پيل چرا در خانه تاريك بود؟

Why the Elephant Was Moved to a Dark House

The story of some men being asked to touch an elephant in darkness and then visualize the shape of the animal on the basis of the part they have touched is well-known. It has been told by Mawlana Jalal ed-Din Mohammad Balki/Rumi in Book III of the Masnavi. It is originally an Indian parable which has found its way into a number of Persian literary sources. But the original story is significantly different from Mawlanaʹs version. There, a number of blind men are asked to touch the different parts of the elephant in broad daylight and then report on their findings. Why has Mawlana introduced this twist in the story, asks the author. It is a deliberate change, he answers, for the sake of driving a point home, and that point is the importance of having a correct nazargah or point of view. It is obvious that when you are talking of Sufi wayfarers trying to find a way out of the Darkness of Ignorance towards Light, towards the Light of Spiritual Knowledge, it will not do if these wayfarers are permanently blind. Hence the change of location for the elephant.