M1:350 — آنگَهَم از خْوَد بِران تا شهرِ دور / تا دَر اندازَم دَریشان شَرّ و شور

Translation: Then banish me from yourself to a distant city, that I may cast strife and agitation amongst them. Meaning: This verse continues the cunning vizier's plan, where he requests the king to exile him after publicly mutilating him. His aim is to secretly infiltrate the Christian community and sow discord and mischief among them.

This verse is an integral part of the story of the cunning vizier and the Jewish king, a narrative Rumi employs to unveil the complexities of taqiyya (dissimulation) and hypocrisy within faith and fanaticism. The vizier proposes to the Jewish king a subtle and insidious method for eradicating Christians, rather than direct slaughter. This beyt specifically addresses a crucial stage of this plan: after the vizier is ostensibly punished, his limbs mutilated, and then outwardly pardoned (to elicit sympathy from the Christians), he asks the king to banish him from the city to a distant place.

Why exile? The purpose is infiltration. The vizier aims to gain the trust of the Christians by appearing as a suffering and outcast Christian. He tells the king: "Then banish me from yourself to a distant city, that I may cast strife and agitation amongst them." This "strife and agitation" (sharr o shor) does not merely signify external tumult and disturbance; it speaks of creating internal division and undermining their doctrinal foundations. He intends to penetrate the hidden layers of Christian society and dismantle them from within. This is precisely the "cunning" and "magic of enchantment" (makārī o jādū-ye afsūn) that Rumi elsewhere alludes to (in the famous ghazal "Go forth, companions, drag my Beloved back" concerning Shams of Tabriz); that is, the ability to tie knots in water and air, to deceive and mislead.

In this story, Rumi elevates the vizier's cunning and shrewdness to its utmost degree. This plan relies not on brute force but on trickery and stratagem. The vizier aims, through this sharr o shor, to effectively destroy the hidden faith of the Christians. He had previously warned the king that "Faith has no scent of musk or ambergris / The secret lies hidden in a hundred covers," meaning true faith is concealed in hearts and cannot be eradicated by killing individuals. Therefore, the solution is to infiltrate these "hundred covers" and destroy faith from within. This story is an allegory for the truth that sometimes enemies of an idea, instead of direct confrontation, attempt to alter its form and empty it from within; a quiet and gradual infiltration whose goal is not physical elimination but identity transformation. This is a profound teaching in understanding enmities and the complexities of hypocrisy, demonstrating that cultural and intellectual infiltration can be far more lethal than open warfare.

Key takeaways

• The verse details the cunning vizier's plan to infiltrate the Christian community.
• The vizier's goal of 'strife and agitation' is to sow internal division and weaken beliefs through deception and infiltration.
• This narrative serves as an allegory for the power of subterfuge and soft warfare over physical force.
• Rumi masterfully illustrates the nature of 'cunning' and 'enchantment' in this context.
• The story offers a crucial lesson on recognizing hypocrisy and the challenge of discerning hidden faith.