M6:972 — زانک آن حسن زراندود آمدست / ظاهرش نور اندرون دود آمدست

Translation: For that beauty came gold-plated; its surface is light, but its inside is smoke. Meaning: This verse explains that worldly beauties are superficial and transient, akin to a base metal covered with gold, having at their core a dark and valueless essence. Its deceptive appearance shines brightly, but its true interior is murky, like smoke.

Here, Mowlana delves into the profound philosophical distinction between ḥaqīqat (reality/truth) and majāz (metaphor/derived meaning). My understanding is that Mowlana, in this verse and the ones that follow, aligns with a school of thought that posits words like 'love,' 'light,' and 'beauty' are originally coined for God, for He is the boundless Beloved and the eternal source of all light and beauty. Consequently, their application to creatures and phenomena in the world is metaphorical, a mere reflection of the absolute truth, not the truth itself. This majāzī (metaphorical) nature does not imply falsehood, but rather dependency and borrowed essence.

The verse elucidates this concept through the potent metaphor of ḥusn-i zar'andūd — 'gold-plated beauty.' Worldly beauties, according to Mowlana, are of this nature: they are like a base metal thinly coated with gold. 'Its surface is light' (ẓāhirash nūr), dazzling and deceptive, but 'its inside is smoke' (andarūn dūd āmadast), revealing a dark and worthless core. This is a veneer, a borrowed grace. Mowlana here draws upon an ancient notion, which I refer to as the 'principle of the conservation of beauty and light.' The ancients believed that light and beauty do not perish but withdraw from the transient object and return to their original source. Just as moonlight recedes from a wall and returns to the moon, or gold detaches from a counterfeit coin and settles back into its mine, so too does borrowed beauty.

The consequence of this insight is a stark differentiation between ʿishq-i majāzī (metaphorical/worldly love) and ʿishq-i ḥaqīqī (real/divine love). The love that is founded upon this 'gold-plated beauty' is bound to wither with the fading of its beautiful veneer. Mowlana explicitly states: 'When the light departs, and the smoke becomes manifest, / The metaphorical love at that moment will perish.' This is because such love is not directed towards the source of light itself but is enamored with a temporary reflection. In contrast, 'the love of the insightful' (ʿishq-i bīnāyān), which is directed towards the 'gold mine' (kān-i zar), never diminishes, for the true Beloved is eternal and the boundless wellspring of beauty.

Mowlana reiterates this idea throughout the Masnavi. For instance, regarding the beauty of the human body, he states that the body is beautiful due to the light of the soul, and once the soul departs, its inherent ugliness and stench become apparent: 'The body boasts of its goodness and beauty, / While the soul hides its splendor and wings. / It says to the dunghill, 'Who are you? / For a day or two, you lived by my light.'' Thus, whatever beauty and grace we perceive in this world are but temporary reflections and emanations of the Divine light and beauty, destined to return to their origin. The crucial lesson is to transcend these ephemeral appearances with discerning eyes and to entrust our hearts to 'the gold mine, in which there is no doubt.'

Key takeaways

• Worldly beauties are like gold plating: they possess a deceptive exterior and a worthless, smoky core.
• True love is only befitting the boundless Beloved and the eternal source of beauty, not its temporary manifestations.
• Metaphorical loves, built upon borrowed beauty, inevitably perish when that transient beauty fades away.
• Mowlana, drawing on an ancient principle, illustrates that light and beauty, like waves, return to their original source after illuminating objects.
• The distinction between authenticity and imitation, and between transience and eternity, is central to Mowlana's understanding of love and beauty.