M6:2523 — هر کسی فالی همی‌زد از قیاس / تا چه آتش اوفتاد اندر پلاس

Translation: Each one cast an omen, based on their conjecture, To see what fire had fallen into the felt-cloak.

Meaning: When faced with an unsettling unknown, people, driven by their conjectures and imaginings, were busy guessing and predicting what calamity might have occurred.

In this verse, Mowlana presents a remarkably vivid and precise portrayal of collective human psychology when confronted with the unknown. This scene, where the people of Termez fall into anxiety and conjecture after a dervish's frantic arrival at the court, illustrates how swiftly human beings become prisoners of their own khayālāt (imaginations) and awhām (delusions or conjectures). As I have often remarked, Mowlana was deeply aware of this human condition: a state where the mind, to fill the void of not knowing, resorts to fabricating narratives and sketching scenarios.

I call this the "compensation of conjecture"; a mind incapable of tolerating a void will fill it with guesswork. Here, everyone, relying on their own qiyās (conjecture or analogy), which is often rooted in fears and past experiences, begins to "cast an omen" (fāl zadan). And this fāl zadan, as Mowlana himself clarifies, is in fact a kind of "imagining" and speculating about unfortunate events, rather than seeking a good omen. People speak of "clamor and sedition" (nafīr o fitna) and "fear of retribution" (khawf-i nakāl); they dread earthly and heavenly calamities. This is precisely the state that pulls hearts in every direction, where each person, based on their own vahm and conjecture, conjures an image of an impending catastrophe in their mind.

The idiom "fire falling into the felt-cloak" (ātash dar palās oftādan or ātash dar gilīm oftādan) is a powerful metaphor for the outbreak of a major, widespread disaster. People feel that a deadly fire has fallen not merely upon an individual life, but upon the "felt-cloak of the city" or the "felt-cloak of the country." This verse underscores not only the external commotion of the city but also the internal turmoil within the minds and hearts of the people; it reveals how vahm and fear propagate through society, transforming an ambiguous event into an imagined crisis, solely through the power of qiyās and gumān (speculation).

Key takeaways

• The verse highlights the power of conjecture (vahm) and speculation (gumān) in generating collective fear and anxiety.
• When faced with the unknown, the human mind quickly constructs negative scenarios.
• Here, 'casting an omen' (fāl zadan) signifies fear-driven fantasizing and conjecture, not the search for good fortune.
• Mowlana vividly portrays the psychological state of a society held captive by its own khayālāt (imaginations).
• The phrase 'fire falling into the felt-cloak' is a metaphor for a devastating and widespread catastrophe.