The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys

The Four Valleys

speak of My love for thine Eminence is needless. “God is a sufficient witness!”55 For his Eminence Shaykh Muḥammad—May God the Exalted bless him!—I shall confine Myself to the two following verses which I request be delivered to him:

I seek thy nearness, dearer than sweet Heaven;
I see thy visage, fairer than Paradise bowers.56

When I entrusted this message of love to My pen, it refused the burden, and it swooned away. Then coming to itself, it spoke and said, “Glory be to Thee! To Thee do I turn in penitence, and I am the first of them that believe.”57 Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds!

Let us tell, some other day
This parting hurt and woe;
Let us write, some other way,
Love’s secrets—better so.
Leave blood and noise and all of these,
And say no more of Shams-i-Tabríz.58

55 Qur’án 4:166.

56 Sa‘dí.

57 Qur’án 7:143.

58 Shams-i-Tabríz, the Ṣúfí who exerted a powerful influence on Jalálu’d-Dín Rúmí, diverting his attention from science to Mysticism. A great part of Rúmí’s works are dedicated to him. These lines are from the Mathnaví.