“What Am I?”

Again you question me, saying, ‘What am I?’

Inform me as to what ‘I’ means.

When Absolute Being is spoken of,

Men use the word ‘I’ to say it.

When ‘The Truth’ pervades all that exists,

You express it by the word ‘I.’

‘I’ and ‘you’ are the accidents of Being.

They are like shades over the lamp of Existence.

Bodies and spirits are all the One Light,

Now shining from mirrors, now from lamps.

You say, The word ‘I’ in every connection.

You really speak of the soul of ‘I.’

But as you have made intellect your guide,

You do not know your ‘Self’ from one of your parts.

Go, O master, and know well your ‘Self,’

For fatness does not resemble an empty tumor.

‘I’ and ‘you’ are higher than body and soul,

For both body and soul are parts of ‘me.’

The word ‘I’ is not limited to man,

So that you should say it means only the soul.

Lift yourself above time and space,

Quit the world and be yourself a world for yourself.

——————

translated by Mahmood Jamal,

                    Islamic Mystical Poetry, (2009), p. 167.