M1:268 — هَمسری با انبیا برداشتند / اولیا را همچو خود پنداشتند

Translation: They deemed themselves equals of the Prophets, And imagined the saints to be like themselves.

Meaning: This verse highlights the profound error of humanity in equating prophets and divine saints with ordinary people, misled by superficial resemblances and failing to discern their vast inner differences.

This verse unveils a fundamental cognitive error in our understanding of human beings, especially the sacred ones: the error of superficial comparison. People equate prophets and saints with themselves, merely because their outward appearances share commonalities with others; they eat, sleep, and walk in the markets just like us. The Quran, too, points to this very mistake when deniers questioned: 'Why does this messenger eat food and walk in the markets?' This preoccupation with appearances is the root of many deviations, which Mawlana warns against here.

I firmly believe that in these verses, following the famous couplet 'Though shīr (milk) and shīr (lion) are written alike,' Mawlana elucidates the distinction between form (ṣūrat) and essence (sīrat). Just as the words 'shīr' (food) and 'shīr' (animal) are spelled identically but carry different meanings, so too are human beings outwardly similar, yet their inner essence and nature are infinitely diverse. This is precisely what Heidegger refers to with 'Das Man,' or the 'public,' where a unique individual, a saint, when amidst the common throng, is perceived as 'one of the many,' despite their utterly distinct nature.

Mawlana employs vivid parables to illustrate this 'infinite difference' (farq-i bī-muntahā): Bees feed from the same source, yet one stings while the other produces honey. Deer consume the same water and grass, yet from one comes pure musk and from another, dung. Reeds drink from the same water source, yet one is hollow and the other is filled with sugar. These examples demonstrate that identical external inputs, due to a difference in the beings' 'nature' (ṭabʿ) and 'existential factory,' yield entirely different outcomes. It is this 'nature' that transforms sustenance into vileness or light, into avarice and envy, or into the love of the One. It is as if an existential factory receives raw material and, according to its intrinsic essence, converts it into a particular product; if that factory is one of avarice and envy, it produces avarice and envy from the input, and if it is a factory of divine love, it produces love.

We live in a world where, as Schopenhauer observed, savages tear each other apart, and civilized people deceive each other. This deception often stems from precisely this superficial comparison and the disregard for inner reality. Many of us wear masks behind which our true selves are hidden. These masks sometimes become so pervasive that we even lose ourselves behind them. But prophets and saints, beyond these masks and appearances, possess an inner reality connected to Truth itself, the comprehension of which is possible only through a sound 'taste' (zawq) and a gaze that transcends the superficial. Hence, Mawlana states: 'None but the possessor of discernment can recognize the truth.'

Key takeaways

• Equating prophets and saints with ordinary people based on outward appearance is a fundamental error leading to spiritual misguidance.
• The profound inner difference (sīrat) of saints far outweighs any superficial resemblances (ṣūrat).
• Outward similarity never implies sameness of inner reality or spiritual station.
• Understanding the truth of prophets and saints requires inner discernment and spiritual 'taste,' not mere observation of appearances.