Jalāluddīn, therefore, does in a sense make God the author of evil, but at the same time he makes evil intrinsically good in relation to God--for it is the reflexion of certain divine attributes which in themselves are absolutely good. So far as evil is really evil, it springs from not-being. The poet assigns a different value to this term in its relation to God and in its relation to man. In respect of God not-being is nothing, for God is real Being, but in man it is the principle of evil which constitutes half of human nature. In the one case it is a pure negation, in the other it is positively and actively pernicious. We need not quarrel with the poet for coming to grief in his logic. There are some occasions when intense moral feeling is worth any amount of accurate thinking. It is evident that the doctrine of divine unity implies predestination. Where God is and naught beside Him, there can be no other agent than He, no act but His. “Thou didst not throw, when thou threwest, but God threw” (Kor. =8.= 17). Compulsion is felt only by those who do not love. To know God is to love Him; and the gnostic may answer, like the dervish who was asked how he fared: “I fare as one by whose majestic will The world revolves, floods rise and rivers flow, Stars in their courses move; yea, death and life Hang on his nod and fly to the ends of earth, His ministers of mourning or of joy.” This is the Truth; but for the benefit of such as cannot bear it, Jalāluddīn vindicates the justice of God by asserting that men have the power to choose how they will act, although their freedom is subordinate to the divine will. Approaching the question, “Why does God ordain and create evil?” he points out that things are known through their opposites, and that the existence of evil is necessary for the manifestation of good. “Not-being and defect, wherever seen, Are mirrors of the beauty of all that is. The bone-setter, where should he try his skill But on the patient lying with broken leg? Were no base copper in the crucible, How could the alchemist his craft display?” Moreover, the divine omnipotence would not be completely realised if evil had remained uncreated. “He is the source of evil, as thou sayest, Yet evil hurts Him not. To make that evil Denotes in Him perfection. Hear from me A parable. The heavenly Artist paints Beautiful shapes and ugly: in one picture The loveliest women in the land of Egypt Gazing on youthful Joseph amorously; And lo, another scene by the same hand, Hell-fire and Iblīs with his hideous crew: Both master-works, created for good ends, To show His perfect wisdom and confound The sceptics who deny His mastery. Could He not evil make, He would lack skill; Therefore He fashions infidel alike And Moslem true, that both may witness bear To Him, and worship One Almighty Lord.”