Sol 5.6

  1. How astonishing—where are the minds?

    I do not know what I can say.

  2. What has come over us, that from Truth’s path

    we stray—and, by the Truth, turn away?

  3. Trifles have carried off the

    virtue in us—and idle excesses have too.

  4. We claim knowledge, yet

    knowledge lies beyond our reach.

  5. Knowledge is nothing but emerging

    from doubts—not entering into them—

  6. and standing in a station

    where the great masters have stood:

  7. inward collectedness and humility,

    severance and arrival,

  8. and flight from the abysses

    into which the profoundly ignorant one has fallen;

  9. and holding fast to “God said,”

    or “the Messenger said.”

  10. Do not say, “Zayd has said,”

    “and this is what ʿAmr says.”

  11. What have we to do with opinion? Indeed,

    opinion in religion is idle presumption.

  12. Let sacred law be judge whenever

    human minds oppose sacred law.

  13. Turn away from Aristotle—for Aristotle

    does not wander in folly such as this.

  14. And whenever syllogisms diverge

    from sacred law, we say:

  15. words fall short before sacred

    law, while sacred law reaches far.

  16. Lost is the striving of one whose utmost

    knowledge is “he said” and “he says.”

  17. Whenever a revealed text confronts him,

    he rises, wielding opinion, and assails it.

  18. O deluded one, you have been deceived

    by branches and principles,

  19. by disputation and combat

    in which blades were drawn,

  20. by standing up and sitting down,

    and by wrangling that drags on.

  21. This is no provision for the Hereafter;

    all this will pass away from you.

  22. Much of a person’s learning

    is a distraction to that very person.

  23. The provision is nothing but renunciation;

    so do not turn away from it.

  24. For upon renunciation hinges right

    guidance, as the great masters have said.

  25. And for this there are proofs

    from reason and transmitted tradition.

Sol 5.6