M6:3528 — هر چه ما دادیم دیدیم این زمان / این جهان پرده‌ست و عینست آن جهان

Translation: Whatever we gave, we saw its fruit now; This world is but a veil, and That World is the essence. Meaning: This verse asserts that all deeds and generosity in this world bear fruit in the next, emphasizing that this earthly existence is merely a transient curtain obscuring the eternal reality of the unseen world.

This stirring verse is uttered by the ‘Khwaja’ (Master) in the tale of 'The Khwaja's Testament in a Dream'; a character who, after his passing, speaks from beyond the veil of the unseen, revealing what he has witnessed in the other world. He testifies that whatever he gave and bestowed in this life was not lost, but rather, ‘now,’ in the realm after death, he has seen its reward multiplied a hundredfold. Here, Rumi alludes to a Quranic truth: “Whoever brings a good deed, for him are ten like it.” He recalls the Prophet’s famous anecdote: when most of a sacrificed sheep had been given away, and one of his wives lamented, “It’s all gone, only a leg remains,” the Prophet replied, “No, this leg is gone, but the rest (that we gave in God’s path) remains.” What is given for God endures and is permanent, while what is kept for oneself is transient and destined for annihilation. This is the very criterion of baqā (permanence) and fanā (annihilation), as Sa’di advises: “What does not last, is not worthy of attachment.”

The second part of the verse unveils Rumi’s profound worldview: “īn jahān pardah-st-o ʿayn ast ān jahān” (This world is but a veil, and That World is the essence). This world, this material realm in which we live, holds no intrinsic originality or true reality; its ultimate existence and identity are merely a curtain over that truth. This curtain serves only to prevent us from observing ‘That World,’ which is the ‘essence of reality.’ As Hafez beautifully puts it (in Soroush's interpretive rendering): “The tent-maker is behind the curtain, the conversation of you and I / When the curtain falls, neither you nor I remain.” This existential veil is what Rumi elsewhere calls ghaflet (heedlessness): “The pillar of this world is heedlessness itself.” People in this world are asleep, and death is their moment of awakening: “Al-nās nuwām idhā mātū intabahū” (People are asleep; when they die, they awaken). When the curtain of heedlessness is drawn back, we shall exclaim, “Oh, so it wasn’t what we had imagined!” We thought that the natural world and matter held primacy, but we realize these were merely thin veils over the unseen realm and the meta-natural. Deniers and skeptics, too, have no argument but this: “The disbeliever’s argument is this: ‘I see no home other than this present one’”; they deny what they cannot perceive in the here and now. Yet, this world is but a ‘farm’ for the hereafter; we sow here, and we reap there. The Day of Judgment is “the day of recompense and revelation.” This world, in the words of Nahj al-Balagha, is a ‘marketplace,’ full of suffering, but we enter it hoping for an eternal profit. Our stinginess often stems from perceiving generosity as loss rather than permanence; but whoever is certain of the permanence of what they give will find their hand more open. This verse provides a profound and foundational picture of Rumi’s ontology, wherein, although this world is a place of action and suffering, it is not an end in itself but merely a bridge to the origin and essence of truth.

Key takeaways

• Every act of giving in this world is not lost but yields manifold rewards in the next.
• This world is merely a 'veil' or curtain, obscuring the true reality of 'That World'.
• What is transient is unworthy of attachment; permanence belongs to good deeds and giving in God's way.
• Heedlessness and ignorance of the truth beyond the veil constitute the fundamental mechanism of this world.
• Death is the moment of human awakening from the slumber of this world to behold the reality of the other.
• This world is a farm for the afterlife and a marketplace for spiritual profit, not an ultimate destination.