M1:116 — عقل در شرحش چو خَر در گِل بخفت / شرحِ عشق و عاشقی هم عشق گفت

Translation: Intellect (ʿaql), in its explanation of it [love], became stuck like a donkey in mud; / The explanation of love (ʿishq) and loving was spoken only by love itself. Meaning: Human intellect is utterly incapable of grasping or articulating the true nature of love; for love is a self-sufficient phenomenon that can only be understood and revealed through its own direct experience.

In the Mathnawi, Mowlana repeatedly emphasizes the inadequacy of intellect (ʿaql) and language in confronting the truth of love (ʿishq). This verse, M1:116, encapsulates the zenith of this intellectual impotence: ʿaql, despite its swiftness and capacity for description and explanation, when it reaches the shore of love, "becomes stuck like a donkey in mud" and ceases its movement. This metaphor is an eloquent testament to the helplessness of argumentation and logical thought in comprehending a phenomenon that transcends sensory and rational perceptions.

Mowlana posits that love is neither an illness nor a phenomenon amenable to intellectual analysis. Love is a "subtle secret" (latīfa-yi nihānī) that demands tools of its own kind for its apprehension. He states earlier: "Love is the astrolabe of God's secrets." An astrolabe is an instrument for observing stars and uncovering celestial mysteries; love, too, is an astrolabe through which one can ascend to the heavens of meaning and discover divine secrets. However, this discovery is not through argumentation, but through direct apprehension (shuhūd) and immediate presence (ḥuḍūr).

The subsequent verse, "The sun is its own proof," corroborates this point: just as the sun needs no lamp or external proof to demonstrate its existence – the sun itself being its own evidence – so too is love its own proof of its existence and truth, requiring no intellectual demonstration. Here, Mowlana draws a sharp distinction between direct experience (ḥuḍūr and shuhūd) and inferential reasoning (dalālat and istidlāl). Many truths, including love, are directly and immediately present within our souls, apprehended intrinsically, rather than being arrived at through reason and proof.

"The explanation of love and loving was spoken only by love itself." This concluding phrase of the verse describes an existential self-sufficiency of love. It is as if love not only requires no external interpreter but is, in fact, the sole interpreter of its own truth. Mowlana, speaking as a lover from the "furnace of experience," asserts that to understand love, one must "step into it" and "instead of speaking about the sea, leap into it and surrender to its waters." It is this immersion in the sea that "pays the blood-price of intellect and soul" and reveals the path to truth. Love is a journey, not a static destination; and this journey itself articulates its own explanation.

Key takeaways

• Intellect is utterly helpless and incapable of grasping and explaining the truth of love.
• Love is a self-sufficient phenomenon that can only be known through its own direct experience.
• The understanding of love is achieved through 'presence and direct apprehension' (ḥuḍūr wa shuhūd), not through 'inference and argumentation' (dalālat wa istidlāl) or logical thought.
• To comprehend love, one must plunge into it and surrender to its waters, rather than merely describing it.
• Love, like the sun, is its own proof of existence and requires no external evidence.
• Mowlana considers love the 'astrolabe of God's secrets,' opening the way to divine truths.