Leg over Leg. Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq

roll a boulder of that material down from the topmost peak of my thoughts to the lowest bottoms of men’s ears. Now, then, if you stand and watch its progress without getting in its way or trying to stop it, it will pass you by just as happiness has me, which is to say, without touching you. Otherwise (if you think it a simple matter to bar its descent), it will pass over you and thrust you under it, and God protect us from the consequences of such a thrust! Observe: here it is, shifting in preparation for its fall, and now it’s on its way. Beware then, and beware! Stand at a distance and hear the message in its thunder: “Who looks on this world with the eye of reason—on the diversity and convergence of its states and conditions, of what’s essential and what incidental, of objects and ambitions, of customs and schools of thought, of ranks and dispositions—will find that the quintessence of all that passes before him is beyond his comprehension and moves too fast for his discernment and that, while our senses may have become familiar with certain things, that very familiarity leaves us no room for wonder. Those same things never cease, all the same, to be amazing and puzzling and any who subjects even the least of them to proper scrutiny will realize that his failure to pay them due attention is equivalent to the omission of the performance of a religious obligation.

      2.1.3

      انظر مثلا الى اختلاف ضروب النبات فى الارض فكم فيه من الازهار البديعة الصنعة العجيبة الكِيْنة * من دون ان نعلم لها منفعة خصوصية * والى اختلاف انواع الحيوان من دبابات وهوامّ وحشرات وغيرها * فان منها ما هو حسن الشكل ولا فائدة منه ومنها ما هو قبيحُه والحاجة اليه ماسّة * وانظر فى السماء الى هذه النجوم درارِئها كوكب دِرّىءٌ ويضمّ متوقّد متلالئ *

وخُنَّسها	الخنَّس الكواكب كلها او السيَّارة او النجوم الخمسة الخ *
وبَيانِيّاتها	الكواكب البيانيات التى لا تنزل الشمس بها ولا القمر *
وتوائمها	توائم النجوم واللولو ما تشابك منها *
وبروجها	معروف *
وتِنّينها	التنين بياض خفى فى السمآ يكون جسده فى ستة بروج وذنبه فى البرج السابع الخ *
وَمجرّتها	باب السمآ او شَرَجها *
ورُجُمها	النجوم التى يرمى بها *
واَعْلاطها	اَعْلاط الكواكب الدرارى التى لا اسمآء لها *
واِناثها	الاناث صغار النجوم *
وخُسّانها	النجوم لا تغرب كالجدى والقطب وبنات نعش والفرقدين *
واَنْوائها	النوء النجم مال للغروب او سقوط النجم فى المغرب مع الفجر وطلوع آخر يقابله من ساعته فى المشرق *

      التى يرجع البصر عنها وهو كليل *

      “Observe, for example, the different types of plants there are on Earth—how many flowers of which we cannot say, brilliantly constructed and amazingly formed though they be, that they serve a specific purpose. And look at the different types of animals—reptiles, vermin, insects, and others: some are beautiful to look at but have no use and some are ugly to look at but are most urgently needed. And look at the heavens, at all their stars—

their darāriʾ,	a star that is dirrīʾ or durrīʾ is “a star that burns and flashes”
their khunnas,	“the khunnas are all stars, or the planets, or ‘the Five Stars,’”^1 etc.
their bayāniyyāt,	“those stars that neither the sun nor the moon takes down with them at their setting”
their tawāʾim	[literally, “twins”] “with reference to either pearls or stars, those that are conjoined”
their burūj	[literally, “the Houses” (of the zodiac)] “too well known to require definition”
their Tinnīn,	[literally, “the Dragon,” i.e., Draco]; “the Dragon is an obscure whiteness in the sky whose body lies in six constellations of the zodiac while its tail is in the seventh,” etc.
their Mijarrah,	[“the Milky Way”] “the gateway of the sky or its anus”^2
their rujum,	[“shooting stars”] “the stars used for stoning”^3
their aʿlāṭ,	“the aʿlāṭ stars are the bright ones (al-darāriʾ) that have no names”
their ināth,	[literally, “the females”] “the ināth are small stars”
their khussān,	“the stars that never set, such as Capricorn, the Pole Star, Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, and the Two Calves”^4
and their anwāʾ	“a nawʾ [singular] is a star that inclines toward its setting point or sets in the west at dawn while, at the same time, another rises opposite it in the east”

      —stars so dazzling that the eye turns from them in exhaustion.

      2.1.4

      والى اختلاف سحَن الناس وروسهم * فانك لا تكاد ترى سحنة بشر تشبه سحنة آخر غيره * ولا تجد بين رؤسهم اى عقولهم راسا يشبه غيره * فمن عباد الله هولآء من اختار المخالطة والمقارفة * والمحاشرة والمزاحمة * والمضاغطة والمصادمة * والمباراة والمعاجمة * والملاهسة والمداحمة * والمجاحسة والمداغمة * والمزاعمة والمداهمة * والمساومة والمزاهمة * على اختلاف