Sura 1
They say to me speak the words. Yet, there is no truth in their words. Their words are lies, their images idols, and in their heart, I have found no path. They say to me, “believe” yet they do not believe themselves and in their hearts is confusion. Blind guides they are, and their words are only wind.
O man, your life is but a breath, and all your life you spend lying and living in lies. O man, speak to your Lord. O man, flee from lies, for verily you have no time to waste on falsehood, and life is but a breath.
How shall I settle with you, you misguided ones?
O man, beware of those who say, “the ways of God are subtle.” For they are verily the liars and use only words to disguise ignorance. Say O prophet, say to the people, the ways of God are like the sun blazing forth in the noonday.
Your own actions condemn you, ye hypocrites, ye wily ones.
Say to the prophet, “Surely you are full to the brim, full to overflowing. Surely you shall teach mankind a new command. Surely you shall be to them a legislator and a guide.”
Too long have you lied O son of man. Too long have you been crafty in your speech and lost in your words. Verily you are Jacob, for you are a deceiver. A deceiver you are like your Lord who veils the eyes of the ignorant and the comfortable.
I have appointed you as a lamp on the earth, and your words shall draw the free.
O son of man, my heart overflows with burning rage against the hypocrites. Woe to them, those who say “thus says the Lord” when I have not spoken. Woe to them, who call the common sacred and the sacred common.
Verily, you have much that is worm within you. Purify yourself and make yourself strong.
Ashamed are you of thyself and full of doubt and fear. Yet God is father to the Fatherless.
I have met God on the road in the skins of a lion. In the skins of a bear and terror fell upon me.
O prophet, my path I see in you. Surely, I too have met mankind as an enemy.
O man what is God to you. Verily, God is a stranger and an enemy.
Surely our paths are entwined like tangled serpents.
Have you forgotten truth O deceiver. Has your heart grown dull and fat. Scarcely can you desire truth anymore. Have you lost the fire in your soul? Verily, truth is a blazing inferno.
And when I looked on my people my heart was moved with compassion.
They stumble around and grope like the blind. They have lost their sight and all memory of seeing. Verily they are the most pitiable.
No god have they any more, and no father, but all is chaos for them, all a blinding and a suffocation.
Speak to them, O prophet. Speak to them and awaken them for they stumble towards their ruin and they know it not.
Verily to see God, one must clear their mind of lies. Verily they desire not God but comfort and good sleep. Verily they are the lost and unfortunate.
They say, “I desire comfort and so I believe.” But your heart is true and desires only truth and victory. Say indeed with those who say, “I believe, and can bear any truth.” Surely, they are the people that your Lord loves. Verily they are the deserving.
To lie to others is a small sin, to lie to yourself is death, and to lie to God a negation of existence.
“Ah how often have men distracted themselves because they fear me.” Says the Lord. “They are children who flee in terror from their own souls.”
O prophet, lie to others for such is your duty to the earth, but lie not to yourself. Lie not and say “I believe” when you do not believe for such is the road of those who perish.
O prophet, I have given you a new heaven and a new earth to inhabit. Say to God, O prophet, say to God, “all day long we have waited for you and our hearts are lacerated.” Say to God, O prophet, “Lord, dark is the earth and lost its inhabitants.”
Verily faith is a storm, and the believer is a friend of the dark cloud and a playmate of the thunder.
O prophet, I shall make of you a sign to the earth.
Faith is a jumping into a cistern.
Faith is a burning pain.
O man, speak the truth and I will be a God with you. Verily, I love those who speak the truth in their hearts and cling to it.
Draw near, keep watch, and I’ll write the truth in letters of gold on your forehead.
Say, speak O prophet, shout to the rising sun.
Thus says the Lord, “the silent heavens I’ll open, and I will cast down on the earth a burning fire to set ablaze the world.
Sura 2
From village to village the prophet wondered to preach, and the people came out to receive him.
Now the prophet was short in stature and homely in appearance, but his eyes flashed like burning coals. Tears he often shed and when he laughed, he shook with mirth.
And when the people saw him, they laughed for he was short in stature. “O prophet” they said, “a man of iron we expected and a Caesar”.
“My brothers, God has made me as soft as the grass, but you shall see me a burning bush and shall marvel.”
“A man of iron you expected, but a man of tears I am, and behind my tears is the heart of a wounded child.”
“A small man I am, but to God we are all small. Through God’s eyes you see me.”
“I’ve called on the Lord and he answered me. Verily he has made me a dancing dragon”
“I am not hard but as soft as clay, all mankind are my kin, and when I meet a man, I weep for love of him.”
“Verily, God has made me a happy dancing child.”
“O mankind I am the lowest of you and the least of my brothers.” Say O prophet “I am the least of you, and all creation was made for my eyes.”
“O mankind, gather around me and strengthen me. God has bound my heart to you.”
Under a bramble tree the prophet sat and preached to the people, and when darkness fell, a fire was kindled and the prophet sat with the people around the flame
Then, looking on the faces of those around him, the prophet wept and said to the people, “your faces are a burning pain in my heart, and to see you is to see God.”
“Gather around me friends and hold onto me for my heart is weak for love of you.”
In the crowd, the prophet saw a young man with painful eyes, and said sighing,
“In my youth a broken man I was, crippled with doubt.” “O my friends, in my youth I was an old man, verily I have grown younger. No childhood and no youth had I, and no happiness.”
“I said in my heart, ‘I do not believe. I do not believe and the whole world is to me a crushing darkness.”
“How long have I craved a flag to fight for and a fatherland.”
Say O prophet, “I love those that are broken”
And I saw a cave opening in the earth, and in this cave I descended. In this cave, I saw God.
Dance O prophet, dance and shout a frenzied shout around the flames. For thus is the will of your Lord. Shout O prophet and let your voice be a frenzied howling
Shout O prophet, say to the people, “a new faith I bring you as your eyes have never seen.” Say O prophet, “the spirit of God is upon me”
They say, “where is your God?”
Say O prophet, “Ye sons of men, I am your enemy, and God is my war banner.”
Say, shout to the hills O prophet, “listen you high hills, I shall make you into a pavement.”
God has said to me, “do not lie." I have sharpened you as a sword.
“And when I talk to God, I tear up like a babe.”
Then turning to the youth the prophet said,
“Young man I know your pain.” “Young man, doubt has robbed you of your youth.” “Young man, doubt has broken the glint in your eyes.” “Verily a burning pain, verily too painful for words.”
“Yet this very day, a new name I will give you. Laughter shall be your name. You shall laugh and laugh till your sides ache, and I shall give you the cosmos as a gift.”
You shall say to your Lord, “I’ve bought your love with gratitude.”
First Dialogue of the Youth
As the prophet spoke, the young man was overcome with tears, and standing up he said
“O prophet, I, like you, have met mankind as an enemy. Verily, God has placed a sharpness in my eyes”
“O prophet, I have hated mankind.” “O prophet, mankind is a weed on the earth.”
“In this world are three kinds of living. Those who lie and know not that they lie, those who lie and know it, and those who speak the truth. I have scoured the world looking for the truth teller and have found not one.”
“Verily, all mankind are liars.”
Turning to the people, he said, “you say, ‘God is our father’. O you so called believers, if you know God is your father, then why do you live in fear. Verily, you believe your words no more than I.”
“Cheap to you are words, yet to me words are more precious than stars.”
“O mankind, I would pity you if not for your lies. A fool is he who dies for such as these.”
“But I shall make a machine better than a man. A machine that speaks the truth, and they shall inherit the earth.”
“O prophet, there is no God and no afterlife, and the skies above us are empty.” “And all on earth is chaos and flux, and there is no up and down or left and right but all is confusion.”
“Where is God, O prophet, where is God in this world. A neglectful Father is he, and an enemy.”
“O prophet, I can forgive God everything in this world and all suffering, but doubt I can never forgive.”
“I say to God, show me a sign like the sign of Gideon, yet no sign is given me, and all the world is confusion.”
“Your world, O God, I cannot accept. Verily, for a different world was I made. Another world with less doubting and less room for doubt.”
“But I shall die a beautiful death, and the silent stars shall weep for me.”
End of the First Dialogue
Sura 3
And when the prophet heard the young man, he loved him and said: “Child, great pain I sense in your heart. Be valiant, and truth will lead you to paradise.”
Second Dialogue of the Youth
“What is truth?”
Others of my kind in ages past have dug for truth as for gold. A frenzy possessed them, and they were cut off from mankind. In this life, no time is given for accumulating truth. Scarcely does one start on the path of wisdom when one dies. Verily, ignorance has kept many sane.
“Out of weak things are men made, out of muck and clay, truth is too sharp for them.”
“I have loved truth and hated mankind.”
“O prophet, no youth had I, a runt God made me, and a creature unfit for this world.”
A new race I am making out of sterner stuff. They shall be strong and shall handle truth as a sword. A new race I am making, the Superman I am making, and the future shall belong to them. They shall not suffer or die anymore but all for them shall be joy and victory.
God produced all the living things of the earth and man on the sixth day, and he rested on the seventh. Behold the eighth day of creation beckons, and on the eighth day I shall make thinking machines in the likeness of man, but as far above him as the sun is above the earth. You shall behold my creation and marvel.
“O mankind, I have hated you from the cradle. My creation shall be more perfect.” “O mankind, a sign I give you of your doom. The arrival of the Superman.”
God has appointed me a prophet of misery and of evil. I looked to the heavens and saw above me a sign of blood, and when I saw the sign, my heart rejoiced, for I saw the coming of the Superman.
The prophet replied, “of no evil seed where you sprung. Verily, you are my brother and carry the harder half of my revelation.”
Third Dialogue of the Youth
And when the young man heard it, he smiled a broken smile like a wince of pain.
“God’s revelation? No revelation is this, but only words in the air. No God is there, and no prophet, but only darkness and confusion.”
“Verily, the religions of mankind are dying, and with God dies all vows and loyalty. A dying people they are, and the smell of death is on them.”
Ah, miserable creatures, they were only strong enough to hurl themselves off a cliff. Curse their strength and their weakness.
“Long was the night and full of tossing. A black night of dread and terrors I endured.”
“All night long I watched and waited for God.”
O prophet, where is God? Let God reveal himself that we may know his ways and serve him. For two hundred years we have awaited God’s revelation.
“I can forgive God everything but his silence.”
O prophet, God has driven me to madness. Many men has he so driven and many to worse fates. Talk to me not about your merciful God. Your God has the mercy of a torturer.
“O prophet, I will not lie. I will not lie at least to myself. I will not say, ‘the door is open’ when it is not, or believe things only because they are convenient. Yay, better a thousand times to perish in truth.”
End of the Third Dialogue
Sura 4
The Prophet's Reply
“I have loved you with the fierce love of God, for God loves above all the truth-teller.”
“Truly, all weakness is rooted in lies”
“Young man, great is your faith. Your faith shall lead you to paradise.”
You are Abraham, and you shall see God face to face. Abraham was no Jew and no Christian, but Abraham was Abraham as God made him, and God loved him for his heart was true.
Young man, you hunt for glory as for a stag. Verily, it’s not the esteem of men you seek but of God. It’s not the love of men you seek but of God. Your heart craves the love of heaven, too painful is your desire for words, too great and holy, too pure and precious to defile with thought. You hide and say, “I want the esteem of people” when your heart cries for the stars.
Dare to believe O man, dare to put your pain in words, dare to say to God, “look on me, love me, and remember my name forever.”
“Young man, I blow your embers into flames and your flames into a blazing furnace.”
“But you shall gain your courage in action.”
Say O prophet, to those who love the twilight, to the lovers of limbo and the in between. To the muddle headed, to those too broad for ideas (verily they are a net too large for fish) to those who say, “believe and you shall receive the peace of God”, yet they themselves do not believe and their peace is only the peace of sleep. Say to them, you desire sleep and not truth. Say to them this parable from their scriptures. “I have come to bring not peace but the sword.”
“Verily, all prophets are warriors.”
“O mankind, I have come not to calm you, but to enrage you. I have come to pour doubt on your doubt. I have come to sharpen your minds into swords.”
“No rest do I give and no peace.” Say to them O prophet, “I bring you the religion of the sword, the religion of the point, the religion of the mountaintop, the religion of separation and of sharpness.”
“Verily, love is ever near to bloodshed”
“But as for you who hated evil and loved good, as for you who though you do evil have kept faith with your Lord, to you I say:”
“You shall gain your courage in action”