Yüce Aklın İzinde: Nâsır Hüsrev'in Bilgelik Arayışı

The celestial vault had measured forty-two years for me; my being, gifted with speech, had sought to know the supreme reason. I had listened to the lessons of a scholar on the ordering of the firmament, the rotation of the days, and all that has been created; I had read all the books. I found myself superior to all my peers, but I said to myself that there must be a being more perfect than all creatures: such as the falcon among birds, the camel among animals, the palm tree among trees, and the ruby among stones; such also as the Qoran among books and the Ka'abah among edifices; just as the heart is the noblest part of man and the sun the first of the stars. The sorrow caused by ignorance had given my face the color of a yellow rose; it had bent prematurely like a vault the cypress of my stature. Man is like musk, but knowledge is the perfume; the scholar is like a mine and knowledge is the precious stone within it. I left the place where I dwelt and undertook a journey. I forgot my home, the gardens and the pleasure pavilions. To satisfy my desire I had studied Persian, Arabic, Indian, Turkish, Sindhi, Greek, Hebrew, the philosophy of Mani, and the doctrines of the Sabians and the rationalists. Often, in the course of my journey, I had only a stone for mattress and pillow; often the clouds served me as tent and pavilion. Sometimes I descended into the depths of the earth, down to the fish that supports it; sometimes, upon the summits of mountains, I rose higher than the Twins. I was sometimes upon the sea, and sometimes upon the mountains. Often I crossed countries with no beaten path; I was, now in an inhabited place, now in a desert of sand. I crossed rivers, I passed through defiles; sometimes, like the camel, I had a cord about my neck, sometimes, like the mule, I bent beneath the weight of a load. I went from city to city, questioning and inquiring after the truth, seeking it in my course from one sea to another land.