1. To What Doctrine Do I Belong?
To what doctrine do I belong, and which of the religions is mine?

2. Is it a branch among faiths or is it the root?
And which prophet do I follow?

3. And which revelation do I hold most dear?
I said to her: One does not acquire a doctrine

4. Unless he bears a yoke around his neck.
So the doctrine of a person is but a flask

5. That shackles him, whether it is wine or vinegar.
If it was ugly, its color does not turn it into beauty,

6. Nor into nobility if it had no innate nobility.
I am an earthling who thought

7. He was the highest creation with the best laws.
And that this world, of which he is but a part, belongs to him

8. And the next world too, if he fasted or prayed.
I give thanks when I quench the thirsty,

9. As if it was I who created the grain in the field and the field itself.
For an era, I was apprentice to Man in the course of time,

10. So he taught me deceit and imparted ignorance.
He prohibited me from taking souls, then when

11. He saw some weakness in me, he taught me to kill.
And he condemned slavery to me, then enslaved me,

12. And portrayed oppression as if it were justice.
He almost made me see sin in everything I saw

13. And that every system other than what he established was crooked.
So people became to me both an enemy and companion,

14. And they themselves were either superior or inferior.
And I started to see hatred, and I started to see love,

15. And I started to see a slave, and I started to see a lord.
Oh, the evils that befall the entirely good!

16. And oh, the goods that befall the entirely evil!
Until I saw a star rise in the darkness

17. For one who despairs, and for one who rejoices.
And I saw how the river gives its water

18. Without seeking gratitude or claiming merit.
And how the dawn adorns itself with roses and wildflowers

19. And how the clouds water the rugged and smooth earth alike.
And how the earth nourishes the trees of its orchards,

20. The ugliest and most beautiful in form.
So my view of life became like nature’s view,

21. And I came to have a religion other than my doctrine before.
And every mind that sets free became my prophet,

22. And my scripture became the universe, not mere pages recited.
So my religion is like the religion of the meadow, fragrant with wildflowers,

23. Even if the only thing in it was a sneaking thief.
Its borders are not the borders of Malikism,

24. Even if they did not know others who belonged to it.
It welcomed the breeze, the light and guidance,

25. And sheltered the birds, the mites and ants.
And how much it resuscitated from ruin

26. By the genius of an artist who made it bloom and turn green!
And its specter started to shine in a poem

27. Or painting or panel though it cannot be revealed.
And my religion which the brook chose for itself—

28. Oh, how excellent is what the brook chose, and how sweet!
The birds come to it thirsty and are sated,

29. And if camels stopped by, it would not drive away the camels.
The sinful wolf bathes in its water,

30. So no sin that is erased, and no purity that wears out.
And my religion is like the religion of the stars that appear to a lover,

31. A narrator—and it contains what he loves and what revolts him.
It does not hide in order to lead an astray traveler,

32. Nor does it shine in order to illuminate one who has lost his way.
It cannot prevent people from quenching their thirst,

33. Even if they untie from it the ropes that bind it.
And my religion is like the religion of rain. When it pours, it does not differentiate

34. Between irrigating the lush and watering the thorns and nettles.
It does not pick and choose its path in the sky

35. Nor cascade in generosity, nor withhold in stinginess.
And if I am not like the meadow, the star and the living,

36. It is enough for me to believe that their ideals are the best.
I see bees other than me when I see the bees buzzing,

37. And I glimpse combs of honey when I glimpse the bees.
And I notice oases of palm trees in the groves

38. When the storm uproots my palm trees from my oasis.
And I know when I drink the mirage that I

39. Have drunk the fleeting times of eras past.
And whatever the wind whispered in the ear of the soil

40. And whatever stars shed their tears in the night of bereavement,
And the sips of those who died in despair, yearning—

41. So, imbiber of it, have you sensed the blood of the slain?
And if a child passes me by, I see in him the world

42. From the lowest ideal to the highest ideal.
Oh, what a world whose good is a part of its evil!

43. And what a universe that encompasses each other!