List of Stories in The Masnavi - Book IV

Book IV

• Preface (in prose)
• Proem
• The perfidious Lover (continued)
• The Preacher who prayed for the wicked
• The answer of Jesus to the question, “What is the hardest thing to bear?”
• The Súfí who caught his wife with a strange man
• The Names of God
• Comparison of the World to a bath-stove
• The Tanner who fainted on smelling otto and musk
• The Jew who tempted ‘Alí
• The building of the Farther Mosque (the Temple of Solomon)
• “The Faithful are naught but brothers”
• The unspoken Sermon of the Caliph ‘Uthmán
• Man the Macrocosm
• Comparison of the Prophet and the Moslem saints to the Ark of Noah
• Solomon and Bilqís
• The Miracles of Shaykh ‘Abdullah Maghribí
• The Druggist and the Clay-eater
• The Dervish and the Carrier of firewood
• Ibráhím ibn Adham and his abandonment of his Kingdom
• The thirsty man who climbed a walnut-tree and dropped walnuts into the water
• Halíma and the infant Mohammed
• The Worldly and the Spiritual
• The Poet and the two Viziers
• Pharaoh and Hámán
• The Demon who sat on the throne of Solomon
• How Cain learned the grave-digger’s trade
• The Súfi who contemplated the beauty of the Garden in his own heart
• Worldly knowledge and power a dangerous weapon in the hands of the wicked
• “O thou that wrappest thyself”
• The Slave whose allowance was reduced
• Man half angel and half beast
• Majnún and his she-camel
• The Divine and the Thief who stole his turban
• The World’s enticement and warning
• The food of the Saints
• Death the touchstone of pretension
• The hypocritical Encomiast
• The divine Physicians
• How Abd Yazíd (Báyazíd) Bistámí predicted the birth of Abu‘l-Hasan Kharraqáni
• How the wind blew perversely against Solomon
• Abu’l-Hasan at the tomb of Abú Yazíd
• The Man who took counsel with his enemy
• The Prophet’s appointment of a Young Man of Hudhayl to command the army
• The Ecstasy of Báyazíd
• The wise, the half-wise, and the foolish
• The Three Fishes
• The ablutionary Prayers
• The Man who failed to profit by the wise counsels of a Bird
• Moses and Pharaoh as types of Reason and Imagination
• The spiritual vision in which all the senses become one
• Moses and Pharaoh
• The World’s assault on the Unseen
• The Purification of the Heart
• “I was a Hidden Treasure”
• “Speak ye unto men according to the measure of their understandings
• The Prophet’s promise of Paradise to ‘Ukkásha
• The royal Falcon and the Old Woman
• ‘Alí’s advice to the Mother whose child was in danger of falling from the top of the water-spout
• Like attracts like
• The Prophet and the Arab Chiefs
• Paradise and Hell are the effects of Divine Mercy and Wrath
• The Argument between the Atheist and the Mystic
• The Purpose of Creation
• Why Moses was loved by God
• The King and his Boon-companion and the Courtier who acted as intercessor
• Abraham rejects the proffered help of Gabriel
• The mystery of Life and Death
• Body and Spirit
• The Prince and the Witch of Kabúl
• The Ascetic who laughed while the people were dying of hunger
• Live in harmony with Universal Reason
• The Sons of ‘Uzayr
• “Verily, I ask pardon of God seventy times every day”
• The weakness of the discursive Reason
• Submission to the Saints
• The Mule and the Camel
• The Egyptian and the Israelite
• The Pear-tree of Illusion
• The spiritual Evolution of Man
• Divine immanence in Creation
• Dhu’l-Qarnayn and Mount Qáf
• The Ant that saw the pen writing
• The Prophet’s vision of Gabriel in his real form