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Love beyond words…
Ibn al-Fāriḍ In the art of describing his beauty, time itself expires and yet still there remains in him, what has not been described وعـلى تَـفَنّنِ واصِـفيهِ بِحُسْنِهِ يَـفنى الـزّمانُ...
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Rumi: By love
Translation: By love, the bitter becomes sweet By love copper coins become gold By love, the dregs become clear By love, the pain becomes healing By love, the dead is made living By love, the king is...
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Hafez on Ramadan
Translation: In the month of Sha’aban, do not neglect the glass of wine This sun will disappear untl the ‘Eid of Ramadan Original: ماه شعبان منه از دست قدح کاین خورشید از نظر...
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The wine was so fine…
The following was one of Ibn ‘Arabi’s favorite verses of poetry, oft-quoted by Sufi authors ranging from al-Ghazzali to Fakhr ad-din ‘Iraqi to Emir ‘abd al-Qadir to explain the mysterious relationship...
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Shakespeare, Shushtari, and the Sultan
Sonnet 29 When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to...
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Andalusian Love songs: Shushtari and Camaron
The poems of the Andalusian Sufi, Abu’l-Hasan Shushtari (d. 1269) parallel and perhaps indirectly influenced some of my favorite Flamenco lyrics. Compare this pair of songs: Your love for me is not...
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Andalusian Love Songs: Shushtari and Camaron (part 2)
Translation: You who took my heart from me, your love stole my senses You hid me from myself, and in myself, I don’t appear I’m hidden form my sight, as if I were invisible So I went out to look for...
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Words of love…
Translation: There are words we kiss, As if they had mouths Words of love of hope, Immense love, crazy hope Naked words that kiss you When the night loses taste, Words that refuse, The walls of your...
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My art is loving that beauty
Translation: Go tell the faqih for me My art is loving that beauty My drink is with him, from the glass and the Ḥaḍra, with those gathered round and my dear friends around me lifted all my burdens...
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Cristina Branco and Hafez
Cristina Branco “Vida Triste” Translation: Condemned to live sad Is he who loves much. You, my heart, never withstood The love that the pain inflames. Again my tortured heart Sought shelter in thy...
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Blow winds, blow
Ḥallāj: ) Translation (a bit of license taken): O wind of the dawn, I say to the gazelle it only makes me thirstier, the water of this well I have a beloved whose love lives within me And if she...
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Hafez: The Desert of Love
Translation: Lions turn to foxes in the desert of your love What a road! there is no danger which does not lurk there. Original: شیر در بادیه عشق تو روباه شود آه از این راه که در وی خطری نیست که...
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Flee
❊ ففرّوا الى الله ❊ So flee to God… (Qur’an 51:50) اعوذ بك منك I seek refuge in You from You (Hadith) Rumi Flee to God’s Qur’an, take refuge in it there with the spirits of the prophets merge. The...
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Like a Candle…
from Figs and Thistles: First Fig BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light! Source:...
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The hardest thing in the world…
ahh, who hasn’t felt like this… Translation: The hardest thing in the world is studied and learned well I tried to study your love But I couldn’t understand Why I suffer and cry like a child Before...
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The Guitar
Rumi We are pain and what cures pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours. I want to hold you close like a lute, so that we can cry out with loving. Would you rather throw stones...
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The Religion of Love
In addition to Ibn ‘Arabi’s famous poem (see this post), the “religion of love,” the root of all religion and worship beyond all distinctions and differentiations, plays an important role in other Sufi...
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Ramadan with Hafez
Bring a glass of that wine of love which cooks every raw one even though it’s the month of Ramadan زان می عشق کز او پخته شود هر خامی گر چه ماه رمضان است بیاور جامی Give me a few cups of that wine sold...
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Did Lightning Flash?
Ibn al-Fāriḍ Translation: 1. Is it a flash of lightning that shone over the mottled mountain, or did Layla lift, from her face, the veil? 2. Yes, she unveiled her face at night, and made it day with...
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Tonight I learned that you would come
Another poem of Amir Khusrow: Translation: Tonight I heard that you, oh beloved, would come – Be my head sacrificed to the road along which you will come riding! All the gazelles of the desert have put...
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