M1:261 — می‌نمود آن مرغ را هر گون نهفت / تا که باشد اندرآید او بگُفت

Translation: He tried every kind of concealment and display for that bird, hoping it might then come forth and speak. Meaning: After striking the parrot and causing its silence, the greengrocer employed various tricks and ploys, hoping the bird would recover its speech.

This beyt comes from the story of the Parrot and the Greengrocer in the first book of the Masnavi, a profoundly instructive narrative that Mawlana uses to critique one of humanity's most entrenched intellectual errors: the “parrot-like fallacy” or “ignoring the multiple causes of a single effect.” This particular beyt describes the greengrocer’s state after his beautiful, talking parrot, following a blow from him, has become bald and no longer speaks.

The greengrocer, filled with remorse, offers vows and gifts, and employs every trick to restore the parrot's speech. The phrase “har gūn nehoft” (every kind of concealment/display) refers to all the ploys and stratagems he attempts. This ‘nehoft’ could mean that the greengrocer hides the parrot from view (perhaps to stimulate its curiosity or change its environment), or that he stages strange and wondrous scenes for it, hoping to bring it out of its state of ‘oghz’ (resentment) and silence. This silence, as Mawlana and prominent exegetes like Zarrinkoub have noted, is not due to an inability to speak, but rather a form of ‘qahr’ (sulking, protest) on the parrot’s part. The parrot has deliberately ceased to speak, not lost the faculty of speech. The greengrocer, in his own estimation, seeks solutions through external changes, believing that by “showing” or “concealing” things, he can make the parrot speak again.

However, the crucial point, revealed through the parrot's own words, emerges in its reaction to a bald Qalandar (dervish) passing by the shop. Seeing the dervish's hairless head, the parrot cries out: “Hey fellow! Why, O bald one, have you mixed with the bald? / Did you, too, perhaps spill oil from the bottle?” Here, Mawlana unveils the heart of his teaching: the parrot assumes that the only cause of baldness is spilling oil and subsequently being hit by the greengrocer. It fails to distinguish between the shared appearance (baldness) and its differing causes. The parrot’s head became bald from a blow, while the dervish’s head was shaved according to the Qalandar tradition.

This parrot-like fallacy, which reduces all causes to a single one, is strongly condemned by Mawlana. Throughout the Masnavi, he emphasizes that many phenomena, especially in the realm of the unseen and meanings, have complex and multifaceted causes hidden from our superficial gaze. Our assumption that, just because in the material world the sun produces heat by burning wood or oil, the sun's heat must also be of the same kind, is an example of this error. Physicists until the 20th century were similarly mistaken until the discovery of radioactivity showed that sources of heat could be of an entirely different nature. Even the disbelief in the virgin birth of Jesus, for those caught in this fallacy, stems from this same parrot-like analogy.

Thus, this beyt not only provides us with an image of the greengrocer’s futile attempts to stimulate the parrot but also subtly hints at the truth that superficial and external solutions cannot overcome the parrot’s deep, internal ‘qahr’. The parrot’s cure lies in a correct understanding of the causes of events or in a change in the greengrocer's approach, not in his “concealing” or theatrical ploys. This story is an invitation to transcend superficial analogies and to look at the complexity and diversity of causes in the world, both in nature and in the human soul.

Key takeaways

• The Parrot-like Fallacy: Assuming a single, known cause for an effect is a common and misleading error.
• Shared appearances (like baldness) can stem from entirely different causes; superficial analogies must be avoided.
• The parrot's silence was due to internal 'qahr' (resentment), not inability; the greengrocer failed to grasp this depth.
• Superficial solutions and 'displays' cannot overcome deep, internal spiritual or psychological issues.
• Mawlana emphasizes the complexity of causation in the cosmos and rejects reductionist perspectives.