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 THE LION AND THE BEASTS 51

905

How the lion answered the beasts and explained the advantage of exertion. "Yes," said he, "if I see (find) good faith (on your part), not fraud, for often have I seen (suffered) frauds from Zayd and Bakr.

I am done to death by the cunning and fraud of men, I am bitten by the sting of (human) snake and scorpion;

(But) worse than all men in fraud and spite is the man of the flesh (nafs) lying in wait within me.

My ear heard "The believer is not bitten (twice),' and adopted (this) saying of the Prophet with heart and soul." 910

How the beasts asserted the superiority of trust in God to exertion and acquisition. They all said: "O knowing sage, let precaution alone: it is of no avail against the Divine decree.

In precaution is the embroilment of broil and woe: go, put thy trust in God: trust in God is better.

Do not grapple with Destiny, O fierce and furious one, lest Destiny also pick a quarrel with thee.

One must be dead in presence of the decree of God, so that no blow may come from the Lord of the daybreak."

910

How the lion upheld the superiority of exertion and acquisition to trust in God and resignation.

"Yes," he said; "(but) if trust in God is the (true) guide, (yet use of) the means too is the Prophet's rule (Sunna).

The Prophet said with a loud voice, 'While trusting in God bind the knee of thy camel.'

Hearken to the signification of 'The earner (worker) is beloved of God': through trusting in God do not become neglectful as to the (ways and) means."

915

How the beasts preferred trust in God to exertion. The party (of beasts) answered him, saying, "Regard acquisition (work), arising from the infirmity of (God's) creatures, as a mouthful of deceit proportionate to the size of the gullet.

There is no work better than trust in God: what, indeed, is dearer (to God) than resignation?

Often do they flee from affliction (only) to (fall into) affliction; often do they recoil from the snake (only) to (meet with) the dragon.