Jahane Rumi

Today is Mevlana’s 800th anniversary. Centuries later, his poetry and messages of love resonate across the globe. I am posting this piece by Charles Haviland (published on the BBC website). Haviland visits Balkhand meets the locals. This is a readable travel account, well informed and empathetic. And some great quotes, for instance a local official saying:

“Whether a person is from East or West, he can feel the roar of Rumi,”

I was struck by the beauty of the verses cited by the writer’s companion:

“Mawlana says - if the sky is not in love, then it will not be so clear. If the sun is not in love, then it will not be giving any light. If the river is not in love, then it will be in silence, it will not be moving. If the mountains, the earth are not in love, then there will be nothing growing.”

Read the full article here

Thanks to Isa, Mohib and Faisal for sending me the links to this article.

Listen to the song of the reed,
How it wails with the pain of separation:

“Ever since I was taken from my reed bed
My woeful song has caused men and women to weep.
I seek out those whose hearts are torn by separation
For only they understand the pain of this longing.
Whoever is taken away from his homeland
Yearns for the day he will return.
In every gathering, among those who are happy or sad,
I cry with the same lament.
Everyone hears according to his own understanding,
None has searched for the secrets within me.
My secret is found in my lament
But an eye or ear without light cannot know it..”

The sound of the reed comes from fire, not wind
What use is one’s life without this fire?
It is the fire of love that brings music to the reed.
It is the ferment of love that gives taste to the wine.
The song of the reed soothes the pain of lost love.
Its melody sweeps the veils from the heart.
Can there be a poison so bitter or a sugar so sweet
As the song of the reed?
To hear the song of the reed
everything you have ever known must be left behind.

– Version by Jonathan Star
“Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved”
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997

Courtesy Sunlight where more versions can be found.

I bow before the image of my Love

No Muslim I
But an idolater
I bow before the image of my Love
And worship her
No Brahman I
My sacred thread
I cast away, for round my neck I wear
Her plaited hair instead

Princess Zebunnisa - (Divan-e-Makhfi)

From my published article

Note: the translation is not mine

Yesterday, All Things Pakistan published a little protest against the uncalled for treatment of the much maligned Naeem Bokhari. A few excerpts here..

we read the news that Bokhari was manhandled by his ‘black-coated’ fraternity when he re-appeared in the Courts after a long break. Naeem Bokhari broke the silence and wrote in The News on what exactly transpired on that fateful day when the Rawalpindi lawyers’ “fury” resulted in his humiliation and ruthless thrashing. 

Bokhari painted a harrowing picture of his treatment. He alleges that he was “forcibly pushed out of the courtroom and hit on the head again and again.” At the end of this mob frenzy, Bokhari and his associate were severely beaten. Symbolically Bokhari’s coat was snatched and his shirt was torn. Humiliating as it is, the whole incident is reminiscent of tribal notions of justice.

While the misgivings against the perceived collaborators of the executive may be justified, such abusive treatment is not. It is plainly out of the ambit of the laws and code of conduct under which the legal profession is regulated. In fact, such incidents can taint the heroic image that the lawyers’ bodies have earned through their relentless, spectacular struggle.

And..

Would it be too much to ask that the Supreme Court should take suo moto notice of this incident and reaffirm that it is the ultimate guardian of constitutional rights and that it will not let its law-officers, especially in their name, behave the way an unaccountable executive governs.

 Read the full article and comments here

There was a tragedy in my family recently. It has been a sobering week, reflective as well as chaotic.

 Last night, I read this translation of Rumi and understod how important it was to have faith and trust the power of Love. 

Weave not, like spiders, nets from grief’s saliva
In which the woof and warp are both decaying.
But give the grief to Him, Who granted it,
And do not talk about it anymore.
When you are silent, His speech is your speech.
When you don’t weave, the weaver will be He.

– Translation by Annemarie Schimmel

Khalid Hasan writes on the great Pakistani master, Sadequain, in the current issue of the Friday Times:

“It is 20 years this year since Sadequain’s death. He would have been 77. When he died at the age of 57 (of what can only be called too much living), it was not his death that was surprising but how he had lived so long, given the white hot intensity with which he lived and painted, wrote and loved. He burned his candle at both ends, and had there been a third end, he would have burned it from that end too.”

And this great anecdote -

“…There are hundreds of Sadequain stories, but the one recounted by journalist Nasrullah Khan Aziz is characteristic. One day in Karachi, a man came up to Sadequain and said that he had a family to feed but nothing to feed it with. The only thing he knew was how to drive a rickshaw. Sadequain gave him 15 thousand rupees to buy a rickshaw, as long as he agreed to take him wherever he wanted to go. That arrangement lasted for some time, but one day, Sadequain said to him, “You are free. You don’t have to drive me around anymore.”

Read the full article here

End of an era: Ainee Apa 1927 - 2007

Why do we all find ourselves present in this particular context, in this particular place? How have these pictures assembled here in this jigsaw puzzle? Soon, something will happen, pieces will scatter and become part of a newer pattern? This time will pass? (From My Temples, Too)

The death of Qurratulain Hyder marks the end of an era of the finest writing in Urdu. Hyder, also known as Ainee Apa, dominated the world of Urdu literature for over six decades. She started writing as a child and published her first novel, Meray Bhi Sanam Khanay (later trans-created as My Temples, Too), when she was 22 years old. The novel set a new trend in Urdu literature: a voice of modernity, yet one rooted in the traditions of the Indo-Muslim ethos as it struggled to narrate the tragic tale of the birth of two new nations. Even her worst critics, the doyens of the Progressive Writer’s Movement, acknowledged her innate gift for writing. Within three years, her second novel was published and she had unwittingly kick-started the revival of the Urdu novel from the point where Munshi Prem Chand had left it in the early twentieth century.

Her genius found a panoramic range of expression in Aag Ka Darya, which for its canvas, historical consciousness and characterisation, surpasses most novels written in any language. This novel deals with the plight of the human condition in the Indo-Pakistani setting from the fourth century BC to the 1950s. Starting with a translation of a TS Eliot poem, it traces multiple eras, with characters disappearing and reappearing in different guises, pitted against the broad strokes of history and time.

It was an epoch-making event in Urdu literature, but ran into trouble in Pakistan, as the novel highlighted the thousand year old composite Indo-Muslim culture of pre-Partition India, something which was not in line with the official version of history being constructed in Pakistan. Ideologically driven right-wing critics considered it a threat to their nationalism. (more…)

Ah, once more he put a fire in me,
And once more this crazy heart
is craving the open plains.
This ocean of love breaks into another wave
And blood pours from my heart
in all directions.

Ah, one spark flew
and burned the house of my heart.
Smoke filled the sky.
The flames grew fierce in the wind.

The fire of the heart is not easily lit.
So don’t cry out: “O Lord, rescue me
from the burning flames!
Spare me from the army of thoughts
that is marching through my mind!”

O Heart of Pure Consciousness,
You are the ruler of all hearts.
After countless ages
you brought my soul
all it ever wished for.

The eyes of all people happy and sad,
are closed to the truth.
May their eyes be opened!
May they look upon God
and get drunk on His beauty.

May their hands reach toward the Truth.
May their ears hear the voice of the Beloved.
May the shadow of a Master
fall upon everyone who has devotion.

All the world praises you,
But where did this “you” come from?
All the universe is born of Love –
But where did this Love come from?

O Shams,
you are the owner of the land of life –
the light of every heart;
Even the King of Love
knows no love
that is not yours.

– Rumi
Version by Jonathan Star
“A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of Rumi”
Bantam Books, 1992

Fisk on the long term impact of Iraq tragedy: 

2,000-year-old Sumerian cities torn apart and plundered by robbers. The very walls of the mighty Ur of the Chaldees cracking under the strain of massive troop movements, the privatisation of looting as landlords buy up the remaining sites of ancient Mesopotamia to strip them of their artefacts and wealth. The near total destruction of Iraq’s historic past – the very cradle of human civilisation – has emerged as one of the most shameful symbols of our disastrous occupation.

Evidence amassed by archaeologists shows that even those Iraqis who trained as archaeological workers in Saddam Hussein’s regime are now using their knowledge to join the looters in digging through the ancient cities, destroying thousands of priceless jars, bottles and other artefacts in their search for gold and other treasures

Read the full article here

How does a part of the world leave the world?
How can wetness leave water?

Don’t try to put out a fire
by throwing on more fire!
Don’t wash a wound with blood!

No matter how fast you run,
your shadow more than keeps up.
Sometimes, it’s in front!

Only full, overhead sun
diminishes your shadow.

But that shadow has been serving you!
What hurts you, blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest.

I can explain this, but it would break
the glass cover on your heart,
and there’s no fixing that.

You must have shadow and light source both.
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.

When from that tree, feathers and wings sprout
on you, be quieter than a dove.
Don’t open your mouth for even a cooooooo.

When a frog slips into the water, the snake
cannot get it. Then the frog climbs back out
and croaks, and the snake moves toward him again.

Even if the frog learned to hiss, still the snake
would hear through the hiss the information
he needed, the frog voice underneath.

But if the frog could be completely silent,
then the snake would go back to sleeping,
and the frog could reach the barley.

The soul lives there in the silent breath.

And that grain of barley is such that,
when you put it in the ground,
it grows.
Are these enough words,
or shall I squeeze more juice from this?
Who am I, my friend?

Rumi– Version by Coleman Barks
courtesy

Indian Muslims blog has posted my travel piece on Delhi.

“…, I tell my workmate of the 22 khawajas buried under Delhi’s soil and the very central role this place has performed in the growth of Sufism in South Asia. My colleague is a little nonplussed as I hold forth, declaring that Delhi is a grand Muslim resource centre. By now, I have made an early morning dash to the Lodhi gardens and walked around the Humayun’s enchanting tomb. My fascination with the saints has not ended and on Thursday I find myself at the dargah of Khawaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki. Aibak was a mureed (disciple) of the saint Khawaja, after whom he named the Qutub Minar. Quite appropriately, the dargah is next to Qutub Minar in the quintessentially medieval Mehrouli area. Bahadur Shah Zafar also built a new residential palace here.”

Read the full article here

Alan Greenspan — the former chief of the US central bank, for years an inscrutable seer on the economy — has outraged the Bush administration by alleging in his new memoir that “the Iraq war is largely about oil.”

Read the full text here

It is just too late, Mr Greenspan. After a million people dead, remnants of an ancient civilization and culture wiped out, the sectarian monster unleashed and the world fractured, this little home-truth might be a sensation for the doctored media.

Most of knew the underlying motive for this criminal war..

(having said that - better late than never)

Update: A good editorial from the Daily Times:

When the Administration reacted angrily, Mr Greenspan himself found it “politically inconvenient” to stick to his clear pronouncement, but his “verdict” has gone and mixed with the vortex of opinion complaining about the Bush Administration’s “oil barons” falling on Iraq for its oil. To count just the people at the top, President George W Bush himself, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have close links to the American oil industry, also called the Big Oil.

Alexander Kronemer writes: 

At its peak, it lit the Dark Ages with science and philosophy, poetry, art, and architecture. It was the period remembered as a golden age for European Jews. Breakthroughs in medicine, the introduction of the number zero, the lost philosophy of Aristotle, even the prototype for the guitar all came to Europe through Islamic Spain.

However, his conclusion has the right heart though not the best of analyses:

At its best, the history of Islamic Spain is a model for interfaith cooperation that inspires those who seek an easier relationship among the three Abrahamic faiths. At its worst, it’s a warning of what can occur when political and religious leaders divide the world. It reminds us what really happens when civilizations clash.

Celebrate! The month of fasting has come.
Pleasant journey to the one
Who is the company of the fasting.

I climbed the roof to see the Moon,
Because I really missed fasting
By heart and soul.

I lost my hat while looking at the Moon.
the Sultan of fasting made me drunk.

O Muslims, I have been drunk
since that day I lost my mind.
What a beautiful fortune fasting has.
What a wonderful glory.

There is another secret moon
Besides this one.
He is hiding in the tent of fasting
Like a Turk.

Anyone who comes
To the harvest of fasting in this month
Finds the way to this Moon.

Whoever makes his face
Resemble pale satin
Wears the silk clothes of fasting.

Prayers will be accepted in this month.
Sighs of the one fasting pierce the sky.

The person who sits patiently
At the bottom of fasting’s well
Owns the love of Egypt, like Joseph.

O the word which eats the Sahur* meal,
Be silent so that anyone
Who knows fasting will enjoy fasting.

Come, O Shems, the brave one
Of whom Tebriz is proud.
You are the commander of fasting’s soldiers.

*Sahur: Meal before dawn during Ramazan fast.

– Ghazal No. 2344 from the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi
Translated by Nevit Ergin
(from the Turkish translation of the original
Persian by Golpinarli)
“Mevlana Jelaleddin Rumi: Divan-i Kebir,”
Volume 18, 2002.
Courtesy

RaaNjha RaaNjha Kardi Ni MaeN

RaaNjha raaNjha kardi ni maeN
Aape raaNjha hoi,
Sado ni menu dhido raaNjha,
Heer na aakho koi.

RaaNjha maeN vich maeN raaNjhe vich,
Hor khayaal na koi,
MaeN naheeN, o aap hai
Aapani aap kare dil joi.

RaaNjha raaNjha kardi ni maeN
Aape raaNjha hoi,
Sado ni menu dhido raaNjha,
Heer na aakho koi.

Jo koee saaday aNder wassey
zaat asaaDee ohee
jis dey naal meyN niyooNh lagaayaa
oh jehee hoee.

RaaNjha raaNjha kardi ni maeN
Aape raaNjha hoi,
Sado ni menu dhido raaNjha,
Heer na aakho koi.

Hath khunDi, mere ahge maNgu,
MoDHe bhoora loe,
Bulha heer saleTi vekho
Kithe ja khaloi.

RaaNjha raaNjha kardi ni maeN
Aape raaNjha hoi,
Sado ni menu dhido raaNjha,
Heer na aakho koi.

Translation

Repeating his name, I have become RaaNjha .
Call me Ranjha , not Heer.

Ranjha is in me and I in Ranjha.
No other thought exists.
It is he who has done this, not I.
He does it to amuse himself.

Repeating his name, I have become RaaNjha .
Call me Ranjha , not Heer.

Whoever dwells in me, He is my caste
Whoever I love, I have become exactly like Him

Repeating his name, I have become RaaNjha
Call me Ranjha , not Heer .

Staff in hand, bowl outstretched,
A coarse brown blanket on his shoulder.
Look, says Bulha ,
Where Heer stands!

Repeating his name, I have become RaaNjha .
Call me Ranjha , not Heer

Contributed by Shahidain

I have been invited by Vidya Rao to attend a concert tomorrow as she will sing at the Thames Festival in London on Sunday, 16th September, 2007.

 The venue is Green Man Stage, Potters field Park and the time is 12.30 in the afternoon.

There are no tickets– its open to all.

Those in London, please attend and experience the magic of her voice.