M6:3904 — از غری ریش ار کنون دزدیده‌ای / پیش ازین بر ریش خود خندیده‌ای

Translation: If out of ignobility you have now stolen a a beard, / You have previously laughed at your own (lack of) beard. Meaning: Addressing hypocritical preachers, Rumi states that whoever pretends to possess a false virtue to deceive others has, in fact, already acknowledged their own ignorance and futility.

I arrive now at this crucial verse by Mowlana, a verse that continues his sharp rebuke to inactive scholars, to unimproved preachers, and to all who claim knowledge and effectiveness but do not truly believe in what they preach. Mowlana has earlier stated: “The time came for us, how heedless we became / Like ugly women, we hid in the chador.” This is a subtle reference to women in his era who, to conceal their plainness, would completely cover their faces, whereas beautiful women would subtly show a lock of hair or a glance to display their charm. This image depicts the hiding of defect and ignorance under the guise of virtue and knowledge.

He then questions: “O tongue, who counseled all others / When your turn came, why did you fall silent?” Or: “O intellect, where is your sugar-sweet counsel? / It is your turn now, what happened to your shouts?” These all point to the same issue: O scholar, O counselor, O wise one, why do your tongue become mute and your intellect fail when it is your own turn? This is an ancient sorrow in our literature, which Sa’di also beautifully articulated: “Tell the world-explaining scholar from me / If you do not strive in deed, you are an ignorant interpreter.”

Now Mowlana reaches this pivotal verse: “If out of ignobility you have now stolen a beard / You have previously laughed at your own (lack of) beard.” The word “gharī,” which I have often referred to in my lectures, was considered an insult at that time, something akin to “ignobility” today. Mowlana says that if out of “gharī,” that is, from baseness and meanness, you have now “stolen” a beard – here, the beard symbolizes knowledge, virtue, and the power of influence, an emblem of the act we saw in the famous story of Sultan Mahmud and the thieves, where the Sultan, by stroking his beard, could save the lives of many. This is a reference to deception, to borrowing virtue for self-display and for ostensibly saving others.

But the deeper point lies in the second hemistich: “You have previously laughed at your own (lack of) beard.” This means that before you committed such a theft and put on a stolen beard (virtue) on your face, you yourself laughed at your own beard, at your deficiencies, at your ignorance and emptiness, making it a mockery. This laughing at one’s own beard is a hidden admission of one’s own hollowness. Now that you have put on this stolen beard, not only can you not deceive others, but that previous self-mockery makes your current situation even more ridiculous. This self-deception and hypocrisy, before it misleads others, plunges the individual into an abyss of emptiness and pretense. Knowledge and virtue must arise from the soul, be from lived experience, not from theft and pretense. This is the profound moral lesson Mowlana delivers here.

Key takeaways

• Borrowed virtue and knowledge, far from saving a person, lead to hypocrisy.
• One who seeks to feign virtue is, in their depths, aware of their own emptiness, and this hidden self-awareness leads to self-mockery.
• Mowlana emphasizes that a moral teacher and scholar must first act upon what they preach before advising others.
• The phrase "stealing a beard" symbolizes deceit and gaining credibility through illegitimate means.
• "Laughing at one's own beard" signifies self-deception and a lack of authenticity on the spiritual path.