M1:3989 — نقش حق را هم به امر حق شکن / بر زجاجهٔ دوست سنگ دوست زن

Translation: Break even God's own creation, if by His command; / Cast the Beloved's stone upon the Beloved's glass, to shatter it. Meaning: This verse asserts that an act, even if seemingly destructive, becomes wholly just and beyond conventional morality if it is performed by direct divine command, as the agent is merely an instrument of God's will.

This beyt stands as a pivotal verse in the Masnavi, one that Mawlana invokes to explicate the nature of actions carried out by God's saints, the awliyā-yi ilāhī, actions that might, at first glance, appear incongruous with conventional human ethics. I firmly believe Mawlana is here pointing to an ontological truth: certain actions originate from such a sublime height and such a sacred spring that judging them by earthly, conventional measures is a fundamental error. He says that God Himself has created a form, painted a beautiful tableau. Yet, by His own command, He places a stone in the hand of a servant and instructs: break this tableau! Shatter this glass! In such a scenario, the act of breaking is not only blameless but is the very embodiment of obedience and a manifestation of the divine will.

I liken this to the act of Azrael, the Angel of Death. Azrael takes souls; does this render his action immoral or unjust? Never! For he is merely the executor of a divine decree. The divine physician, or the walī-yi ilāhī, operates similarly. He intervenes in the world from a different, higher plane. He is a sword in God's hand, taking lives and even causing destruction, yet he is not held accountable, because his action is God's action, proceeding through his agency, not his own personal will.

But woe betide the day when this profound and perilous truth becomes a pretext for false claimants. It is here that I must emphatically warn: an interpretation of such richness and depth, when wielded by the unworthy, transforms into a tool for justifying cruelty and violence. Groups like the Mujahedin-e Khalq in our own country, or even communists, albeit under different names and banners, employed this very logic. They declared that "obstacles to evolution" must be removed, viewing themselves as agents of this historical or divine imperative. In their own words, they "consigned others to the dustbin of history," believing they would not be held accountable, for they perceived themselves to be executing a transcendent command. This abuse of a deep mystical teaching is catastrophic, and in understanding such verses, we must never lose sight of caution and discernment. Mawlana himself understood the double-edged nature of these words, and it is our duty to meticulously distinguish between the true divine saint and the false claimant.

Key takeaways

• The actions of divine saints, when by God's command, transcend conventional moral standards.
• The primary aim of this verse is to justify acts where the ultimate agent is God Himself, even if performed through a servant.
• Both the Beloved's glass and the Beloved's stone are His; thus, breaking by His command is inherently right.
• The gravest perversion of this teaching is the abuse of the concept of "divine command" to justify violence and elimination of others.