Stanzas 47–58
In these stanzas Shabistari explains that he began immediately and then makes a careful disclaimer that he was not a poet but would do his best, and that he did not consider verse suitable for examining mysteries.
Stanzas 59–60
But all of this have I written of my own experience,
And not plagiarized as a demon from angels.
In short, I delivered the answers to the questions
Off hand, each to each, neither more no less.
If this was indeed a public examination, these lines are especially important, as Shabistari confirms that he is answering from his own knowledge, he is not plagiarizing, and he is deliberately short and to the point.
Stanzas 60–62
The messenger took the letter with reverence,
And departed again by the road that he came.
Again that noble was instant with me,
Saying, “do me yet another favour,
“Expound these mysteries which you have spoken.
“Out of theory bring them into evidence”.
One phase of the event was now over, as the messenger departed with the response letter (from which I infer that one or more people were recording the poem as he spoke).
But Shabistari’s shaykh and examiner now had him add to his answers. Lahiji comments that where the first set of answers were logically reasoned knowledge (‘ilm), what was required now was knowledge gained by illumination (kashf)[1].
After making another disclaimer Shabistari obliged again and it is this second, fuller response that is recorded in the poem as we have it.
Stanzas 69–70
When my heart craved of heaven a title for this book,
There came an answer to my heart, “It is our Rose Garden”.
Since heaven has named it “Rose Garden”,
May it enlighten the eyes of all souls.
Receiving the name for the poem from heaven is an adroit allusion to Shabistari’s ability to receive kashf.
The hope that the poem may enlighten the eyes of all souls brings us back to the original point of this discussion that, for Shabistari and his audience, art had a function: to make change in those exposed to it and also sometimes in the artist himself. At the very end of the poem, Shabistari hopes for change in himself (see below). But here near the beginning, he thinks of those exposed to his art, those – if this is indeed a pubic examination – whom he may soon be authorised to teach. For these, the poem maps out the mystic’s circuitous journey from his origin in God, through his most distant separation and back to his point of origin like the planets’ 19-year circuit and return to their own points of origin. (These planetary circuits, incidentally, were later described as performed willingly by the planets in response to God’s command, in love and desire for God, and as an act of tasbih[2].)
Stanzas 1007–1008 (final lines)
I hope that when the noble calls me to mind,
He may say of me, “Mercy be upon him”.
I conclude and end with my own name,
“O Allah, grant me a ‘lauded’ end”.
These lines are not part of the Cause of Writing, but they may perhaps be explained by it. Having presented his knowledge of the spiritual journey before a qualified audience that included his own master (and examiner?), Shaykh Amin al-Din, it is appropriate for Shabistari to end with a signature and hope that his work will be approved. Whinfield says that this hope is directed either at Shaykh Amin al-Din, or at “the pious reader”[3].
[1] Whinfield, 6, note 1 http://gulshan-raz.lossofgenerality.com/gulshan-e-raz-text-with-bookmarks/
[2] Syamsuddin Arif, The Universe as a System: Ibn Sīnā’s Cosmology Revisited, Centre for Islam and Science (January 27, 2010), section 1.3 http://www.cis-ca.org/jol/vol7-no2/Arif-7-2-f.pdf
[3] Whinfield, 94, note 1 http://gulshan-raz.lossofgenerality.com/gulshan-e-raz-text-with-bookmarks/