• Hard-heartedness as the ultimate veil to recognizing essential worth.
• True value resides in the soul, not in color or outward appearance.