Mantic uttaïr, Speech of a dying Sufi

A religious philosopher said, at the moment when he was beset by the anguish of death: “Since I have no provisions for my journey, I shamefully kneaded a handful of clay, and then made it into a brick. I also took a vial full of my tears, and kept some rags to make myself a shroud. You will first wash me with the water of my tears, and then place this brick beneath my head. I soaked this shroud with my weeping and covered it, alas, with writing. When you have wrapped my pure body in it, hasten to lay it in the earth. If you do so, nothing but regrets will rain upon my tomb from the bosom of the clouds, until the resurrection. Do you know why such regrets will arise? It is because a gnat cannot live with the wind. The shadow seeks union with the sun; it cannot find it, and thus the madness of love becomes absurd. Now, if the absurdity is manifest, one ought not to concern oneself with it; nevertheless, what better thing could occupy the mind of one who did not give himself to such thoughts? I see the difficulties growing ever greater for me at every moment: how will my spirit escape them? Who has remained alone and isolated as I have? Who has remained (like me) with dry lips, though submerged in the Ocean? No one is my confidant or my intimate, no one shares my sorrows and is my… Yet my disinterested views do not win me the sympathy of any of those whom I praise, and, amid the darkness surrounding me, I do not enjoy the kindly intimacy of a…”