The Story of the King and the Handmaiden

Meaning: Listen, O friends, to this tale, for in truth it is the very reflection of our own inward state.

Meaning: In times past, there lived a king who possessed both the fortune of this world and the fortune of the world to come.

Meaning: It so happened that one day the king rode out with his close courtiers to go hunting.

Meaning: The king saw a handmaiden on the main road, and his soul became a slave to her.

Meaning: As the bird of his soul fluttered restlessly within its cage, he gave up his wealth and bought that handmaiden.

Meaning: When he purchased her and began to enjoy her company, the handmaiden fell ill by divine decree.

Meaning: Like a man who had a donkey but no packsaddle for it, the moment he found a saddle, a wolf came and carried away the donkey.

Meaning: Or like he who had a jug but could find no water; when he finally found water, the jug itself broke.

Meaning: The king gathered physicians from left and right and said, 'The life of both of us is in your hands.'

Meaning: 'My own life matters little, for she is the very soul of my soul; I am sick and afflicted, and she alone is my cure.'

Meaning: 'Whoever heals her, who is my soul, shall take away my treasure, my pearls, and my corals as reward.'

Meaning: They all said to him, 'We will risk our lives in this; we will gather our knowledge together and work as one.'

Meaning: 'Each one of us is a healer like Messiah for a world, and in our hands lies a balm for every pain.'

Meaning: Out of arrogance, they failed to say 'If God wills'; so God showed them the helplessness of humankind.

Meaning: By neglecting to say 'if God wills,' I mean a hardness of the heart, not merely the omission of the phrase itself, which may be just an accidental occurrence.

Meaning: How many there are who do not utter 'If God wills', yet their soul is in unity with the spirit of it.

Meaning: Whatever they tried by way of cure and remedy, the suffering only increased, and their need was left unfulfilled.

Meaning: The handmaiden grew as thin as a strand of hair from illness, while the king's eyes flowed like a river with tears of blood.

Meaning: By divine decree, the oxymel syrup meant to ease the bile only increased it, and the almond oil meant to soften and moisten brought dryness instead.

Meaning: Myrobalan brought constipation instead of relief, and water fed the fire of the illness like oil.

Meaning: When the king saw the helplessness of those physicians, he ran barefoot toward the mosque.

Meaning: He entered the mosque and advanced to the altar, and wept so bitterly that the place of prostration was flooded with the king's tears.

Meaning: On coming to himself out of the flood of ecstasy before God, he opened his mouth in goodly praise and glorification.

Meaning: 'O You whose least gift is the kingdom of the world, what shall I say, since You already know the hidden secrets of all things?'

Meaning: 'O You who are ever the refuge of our needs, once again we have strayed and lost our way.'

Meaning: "Yet You Yourself have said, 'Though I know your secret, still declare it forthwith in your outward act.'"

Meaning: When he raised a cry from the depths of his soul, the sea of divine mercy began to surge.

Meaning: In the midst of his weeping, sleep overtook him, and in that sleep he saw an old man appear before him.

Meaning: He said: 'O King! Good tidings, your prayers are granted; if tomorrow a stranger comes to you, know that he is from us.'

Meaning: 'When he comes, he is a skilled physician; know him to be truthful, for he is trustworthy and honest.'

Meaning: 'In his treatment behold absolute magic, and in his nature behold the power of God.'

Meaning: When the promised hour arrived and day broke, the sun rose from the east and consumed the stars with its light.

Meaning: The king sat in his lookout, waiting to see what had been secretly shown to him in that dream.

Meaning: He saw a man of great learning and worth whose great soul shone like the sun amidst the shadow of his earthly body.

Meaning: He approached from afar, like the crescent moon in slenderness and radiance, appearing as though he were both there and not there (forming and dissolving before the eye like a figure of the imagination).

Meaning: Imagination within the soul is like something that both is and is not; yet behold, an entire world moves and rests upon that very imagination.

Meaning: Their peace and their war rest upon imagination, and from imagination alone spring their pride and their shame.

Meaning: Yet those imaginings that become the snare of the saints are in truth the reflection of the moon-faced beauties of the garden of God.

Meaning: That very image the king had seen in his dream now became manifest in the face of the guest.

Meaning: The king himself, in place of his chamberlains, stepped forward to welcome his guest from the unseen.

Meaning: Both were seafarers of the Sea of Truth, skilled in swimming, and the souls of both were knit together as one without any sewing.

Meaning: The king said: 'It was you who were my true beloved; yet in this world, one event leads to another.' (Outward love was merely a pretext to reach you.)

Meaning: 'O you who are to me like Prophet Muhammad, while I am like Umar; for your service I gird my loins in devotion.'

Meaning: We seek from God the grace of good manners, for he who lacks good manners is deprived of the Lord's favour.

Meaning: The person without good manners harms not only himself but also sets the whole world ablaze.

Meaning: A heavenly table of food was descending from heaven, without any need for buying, selling, or bargaining.

Meaning: Among the people of Moses, a few spoke rudely, saying, 'Where are the garlic and lentils?'

Meaning: Then the table of food and bread from heaven ceased to descend, leaving us with only the toil of sowing and working with spade and sickle.

Meaning: Once again, when Jesus interceded before God, God sent down a table laden with food and abundant bounty on trays.

Meaning: Once again, the insolent ones abandoned all courtesy, and like beggars, snatched away the leftovers to hoard.

Meaning: Jesus implored them, saying, 'This is everlasting and will never diminish from the earth.'

Meaning: Harbouring suspicion and giving in to greed at the table of Majesty is itself ingratitude and disbelief.

Meaning: Because of the greed and beggar-like nature of those impudent wretches, that gate of divine mercy was closed upon them.

Meaning: Because of withholding obligatory almsgiving (zakat), rain clouds fail to rise; and because of adultery, plague spreads in all directions.

Meaning: Whatever darkness and sorrow befall you, they arise from your own recklessness and insolence.

Meaning: Whoever behaves recklessly on the path of Love becomes a highwayman to true men of that path and is himself no man.

Meaning: Through discipline and respect, this heaven has become full of light, and through discipline and respect, the angels have become pure and sinless.

Meaning: Because of insolence, the sun suffers an eclipse, and through recklessness, Azazil (Satan) was turned back from the door.

Meaning: The king opened his arms and embraced him, and received the divine physician, like love, into his heart and soul.

Meaning: He began kissing his hand and forehead, and asked him about his lodging and his journey.

Meaning: Asking him question after question, he led him to the seat of honour, saying, 'At last, through patience, I have found a treasure.'

Meaning: The king said: "O light of Truth, remover of hardship, you are the true meaning of the saying, 'Patience is the key to relief.'"

Meaning: 'O you whose presence answers every question! Through you, every difficulty is resolved without need for discussion.'

Meaning: 'You are the interpreter of all that is in our hearts, and the saviour of anyone whose foot is stuck in the mire of hardships.'

Meaning: 'Welcome, O chosen one, O approved one! If you are absent, fate or affliction will come upon us, and the space of the world will grow constricted upon us.'

Meaning: You are the protector and master of these people, and whoever refuses to accept you will surely perish unless he desists from his defiance.

Meaning: When that gathering and its generous repast came to an end, the king took his hand and led him into his private quarters.

Meaning: He recounted to him the tale of the ailing girl and her illness, then seated him before the patient herself.

Meaning: He examined the colour of her face, her pulse, and her urine, and heard both the symptoms of her illness and its causes.

Meaning: He said: 'Whatever remedy the physicians have administered has brought no cure at all, but only ruin.'

Meaning: They were utterly unaware of her inner state; I seek refuge in God from what they falsely claimed.

Meaning: He discerned the pain, and its hidden truth was unveiled to him, yet he concealed it and did not disclose it to the king.

Meaning: Her suffering was not caused by yellow or black bile; for the smell and nature of any firewood become evident from its smoke.

Meaning: From her sore grief, he perceived that her sorrow lay in the heart; her body was well, but she was captive to a matter of the heart.

Meaning: Being in love is evident from the lamentation of the heart; there is no illness like the illness of the heart.

Meaning: The lover's ailment stands apart from all other ailments; love is the astrolabe by which the secrets of God are known.

Meaning: Whether love be of this worldly side or from that heavenly side, in the end it leads us to that ultimate Destination.

Meaning: Whatever explanation and exposition I say regarding Love, when I come upon Love itself, I am ashamed of all that I have said.

Meaning: Although the commentary of the tongue makes things clear, tongueless love is far clearer.

Meaning: While the pen was making haste in writing, as soon as it came upon Love, it split upon itself out of helplessness and shame.

Meaning: Reason, in trying to explain love, sank like a donkey stuck in mud; in the end, it was love itself that told the story of love and loverhood.

Meaning: The sun itself is proof of the existence of the sun; if proof is what you seek, do not turn your face away from it.

Meaning: If the shadow gives but a slight sign of Him, the Sun bestows life-giving light at every moment.

Meaning: The shadow brings sleep upon you like a bedtime tale, but when the Sun rises, the moon splits apart.

Meaning: There is nothing in the world as unique and wondrous as the sun; that everlasting Sun of the soul for whom there is no yesterday.

Meaning: Though the sun in the outer world is unique, it is still possible to imagine something resembling it.

Meaning: But the Sun of the soul, which transcends even the highest heavens, has no equal or match, neither in the mind nor in the outer world.

Meaning: Where is there room in imagination for His essence, that a likeness of Him could ever enter the mind?

Meaning: When news arrived of the face (essence) of the Sun of the Religion (Shams Tabrizi), the sun of the fourth heaven drew in its head in shame.

Meaning: Now that his name has been spoken, it becomes necessary to explain a hint of his bounties.

Meaning: At this moment, my soul has caught hold of my skirt and implores, for it has caught the fragrance of Joseph's garment (the sweet scent of the beloved).

Meaning: Husam al-Din said: 'For the sake of our long years of companionship, recount one of those delightful states.'

Meaning: 'So that earth and heaven may laugh with joy, and intellect, soul, and sight may increase a hundredfold in brightness.'

Meaning: I said: 'Do not burden me with speech, for I am in the state of annihilation (I have passed away from myself); my understanding is dulled, and I cannot enumerate his praise.'

Meaning: 'Every word spoken by one who is intoxicated with love and is not sober, whether spoken with self-constraint or boastful pretence, is unbecoming.'

Meaning: 'What can I say when not a single vein of me remains sober? How can I describe a friend who himself has no equal or peer?'

Meaning: 'Set aside the description of this separation and this heart‑rending sorrow for now, until another time.'

Meaning: Husam al-Din said: 'Feed me, for I am hungry, and make haste, for time is a sharp, cutting sword that cuts off life.'

Meaning: 'The Sufi (true believer) is the child of the present moment, my friend; saying tomorrow is not among the conditions of this path.'

Meaning: 'Are you not yourself a Sufi then? Delaying today's work turns existence into non-existence.'

Meaning: I said to him: 'It is better that the secret of the Beloved be disguised; listen for it yourself as implied within the folds of this tale.'

Meaning: 'It is better that the lovers' secret be spoken in the words of others.'

Meaning: Husam al-Din said: ' Speak this openly and nakedly; talk of religion is better overt than covert.'

Meaning: 'Lift the veil and speak plainly, for I do not sleep with the Beloved with a shirt on.'

Meaning: I said: 'If He (the Absolute Truth) were to reveal Himself fully naked and unveiled, neither would you remain, nor would your embrace, nor would any distance between you.'

Meaning: 'Desire what you will, but desire within measure; a single blade of straw can never bear the weight of a mountain.'

Meaning: 'The sun, whose light has illuminated this world, burns everything if it comes even a little closer.'

Meaning: 'Do not seek trouble, turmoil, and bloodshed; speak no more of Shams Tabrizi.'

Meaning: This mystery has no end, speak of the beginning; go and recount instead the rest of this story to its completion.

Meaning: The divine physician said: 'O King, clear the house; send away both kin and stranger alike.'

Meaning: 'Let no one listen in the entrance-halls, that I may ask certain things of this handmaiden.'

Meaning: The house was left empty, with no one there; none was left but the divine physician and that same patient.

Meaning: Gently, he asked, 'Where is your town? For the cure for the people of each town differs.'

Meaning: 'And in that town, who among your relatives do you have? With whom do you have kinship and affinity?'

Meaning: The divine physician laid his hand upon her pulse and, one by one, asked her of the injustices of fate.

Meaning: For instance, when a thorn pierces someone's foot, he places his foot upon his knee to pull it out.

Meaning: And with the point of a needle, he keeps searching for its head, and if he fails to find it, he keeps moistening and softening the spot with his lip.

Meaning: If a thorn in the foot is this hard to find, then how much harder must a thorn in the heart be? Answer that!

Meaning: If every ordinary person could see the thorn in the heart, how could sorrows ever lay their hand on anyone to overtake them?

Meaning: For instance, if someone sticks a thorn under a donkey's tail, the donkey does not know how to remove it and suddenly leaps up.

Meaning: The donkey jumps up and down, and this only drives the thorn in more firmly and deeper; a wise one is needed to pull the thorn out.

Meaning: To get rid of the thorn, the donkey, in burning pain, kept kicking wildly and wounded itself in a hundred places.

Meaning: That thorn-removing physician was a master; he kept touching here and there, testing and examining.

Meaning: Under the guise of narrative and storytelling, he kept asking about her friends.

Meaning: She spoke openly to the physician of her homeland, her former masters, and her fellow townsfolk.

Meaning: He listened to her story while remaining fully attentive to her pulse and its beating.

Meaning: To see at the mention of whose name her pulse would leap quicken; so that he might know that one was the true object of her soul's desire in this world.

Meaning: He listed the friends from her town, then he went on to mention another town by name.

Meaning: He said, 'When you left your own town, in which town did you mostly stay?'

Meaning: She mentioned the name of a town and passed on from it too, yet neither the colour of her face nor her pulse changed.

Meaning: She spoke of masters and towns, one by one, telling of their dwelling place and of bread and salt (their hospitality).

Meaning: She told stories of town after town, house after house, yet neither did her pulse quicken nor her face turn pale.

Meaning: Her pulse remained calm and undisturbed until he asked about the city of Samarkand, sweet as sugar.

Meaning: Her pulse leaped, and her face turned red and pale, for she had been parted from a goldsmith of Samarkand.

Meaning: When the divine physician learned this secret from the patient, he discerned the true source of the pain and affliction.

Meaning: He asked, 'In which quarter of the city does he live?' She replied, 'The bridgehead, in the Ghatafar quarter.'

Meaning: He said, 'I have realized what your illness is, and I will at once display wondrous magic to set you free.'

Meaning: 'Be joyful, at ease, and secure, for I shall do for you what the rain does for the meadow.'

Meaning: 'I shall bear your grief, so do not grieve; I am more compassionate and caring toward you than a hundred fathers.'

Meaning: 'Beware and take heed not to reveal this secret to anyone, even if the king questions you relentlessly to find it out.'

Meaning: 'When your secrets remain hidden within the heart, you will achieve your desire all the sooner.'

Meaning: The Prophet said: 'Whoever keeps their secret hidden will soon be united with their desire.'

Meaning: When the seed is hidden in the earth, its inner secret becomes the garden's greenness and flourishing.

Meaning: If gold and silver were not hidden, how could they ever grow and ripen deep inside the mine?

Meaning: The honest promises and gentle kindness of that divine physician freed the sick handmaiden from fear.

Meaning: Some promises are true and pleasing to the heart, while others are false and distressful.

Meaning: The promise of the generous is a flowing treasure, while the promise of the unworthy becomes the torment of the soul.

Meaning: Then he rose and made his way to the king, informing him of a small portion of the matter.

Meaning: He said: 'The right course is to bring that goldsmith before us, for the sake of curing this malady.'

Meaning: 'Summon the goldsmith from that distant town (Samarkand), and beguile him with gold and robes of honour.'

Meaning: The king sent a messenger or two in that direction (Samarkand), skilled, competent, and highly trustworthy and just.

Meaning: Those two messengers travelled all the way to Samarkand, bringing the good news from the king to the goldsmith.

Meaning: Saying, 'O fine master, perfect in knowledge! Your fame in craft has spread openly through every city.'

Meaning: 'Now such-and-such a king has chosen you for the work of goldsmithing, for you are the finest in this craft.'

Meaning: 'Here, take this robe of honour along with gold and silver; when you come with us, you will become the king's favourite and intimate companion.'

Meaning: The man saw the great wealth and many robes of honour; he was beguiled and turned away from his town and his children.

Meaning: The man set out on his way joyfully, unaware that the king had designs upon his life.

Meaning: He mounted a swift Arab horse and rode off joyfully, deeming what was in truth the price of his blood to be a robe of honour.

Meaning: O you who set out on this journey with a hundred willing hearts, walking with your own feet straight into your evil fate.

Meaning: In his fancy were dreams of kingship, honour, and greatness; while the Angel of Death mockingly said: 'Go on, yes, surely you will attain them!'

Meaning: When the stranger arrived from his journey, the divine physician brought him before the king.

Meaning: They led him before the king with honour and grace, that he might burn like a moth before that beautiful candle (handmaiden).

Meaning: When the king saw him, he honoured him greatly and entrusted the treasury of gold to him.

Meaning: Then the divine physician said to him: 'O great king, give that handmaiden to this master goldsmith.'

Meaning: 'So that the handmaiden might find joy and healing in union with him, and that very water of union might extinguish the fire of her passion.'

Meaning: The king granted that moon-faced beauty to him and united the two who longed for each other's company.

Meaning: For six months, they satisfied their desire until the girl was fully recovered.

Meaning: After that, the divine physician prepared a potion for him, so that upon drinking it, he would waste away before the girl.

Meaning: When his beauty faded away from illness, the girl's heart no longer remained ensnared by him.

Meaning: Since he grew ugly, sickly, and pale-faced, little by little, her heart grew cold toward him.

Meaning: Loves that arise merely from colour or outward beauty are not true love, and in the end, they turn into disgrace.

Meaning: Would that those colourful and superficial loves had been utterly disgraceful, so that such an evil fate would never have befallen him.

Meaning: Blood streamed from his eyes like a river; for his own handsome face had become the enemy of his life.

Meaning: The peacock’s enemy is its own beautiful plumage; how many a king has been slain by his own splendour!

Meaning: He said, 'I am like that gazelle for whose musk-gland this hunter has shed my pure, innocent blood.'

Meaning: 'Ah, I am like that desert fox whose head they severed from an ambush merely for the sake of its fur.'

Meaning: 'Ah, I am like that elephant whose blood was spilled by the spear of the mahout, only for the sake of its ivory.'

Meaning: 'He who has killed me for something inferior to me does not know that my blood will not rest quiet and unavenged.'

Meaning: 'Today it is upon me, and tomorrow it will be upon him; how could the blood of someone like me ever go to waste like this?'

Meaning: 'Although the wall casts a long shadow, that shadow ultimately returns to the wall itself.' (Just as the consequences of a person's actions are certain to return to them.)

Meaning: 'This world is like a mountain, and our deeds are the call we send into it; the echo of every call comes back to us.'

Meaning: He said this and, in that very moment, passed away and went beneath the earth, while the handmaiden was cleansed and freed from that love and suffering.

Meaning: For love of the dead is not enduring, for the dead never return to us.

Meaning: But love for the living, in both soul and sight, grows fresher with every passing moment than a newly blossoming bud.

Meaning: Choose the love of that Living One who ever endures, who is the cupbearer of a wine that renews and enlivens the soul.

Meaning: Choose the love of Him through whose love all the prophets attained power, glory, and noble status.

Meaning: Do not say, 'We have no way to reach that King;' with the generous, nothing ever remains difficult.

Meaning: The killing of that man at the hands of the divine physician was done neither out of hope nor out of fear.

Meaning: He did not kill him to please the king, nor did he do so until the command and inspiration of God had come.

Meaning: As for the boy whose throat was cut by Khidr, ordinary people cannot grasp the secret behind it.

Meaning: He who receives revelation and answers from God, whatever he commands, is the absolute right and truth.

Meaning: He who bestows life may also rightfully take it, for he is the divine vicegerent, and his hand is the hand of God.

Meaning: Lay down your head before him like Ishmael, and surrender your life before his blade with joy and laughter.

Meaning: So that your soul may remain joyful forever, like the pure soul of Ahmad (Muhammad) in unity with the One.

Meaning: Lovers drink the cup of true joy only when the beloved ones slay them with their own hand.

Meaning: The king did not shed that blood out of lust; so let go of your suspicion and dispute.

Meaning: You imagined that he had committed impurity, but how could true purity allow any dross to pollute its clarity?

Meaning: This spiritual discipline and hardship are for the sole purpose that the furnace may purge the dross from the silver.

Meaning: The testing of good and bad exists so that the gold may boil, its dross rise to the surface, and be revealed.

Meaning: If his act had not been by divine inspiration, he would have been a tearing hound, not a king.

Meaning: He was pure of lust, greed, and passion; what he did was good, though it appeared evil to the eye.

Meaning: If Khidr broke the boat in the sea, within that breaking lies a hundred rightnesses.

Meaning: Even Moses's understanding, despite all his spiritual light and excellence, remained veiled from grasping that secret; so do not attempt to fly without wings.

Meaning: The goldsmith’s blood is in truth a red rose, so do not call it bloodshed or a crime; and the divine physician is intoxicated with divine wisdom, so do not call him mad.

Meaning: If shedding the blood of a Muslim had been his desire, then I would be an unbeliever were I ever to speak his name with praise.

Meaning: The divine Throne trembles at the praise of a wicked man, and the devout grow suspicious upon hearing such praise.

Meaning: He was a king and a deeply heedful king; he was among God's chosen ones, His own elect.

Meaning: Whoever is slain by such a king is, in fact, drawn toward good fortune and the finest of stations.

Meaning: Had he (the king) not seen his (the goldsmith's) benefit in his severity, how should that absolute Mercy have sought to act with severity?

Meaning: For instance, a child trembles in fear at the practitioner's needle, while the loving mother feels happy and relieved (knowing it is for her child's own good and well-being).

Meaning: He takes away a meagre half-life and bestows a hundred lives in return; he grants you what your imagination could never even conceive.

Meaning: You measure (the works of God and His saints) by your own standard, but look closely — see how far, how very far, you have strayed from the truth.