Original content

English translation

Iblis said to him: 'Loosen these knots. I am the touchstone for the counterfeit and the genuine. God made me the test of lion and dog; God made me the test of genuine coin and counterfeit. When have I blackened the face of the counterfeit? I am an assayer; I have set its value. I guide the good; I uproot the dry branches. Why do I set out these grasses? So that it may become clear what kind of animal the creature is. If a child is born of wolf and gazelle, there is doubt about its wolfishness and gazelle-nature. Cast grass and bone before it, to see toward which side it steps quickly. If it comes toward the bone, it is a dog; if it wants grass, it is surely gazelle-veined. Wrath and grace were coupled together; from these two a world of good and evil was born. Offer grass and bone; offer the nourishment of the nafs and the nourishment of the soul. If it seeks the nafs's food, it is tailless/defective; if it wants the soul's food, it is a lord. If it serves the body, it is an ass; if it goes into the ocean of the soul, it finds a pearl. Though these two, good and evil, are different, both are engaged in one work. The prophets offer acts of obedience; enemies offer lusts. How could I make the good bad? I am not God. I am a summoner; I am not their creator. Do I make the beautiful ugly? I am not the Lord. I am the mirror of both ugly and beautiful. The dark-skinned man burned the mirror out of pain, because it shows a man as black-faced. The mirror said: "The fault was not mine; do not charge him with the crime of having polished my face. He made me an informer and truth-teller, so that I may say where the ugly is and where the beautiful is." I am a witness; where is prison for a witness? I am not one of the prisoners; God is witness. Wherever I see a fruit-bearing sapling, I tend it like a nurse. Wherever I see a bitter, dry tree, I cut it down so that musk may be freed from dung. The dry tree says to the gardener, "O young man, why do you cut me down? My head is without fault." The gardener says, "Be silent, ugly-natured one. Is your dryness itself not enough of a crime?" The dry one says, "I am straight; I am not crooked. Why do you cut my foot without crime?" The gardener says, "If you were blessed, would that you had been crooked but moist. You would have become a drawer of the water of life and been steeped in the water of life. Your seed has been bad, and your origin; you have not been joined to the sweet tree. If a bitter branch is joined to a sweet one, that sweetness strikes into its nature."