The Path of Humbleness Leads to Perfection

Bidel, the way to honor lies in humbleness
This path has led the new moon to its totality

بيدل دليل مقصد عزت تواضع است
زين جاده، ماه نو به جهان كمال رفت

Bidel, dalil-e maqsad-e ezat tawāz‘a ast
zin jādeh, māhi naw ba jahān-e kamāl raft
                                                                 Poem by: Mirza Abdul Qadir Bidel                                                                                                                  Translated by Nasim Fekrat

I chose this verse to remind me of a humble person that I met recently in a coffee shop. He was a short man with a white beard, probably in his 60s. I can’t remember what sparked a conversation with him, but a brief chat with him was worth a million moments that I routinely spend in vain.

He was leafing through pages of a new book that he just opened from its mailing envelope. I asked him the title of the book, and he lifted up his demure face and told me: “I’m embarrassed to show you the title of the book.”

The book contained a series of scholarly articles inspired by his work and it was published to honor him and his academic research in the field.
For the past few days, I have been thinking about him and his humbleness. Today, I came across one of Bidel's poems that says the path to perfection is humbleness, what the old man has been following.

PS: Every Saturday, I plan to translate a poem by Mirza Abdul Qadir Bidel, one of the greatest 17th-century’s Persian mystic poets.