دفتر چهارم مثنوی

This is a brief prose passage, framed as a question and answer, that poses the problem of what is the most difficult of all difficult things. It argues that the hardest thing is for a lover to intend betrayal while crying out against the beloved. To illustrate this, it introduces the story of a Sufi whose wife was taken by a stranger, and who hid his beloved under a cloak in order to deceive. The piece belongs to a tradition of moral and mystical storytelling in which a paradox or ethical riddle is explored through a concrete, often ironic tale.