The Scented Garden

94 The Mystic the true support of all religion. So, seeing man beloved of Allah, jinn Aim at that bliss ; their crowns and jewels fling From star to star before the crystal throne, And El Islam goes ever widening.7 To Allah praise ! and El Qahar his slave Taketh reward in offering thanksgiving. 1. Mirrikh. Mars the planet. 2. I have often seen Mars — in the Red Sea es- pecially — with its apparent diameter something like a quarter that of the moon, and its brightness sufficient to wake me, who am the soundest of sleepers. Thus seen for the first time it is a stu- pendous and astounding phenomenon. 3. i.e. with a circular motion. The art of working the hips in coition, called by the Romans Ars Cris- sandi (Ars Cevendi in the case of a boy. Ed.) is in the East as complex and profound as that of mu- sic. It requires as much study as theology, and much practice as billiards. 4. An hardly obvious analogy. Boccoccio’s use of it is a curious coincidence. 5. Persia. Not to be confused with [Persian text] Iram, the legendary Paradise which Sheddad ibn ‘Ad is said to have established somewhere in Ara- bia. 6. That is, God has delivered the Means of Grace to all men ; it is notorious. In one M.S. this ode ends here with the couplet “ Deceive me not ; for El Qahar thy Lord Ripe is for cuddling — and for punishing.” But this is very inferior, and would have to be transferred to the early part of the odes. Which the secret key-number forbids. Habib is by now far too high an adept to fall away from Grace.