85
Al-Muksit
Al-Muksit! “Equitable!” make us know,
As men have wrought, they shall be wrought with so.
Three days before our Lord Muhammad passed,
They bore him to the mosque, where he uprose—
Painfully leaning upon Omar's neck—
The fever burning in his cheeks, his mouth
Dry with the wind of death, and that knit brow
Shadowed with Azrael's overhanging wings.
One thin hand on the mimbar-rail he laid,
Speaking sweet words of guidance, precious words,
The last which ever fell from those lit lips,
Teaching his Faithful.
Then he gazed around,
And said, “Ye men of Mecca, where I lived,
Going and coming, testifying God,
I shall die soon; I pray ye answer me,
Is there among ye here one I have wronged?
I have borne rule, judging in Allah's name,
That am a man and sinful; have I judged
Unrighteously, or wrathfully, or pressed
Too hard in the amend? Let who saith ‘Yea,’
Make his ‘Yea’ good before my people here,
And I will bare my back that he may smite.
I have borne testimony for the truth,
Not sparing sinners; speak, if there be here
One visited unjustly; let him shame
His Prophet now, telling the sin I wrought
Before the assembly. I have gathered dues;
Declare if I defrauded any here
Buying or selling.”
And no answer came,
Except the sound of sobs and falling tears
From stern breasts and the eyes of bearded men,
Because our Lord would pass.
But one arose,
A hamal, with his cord across his back
And porter's knot, who cricd, “Abdallah's son!
Three drachms of silver owest thou to me
For wood I bore thee after “Ramadhan!””
“Good friend, I thank thee,” softly said our Lord,
“Because thou didst demand thy money here,
And not before the judgment seat of God:
Ill is it if men thither carry debts!”
Therewith he paid his debt, kissing the hand
Wherein the dirhems dropped; and so went home
To die upon the lap of Ayesha,
With glad face fixed on high, and holy lips
That murmured, “Allah! pardon me my sins!”
O ye believers! if our Lord did thus,
Consider well! leave no unrighted wrongs
Against the ill time when the Angels come,
Monker and Nakîr, gliding through the dark,
“Monker and Nakîr.” These are the two
Angels who visit the dead immediately after burial, and having
set them upright in the grave, question them as to their faith
and actions, as before described.
And set ye up for question in the grave;
When Israfil his dreadful trumpet blows,
Summoning to judgment; when the skies roll back
Like a scorched scroll, and o'er the gulf of hell
Al-Sirât stretches, “thinner than a hair
“Al-Sirât.” The narrow bridge which all
must cross from this to the next world, “finer than a hair and
sharper than a razor.”
“This bridge,” it is written, “is beset on each side with briars
and hooked thorns; which will, however, be no impediment
to the good, for they shall pass with wonderful ease and swiftness,
like lightning or the wind, Muhammad and his Muslims
leading the way; whereas the wicked, what with the slipperiness
and extreme narrowness of the path, the entangling of the
thorns, and the extinction of the light, which directed the
former to Paradise, will soon miss their footing, and fall down
headlong into hell, which is gaping beneath them.”
“Muhammad seems to have borrowed this from the Magians,
who teach that on the last day all mankind will be obliged to
pass a bridge called Pûl Chînavad, that is, the strait bridge,
leading directly into the other world; on the midst of which
the Angels appointed by God will stand, who will require of
every one a strict account of his actions. The Jews speak
likewise of the bridge of hell, which they say is no broader than
a thread.”
And sharper than a sword,” and yet to cross!
Ah, then! what good one wrought, he hath of help
Even to a date-stone; what of ill he wrought,
Of hindrance, to a date-stone; for your God
Is righteous, and the distribution just.
O just “Distributor!” incline
Our hearts to keep Thy laws divine.
