5-488 Tears are originally blood and have been turned into water by grief: idle

tears782 do not have the value of earth.

1-1638 What do you know of the taste of water of the eyes? You are a lover of bread,
like the blind beggars.

Not every tear can contain love for God783. [2.4.9]

5-1265 A certain man asked a muftī784 in private, “If anyone weeps lamentably during
the ritual prayer,

5-1266 I wonder, will his prayer be rendered void, or will his prayer be lawful and
perfect?”

5-1267 He replied, “Why is it called ‘the water of the eye’? You should consider what
the eye saw before it started weeping.

5-1269 If the supplicant has seen the Other World, his lamentation makes his prayer
luminous,

5-1270 But if that weeping was caused by bodily pain or by mourning for the dead, the
thread is snapped and the spindle too is broken”785.

Story:
The difference between the tears of the Pīr and those of a murīd. [2.4.9]
5-1271 A disciple786 came into the presence of the Pīr: the Pīr was weeping and
lamenting.

5-1272 When the disciple saw the Shaykh weeping, he began to weep: the tears ran
from his eyes.

5-1298 For, like the deaf man, he regarded the Shaykh’s weeping in the way of an
imitator787 and was unaware of the cause.

5-1299 When he had wept a long while, he paid his respects and left: the Shaykh’s
favourite disciple came quickly after him,

5-1300 And said, “O you who are weeping like a senseless cloud in harmony with the
weeping of the Shaykh endowed with insight,

782
I.e. his tears (Nich.).
783
Qur’ān, 35:12.
784
Muftī: an Islamic scholar who interprets and expounds Islamic law (Sharī‘a) and issues fatāwā (= fatwā-s) –
i.e. religious opinions and advices, which generally are not-binding but authoritative.
785
I.e. the prayer is void (Nich.).
786
The word used in the original text is murīd, which is the common term for a Ṣūfī disciple. It literally means
“one who is willing” or “one who is longing”.
787
I.e. a muqallid, “one who blindly follows and imitates but is void of true insight and knowledge”.

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