by Robert Irwin
Fresh as blossoms, grand as the full moon,
Generous as the sea, unflinching as Time.
He is one, but appears to you in his glory
As though in the midst of an army or retinue.
The pearl concealed in its shell seems as though
Made from the mine of his speech and smile.
No perfume can equal the dust on his bones;
Lucky is the one who smells its fragrance and kisses it.
Proof of his noble descent are the events at his birth;
How great a beginning, how great an end!
On that day the Persians perceived
Warnings of retribution and impending doom,
And Kisra’s Aiwan was cleft asunder,
To be rejoined no more, like Kisra’s royal house;
Bemoaning it, the fire’s flames died down
And the river’s source stopped flowing out of pain.
Sawa suffered when its lake ran dry,
And the thirsty returned in distress.
Fire flowed like water out of grief
And water flamed like fire,
The jinn screamed, the lights rose high
And Truth appeared in meaning and in word.
Yet they were blind and deaf; the message of good tidings
Was not heard, nor was the lightning’s warning seen
After the diviners had told their peoples
That their twisted faith would not stand up,
And meteors in the firmament had fallen down
Before their eyes like idols on this earth,
Until, swept from revelation’s path,
Droves of devils in rout followed each others’ tracks,
Like Abraha’s knights in their flight,
Or that army he pelted with pebbles,
Which praised him before they were thrown from his palms
As when Jonah was thrown from the swallower’s gut.
At his call the trees came prostrate
Walking on legs without feet,
As though drawing straight lines for those wondrous signs
Which their branches inscribed on the way,
Or like clouds that moved wherever he went
To shield him from the heat of fiery midday.
By the moon split in half, I swear that it shares
A resemblance with his heart that lends truth to my oath,
And by the greatness and goodness contained in that Cave
To which the eyes of all doubters were blind
For Truth and Truthful were in the cave unseen
Yet they said: There is no one inside!’ –
Thinking the dove would not lend its wings,
Nor the spider weave its web to shield the Best of Mankind.
God’s protection dispenses with need
For double armour and ramparts high!
Whenever fate threatens harm and I seek his help
I am assured of a sanctuary beyond harm’s reach,
And when both worlds’ wealth I beg from his generous hand
I gain precious gifts from the best who ever gave.
Do not reject the Revelations that he dreamt;
His eyes may have slept but his heart never did.
They came to him at the onset of his prophethood
When his maturity of vision was beyond refute.
May God be praised! Revelation is no acquired skill,
Nor can prophets be faulted about the unseen.
How many sick he cured with his palm,
How many afflicted he freed from madness’s chains!
How often his call restored such life to the ashen year of drought
That its abundance outshone the seasons of plenty,
With clouds so generous the valleys seemed as though
Submerged by the sea or drowned in the Flood of the Dams.
Let me describe his miracles that shone
Like hospitality’s fire lit upon hills at night.
Pearls when strung together gain in beauty
Though unstrung their value does not sink;
Yet eulogy can never hope to fathom
The noble traits and virtues that were his:
Signs of truth from the All-merciful, both newly formed,
And, as attributes of the Eternal One, eternal,
Of timeless import, giving news of Judgement Day
And of the days of Iram and 'Ad,
Remaining ours for ever and so surpassing
All former prophets’ wonders which came but lasted not,
Firmly cast, leaving no room
For doubters to sow dissent, nor needing arbitration,
Never yet opposed without the worst of enemies
Desisting from his pillage in surrender,
Their eloquence repelling all aggressors,
As honour jealously wards off the harem’s desecrators,
Containing meanings of expanse wider than the ocean
And greater in beauty and value than its pearls,
Their wonders uncountable and beyond number,
Never causing lassitude however much repeated,
Cooling the reciter’s eye until I said:
‘You have seized the rope of God. Now hold it tight.
If you utter them in fear of the Laza fire
Their cool springs will extinguish its flames.’
They are like the Pool that renders the sinners’ faces
White when they had come to it as black as coal,
Or like the Bridge and the Scale in equity;
Without them righteousness would not prevail among mankind.
Do not wonder at their rejection by the envious
Who feign ignorance when they understand full well;
Struck by disease, an eye may fail to see the sun,
And mouths may be too ill to know the water’s taste.
O best of all whose courtyard ever supplicants sought,
Running, or riding she-camels with sturdy hooves,
O greatest sign for all those who take heed,
Greatest boon for all who seek increase!
In one night you journeyed from sanctuary to sanctuary,
Passing, like the full moon, through bleakest darkness on the way,
Ascending all night till you came within Two Bow-lengths,
A point never attained, nor aspired to before.
There, all messengers and prophets gave you precedence,
Like servants who for their master happily make way.
When you marched through the seven heavens
In procession with them, you were their standard bearer,
Till, when you came so close that no goal was left for other
runners,
And no summit for other climbers,
You lowered all ranks by comparison
Since you were summoned high as only overlord
To reap a union – how secluded from all eyes! –
And a secret – how totally concealed! –
And so gathered every unapportioned honour
And traversed every undiscovered place,
And achieved the most exalted rank
And obtained blessings beyond all comprehension.
Good tidings for us people of Islam, for in him we have
A pillar of kind care which none can overthrow.
When God called him – who calls us to obedience of Him –
His noblest messenger, we became the noblest of nations.
The news of his mission struck fear in the enemies’ hearts,
As the lion’s roar makes heedless herds stampede.
He met up with them in every battle
Till lances made them seem like meat on a butcher’s block.
Vainly they hoped to flee, in envy almost of their slain
Whom eagles and vultures carried off in bits.
They lost count of the nights that passed
Except for the nights of the sacred months.
Religion alighte
d upon their courtyard like a guest
Bringing chiefs hungry for their enemies’ flesh,
Leading armies vast as the sea, mounted on swift steeds,
Foaming with surging waves of heroes,
Each answerable to God and trusting in His reward,
And wielding swords that uproot and shatter unbelief,
Until the faith of Islam, exiled from among them at first,
Became part of their lineage and kin,
And was provided through them with the best father and husband,
And would never be orphaned or widowed.
They are the mountains. Ask their foes
What they saw of them on the battlefield;
Ask Hunain, ask Uhud, ask Badr,
Seasons of death more calamitous than the plague.
They brought their white swords back red
From the drinking fount of their enemies’ black locks.
With the brown lances of Khatt they wrote, their pens
Leaving no parts of the body without dots.
Armed to the teeth, they have a special mark
Like the mark that distinguishes roses from thorns:
In their fragrance blows the wind of victory;
You would think their every warrior was a rose in its bud.
Seated on their steeds they appear as though planted on hills
Due to their tough resolution, not to their tight saddle-straps.
Their enemies’ hearts fled from their power in fear
Unable to distinguish herds from hordes.
When they meet those helped by the Prophet of God,
The lions of the thicket are stunned.
Never will you see an ally of his not aided
By him, nor an enemy of his not crushed.
His people he placed in the fortress of his creed,
Just as lions raise their cubs in dense bush.
How often has God’s word felled his opponents,
How often has His proof confounded his contestants.
Suffice it as a miracle to see in the Jahiliyya age
An orphan of such education and knowledge.
I served him with my eulogy to be redeemed thereby
From the sins of a life of poetry and servitude
Which wound around my neck collars of fearful portent
As though I was a lamb destined for ritual death.
In both pursuits I obeyed the folly of youthful passion
And reaped nothing but sins and bitter remorse.
What a loss my soul incurred in this trade!
In exchange for this world it did not buy faith nor even tried to
bargain.
Those who sell their assets for short-term gain
Shall see loss in their sales and transactions.
Yet, despite my sins, my covenant with the Prophet is unharmed,
Nor is the rope that links me to him severed.
I have his protection, for I am named
Muhammad, and he is mankind’s most faithful protector.
If he does not gently take me by the hand
On Judgement Day, my foot is sure to slip.
Far be it from him that a supplicant should be deprived of his gifts
Or that a neighbour seeking his help should remain
unprotected.
Since I have devoted my thoughts to his praise
I have found him the best guarantor of salvation.
No dust-stained hand will ever miss out on his richness;
Rain makes flowers sprout on desert hills.
But I do not seek the flowers of this world
Which Zuhair picked through praising Harim.
O most generous of mankind, I have none to turn to
Save you when the final catastrophe comes.
Your glory, O Prophet, shall not diminish through me
When the Generous one assumes the name of Avenger,
For this world and its counterpart spring but from your bounty
And the Tablet and Pen are but part of your knowledge.
O soul, do not despair over the gravity of your faults;
Great sins when forgiveness comes are like small ones.
When God divides His mercy, its shares
Perchance may equal the size of our transgression.
O Lord, let my hope in You not be thwarted,
And do not annul my account with You,
And be kind to Your servant in both worlds,
For when terror beckons, his fortitude shall wane,
And let a cloud of Your incessant blessings
Pour showers of abundant rain upon the Prophet,
For as long as the zephyr moves the branches of the willow
And camel drivers delight their grey animals with songs.
Stefan Sperl and Christopher Shackle (eds.), Qasida Poetry in
Islamic Asia and Africa, vol. 2 (Leiden, 1996), pp. 389–411
COMMENTARY
The Burda starts with a lament over the deserted campsites (Dhu Salam and Kazima) and ends with a panegyric-just like the traditional pre-Islamic qasida. In the mid-part of the poem, Busiri compares his wasted youth to the glorious career of the Prophet.
'Udhri love is chaste or unfulfilled love, as celebrated by elegiac poets of the Umayyad period. The name derives from the south Arabian tribe of Banu Udhra, two of whose members allegedly died of love.
Katam is a plant used for dyeing the hair black, but there is a play upon words here, for katama means ‘conceal’.
Kisra is a generic name for a Persian emperor.
In pre-Islamic times, Abraha was the Christian Abyssinian viceroy over the Yemen. In 570 (the Year of the Elephant) he attempted to march against Mecca, intent on desecrating the Ka’ba. His army was accompanied by elephants. However, the elephants refused to enter Mecca and then, as the Abyssinian army began its retreat, it was pelted by pebbles dropped by birds. Most of the army perished under the hail of stones, but Abraha died of a plague which slowly rotted his body, so that his limbs dropped off. The story is referred to in the Qur’an, sura 105, ‘The Elephant’.
In pre-Islamic times Iram was the magnificent palace of many columns built by King Shaddad to rival Paradise, but a great shout from heaven destroyed the king and his retinue before they could enter the palace. The whereabouts of the lost palace gave rise to many stories. A version of the legend of the impious King Shaddad is found in later compilations of The Thousand and One Nights.
'Ad was a pre-Islamic tribe who failed to heed the warnings of God’s prophet, Hud. They were destroyed by a roaring wind.
Laza fire is hellfire.
Zuhair is Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma, a pre-Islamic poet who wrote a celebrated Mu'allaqa which included a panegyric of a tribal mediator, Harim ibn Sinan.
In the late Middle Ages, Sufi groups were playing a more prominent social and cultural role than they had done hitherto. In a passage extracted below, the twelfth-century writer and adventurer Usamah ibn Munqidh (1095-1188) describes the impact a Sufi gathering had upon him when he was first introduced to one of their meetings.
Usamah is one of the most interesting and appealing of medieval Arab authors. He was born into the ruling dynasty of the tiny principality of Shayzar in northern Syria. However, having fallen out with his uncle who was the Emir of Shayzar, Usamah spent most of his life in exile. (He was therefore one of very few members of his clan not to be killed when an earthquake struck the castle at Shayzar in 1157.) He had a chequered and not entirely honourable career in politics and warfare in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. He had many encounters, on and off the battlefield, with the Franks of the Crusader principalities, whom he seems to have regarded as a kind of horrible marvel created by Allah. He thought that they were good for fighting, but not for much else. Many, though not all, of his anecdotes about the Franks are to be found in his Kitab al-I'tibar (‘The Book of Example’). This has sometimes been described as Usamah’s autobiography, but this is not quite accurate, for autobiography was not a rec
ognized genre in the medieval Arab world. Rather in the I'tibar Usamah aimed to instruct his descendants through teaching by examples. (He did not have a general readership in mind.) 'Ibra is an example, or something from which one takes warning. Thus, for example, pious folk who studied the Qur’an drew example from the fate of once proud dynasties who had displeased God and had since perished. Usamah drew upon the personal experiences of a long and eventful life in order to provide examples which might encourage his descendants to be brave, wary and, above all, mindful of God; the principal theme of his book is that though man proposes, it is God who disposes. Despite its edifying aim, the I'tibar is a good read – full of humour, vivid detail, idiosyncratic thoughts and exciting incidents.
The Franks are void of all zeal and jealousy. One of them may be walking along with his wife. He meets another man who takes the wife by the hand and steps aside to converse with her while the husband is standing on one side waiting for his wife to conclude the conversation. If she lingers too long for him, he leaves her alone with the conversant and goes away.
Here is an illustration which I myself witnessed:
When I used to visit Nablus, I always took lodging with a man named Mu'izz, whose home was a lodging house for the Moslems. The house had widows which opened to the road, and there stood opposite to it on the other side of the road a house belonging to a Frank who sold wine for the merchants. He would take some wine in a bottle and go around announcing it by shouting, ‘So and so, the merchant, has just opened a cask full of this wine. He who wants to buy some of it will find it in such and such a place.’ The Frank’s pay for the announcement would be the wine in that bottle. One day this Frank went home and found a man with his wife in the same bed. He asked him, ‘What could have made thee enter into my wife’s room?’ The man replied, ‘I was tired, so I went into rest.’ ‘But how,’ asked he, ‘didst thou get into my bed?’ The other replied, ‘I found a bed that was spread, so I slept in it.’ ‘But,’ said he, ‘my wife was sleeping together with thee!’ The other replied, ‘Well, the bed is hers. How could I therefore have prevented her from using her own bed?’ ‘By the truth of my religion,’ said the husband, ‘if thou shouldst do it again, thou and I would have a quarrel.’ Such was for the Frank the entire expression of his disapproval and the limit of his jealousy.
However, Usamah was not always so cheerful …
Let no one therefore assume for a moment that the hour of death is advanced by exposing one’s self to danger, or retarded by over-cautiousness. In the fact that I have myself survived is an object lesson, for how many terrors have I braved, and how many horrors and dangers have I risked! How many horsemen have I faced, and how many lions have I killed! How many sword cuts and lance thrusts have I received! How many wounds with darts and arbalest stones have been inflicted on me! All this while I was with regard to death in an impregnable fortress, until I have now attained the completion of my ninetieth year. And now I view health and experience in the same light as the Prophet (may Allah’s blessing and peace rest upon him!) when he said, ‘Health sufficeth as a malady.’ In fact, my survival from all those horrors has resulted for me in something even more arduous than fighting and killing. To me, death at the head of an army would have been easier than the troubles of later life. For my life has been so prolonged that the revolving days have taken from me all the objects of pleasure. The turbidity of misery has marred the clearness of happy living. I am in the position described in my own words as follows: