M6:526 — بعد از آن گفتش که گندم آن کیست / گفت امانت از یتیم بی وصیست

Translation: After that, it (the bird) asked him: "Whose wheat is that?" / He replied: "It is a trust (amānat) from an orphan without a guardian (yatīm-i bī-waṣī)." Meaning: The deluded bird asks the fowler about the ownership of the wheat, and the fowler, employing a legalistic trick, claims it's a trust belonging to a guardianless orphan, tempting the bird with what seems like accessible bounty.

This verse marks the zenith of the fowler's cunning and deception, and simultaneously, a subtle yet sharp allusion by Mowlana to jurists and their legalistic stratagems (ḥiyal-i sharʿī). The bird, until this moment seemingly absorbed by the fowler's eloquent words, suddenly catches sight of the scattered grains of wheat, and its nafs (lower self/carnal soul) becomes restless with desire. The fowler, immediately perceiving this greed, employs a legal trick. He describes the wheat as an "amānat from an orphan without a guardian" (amānat az yatīm-i bī-waṣī). This point is crucial. Mowlana, despite being a jurist and a muftī himself, well-versed in legal rulings, never equated the sanctity of fiqh with the sanctity of love and gnosis. For him, fiqh was less a sacred matter than a tool for "resolving disputes" (faṣl-i khuṣūmat) and "settling conflicts"—a means to determine worldly obligations and bring order to social affairs. He typically avoided direct confrontations with jurists but often made allusions to them, as he does in the story where he says, "Had I possessed reason and means, I would have set up a shop like the shaykhs" (Book Two). In this tale, the fowler symbolizes a jurist who exploits legal subtleties for his worldly aims. The property of an orphan lacking a guardian, according to aḥkām-i ḥisbeh (legal rulings concerning public welfare), falls under the guardianship of the religious judge. By his statement, the fowler places himself in the position of such a judge, implying that this property is bī-ṣāḥib (ownerless in the sense of regular oversight) and thus accessible. This provides a seemingly legitimate excuse for seizing and consuming it. Therefore, this is not a simple deception, but a complex one, outwardly justified by religious law. Mowlana here teaches us how greed and the lower self can cloak themselves even in the guise of religion and shari'ah, thereby legitimizing their desires. The naive bird, unaware of these legalistic nuances, believes it is encountering property whose appropriation is permissible, whereas this is the beginning of its fall into the trap.

Key takeaways

• The fowler's cunning exemplifies how the lower self (nafs) can use religious pretexts for deception.
• Mowlana subtly critiques fiqh, presenting it as a tool for "resolving disputes" rather than necessarily a sacred domain.
• The property of a guardianless orphan becomes a pretext for seemingly legitimate, yet illicit, appropriation.
• Greed, when cloaked in religious garb, can appear justified and permissible.
• Legalistic tricks (ḥiyal-i sharʿī) are sometimes employed to legitimize worldly actions and deceive others.