The world but seems to be

by Fakhruddin Iraqi

English version by William Chittick and Peter Lamborn Wilson
Original Language Persian/Farsi

The world but seems to be
     yet is nothing more
than a line drawn
     between light and shadow.
Decipher the message
     of this dream-script
and learn to distinguish time
     from Eternity.

-- from Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes (Classics of Western Spirituality) , Translated by William Chittick / Translated by Nasr Seyyed Hossein

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/ Photo by tanakawho /


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Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

There is actually quite a bit being said in this brief poem that gets into both the mystical experience of reality and also certain aspects of Muslim theology.

First, consider the picture Iraqi has drawn for us: We have light and shadow -- together making a whole or a circle -- and a line drawn between them. The line divides the circle, the wholeness, into two semi-circles with a black half and a white half. Those semi-circles each have the shape of a bow... two bows.

The image of two bows is important in Islam. In the Quran, the Prophet Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven where he drew near to God, "two bow's lengths away." The significance of the distance of two bows has been endlessly debated and contemplated in the Muslim world.

So here, Iraqi is expanding on the mystical explanation given by the Sufi philosopher Ibn Arabi that the two bows represent the two aspects of reality: light and shadow, the Bow of Necessary Being and the Bow of Possible-Existence. When the two bows are joined, reality is seen in its wholeness, and one can draw near to the face of God.

This image also suggests that the world itself is not a stable, fixed reality. It does not truly exist in its own sense. It is simply a meeting point between the light and the dark. Just as the present moment is the meeting point between the past and the future. But, if you steady your mind and expand your vision, you can truly discern that line of meeting -- and then it no longer divides the two halves; it joins them. It is then that the whole vision comes upon you and you "learn to distinguish time [the separated pieces] / from Eternity [the wholeness]."

In the text of his "Divine Flashes," Iraqi follows this poem with a note and another brief poem:

Break the code of this line and know beyond all doubt that

All is nothing,
     nothing.
All is He,
     all is HE.








The world but seems