In Jalaluddin Rumi's Masnavi, the tale of the Roman and Chinese painters serves as a profound allegory for spiritual epistemology and the purification of the soul. In the story, the Chinese painters represent exoteric scholars who accumulate outward forms, knowledge, and dogmas, spending their time acquiring intricate colors and designs. In contrast, the Roman painters represent Sufi mystics who focus solely on polishing their hearts to a mirror-like finish, removing the rust of worldly attachments. When the king removes the curtain dividing them, the Romans' polished wall perfectly reflects the Chinese painters' magnificent artwork with even greater brilliance. Rumi uses this narrative to illustrate that a purified heart directly reflects divine truth and spiritual beauty without the need for intermediary forms or discursive reasoning.

The Allegory of the Roman and Chinese Painters in the Masnavi

In Section 16 of the Hadiqat al-Haqiqah, Sana'i introduces the fundamental Sufi concept of the heart (دل, dil) as a spiritual faculty that must be actively purified. He posits that the heart receives spiritual light from the soul (جان, jan), but only if it is washed of falsehood and frivolity. Sana'i employs stark imagery—such as a crow attempting to hunt a peacock—to demonstrate that a spiritually blackened or negligent heart is incapable of comprehending exalted divine truths. This establishes the earnest purification of the heart as the primary prerequisite for spiritual awakening and receiving divine light.

The Purification and Exaltation of the Heart (دل) in Sana'i's Hadiqat

In Sanai's *Hadiqat al-Haqiqah*, the mirror of the heart (آینه دل) is a fundamental metaphor for spiritual receptiveness. Sanai describes how the heart is naturally designed to reflect the divine, but becomes obscured by the rust of hypocrisy, discord, and disbelief. To restore its reflective power, the seeker must polish it using certainty and sincere faith. A purified heart does not contain or own the forms it reflects; rather, it becomes a clear medium for experiencing the divine light of Truth.

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## Original content
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پس چو مطلوب نبود اندر جای 
سوی او کی بود سفرت از پای
سوی حق شاهراه نفس و نفس 
آینهٔ دل زدودن آمد و بس
آینهٔ دل ز زنگ کفر و نفاق 
نشود روشن از خلاف و شقاق
صیقل آینه یقین شماست 
چیست محض صفاء دین شماست
پیش آن کش به دل شکی نبود 
صورت و آینه یکی نبود
گرچه در آینه به شکل بوی 
آنکه در آینه بود نه توی
دگری تو چو آینه دگرست 
آینه از صورت تو بی خبرست
آینهٔ صورت از صفت دور است 
کان پذیرای صورت از نور است
نور خود زآفتاب نبریده ست 
عیب در آینه است و در دیده ست
هرکه اندر حجاب جاویدست 
مثل او چو بوم و خورشیدست
گر ز خورشید بوم بی نیروست 
از پی ضعف خود نه از پی اوست
نور خورشید در جهان فاشست 
آفت از ضعف چشم خفاشست
تو نبینی جز از خیال و حواس 
چون نه ای خط و سطح و نقطه شناس
تو در این راه معرفت غلطی 
سال و مه مانده در حدیث بطی
گوید آنکس درین مقام فضول 
که تجلی نداند او ز حلول
گرت باید که بر دهد دیدار 
آینه کژ مدار و روشن دار
کافتابی که نیست نور دریغ 
آبگینت نماید اندر میغ
یوسفی از فرشته نیکوتر 
دیو رویی نماید از خنجر
حق ز باطل معاینه نکند 
خنجرت کار آینه نکند
صورت خود در آینهٔ دل خویش 
به توان دید از آن که در گل خویش
بگسل آن سلسله که پیوستی 
که ز گل دور چون شدی رستی
زانکه گل مظلمست و دل روشن 
گل تو گلخن است و دل گلشن
هرچه روی دلت مصفاتر 
زو تجلی ترا مهیاتر
نه چو زامت فزونش بود اخلاص 
گشت بوبکر در تجلی خاص

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## English translation
Since the desired one was not in a [physical] place,
How could your journey be toward Him by foot?
Towards Truth, the highway is the soul and the breath,
To polish the mirror of the heart, and that is all.
The mirror of the heart, from the rust of infidelity and hypocrisy,
Does not become bright through disagreement and discord.
The polish of the mirror is your certainty;
What is it? It is the pure sincerity of your religion.
Before one who has no doubt in the heart,
The form and the mirror were not one.
Although you are in the mirror in [some] shape,
That which was in the mirror was not you.
You are another, as the mirror is another;
The mirror is unaware of your form.
The mirror of form is far from attribute,
For it is the receiver of form from light.
The light itself has not been severed from the sun;
The fault is in the mirror and in the eye.
Whoever is in an eternal veil,
His likeness is like the owl and the sun.
If the owl is powerless because of the sun,
It is because of its own weakness, not because of Him.
The sun's light is manifest in the world;
The affliction is from the weakness of the bat's eye.
You see nothing but imagination and senses,
Since you are not a knower of line, surface, and point.
You are mistaken in this path of gnosis,
Remaining years and months in the talk of the duck.
That meddler speaks in this station,
Who does not know manifestation from incarnation.
If you wish for the meeting to bear fruit,
Do not hold the mirror crooked, and keep it bright.
For the sun, which does not withhold light,
Will appear to you in a glass inside a cloud.
A Joseph, more beautiful than an angel,
Will show the face of a demon from a dagger.
Truth does not distinguish itself from falsehood;
Your dagger will not do the work of a mirror.
The form of oneself in the mirror of one's heart
Can be seen better than in one's clay.
Break that chain that you have bound,
For when you became far from the clay, you were saved.
Because clay is dark and the heart is bright;
Your clay is a furnace, and the heart is a garden.
The more the face of your heart is purified,
The more His manifestation is prepared for you.
Was it not because his sincerity exceeded the community's,
That Abu Bakr became endowed with a special manifestation?

بخش ۵ - فصل اندر صفا و اخلاص / Section 5 - Chapter on Purity and Sincerity

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