The One who afflicts...

The One who afflicts, cures as well; and the One who destroys, restores as well…[^3] A World Composed Of Happiness And Sadness Is Beautiful And Makes Perfection Possible Although this world is a mixture of treasure and snake, flower and thorn, sadness and happiness, asset and misery, hardships and ease, sweetness and bitterness, it is harmonious and lovely and every particle and part of it is in its proper place.

[^4] Mawlawi, in different places of Mathnawi, has explained this fact through interesting allegories.

One of these parables is the story of prison and Joseph's well: Although they ground the pearl in the mortar, It enlightened the eyes and cured the calamity; They put a wheat seed under the ground, Then they harvested a lot of clusters; Then they ground it in the mill, Its value and its product (bread) became precious; Then they ground the bread under the teeth, It turned into wisdom, soul, and cognition; The soul became enchanted in love, Then the harvester came to harvest again.

To elaborate on this issue, Mawlawi tells of an animal which becomes fatter the more it is beaten. At the end, Mawlawi mentions the multitude of distresses of the believers and the Prophets: There is an animal called Osqor, Which becomes fatter when beaten; When you beat it, it will become fatter, It becomes fatter through the wounds it gets; A believer's self is like Osqor, Which becomes fatter through the wounds; Because of this, for the Prophets, There are lots of sufferings and failures.