Cûdî's quatrain with the refrain "what we take for": the heart a spring of sorrow, the rose that weeps before admonition, and rose and wine that draw only bloody water.
Man comes into the world bound hand and foot, without wit or tongue; God gives him wit, feet and tongue, and he still arrives empty-handed at death's door. The first Persian quatrain.
Cûdî's Persian quatrain on time: a saw going back and forth over the trees of the world's garden, the two-toothed saw of life that is night and day, and a master asleep.
Alexander's long sword did not lengthen his short life; the world's peace comes from the Hijaz, and peace is built by long deliberation. A Persian saying rhymed three times on "dırâz".
Cûdî's Persian quatrain on pride: turbid wine in the place of pride, a flask that never grows bright, and the blindness of the proud eye that cannot see itself as the blind man can.
Every bond made in the gathering of determinate beings ends in parting; the world is a market where no one profits. This Persian quatrain counts all trade as "teğâbün", mutual loss.
Four counsels in Persian, each line closing on "bâş", be: stand apart amid worldly affairs, keep from jesters, hold the bridle of hope, take the fear of God as companion.
The Light Verse in Persian: the light of the heavens and the earth, all between them that light too, and the unanswered question why we see ourselves and not God.
The divine scales in four lines: eternal decrees that found the spirit of coming-to-be, each spirit's own manner of determination, and scales that give beauty and balance.
The Sunni creed in four lines: accidents and materials that came into being, the Creator who made them, nothing impossible to His power, and the pun on adîm.
Nearer than the jugular vein yet thought far through ignorance: a Persian quatrain on knowing that He is in the heart, and on a knowledge that does not turn into sight.
The creed of the unity of being in brief: the overflowing bounty of being, a robe cut to each capacity, and a fine formula defining creation as the destruction of nonbeing.
A personal confession: the finest voice and renown he was given, a life spent bewildered and silent, and the wish to leave even a tiny voice under this dome.
Death and desire: man seeking to last and fleeing death's face, desires as envoys of nonbeing, and death that destroys the house of pleasure by coming as pleasure.
A vineyard whose harvest is in, the fall of the leaves, a lamp beginning to go out, and a life that ends "alas, the oil in my lamp is done": a quatrain on old age.
Hope as pale moonlight in sorrowful hearts, and the pleasure of a mild sorrow that the fierce ardour of the sun cannot give: a quatrain setting moon against sun.
The living who applaud the morning, a demon of death taking one more step each day, and a sun whose source is the spring of darkness: a quatrain on the rising day.
Breath spent, a breast with no strength left to sigh, a little light left in the eye, and a hope of union not cut off even in death: a deathbed quatrain.
Leaves and branches falling into rapture in the morning breeze, nature like a measured poem recited in harmony, and a passion asleep in each leaf as in a rocking cradle.
A second mood from the same scene of the morning breeze: branches showing a coy bending and measured movements, and leaves filling with trembling as they kiss.
Between ascetic and rind: a man who grew harsh when pious and scorned when he chose the rind's way, weary of the fetter that every path imposes, in a Persian quatrain.
A scholar's true monument is his work, not his tomb: a visit by a perfect gaze, and a reading worth more than a thousand ignorant men kissing his soil.
Vain displayers of the law, rinds and sinners who bring the faith into contempt, the wavering that joins them, and a prayer for the right path in Fâtiha's words.
A name remembered through work and a Fâtiha, the lodge, dome and cenotaph, and tomb-eaters who turn a name into income: a Persian criticism of the culture of tombs.
Knowledge as the strength of the faith and honour of the nation, prayer and fasting of no use to ignorance, and the heedless as sleepwalkers: a teacher's quatrain.
The definition of the unlearned reduced to "a speaking animal", every mouth speaking as much as it knows, and knowledge as a pair of scales still awaiting correction.
Knowing that is mere fancy, like a fevered man's perception, irony in "my lord", and the saying "it became known to me that nothing is known": against the claim to know.
God who never shows a thing on two pages, works that are ever new, and a newness seen only by one attentive to delicacy: a quatrain on unrepeated manifestation.
The belief that a licence makes one a lamp, a burnt-out softa with a frozen brain, chained fancies, and a diploma far from knowledge: a satire on the licensed ignoramus.
The yeldâ night that is the day of one blind to essences, a date palm that cannot be grafted onto an oak, and a weary farewell: "my nature does not suit yours".
Man who sees what is near him as large, a finger raised before the eye, and a distant mountain that looks lower than the finger: a moral drawn from perspective.
A first couplet that cannot be fully read, and the question whence comes life-giving speech to man made of earth: an innate wonder before the miracle of speech.
An intellect that errs in seeking truth, thoughts that seem right today and prove empty tomorrow, and the verdict that the works are God's, not nature's.
Destiny as the stirring of God's sword, space surging from His cloud, and every drop that, by His influence, says "I am the ocean": the unity of being in four lines.
Motes as letters of the Maker's meaning, a different meaning in each species, and man as the "kevn-i câmi'" who gathers the attributes: the book of the universe.
Specificity and pairing, the search for specification in the absolute, and the harsh verdict that only Islam knows the attributes: a quatrain of kalâm on God's attributes.
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