Close your mouth to bread. The sugar of fasting has come.
You have seen the results of eating and drinking.
Now let’s see the results of fasting.
That Sultan of a hundred countries has put a crown on your head.
Quick, squeeze your waist; the belt of fasting has come.
From this world of Siccin,* fly toward Illiyun.†
Try to obtain the eyes which see God with the eyesight of fasting.
O one who is loved and respected, with the flame of fasting,
fire will melt you, cast you into the oven of these counted days.
Fasting became Zamzam** for Mary’s son, Jesus.
He took the journey of fasting and ascended to the fourth level of heaven.
Birds beat their wings for food, for fodder.
Angels are for fasting.
If there is any harm in fasting, there are hundreds of benefits.
Love of fasting is a different thing.
This fasting is like a beautiful woman who is covered by a Chadir;††
Uncover and find out what fasting is.
Fasting makes your neck thinner, but it saves you from death.
A full stomach comes from eating and drinking.
Drunkenness comes from fasting.
O my friend, if you keep swimming back and forth in this sea for thirty days,
In the end you will find the pearl of fasting.
All the devil’s deceits, tricks and arrows hit the shield of fasting***
and become broken on that shield.
With its power and majesty, fasting says to you from you,
“Close the door of speech. Open the door of fasting.”
O God’s Shams of Tabriz, you are both patience and abstinence.
You are both the festivities with sugar and, at the same time,
the majesty, power and honor of fasting.
*Siccin: The bottom of hell.
†Illiyun: In the Quran, the highest level of heaven.
**Zamzam: A famous well in the court of the Kaaba; a miraculously-generated source of water
from God.
††Chadir: A dress with veil covering a woman’s entire body.
***Shield of Fasting: Hadith al-Cami 11 p. 42-43.
Divan-i Kebir, Meter 3, Gazel 157, Verses 1483-1495, Pages 270-271.