the merchant and the parrot

There once was a merchant, and he had a parrot,
imprisoned in a cage, a pretty parrot.

When the merchant prepared for a journey and was about
to travel to India,

Because of his generosity he said to each male slave and each handmaid (and asked), out of generosity, “What shall I bring (back) for you? Tell me quickly!”

Each one asked him for something they wished, and that good man
gave his promise to them all.

Then he said to the parrot, “What present from the journey do
you want, so that I may bring it to you from the land of India.”

The parrot answered him, “When you see the parrots there,
explain my situation and say,

“Such and such parrot who is yearning to see you, is in my
prison by the destiny of Heaven.

“She sends you greetings of peace and wants justice, and desires
a remedy and the path of right guidance.

“Is it proper that I, in such a state of yearning,
should give up my life here and die in separation?

“Is it right that I should be in such strict bondage, while
you are sometimes on the green grass and sometimes on the
trees?”

. . . . . . .

The man of trade accepted this message and agreed that he
would deliver the greeting from her to her own kind.

When he reached the farthest regions of India, he saw some
parrots in a wilderness.

He held back his mount from going, then gave a shout: he
delivered the greeting and returned that which he had been given
in trust.

Among those parrots, one parrot trembled greatly, fell, died, and
stopped breathing.

The merchant became sorry about telling such news, and
he said, “I went in destruction of that animal.

“Is this one, perhaps, a relative of that little parrot? Or was
this, perhaps, a case of two bodies and one spirit?

“Why did I do this? Why did I deliver the message and burn
up the helpless creature by means of this crude speech?”

. . . . . . .

The merchant finished his trading and returned to his
home, satisfying the best hopes of his friends.

He brought a present to each male slave and gave a share to
each housemaid.

The parrot said, “Where is this slave’s present? Tell what you
saw and said!”

The merchant replied, “No. I am myself very sorry about that,
and am chewing my hands and biting my fingers over it.

“Why did I foolishly bring such a crude message out of
ignorance and thoughtlessness?”

The parrot said, “O master, why are you so regretful? What is
it that calls for all this anger and sorrow?”

He replied, “I told your complaints to a group of your
fellow parrots.

“That one parrot– her heart broke from getting wind of your pain,
and she trembled and died.

“I became regretful and thought, ‘Why was the use of
saying this?’ But since I had already spoken, what was the benefit
of remorse?”

. . . . . . .

When she heard about what that parrot did, she then
trembled, fell, and became cold.

When the master saw her fallen like this, he jumped up and hurled
his cap on the ground.

And when the master saw her with this appearance and
condition, he leaped up and tore the upper front of his robe.

He said, “O beautiful and sweet-crying parrot, what happened to
you? Why did you become like this?

“Oh what sorrow! My sweet-sounding bird! Oh what misery!
My close companion and confidant!

“Oh what regret! My sweet-singing bird! The wine of my spirit,
my garden, and my sweet basil!

“If Solomon could have had a bird like you, he never would
have become occupied with all those (other) birds.

“Oh what a pity! The bird which I got so cheaply! Yet how
quickly I turned my face away from her face!

“O tongue! You are a great injury to mankind! But since you
are talking, what can I say to you?

“O tongue! You are both the fire and the harvest stack. How
long will you set fire to this harvest stack?

“My soul is lamenting in secret because of you, even
though it keeps doing everything you tell it to do.”

. . . . . . .

The merchant, in a state of burning, and agony, and
yearning, kept saying a hundred scattered and disturbed things
such as this.
. . . . . . .

After that, he threw her out of the cage. The little parrot flew
to a high branch–

The dead parrot made such a swift flight,
as when the orient sun rushed onward.

The merchant became bewildered by the bird’s action. All of a
sudden, still without understanding, he saw that there were
secrets involving the bird.

He raised his head and said, “O nightingale, share a portion of
wisdom with us in explanation of the situation.

“What did that parrot do so that you learned something,
prepared a trick, and burned us with sorrow?”

The parrot answered, “She gave me advice by her very
action, meaning, ‘Escape from attachment to elegance of voice
and joyful expansion of your breast in song.

“‘Because your voice is keeping you in shackles.’ She herself
acted dead for the sake of sending me this advice,

“Meaning, ‘O you who have become a singer to both
commoners and the elite: become “dead” like me so that you may
find deliverance!’”

- from the Masnavi (Book I) of Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Rumi

the meaning of “alhmadulillah”

Some men of a town came to see a saint to bring him the terrible news that his ship had sunk at sea.

The saint closed his eyes for almost a minute, opened them and said “Alhamdulillah”.

A few days later, the men came back to the saint and told him, “We were mistaken. It was not your ship that had sunk, but someone else’s.”

The saint looked at them, closed his eyes for almost a minute, opened them and said “Alhamdulillah”.

The men looked at each other puzzled. How could the answers to both circumstances be “Alhamdulillah”?

So they asked him.

The saint replied, “When you told me that my ship had sunk, I thought deeply about the loss of my ship. I did not feel any sadness at its loss and so I said “Alhamdulillah”.

He continued, “When you told me that it was someone else’s ship that had sunk, I thought deeply about the returned possession of my ship. I did not feel any happiness that I had it back so I said “Alhamdulillah”.

-paraphrased from Ali Hujwiri’s Kashf al-Mahjub

how dogs think

I’m a dog, and because you humans are less rational beasts than I, you’re telling yourselves, “Dogs don’t talk.” Nevertheless, you seem to believe a story in which corpses speak and characters use words they couldn’t possibly know. Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen…Of course, it is common knowledge that hajis, hojas, clerics, and preachers despise us dogs. In my opinion, the whole matter concerns our revered Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, who cut off a piece of his robe upon which a cat lay sleeping rather than wake the beast. By pointing out this affection shown to the cat, which has incidentally been denied to us dogs, and due to our eternal feud with this feline beast, which even the stupidest of men recognizes as an ingrate, people have tried to intimate that the Prophet himself disliked dogs. They’re convinced that we’ll defile those who have performed ritual ablutions, and the rest of this erroneous and slanderous belief is that we’ve been barred from mosques for centuries and have suffered beatings in their courtyards from broomstick-wielding caretakers.

Allow me to remind you of “The Cave,” the most beautiful of the Koran’s chapters. I’m reminding you not because I suspect there may be those who never read the Koran among us in this good coffeehouse, but because I want to refresh your memories: This chapter recounts the story of the seven youths who grow tired of living among pagans and take refuge in a cave where they enter a deep sleep. Allah then seals their ears and causes them to doze off for exactly three hundred and nine years. When they awake, they learn just how many years have passed only after one of them enters the society of men and tries to spend an outdated silver coin. All of them are stunned to learn what has happened. This chapter subtly describes man’s attachment to Allah, His miracles, the transitory nature of time and the pleasure of deep sleep, and though it’s not my place, allow me to remind you of the eighteenth verse, which makes mention of a dog resting at the mouth of this cave where the seven youths have fallen asleep. Obviously, anyone would be proud to appear in the Koran. As a dog, I take pride in this chapter, and through it I intend to bring the Erzurumis, who refer to their enemies as dirty mongrels, to their senses.

So then, what’s the actual reason for this animosity toward dogs? Why do you persist in saying that dogs are impure, and cleaning and purifying your homes from top to bottom if a dog happens to enter? Why do you believe that those who touch us spoil their ablutions? If your caftan brushes against our damp fur, why do insist on washing that caftan seven times like a frenzied woman? Only tinsmiths could be responsible for the slander that a pot licked by a dog must be thrown away or retinned. Or perhaps, yes, cats…

When people left their villages for the sedentary life of the city, shepherd dogs remained in the provinces; that’s when rumors of the filthiness of dogs like me began the spread. Yet before the advent of Islam, two of the twelve months of the year were “months of the dog.” Now, however, a dog is considered a bad omen. I don’t want to burden you with my own problems, my dear friends who have come to hear a story and ponder its moral– to be honest, my anger arises out of the esteemed cleric’s attacks upon our coffeehouses……

-excerpt from My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

how cats think

About a week ago, I was leaving my house to go make a food run around midnight. Its a good thing I watch my step whenever I open the front door.

Because on the welcome mat was a delicately placed dead mouse.

My first reaction: gross! A dead mouse! Stupid cat. Is this some kind of joke? A prank? Is this a threat, like the black spot in Treasure Island? It would make a great story if it was a threat, but I thought about it again and figured that it must be a gift. If I had to delve inside the mind of our cat (or the neighborhood cats for that matter, it could be anyone of them, and delving yes I already do this often) I would see a dead mouse placed on an owner’s doorstep as a token of appreciation; like when the Ancient Greeks made a sacrifice to the gods. As mythology goes, even though the gods could not really benefit from sacrifices of human-food of lamb and milk (Zeus is saying to himself, hook it up with some ambrosia!). Likewise, a human could not possibly benefit from a dead mouse other than that its dead. Therefore, the dead mouse was a present. It was a way of communicating; the cat knew he wanted to show gratitude, and so he did it in his own way.

 

 

Why, hello there handsome. MEOW.

We have all heard and read stories about the peculiar intuition of God’s creatures. Have you heard of Oscar the cat? You haven’t? Then read about him here.

And who can forget the most famous cat of the 80’s-90’s? The ruler of the Saturday morning.

Prophet Sulaiman (Solomon) was gifted with the ability to talk to animals, but for the rest of us, we have to guess. I mean geez, we have enough problems understanding and expressing ourselves amongst our own.