Amir Khusro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMltaO1tFso Translation: This eternal pain has left me broken One glance of your drunken eyes and I lost my faith My life is now a tale of the past Spent, and sacrificed at the temple of you O wondrous intoxicating eyes, o wondrous long locks O wondrous worshipper of wine, o…
Amir Khusrow and Ḥallāj: two in one
Amir KhusrowEnglish Translation:I have become you, and you me,I am the body, you, the soul;So that no one can say hereafter,That you are someone, and I, someone else. Orginal (transliteration):Mun tu shudam tu mun shudi,mun tun shudam tu jaan shudiTaakas na guyad baad azeen, mun deegaram tu deegari Ḥallāj I am He whom…
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 their heads on their hands In the hope that one day you will come to hunt them…. The…
Hafez and Basho
Basho A strange flower for birds and butterfliesthe autumn sky Glorious the moon . . . therefore our thanks dark clouds Come to rest our necks The first day of the year: thoughts come – and there is loneliness; the autumn dusk is here. None is travelling Here along this way but I,…
Did Lightning Flash?
Ibrahim Niasse Translation: Did lightning flash towards the meadows, gleaming? O grant me a person that when the lightning flashes, he weeps You only glimpse it weakly, woe to you, and you are inflamed with love And glistening tears are stilled in the hour of Life Recalling the days of youth which have passed And nothing remains…
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 in the tavern of love even if it is the…
Near and Far
Ibn al-Fāriḍ لكَ قُرْبٌ مِنّي ببُعدِكَ عنّي وحنوٌّ وجدتهُ في جفاكا … فَتراءيتَ في سِواكَ لِعَينٍ بكَ قَرّتْ، وما رأيتُ سِواكا وكذاكَ الخَليلُ قَلّبَ قَبْلي طرفهُ حينَ راقبَ الأفلاكا You have nearness with me in your distance from me … In other…
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 poetry, especially that of Rumi, Hafez, and Ibn al-Fariḍ: Rumi ملت عشق از همه دینها جداست عاشقان را ملت و مذهب خداست…
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 at a mirror? I am your mirror and here are the stones. In…
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 Because I couldn’t understand it, I suffer and cry like a child Before the image of Christ I saw her crying one day Striking her chest because she was repenting…