The Night Journey

Many years ago, during the festival celebrating the Night Journey of Muhammad, I went to Shiraz to pay homage to Sa‘di at his shrine there. But at that shrine, I felt unmoved.

That night, which was the night of the festival, the whole city was alight, and I wandered the streets until I came to another shrine, unlit and uncelebrated. This was the shrine to one for whom remembrance and homage were also due, but against whom the fickle crowd had turned. They had destroyed this shrine, and among the broken walls and rubble I lingered sorrowfully, reflecting on the vagaries of fate.

The night became long and cool and I drew my legs up to my body to stay warm when I heard, on the broken pavement, another soul drawing near. I turned my head to him, and saw the ghostly figure of Sa‘di Shirazi. I said to him, “Why does your shade wander here? Why not haunt your own shrine instead, or the roads on which you traveled?”

The apparition said, “I have no need for self-commemoration. But I have need to commemorate this One.” Saying this, he gestured to the ground strewn with shattered stone, and tile, and glass. “If it is not still beautiful, still it is His.”

Though the sea is very great,
It is a droplet to the Sun.
And if the sea should shine,
To whom is commemoration due?
The book is for the reader,
Not the author.
The throne is for the King,
Not the other way around.