The Lion Tattoo- Moulana Rumi Rahmatullahi alaih

Moulana [Rumi Rahmatullahi alaih] wrote the following anecdote which is  similitude (likeness) of reformation (islaah) of character :

A custom in Qazween was to tattoo the body. A person told the tatooer: “Draw a lion on my back.” The tatooer took the needle and the moment he pierced it the person shouted: “Ouch! What are you doing?”
Tatooer: I am making the tail.
Person: What’s the need for a tail? Can’t you make a lion without a tail?

A tailless lion left him speechless. He left the tail and pierced the needle elsewhere.
Person: What are you doing now?
Tatooer: The stomach
Person: Is the lion going to eat? Leave the stomach.

He left the stomach and started elsewhere.
Person: Now what?
Tatooer: The mouth
Person: Brother! This is just a picture. He doesn’t need to roar. Leave the mouth.

He left that and pierced elsewhere.
Person: Now what are you making?
Tatooer: I am making the ears.
Person: Don’t you get lions with ears cropped? Leave the ears.

The tatooer lost his cool and threw the needle on the floor saying:
“Who saw a lion without ears, head and stomach? Such a lion Allah never even make.”

“When Allah Ta’ala never even created such a lion how am I going to make it?” Further, he sums up by saying:
“If at every cut you frown and become angry, then where can the heart become like a mirror so glossy?”

If over every caution of the spiritual mentor (murshid) your condition is one of dissatisfaction:
“When you cannot bear the prick of a pin, then don’t flaunt yourself in front of an angry lion.”

Can one’s character be mended when one lacks the strength to bear a pinprick? Hazrat! Peers [Spiritual Guides] have reformed the character [of the mureeds] in just that way [i.e. by cautioning, warning, rebuking and even putting the mureed through manual labour]. But, nowadays the state of affairs is that they [the mureeds] do not wish to do anything, yet they want everything [i.e. their islaah] to be done. Accordingly, they say, “Hazrat! Confer such grace that sins become detested by me,” as if the peer will clean his sins for him; as if he [the peer] is a cleaner. He thus implies: “O Peer! We have made you our peer to pick up our excreta and get rid of it.”

Ma’aarif- e -Mathnawi

Lesson

The drawing of pictures is prohibited in Islam, but here  Maulana Rumi (Rahmatullah Alaihy) tells a story of the Days of ignorance. By it, he informs the seekers after the Sufi
path, that if the Spiritual Guide, who is a follower of the Sunnah, should  for the sake of their rectification resort to some harshness, then every rebuke should be tolerated and accepted with pleasure.Through such rectification, there will be the flowering of righteous deeds and praiseworthy morals and manners.

“If every rebuke of the Shaikh is going to cause you to grudge,  Then how can you become clean as a mirror without rubbing?”

These spiritual exercises and efforts are only for a limited number of days. Thereafter, only comfort follows.