M6:3475 — چشم خود بگذاشت و چشم او گزید / هوش خود بگذاشت و قول او شنید

Translation: He abandoned his own eye and chose his eye; he abandoned his own wit and heard his word. Meaning: This verse illustrates how the king, by relinquishing his own perception and intellect, became entirely swayed by another's viewpoint and words. This surrender to an external opinion leads to a loss of independent insight and thought.

This verse appears within the story of Khwarazmshah and Imad al-Mulk, serving as a pivotal point to illustrate how a prejudiced word can turn one's heart away from something, and where the true origin of such disaffection lies. Rumi unequivocally shows how a person might 'abandon' their own sight and intellect to 'choose' and 'hear' another's. This is precisely what I have often referred to as 'lending one's eyes and mind' – a dangerous practice. Khwarazmshah possessed his own immediate perception (chashm-i hal), but Imad al-Mulk, with his 'far-sighted eye' (chashm-i ma'al) – a gaze that considers consequences, even if driven by malice – uttered a word that swayed the king's heart. This is a crucial lesson: true reason and sagacity lie in far-sightedness, in being a 'person of the end' (akharbin), not merely 'of the immediate' (akhorbin). Anyone who only sees the surface and judges hastily is not truly rational.

I have repeatedly emphasized that when analyzing the works of mystics and thinkers, one must attend to the speaker's true intent. Here, Rumi is not merely discussing a human error; he uses it as a bridge to a deeper insight. He continues by stating that Imad al-Mulk's words and their effect were merely a 'pretext' (bahaneh): This was a pretext, and that unique Judge (Dayyān-i fard) / From necessity, cooled his heart toward it (the horse). Dayyān, meaning Judge, refers to God. From the perspective of mystics, everything that occurs in this world is ultimately God's doing. Causes and means are like 'gloves on God's hands' or 'veils' that obscure the divine act. These chains of cause and effect exist for the world to function and for people to organize their affairs, but the hidden truth is direct divine action. Thus, the king's heart was cooled, not solely by Imad al-Mulk's words, but by God's will and wisdom, which used those words as an intermediary.

This verse guides us toward the truth that human speech is like the 'sound of a door' (bāng-i dar) emanating from the 'palace of secrets' (qaṣr-i rāz). As Rumi recounts from his son, some hear the sound of the doors of paradise closing in music, while others hear them opening. Imad al-Mulk's words here were the sound of a door that 'closed' (bubast) the door of Khwarazmshah's affection for the horse, causing him to lose sight of its value. One must be a 'sound-of-the-door-knower' (bāng-dar-shenās) to discern whether the words one hears open a door or close one; a door to paradise or to hell. This demands constant vigilance, for as Rumi warns: Do not abandon your own sight for the sight of the ignoble / For these vultures will drag you to carrion.

Key takeaways

• The importance of preserving one's own independent insight and intellect against external influence.
• The distinction between a 'present-sighted' (superficial) view and a 'far-sighted' (consequence-aware) view.
• The danger of surrendering one's perceptive and judgmental faculties to untrustworthy and malicious individuals.
• The mystical understanding that apparent events are often 'pretexts' (bahaneh) for the manifestation of divine will and wisdom.
• The power of human words: every word can be like the 'sound of a door' (bāng-i dar) that opens or closes a gate to knowledge; its discernment is crucial.