Malfuzat - Volume VIII — Page 403
Undated 403 view of medicine, ginger is the medicine which is called sonth in Hindi. It provides much strength to the natural metabolic heat of the body and stops loose motions, and it is called zanjab i l [ginger] because it makes the weak so strong and provides such energy that they can climb mountains. By presenting these verses side by side, in which camphor is mentioned in one place and ginger in another, the purpose of God Almighty is to explain to His servants that when a person moves from his carnal passions toward goodness, the first con- dition that develops immediately upon undertaking this move is that his toxic substances begin to be suppressed and the car- nal cravings start to fade. And due to the camphor, the excite- ment of the poisonous matter will completely disappear, and a frail state of health accompanied by weakness is attained. Then the second stage is that the weak, ill person gets strength from the sherbet of ginger, and sherbet of ginger is the manifestation of the beauty and comeliness of God Almighty, which is the food of the soul. When a person gains strength from this [divine] manifesta- tion, he becomes capable of climbing the steep walls of elevated valleys, and he carries out such amazing hard work in the path of God that unless a person’s heart possesses a loving warmth, he can never carry out such work. So God Almighty has used two words of the Arabic language here to explain these two condi- tions. One is camphor, said of the one who suppresses, and the other is ginger, said of the one who climbs up, and these are the two conditions that the seekers [of God’s nearness] encounter on this path. 1 1. Badr, vol. 2, nos. 26, 27, 28, p. 3, dated 28 June, 5 and 12 July 1906