by Robert Irwin
More controversial were the dangerous doctrines which Ibn al-Farid had clothed in conventional poetical imagery. A leading religious thinker of the early fourteenth century, Ibn Taymiyya, denounced Ibn al-Farid for espousing the heresy of monism and of claiming that the mystic could attain full unity with God. One of Ibn Taymiyya’s followers, al-Dhahabi, observed of Ibn al-Farid that his ‘Diwan is famous, and it is of great beauty and subtlety, perfection and burning desire. Except that he adulterated it with explicit monism, in the sweetness of expressions and subtlest metaphors, like pastry laced with venom!’
Pass round the remembrance of her I desire, though it be to reproach me – for tales of the Beloved are my wine –
That mine ear may witness the one I love, afar if she be, in the fantasy of a reproach, not the fantasy of a dream.
For the mention of her is sweet, in whatever form it be, even though my upbraiders mingle it with contention:
'Tis as if my upbraider came with good tidings of attainment, though I had not hoped for any responsive greeting.
My soul be her ransom, for love of whom I have spent my soul! And indeed the time of my doom is ripe, ere the day of my doom;
And on her account I rejoice that I am exposed to shame, yea, delightful is my rejection and humbling, after the proud high station that once was mine;
And for her sake is my self-dishonouring sweet, and that after once I was godly, yea, the casting off of my shame, and the commission of my sins.
I say my prayers, chanting right well as I make mention of her in my recitation, and I rejoice in the prayer-niche, she being there to lead me.
And when in my pure white robes I go to the pilgrimage, here is the name I cry Labbaika; and breaking my ritual fast I hold to be my withholding from her.
And my tear-ducts flow apace because of the case I am in, running upon what has passed with me; and my wailing expresses my distraction.
In the evening my heart is distraught with ardent passion, and in the morning mine eye pours forth the tears of sorrow:
And lo, my heart and mine eye – the former is sorely burdened by her most spiritual beauty, while the latter is deeply attached to the delicate grace of her stature.
My sleep is all lost, and my morning – thine be continuing life! – and ever my wakefulness is with me, and still my yearning increaseth.
My bond and my compact – the one is loosed not, the other unchanging: my passion of old is still my passion, my ardour is yet true ardour.
So wasted my body is, 'tis transparent to all my secrets; my bones shrunk to thinness, reveal therein a most inward meaning.
Struck down by the violent impact of love, my ribs sore wounded, lacerated mine eyelids, that stream unceasing with blood,
Single-minded in passion, I emulate in my ethereality the air, even the air of dawn, and the breaths of the morning breeze are my rare visitors;
Sound, and yet ailing – seek me then from the zephyr of morn, for there, as my wasting willed, is now my lodging.
I have vanished of wasting even from wasting itself; yea, I have vanished from the cure of my sickness, and the cool waters that would assuage my burning thirst;
And I know not any, except it be passion, that knows where I dwell, and how I have hidden my secrets, and guarded faithfully my covenant.
Love hath left naught surviving of me save a broken heart, and sorrow, and sore distress, and sickness exceeding;
And as for the flaming of passion, my patience, my consolation – of these not a thing remains to me, save the names of them.
Let him who is free of my desire escape with his soul safe from all harm; and, O my soul, now depart in peace.
‘Forget her!’ declared my chider, himself being passionate to chide me on her account. ‘Forget thou to chide me!’ I answered.
To whom should I look for guidance, alas! if I sought to forget her? Seeing that every leader in love looks to follow my footsteps;
In my every member severally is the whole fire of yearning, all after her, and longing tugging my reins to pursue her.
She swayed as she moved; and I imagined each side, as she swung it, a twig on a sand-hill, and, above it, a moon at the full;
And my every member had, as it were, its several heart, the which, as she glanced, was pierced by its shower of arrows.
And had she laid bare my body, she would have beheld every essence there, therein every heart contained, possessing all yearning love.
And when I attain her, a year to me is but as a moment; and an hour of my banishment seemeth for me a year.
And when we did meet at evening, drawn together by the paths running straight, the one to her dwelling, the other to my tent,
And we swerved thus a little away from the tribe, where neither was Watcher to spy, nor Slanderer with his lying talk,
I laid down my cheek upon the soil for her to tread on; and she cried, ‘Good tidings to thee! Thou mayest kiss my veil.’
But to that my spirit would not consent, out of jealous zeal to guard my honour and the high object of my desire:
So we passed the night as my choice willed and my heart aspired, and I saw the world my kingdom, and Time itself my slave.
A. J. Arberry, The Mystical Poems of Ibn al-Farid
(Dublin, 1956), pp. 90–92
COMMENTARY
‘Labbaika! meaning ‘I am here!’, is the cry of pilgrims as they stand on the plain of 'Arafat, outside Mecca, during the hajj.
Note the stock poetical figure of the upbraider or chider. The images of the twig on the sand-dune to describe a woman’s figure and the full moon her face are, if anything, even more conventional in Arabic love poetry. However, ‘the tales of the Beloved’ refer not to any woman, but to the Prophet Muhammad. The wine stands for spiritual drunkenness and so on throughout the poem.
When the infant moans
from the tight swaddling wrap,
and restlessly yearns
for relief from distress,
He is soothed by lullabies, and lays aside
the burden that covered him –
he listens silently
to one who soothes him.
The sweet speech makes him
forget his bitter state
and remember a secret whisper
of ancient ages.
His state makes clear
the state of audition
and confirms the dance
to be free of error.
For when he burns with desire
from lullabies,
anxious to fly
to his first abodes,
He is calmed
by his rocking cradle
as his nurse’s hands
gently sway it.
I have found in gripping rapture
when she is recalled
In the chanter’s tones
and the singer’s tunes –
What a suffering man feels
when he gives up his soul,
when death’s messengers
come to take him.
One finding pain
in being driven asunder
is like one pained in rapture
yearning for friends.
The soul pitied the body
where it first appeared,
and my spirit rose
to its high beginnings,
And my spirit soared past
the gate beyond my union
where there is no veil
of communion.
Th. Emil Homerin, From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint. Ibn al-Farid, His
Verse and His Shrine (Columbia, South Carolina, 1994), pp. 12-13
COMMENTARY
The call to remembrance was one of the most important features of the traditional qasida, for, as we have seen, contemplation of the deserted campsite regularly led the poet to recall a past love or loves. The theme of remembrance is crucial to these verses by Ibn al-Farid (extracted from a much longer poem by him, the Al-Ta'iyah al-Kubra, or ‘Great Poem
Rhyming in Ta’). Remembrance was also a leading theme in the previous poem by him. However, dhikr, which means ‘remembrance’, also has a more specialist meaning in the vocabulary of the Sufis. In Sufism, dhikr refers to the incessant repetition of certain words or formulas in praise of God, often accompanied by music and dancing. A typical dhikr might consist of the repetition of such a phrase as Ya Latif, ‘Oh Kind One’ (that is, ‘O God’) thousands of times. In the poem above, Ibn al-Farid makes an extended comparison between the dhikr and the lullaby.
The controversy over the doubtful orthodoxy of Ibn al-Farid’s verses rumbled on through the centuries. Some critics even wrote their own poems rhyming in ta, in order to refute Ibn al-Farid’s ideas. However, Ibn al-Farid’s reputation was fiercely defended by Sufis who chanted his poems in their meetings and, by the late fifteenth century, his defenders could be seen to have triumphed over his critics.
Other poets besides Ibn al-Farid made use of the qasida form for devotional purposes. Together with Imru’ al-Qays’s Mu'allaqat, Busiri’s Burda is probably the most famous poem in the Arabic language. Sharaf al-Din Muhammad al-Busiri (1211–1294/6?), a mystic belonging to the Shadhili order of Sufis, earned a living in Alexandria as a manuscript copyist. It is said that the inspiration for the Qasidat al-Burda, ‘The Ode of the Mantle’, came to him as the result of a dream after he had suffered a paralysing stroke. The Prophet appeared in Busiri’s dream and put his mantle on the stricken poet, and at that instant he was cured. Busiri composed the qasida entitled ‘Luminous Stars in Praise of the Best of Mankind’, but more popularly known as the Burda, as an act of thanksgiving. The poem follows the conventional structure of the qasida and uses that structure to present a compendium of lore about the Prophet together with a call to repentance. The Burda, the product of a supernatural cure, itself acquired healing powers and its words were widely used as a kind of talisman against disease and misfortune.
‘Was it the memory of neighbours in Dhu Salam
That made you blend your flowing tears with blood?
Was it the wind that blows from Kazima?
Or did lightning flash in darkness over Idam?
Why are your eyes overflowing though you tell them to stop?
Why is your heart so frantic though you try to keep it calm?
How can a lover hope to hide his love
When his is both streaming and burning?
Without your passion you’d sprinkle no ruin with tears
Nor lie awake remembering 'Alam and Ban.
Can you still deny your love when tears and illness,
Fair witnesses both, are speaking out against you,
And when passion has marked your cheeks with two deep lines
Of sickness like narcissus and tears like 'anam fruits?’
Yes, I admit my beloved’s apparition has robbed me of my sleep.
Love will spoil all pleasure with pain.
O you who blame me over ‘Udhri love, take note
Of my excuse – were you but just, you would stop blaming me:
News of my state has spread far beyond you,
My secret to slander lies exposed and my disease is fatal.
Your advice is most sincere but what you say I cannot hear.
To the riling of his critics the lover is stone deaf.
Even the advice of age I spurned when it censured me.
Yet age is far above suspicion in its counsel.
But my hell-bent soul in its ignorance did not
Take heed of the warnings of hoariness and age,
Nor did I, unashamedly, prepare good deeds of welcome
For that guest who has descended now upon my head.
Had I known I would fail to pay him due respect
I would have concealed this secret for ever with katam dye.
Who can restrain my bolting soul from sin,
Like one restrains bolting steeds with bridles?
Do not try to cap its desire through transgression.
Food only strengthens the glutton’s lust.
The self is like an infant: given free rein, it craves to suckle
Until it is grown up; if weaned in time, it will abstain.
Curb its passions and beware of letting them take charge –
When passion rules, it kills or brings dishonour.
Be watchful when it forages in the field of deeds;
If the meadow pleases it, do not let it roam.
How many deadly delights has it not made enticing for those
Who never knew that the best cuts are most poisonous.
Beware of its hidden snares in hunger and satiety;
Some hunger is far worse then overeating.
And drain of tears an eye once filled
With forbidden sights, and stick to the diet of remorse.
Oppose the Self and Satan and rise up against them;
Treat their claim of good counsel with mistrust.
If they pretend to litigate or judge, do not obey!
You know the cunning of both litigant and judge.
May God forgive me for words without deeds;
Through which I have ascribed progeny to impotence.
I urge you to do good and myself had no such urge.
Not upright myself, how can I tell you ‘be upright’?
I did not prepare for death with supererogatory works.
Prayer and fasting for me were but an obligation.
I sinned against the example of one whose dark nights spent in
prayer
Made his feet complain of painful swelling,
Whose hunger made him squeeze his entrails and fold,
Despite its tender skin, his belly over stones.
To tempt him, high mountains turned to gold
Only to meet with his utmost disdain,
His needs but strengthening his restraint;
True resolution is not swayed by need.
How should his needs draw to the world one without whom
The world would not have been extracted from the void?
Muhammad, lord of both universes, lord of men and jinn,
Lord of the two peoples, Arabs and foreigners,
Our Prophet, source of all command and prohibition,
More truthful than the word of any other in his ‘yes’ or ‘no’,
The beloved in whose intercession all hope resides
In sudden terror and calamity of every kind.
He called us to God. Whoever holds on to him
Holds on to a rope that will not break.
The other prophets he outstripped in virtues physical and moral.
In generosity and knowledge they failed to approach him.
They all seek from the Prophet
A handful from his ocean or a draught from his rain,
Standing before him as befits their limits:
Dots as to knowledge, diacritical signs as to wisdom.
In him, form and essence reach perfection,
And mankind’s Creator chose him as beloved.
In virtues he is exalted above every peer,
And of his beauty’s core none can claim a share.
Forget all the Christians pretend about their prophet;
Devise and decree what you wish in his praise,
Attribute to him whatever honour you wish,
Ascribe to his rank any greatness you wish,
The merits of God’s Prophet are limitless;
No human speech can encompass them.
If his miracles in their greatness were equal to his rank
Dry bones would revive at the mention of his name.
Out of craving for us, he spared us trials that surpass our reason
And freed us from uncertainty and doubt.
Comprehension of his meaning confounds mankind;
All appear dumbstruck, be they distant or near,
Like the sun which appears small to the eye
From afar, and blinds when viewed from close at hand.
How in this world can his true nature be grasped
By a people of sleepers concerned only with their dreams?
The sum of our knowledge about him is that he is human
And that he is the best of God’s creation,
And that all noble messengers’ miracles before him
Became theirs only through his light.
He is the sun of excellence, they are its stars,
Reflecting its rays for people in the dark.
Marvel at the person of the Prophet, with virtues adorned,
In beauty clad, with a smile endowed,