So, Rumi sits and ponders. The ayat from Al Baqarah (The Cow), QS:2:260 says: “Behold! Abraham said: “My Lord! Show me how Thou givest life to the dead.” He said: “Dost thou not then believe?” He said: “Yea! but to satisfy My own undertaking.” He said: “Take four birds; Tame them to turn to thee; put a portion of them on every hill and call to them: They will come to thee (Flying) with speed. Then know that Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise.”
Then, Rumi interprets and writes:
O you who are the Abraham of the age,
kill these four birds that beset the Way,
since, crow-like, they pluck out the eye of the intellect of the intelligent.
Human beings harbour four heart oppressing qualities.
That resemble Abraham’s four birds:
Slaughtering them in the name of God allows the soul to ascend.
Since the body is where these four qualities nest,
They are called the four mischief-makers.
If you want human beings to attain to eternal life,
Then cut off the heads of these four loathsome and evil birds,
And then bring them back to life,
Transformed into another sort,
So that afterwards they will do no harm.
The four formless birds that beset the Way have made their nest
in the hearts of human beings.
These are the duck, the peacock, the crow and the rooster:
They are allegories for the four pernicious qualities in human beings.
The duck is greed.
The rooster is lust.
The peacock is superiority.
And the crow is worldly desire.
(taken from John Baldock’ s The Essential of Rumi).
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