Let justice be done

Nasir was a young orphan who lived in Kabul. He had no family and liked to laze around. He would ask GOD to give him riches and wealth without hard work.. “ O Allah, make me rich! I get tired easily while working and don’t like bosses and jobs. Give me wealth so that I can live in comfort without any worries. Just like you take care of an unborn child inside his mother’s womb, please take care of me too..”

People thought Nasir was foolish and would mock him. They disliked this lazy urchin who hated hard work. People told Nasir to use his hands and brain to make a living but Nasir continued to have faith in GOD’s mercy and left his fate in the hands of almighty. As a result, Nasir never had enough for himself and barely survived.

One morning while Nasir was praying, something banged on his door violently and the door broke open. It was a fat cow with horns. Nasir who was shocked, collected himself, jumped up and grabbed a rope and tied cow’s legs with it. Then, he slit the cow’s throat. The cow was dead and fell on the floor. Nasir went out to fetch the butcher to rip off the hide. The butcher happened to know the owner of the cow, Hamza and he informed the owner. The owner, Hamza, arrived looking very upset. He yelled at Nasir. “Return my cow or pay me the price”, he said.

Nasir replied that he prayed regularly and the cow was a gift from GOD to him and has been sent as an answer to his prayers. Hamza was enraged and started beating Nasir., He threw Nasir on a donkey and took him to the court of the great KING David, who was known far and wide for his justice.

Hamza appealed to King David, “My cow ran into his room and he killed it. Neither can he return my cow, nor pay for it. He is a lazy urchin, good for nothing. Please give me justice”.

David asked Nasir what he had to say. Nasir said that the cow had come to him as an answer to his prayers. The people in the court were shocked to hear Nasir’s answer and requested KING David to punish Nasir. “Replace the cow, pay up, or go to jail”, they said.

Nasir closed his eyes and started praying. “Oh GOD, you have put these prayers on my tongue and in my heart and raised my hopes, please shield me, protect me even if I have erred”.

KING David asked Nasir again, “did you destroy Hamza’s Property? ”. Nasir replied, “ I am a dreamer , O great KING. I escape my fate through my dreams. GOD is my friend in this jail of life. I pray to him, plead with him night and day to send me a livelihood that is just and legal. I killed the cow so that I can give thanks to the Almighty for his kindness."

King David asked Nasir, “Did anyone gave you this cow or you inherited it? If Not, you have erred. You can’t reap what you haven’t sown. Go pay this man his dues or you go to jail”

Nasir wept and prayed to GOD to cast his light into KING David’s heart. David looked at Nasir quietly praying and something in him moved.. He told his officers, “ Let Nasir go. I need a day to meditate and seek advice from almighty about this case. I will be able to connect to HIM through meditation and he will decide the case tomorrow.”

The crowd in the court was convinced that this case was very simple and Nasir had to pay up. The next day, Nasir and Hamza, and the crowd returned to KING David’s court.

King looked at Hamza and said, “Demand justice only if you deserve justice. Give up your claim, go home and rest in peace. If you refuse, a worse fate shall await you.”

Hamza and the crowd were shocked to hear this. They thought KING David had gone mad. Together, they pleaded for justice. King David said again, “Hamza, Look within yourself! If you find yourself without blame, then we shall speak of justice.”

Hamza said that he had not done anything wrong to deserve this. The case was very clear.

King David than said, “ You are not taking my advice to go home and live in peace. So now, Hamza, give Nasir all your wealth; all your cows and camels. If not, you shall have a fate worse than this.”

Hamza started shouting that the king had gone mad.

KING David said, “ Now, your children and wives are also Nasir’s slaves. Even now, Oh unconscious man, incapable of introspection, go home and live in peace.”

Hearing this, Hamza started running in king’s court, tearing his clothes and abusing the king. The crowd was up on their feet and demanded justice for Hamza. KING David replied, “ Come all, I will show you the moot point of this case. Take your shovels and follow me, but first tie up this criminal Hamza so that he doesn’t escape.”

Confused, the crowd, Nasir and Hamza in chains, followed the king to the outskirts of the city. There was an open ground with a huge banyan tree at its center. Below the tree, there were red flowers.

Kind David asked Hamza, “ Do you want to confess?” Hamza was unmoved and refused. King David than told everyone that Hamza was once Nasir’s grandfathers’ slave. He had killed him and Nasir’s father and buried them under the tree. The crowd wanted the proof. Hamza denied having done that. King David then said, “ Blood stains can never be washed away. What we sow, rises up from the ground. After killing Nasir’s grandfather and father, Hamza buried them here. He abandoned little Nasir and appropriated all the property, animals and wealth. “ The King continued, “ Dig up the earth and find the skeletons. Nothing is hidden from GOD’s eyes. Dig where the red flowers are growing.”

Two skeletons were found below the tree together with a knife that bore Hamza’s name. King David then told the crowd, “ This Hamza was making noise about one cow when he himself took his master’s hundred cows and camels. Never once did he beg for GOD’s mercy or confessed his sins. Now that Hamza has demanded justice ,he will receive it.”

Crowd pounced on Hamza and killed him with his own knife. Crowd bowed down to King David and thereafter started to look for answers within themselves before judging others.

The END

The Learnings

This story by Rumi has several lessons for all of us. This is a magical story with learnings spawn all along the way. Please find below a few..

1. Nasir is asking for a life of comfort and riches without wanting to work for it. His innocent argument being that just like GOD takes care of a child in a womb of a mother, why can’t GOD take care of him. People believe he is a lazy man and mock and ridicule him. Despite the ridicule, Naisr’s faith in almighty remains absolute. It may be that Nasir’s desire originated due to divine intervention itself. God always answers ones prayer but it could happen that he is answering in a very strange way. Nasir didn't wanted to work and wanted his providence be met by the God. Because of his childhood and entitlement, God is here rearranging the events in such a way that he got what is his entitled wealth and his prayers are answered. A caution might be needed here. This may not be the same for everyone and the story is not asking everyone to quit working and laze around. Nasir got what he got because of his entitlement and that’s how GOD meant it to be.

2. Nasir is pure in his relationship with GOD. He is not making excuses for his laziness. And his surrender to the almighty is complete. Rumi is making a very important point here. Prayer and surrender needs to be complete. It’s not like one believes in GOD only when the almighty listens to him and gives him what he wants. Even if one is not placed in a good situation, his faith in HIM needs to be absolute. If any complaining has to be done, it needs to be done to GOD, not to others.

3. Rumi is testing all of us, the readers, in this story. For an ordinary reader, its is a very simple case.. A lazy urchin has killed somebody’s cow. He needs to either pay up or go to jail. However, more often than not, things are not what they look like. As an onlooker, one should not be making any judgement. Just like crowd , all of us are emotional in our nature and many times, our logic fails us. What is Apparent does not necessarily have to be the truth and the games of the Karma are far deeper and beyond the comprehension of our logical and reasoning mind Rumi is warning us not to judge too soon. Initially, the crowd sided with Hamza and Nasir was considered to be one who has done a big crime but when the crowd realizes what Hamza has done in his past, their attitude towards Nasir changes. It is important to notice how quickly someone who was a criminal became a subject of sympathy. This is nothing but the play of mind and how the mind fools us. By the introduction of the element of crowd in the story, Rumi draws our attention to the fickleness of our mind. Let’s be beware before jumping to conclusions.

4. King David is the wise one here. His first decision is to punish Nasir. However, something in him tells him to meditate on the decision and he is humble enough to listen to his inner voice despite being a king. Sometimes, one’s mind may say something but the heart knows something which is not apparent. It is the heart which is real knower of everything (in the universe) which may be beyond logic!. In our lives, when we do something based on logic and rational but still, our heart says that it is not right, then we should pause and try to think why our heart is saying so. When King David pronounced his decision on the first day, his heart wasn’t at ease. In our acts, the nature reminds us by creating unease in our hearts.. In this story, nature wanted to punish Hamza and king was doing the opposite. Hence, his heart was not at peace.

5. King David takes his time, meditates on his decision, and is able to look beyond the obvious to uncover the truth. For most of us, this might appear as a supernatural power. The past, present and future are all one happening at the same time and an evolved one can look at all three. There is nothing hidden from GOD. King David becomes GOD’s instrument and is able to see what had happened in the past and arrive at the right decision. When one becomes wise, he has to go beyond the logic and also trust his intuition and higher faculties to look deeper into the situation. We may or may not know the full situation in the real life but we must understand that things are happening for some reason and we all are Puppets in the hand of God and events arrange themselves according to the divine plan.

6. From Hamza, we learn that our KARMA comes back to us in a very strange way. He is self-righteous and demands justice. He does not reflect on the event, nor does he introspect despite KING David repeatedly telling him to do so. In his self-righteousness, he forgets about his past. This often happens to us. We do not reflect inside and do not see why a certain thing is happening and normally try to blame our problems on others. Everything around us is a creation of ourself only and what is coming back to us is also our creation. This is the law of KARMA. A lot of us believe that we can get away without suffering for our past actions, but law of KARMA is absolute. It never ceases to work. Hamza can’t escape his KARMA.

7. Rumi is also giving us HOPE in the story. He is reinforcing the human belief that evil eventually gets punished.. Also, there is a message for all of us. We all commit mistakes in our lives and God gives us chance to pay the small price and repent for our mistakes and move ahead in our life. King David gives Hamza a chance to give up his claim , go home and live in peace. It is small price to pay for the sin that he has committed. That was the chance for Hamza to realize that he also got the wealth through the evil method and when king is saying, he should let go.. The KING’s voice here is like the little voice in our head which asks us to let go and move on. But our ego/self-righteousness keeps us adamant and frozen and we keep fighting the false fights and pay a price for that.

8. Hamza could have introspected and discovered that he himself has created the event and he could have chosen not be so harsh on Nasir. Each and every one of us has erred in our past and if we keep that at the back of our mind, we could be more kind and generous to others when they commit a mistake. But, our sense of RIGHT and WRONG often makes us err in our judgement. We all want to be forgiven but refuse to forgive others. Till the time we can shake ourselves of our false righteousness, even GOD can’t help us. It is only when we can identify our mistakes of the past and acknowledge it, and then surrender to the DIVINE, that we can begin to see the end of our misery…

STORY CREDIT: This story has its source in the six volumes of Mathnawi of Jalalu'din Rumi, edited and translated by Reynold A. Nicholson (Cambridge, England 1982)