#persian poetry

[anniflamma]

So I started to keep count how many times Rumi mentions Shams by name. I can just say... To many... The man can't stop thinking about him.

[nabxtangled]

گفتم که مرگ عاشقان ،

گفتا کہ درد ہجر من

گفتم کہ علاج زندگی

گفتا کہ دیدار منست

Guftam ke marg aashiqan,gufta ke dard hijr mann.

Guftam ke ilaj zindagi, gufta ke deedar mansat.

I asked what is the cruel death,

replied the pain of living without me

I asked what is a healthy life,

replied gazing at me.

[loneberry]

"Attar is one of the greatest poets of the Persian language. Nonetheless, his popularity - both in Iran itself and in the West (Goethe, for example, touched on him only briefly in his West-Eastern Divan) - does not match that of Ferdowsi (d. 1020), Omar Khayyam (d. c.1132), Rumi, Saadi (d. 1292) or Hafiz (d. 1389); occasionally he is even omitted from the line of seven Persian poet-princes in favour of Jami (d. 1492). One pos­sible reason for this is that the composition of his poetry is too artful, too complex to be effective in the town squares and teahouses, while at the same time, many of his stories and figures may seem too coarse, too folk-like and too sarcastic to be at the forefront of the high spir­itual literature cultivated at courts in former times and in middle-class households today. Attar’s poetry, on the other hand, is far less stilted than that of most Persian poets but, rather, unadorned, clear and imme­diate. The pain it expresses is not spiritually filtered as in Rumi, far less metaphysically elevated than in Saadi, and not sublimated into pleasure as in Omar Khayyam - where Hafiz turns the earthly into the mystical, Attar strips mysticism down to its leaden, earthly foundation in order to scream his longing to the heavens." --Navid Kermani, The Terror of God: Attar, Job and the Metaphysical Revolt

.

I asked my professor which masnavi (Persian epic poem) he thinks is the greatest ever written. He replied, Rumi's Masnavi (the only masnavi Rumi wrote). Shock. How can there be a masnavi greater than Attar's Conference of the Birds? (There are 4 authentic Attar masnavis; sadly, as far as I know, Conference of the Birds is the only one that has been translated into English.) Reading through Rumi's masnavi I think I am still team Attar. It's Attar's coarseness I love--he is a poet of mad saints and freaks. In Rumi's Masnavi, the absence of a frame story and the pious/didactic tone is somewhat of a barrier for me. The pieces don't quite hang together, whereas Attar's Conference of the Birds is intricately structured--there are stories within stories within stories, each bird with its idiosyncratic psychology--a narrative arc that mirrors the journey of the soul across the seven valleys. But maybe there is a difference between reading a sufi text for its poetry rather than religious instruction, I don't know.

[aashufta-sar]

دے رہے ہیں لوگ میرے دل پہ دستک بار بار، دل مگر یہ کہہ رہا ہے صر�� تو اور صرف تو

De rahe hain log mere dil pe dastak bar bar, dil magar yeh keh raha hai sirf Tu aur sirf Tu

— Fariha Naqvi فریحہ نقوی

[dreamy-conceit]

Seek the wisdom that will untie your knot. Seek the path that demands your whole being.

— Rumi (Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī), translated by Maryam Mafi in 'Hidden Music'

[cherrychevellet]

دست از طلب ندارم تا کام من برآید یا تن رسد به جانان یا جان ز تن درآید

I will not cease my pursuit until my wish is fulfilled, Either my body reaches my beloved, or my soul leaves the body.

Saadi Shirazi

[pomegranateandcoffee]

Forough Farrokhzad poetry for today

[whereshadowslive]

The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.

— Jalal al-Din Rumi

[maihonhassan]

"Yak zamana, sohabat-e-ba-Auliah; Behtar az, sad sala ta'at-e-be-riya."

"a moment spent in the company of a Sufi; is better than a hundred years of sincere worship."

~ Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

[farsi-calligraphy]

This poem by the Persian Sufi Poet Abū Saʿīd Abū'l-Khayr or Abusa'id Abolkhayr

(Persian: ابوسعید ابوالخیر)  (December 7, 967 - January 12, 1049)

is inscribed on the tomb of Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

and is often incorrectly attributed to him.

باز‌ آ باز‌ آ، هر آن چه هستی باز‌ آ

گر کافر و گبر و بت‌پرستی باز‌ آ

این درگهِ ما، درگهِ نومیدی نیست

صد بار اگر توبه شکستی باز‌ آ

___________

Transliteration:

bāz ā bāz ā, har ān keh hastee bāz ā

gar kāfer o gabr o bot parastee bāz ā

een dargeh-ye mā, dargeh-ye nomeedee neest

sad bār agar tobeh shekastee bāz-ā

___________

I provide three translations. The first, by Barks, is the most famous rendering into English. Barks captures the simplicity of the sentiment. Gamart more accurately translates the verse. My own version is meant to be literal, rather than poetic. None of the English translations capture the repugnance that  the words infidel, heretic, pagan, unbeliever or idolater carry in the original. Please read the note for further insight into this poem.

___________

Translation by Coleman Barks:

Come, come, whoever you are.

Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come.

___________

Translation by Sidi Ibrahim Gamart:

Come again, please, come again, Whoever you are. Religious, infidel, heretic or pagan. Even if you promised a hundred times And a hundred times you broke your promise, This door is not the door Of hopelessness and frustration. This door is open for everybody. Come, come as you are.

___________

My own more literal translation:

Come, come, whoever you are, come again

Be you faithless, unbeliever or idolater, come again

This doorway of ours, it is not the entry to despair

If you’ve broken your repentance a hundred times, come again.

___________

Notes:

bāz ā = come again; welcome (bāz  means both “again” and “open”; both meanings are relevant here)

kāfer = usually translated as infidel, the basic meaning of the word in Arabic (kufr) is someone who is ungrateful [for God’s blessings], or who has no faith; by extension, someone who does not believe in the tenants of Islam, who is a pagan, non-believer, or member of a non-Muslim religion. It is commonly used as a pejorative term.

gebr or gabr = the word originally referred to someone who was a Zoroastrian but came to have a pejorative meaning referring to any non-Muslim, or sometimes to any unbeliever The word continues to be used as a slur against Christians in some former areas of the Ottoman Empire.

Bot parasti = idol worshiper (again, a pejorative term)

All three of the phrases used have the sting of extremely insulting, pejorative terms. All three place the person being referred to as the most outcast or outside categories in Islamic society. To say they are welcome is to go against all expectations.

* Note that the word Dargah has many meanings, several of which are indicated directly in this line: portal, door, threshold, the site of the saint’s tomb. The royal court (dargah) was also where the king dispensed legal rulings and justice, which also plays into the poem: no matter how many transgressions you have made, this is not the place for having no hope. Baz A, means, come, come again, welcome.

* درگاه (درگهِ) dargāh (dar=door; gāh or gah=place): Portal, door; location of the door [into a house or building]; threshold; a royal court, a palace; a mosque; shrine or tomb (of some reputed saint}; place of pilgrimage.

** nomidi: no hope (na=no; omid=hope)

tobeh (Arabic “tawbeh”) = repentance. In Islam repentance is an individual matter between an individual and the Divine. By using this word the poet transfers the point of view from society’s vantage point (someone who is outside the fold of society), to the personal (what is my relationship to the Divine).

Persian (Farsi) Calligraphy by S J Thomas  www.palmstone.com

[anniflamma]

Saw it. Brought it home. Time to read more 1300s persian poems.

[his-heart-hymns]

Mun tu shudam tu mun shudi

mun tu shudam tu jaan shudi

Taakas na guyad baad azeen

mun deegaram tu deegri

I have become you, and you me,

I am the body, you soul;

So that no one can say hereafter,

That you are someone, and me someone else.

-Ameer Khusrau,Sufi saint

[istj-mbti]

ISTJ aesthetic (featuring Faizi's poetry): Dark academia + hint of royalcore

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Part 1, MBTI Moodboard Series featuring Persian Poetry, others TBA

[loneberry]

Some beautiful examples of later Persian ghazals. Yes, the pain is both the illness and the remedy. I hope to continue my study of Islamic mystical literature and Sufi metaphysics.

.

Journal notes:

This is the double life I live—one life lived in the realm of the phantom, where I talk to invisible entities that feel more alive to me than my life, like William Blake talking to the angels and dead people all day, to the chagrin of his wife. Agha Shahid Ali writes, “See angels pour the Word through a sieve forever.” I can hear it. Water is the language of angels. Teresa of Ávila writes, “There are certain spiritual things which I can find no way of explaining more aptly than by this element of water…” It flows from the source. Didn’t that language undo me, when the sound of the waterfall appeared in the meditation recording? The Word flows through the sieve of the world. I can’t catch it. Help me, o lord, drink directly from the source, to feel no pity for the martyrs of love but only for those who will never know the delicious taste of suffering for love.

[bones-ivy-breath]

Cinnamon by Parinaz Fahimi (tr. Elhum Shakerifar)

[mehreenkhan]

my heart shook intractably in my chest

from the entreaty of his imploring eyes

— Forough Farrokhzad