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The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems
Inside A Lover's Heart There's Another World, And Yet Another Rumi's masterpieces have inspired countless people throughout the centuries, and Coleman Barks's exquisite renderings of the thirteenth-century Persian mystic are widely considered the definitive versions for our time. Barks's translations capture the inward exploration and intensity that characterize Rumi's poetry, making this unique voice of mysticism and desire contemporary while remaining true to the original poems. In this volume readers will encounter the essence of Sufism's insights into the experience of divine love, wisdom, and the nature of both humanity and God. While Barks's stamp on this collection is clear, it is Rumi's voice that leaps off these pages with a rapturous power that leaves readers breathless. These poems express our deepest yearning for the transcendent connection with the source of the there are passionate outbursts about the torment of longing for the beloved and the sweet delight that comes from union; stories of sexual adventures and of loss; poems of love and fury, sadness and joy; and quiet truths about the beauty and variety of human emotion. For Rumi, soul and body and emotion are not separate but are rather part of the great mystery of mortal life, a riddle whose solution is love. Above all else, Rumi's poetry exposes us to the delight that comes from being fully alive, urging us always to put aside our fears and take the risk of discovering our core No one knows what makes the soul wake up so happy! Maybe a dawn breeze has blown the veil from the face of God. These fresh, original translations magnificently convey Rumi's insights into the human heart and its longings with his signature passion and daring, focusing on the ecstatic experience of the inseparability of human and divine love. The match between Rumi's sublime poetry and Coleman Barks's poetic art are unequaled, and here this artistic union is raised to new heights.
425 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
About the author
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
1,135 books15k followersSufism inspired writings of Persian poet and mystic Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi; these writings express the longing of the soul for union with the divine.
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī - also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, Mevlânâ/Mawlānā (مولانا, "our master"), Mevlevî/Mawlawī (مولوی, "my master") and more popularly simply as Rumi - was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian and Sufi mystic who lived in Konya, a city of Ottoman Empire (Today's Turkey). His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages, and he has been described as the most popular poet and the best-selling poet in the United States.
His poetry has influenced Persian literature, but also Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Azerbaijani, Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu, as well as the literature of some other Turkic, Iranian, and Indo-Aryan languages including Chagatai, Pashto, and Bengali.
Due to quarrels between different dynasties in Khorāṣān, opposition to the Khwarizmid Shahs who were considered devious by his father, Bahā ud-Dīn Wālad or fear of the impending Mongol cataclysm, his father decided to migrate westwards, eventually settling in the Anatolian city Konya, where he lived most of his life, composed one of the crowning glories of Persian literature, and profoundly affected the culture of the area.
When his father died, Rumi, aged 25, inherited his position as the head of an Islamic school. One of Baha' ud-Din's students, Sayyed Burhan ud-Din Muhaqqiq Termazi, continued to train Rumi in the Shariah as well as the Tariqa, especially that of Rumi's father. For nine years, Rumi practised Sufism as a disciple of Burhan ud-Din until the latter died in 1240 or 1241. Rumi's public life then began: he became an Islamic Jurist, issuing fatwas and giving sermons in the mosques of Konya. He also served as a Molvi (Islamic teacher) and taught his adherents in the madrassa. During this period, Rumi also travelled to Damascus and is said to have spent four years there.
It was his meeting with the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi on 15 November 1244 that completely changed his life. From an accomplished teacher and jurist, Rumi was transformed into an ascetic.
On the night of 5 December 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. Rumi's love for, and his bereavement at the death of, Shams found their expression in an outpouring of lyric poems, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus.
Rumi found another companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, a goldsmith. After Salah ud-Din's death, Rumi's scribe and favourite student, Hussam-e Chalabi, assumed the role of Rumi's companion. Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next 12 years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the Masnavi, to Hussam.
In December 1273, Rumi fell ill and died on the 17th of December in Konya.
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī - also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, Mevlânâ/Mawlānā (مولانا, "our master"), Mevlevî/Mawlawī (مولوی, "my master") and more popularly simply as Rumi - was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian and Sufi mystic who lived in Konya, a city of Ottoman Empire (Today's Turkey). His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages, and he has been described as the most popular poet and the best-selling poet in the United States.
His poetry has influenced Persian literature, but also Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Azerbaijani, Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu, as well as the literature of some other Turkic, Iranian, and Indo-Aryan languages including Chagatai, Pashto, and Bengali.
Due to quarrels between different dynasties in Khorāṣān, opposition to the Khwarizmid Shahs who were considered devious by his father, Bahā ud-Dīn Wālad or fear of the impending Mongol cataclysm, his father decided to migrate westwards, eventually settling in the Anatolian city Konya, where he lived most of his life, composed one of the crowning glories of Persian literature, and profoundly affected the culture of the area.
When his father died, Rumi, aged 25, inherited his position as the head of an Islamic school. One of Baha' ud-Din's students, Sayyed Burhan ud-Din Muhaqqiq Termazi, continued to train Rumi in the Shariah as well as the Tariqa, especially that of Rumi's father. For nine years, Rumi practised Sufism as a disciple of Burhan ud-Din until the latter died in 1240 or 1241. Rumi's public life then began: he became an Islamic Jurist, issuing fatwas and giving sermons in the mosques of Konya. He also served as a Molvi (Islamic teacher) and taught his adherents in the madrassa. During this period, Rumi also travelled to Damascus and is said to have spent four years there.
It was his meeting with the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi on 15 November 1244 that completely changed his life. From an accomplished teacher and jurist, Rumi was transformed into an ascetic.
On the night of 5 December 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. Rumi's love for, and his bereavement at the death of, Shams found their expression in an outpouring of lyric poems, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus.
Rumi found another companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, a goldsmith. After Salah ud-Din's death, Rumi's scribe and favourite student, Hussam-e Chalabi, assumed the role of Rumi's companion. Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next 12 years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the Masnavi, to Hussam.
In December 1273, Rumi fell ill and died on the 17th of December in Konya.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 175 reviews
June 8, 2024
I’m an elderly survivor of too many recurrent close calls...
And a wobbly-kneed ambler through dense and decayed Denis-Johnsonian urban streetscapes...
And an old neighbourhood fixture limping over to friends’ houses on daily caretaker errands at vacation times!
I know whereof Coleman Barks and his mentor Rumi speak.
I could not do without my Inner Guide.
And no, it’s not Shams, but that doesn’t matter. We believers call Him the Spirit - but to each his or her own.
He’s often what gets us through the Night.
Our Inner Guide gets us through the long tough day, too... when the grinding, glaring world tries our politeness and our patience to new, uncharted limits!
Yeah - He’s always there.
He’s Elijah’s ‘still small voice.’ And He’s there, if we’re not too overloaded to pay attention. Because, if we suddenly lose it all amid our myriad frustrations, we’ll miss Him.
But Coleman Barks is listening.
VERY closely.
Yes, and Rumi too - even way back then, listening - in a now-forgotten mythic, mystical Middle East!
This book is an “ecstatic” series of rhapsodies about finding the Guide. My wonderful brother gave it to me many years ago. He’s knows I’ve always sought that Voice...
He knows me well.
I always went my own way, the cauchemar of my well-meaning parents, teachers and long-suffering friends...
And I FOUND my own rather contrarious way. And like you, lost it and re-found it over, and over, and over again. We only have to remember our Guide!
It’s time for me to shut up, now.
Let’s all Listen as Coleman tells us one of his incomparable master Rumi’s stories.
It’s called TWO DONKEYS...
Friend, there’s a sweetness in the moon’s
one pearl, but consider the ocean it
grew in, and the soul’s great turning
wheel. Graffiti people on bathhouse walls
have intelligent origins, but think who
drew the mind! It takes know-how to make
oil from suet. These suet-jelly eyes we
see with were also skilfully devised.
It’s dawn, and yet this community still sits
amazed with the night. There’s a donkey
who likes to be fed barley with other
donkeys, and there’s a donkey who loves
the changes that happen in the soul. Now
silence lets the One behind your eyes talk.
***
FABULOUS! And isn’t that a lot like familiar Western poets too? Think of those famous lines by Auden:
Poetry is a way of happening -
A mouth.
But for me, a line or two of Rumi says it all!
And a wobbly-kneed ambler through dense and decayed Denis-Johnsonian urban streetscapes...
And an old neighbourhood fixture limping over to friends’ houses on daily caretaker errands at vacation times!
I know whereof Coleman Barks and his mentor Rumi speak.
I could not do without my Inner Guide.
And no, it’s not Shams, but that doesn’t matter. We believers call Him the Spirit - but to each his or her own.
He’s often what gets us through the Night.
Our Inner Guide gets us through the long tough day, too... when the grinding, glaring world tries our politeness and our patience to new, uncharted limits!
Yeah - He’s always there.
He’s Elijah’s ‘still small voice.’ And He’s there, if we’re not too overloaded to pay attention. Because, if we suddenly lose it all amid our myriad frustrations, we’ll miss Him.
But Coleman Barks is listening.
VERY closely.
Yes, and Rumi too - even way back then, listening - in a now-forgotten mythic, mystical Middle East!
This book is an “ecstatic” series of rhapsodies about finding the Guide. My wonderful brother gave it to me many years ago. He’s knows I’ve always sought that Voice...
He knows me well.
I always went my own way, the cauchemar of my well-meaning parents, teachers and long-suffering friends...
And I FOUND my own rather contrarious way. And like you, lost it and re-found it over, and over, and over again. We only have to remember our Guide!
It’s time for me to shut up, now.
Let’s all Listen as Coleman tells us one of his incomparable master Rumi’s stories.
It’s called TWO DONKEYS...
Friend, there’s a sweetness in the moon’s
one pearl, but consider the ocean it
grew in, and the soul’s great turning
wheel. Graffiti people on bathhouse walls
have intelligent origins, but think who
drew the mind! It takes know-how to make
oil from suet. These suet-jelly eyes we
see with were also skilfully devised.
It’s dawn, and yet this community still sits
amazed with the night. There’s a donkey
who likes to be fed barley with other
donkeys, and there’s a donkey who loves
the changes that happen in the soul. Now
silence lets the One behind your eyes talk.
***
FABULOUS! And isn’t that a lot like familiar Western poets too? Think of those famous lines by Auden:
Poetry is a way of happening -
A mouth.
But for me, a line or two of Rumi says it all!
August 8, 2023
- من حصاد معرض الشارقة 2018.
- الكتاب يندرج تحت عنوان الشعر المنثور، القصائد كونية وتتوجه للجميع من دون تقسيم او محاباة، نظمت او ترجمت على شكل مقاطع قصيرة، وقد اتت الترجمة مفهومة وسلسلة وبمفردات سهلة، لكن ما يعيب هذا الكتاب هو اختفاء الهوامش فقد كان يجب شرح الكثير من الأبيات خصوصاً للذبن لا يعرفون المعنى في الأشعار الصوفية.
---
" أيتها الروح الغالية، ابتعدي عن التافهين،
ولا تتقربي إلا من اصحاب القلوب النقية.
فالطيور على أشكالها تقع.
الغراب يقودك الى المقبرة،
والببغاء الى قطعة السكر"
- " العالمان اللذان نتخيلهما
هما دار اقامة
نأتي منهما ونذهب.
وما القصص الكثيرة التي
نسمعها عن الروح
سوى قصص حوريات"
- "أعرف ان روحي تنتمي
الى روح جميع الأرواح.
أعلم انني انتمي الى مدينة
الذين ليس لهم مكان.
لكن، كي أجد طريقي الى هناك
يجب ان اتخلى عن كل معرفتي"
- الكتاب يندرج تحت عنوان الشعر المنثور، القصائد كونية وتتوجه للجميع من دون تقسيم او محاباة، نظمت او ترجمت على شكل مقاطع قصيرة، وقد اتت الترجمة مفهومة وسلسلة وبمفردات سهلة، لكن ما يعيب هذا الكتاب هو اختفاء الهوامش فقد كان يجب شرح الكثير من الأبيات خصوصاً للذبن لا يعرفون المعنى في الأشعار الصوفية.
---
" أيتها الروح الغالية، ابتعدي عن التافهين،
ولا تتقربي إلا من اصحاب القلوب النقية.
فالطيور على أشكالها تقع.
الغراب يقودك الى المقبرة،
والببغاء الى قطعة السكر"
- " العالمان اللذان نتخيلهما
هما دار اقامة
نأتي منهما ونذهب.
وما القصص الكثيرة التي
نسمعها عن الروح
سوى قصص حوريات"
- "أعرف ان روحي تنتمي
الى روح جميع الأرواح.
أعلم انني انتمي الى مدينة
الذين ليس لهم مكان.
لكن، كي أجد طريقي الى هناك
يجب ان اتخلى عن كل معرفتي"
June 17, 2009
This is not a book you can ever say you "Read" as if you actually finished it and then put it on the shelf. This book is a bible, a companion, a map to the soul, to life and all the Universe. You will carry it with you around the house, keep it on your desk, in your bathroom, in your backpack - wherever it is you may need quick access to enlightened poetry and guidance. If you are up, this book will provide confirmation. If you are down, this book will give you answers and reasons to keep searching, keep trying to know love. If you are in love, this book will make you realize what it is you have gotten yourself into. Rumi is timeless and each time you read his poems, it is like reading them for the 1st time. This book should be a daily visit for every human. Coleman Barks is truly gifted in his understanding of Rumi and translation abilities. I was blessed to be able to see him recite from this book live. It was one of the most beautiful moments in my life.
January 5, 2014
I like to read this book early in the morning. It's like eating love for breakfast.
A corny thing to say. And utterly true.
A corny thing to say. And utterly true.
April 24, 2007
he's so damn popular in the world of poetry it is sort of cliche to like the darn guy, but what the heck, I do.
Children Running Through
I used to be shy.
You made me sing.
I used to refuse things at table.
Now I shout for more wine.
In somber dignity, I used to sit
on my mat and pray.
Now children run through
and make faces at me.
Children Running Through
I used to be shy.
You made me sing.
I used to refuse things at table.
Now I shout for more wine.
In somber dignity, I used to sit
on my mat and pray.
Now children run through
and make faces at me.
December 15, 2018
أيّها القلب،
لا تدع صدأ الحزن يدنو مِنك،
لا تهدر وقتك في صُحبة سطحيّة.
فعندما ترضى بالقليل،
فإنك تستصغر العالم.
لا تدع صدأ الحزن يدنو مِنك،
لا تهدر وقتك في صُحبة سطحيّة.
فعندما ترضى بالقليل،
فإنك تستصغر العالم.
February 16, 2019
WHAT HURTS THE SOUL?
"We tremble, thinking we’re about to dissolve
into nonexistence, but nonexistence
fears even more that it might be given human form!
Loving God is the only pleasure. Other delights turn bitter. What hurts the soul?
To live without tasting the water of its own essence. People focus on death and this material earth.
They have doubts about soul water.
Those doubts can be reduced! Use night
to wake your clarity. Darkness and the living water are lovers. Let them stay up together.
When merchants eat their big meals and sleep their dead sleep,
we night-thieves go to work."
Some Kiss We Want
"There is some kiss we want
with our whole lives,
the touch of spirit on the body.
Seawater begs the pearl
to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling!
At night, I open the window
and ask the moon to come
and press its face against mine.
Breathe into me.
Close the language - door and
open the love window.
The moon won't use the door,
only the window."
The most alive moment
"The most living moment comes
when those who love each other
meet each other’s eyes
and in what flows between them then.
To see your face in a crowd of others,
or alone on a frightening street,
I weep for that.
Our tears improve the earth.
The time you scolded me, your gratitude,
your laughing,
always your qualities increase the soul.
Seeing you is a wine
that does not muddle or numb.
We sit inside the cypress shadow
where amazment and clear thought
twine its growth into it."
"We tremble, thinking we’re about to dissolve
into nonexistence, but nonexistence
fears even more that it might be given human form!
Loving God is the only pleasure. Other delights turn bitter. What hurts the soul?
To live without tasting the water of its own essence. People focus on death and this material earth.
They have doubts about soul water.
Those doubts can be reduced! Use night
to wake your clarity. Darkness and the living water are lovers. Let them stay up together.
When merchants eat their big meals and sleep their dead sleep,
we night-thieves go to work."
Some Kiss We Want
"There is some kiss we want
with our whole lives,
the touch of spirit on the body.
Seawater begs the pearl
to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling!
At night, I open the window
and ask the moon to come
and press its face against mine.
Breathe into me.
Close the language - door and
open the love window.
The moon won't use the door,
only the window."
The most alive moment
"The most living moment comes
when those who love each other
meet each other’s eyes
and in what flows between them then.
To see your face in a crowd of others,
or alone on a frightening street,
I weep for that.
Our tears improve the earth.
The time you scolded me, your gratitude,
your laughing,
always your qualities increase the soul.
Seeing you is a wine
that does not muddle or numb.
We sit inside the cypress shadow
where amazment and clear thought
twine its growth into it."
August 26, 2012
Another of my favorite Persian poets. Sadly this book did not come with the poem in original Persian and there is perhaps a little too much of the translators own story. All I wanted was the poems of Rumi but those that I got were exceptional. Rumi's poems speak to the very soul and in many cases advice can be found in his words.
April 30, 2008
Rumi got me started writing poetry. Someone gave me a book of his. Just gave it to me because they thought I could use it. Boy were they right. I was so taken by the clear simple attention to an idea of God that I could relate to if not necessarily wholeheartedly embrace.
And his impetus, allowed this dam of repressed fear and anxiety and frustration to come out in a torrent of poems over the next couple of years.
Then jaki got me three books of Hafiz, the modern Translations by Landinsky. And they just took my breath away from me. Hafiz' God talks to me in a way no other spiritual writing ever has. Now when I look at Rumi, I see something that is two dimensional, still beautiful, but Hafiz reaches me on at least 4 dimensions. I also wonder if the Coleman Barker Translations don't really do Rumi justice.
And his impetus, allowed this dam of repressed fear and anxiety and frustration to come out in a torrent of poems over the next couple of years.
Then jaki got me three books of Hafiz, the modern Translations by Landinsky. And they just took my breath away from me. Hafiz' God talks to me in a way no other spiritual writing ever has. Now when I look at Rumi, I see something that is two dimensional, still beautiful, but Hafiz reaches me on at least 4 dimensions. I also wonder if the Coleman Barker Translations don't really do Rumi justice.
June 12, 2007
I like to read a few poems at a sitting. The blending of religions is fascinating; i.e. Jesus, Moses, Mohammed. I am not sure of how Rumi's Sufi roots fit into my world view though. It feels rather foreign and reads esoteric rather than poetic.
The other great Sufi writer, Doris Lessing, makes more sense to my world view in regards to how she breaks the atom so to speak in The Golden Notebook. This book changed my life the first time around in graduate school at American because the main character disintegrates through her writing and completely remakes herself through her writing. The reader goes through this experience with her, thus Art. When Madonna remakes herself, she goes it alone then looks for a reaction from the audience, thus sensation not Art.
The other great Sufi writer, Doris Lessing, makes more sense to my world view in regards to how she breaks the atom so to speak in The Golden Notebook. This book changed my life the first time around in graduate school at American because the main character disintegrates through her writing and completely remakes herself through her writing. The reader goes through this experience with her, thus Art. When Madonna remakes herself, she goes it alone then looks for a reaction from the audience, thus sensation not Art.
September 16, 2009
13th Century Persian poet.
Austere, profound, beautiful, essential.
"We are as the flute, and the music in us is from thee;
we are as the mountain and the echo in us is from thee.
We are as pieces of chess engaged in victory and defeat:
our victory and defeat is from thee, O thou whose qualities are comely!
Who are we, O Thou soul of our souls,
that we should remain in being beside thee?
We and our existences are really non-existence;
thou art the absolute Being which manifests the perishable.
We all are lions, but lions on a banner:
because of the wind they are rushing onward from moment to moment.
Their onward rush is visible, and the wind is unseen:
may that which is unseen not fail from us!
Our wind whereby we are moved and our being are of thy gift;
our whole existence is from thy bringing into being"
Austere, profound, beautiful, essential.
"We are as the flute, and the music in us is from thee;
we are as the mountain and the echo in us is from thee.
We are as pieces of chess engaged in victory and defeat:
our victory and defeat is from thee, O thou whose qualities are comely!
Who are we, O Thou soul of our souls,
that we should remain in being beside thee?
We and our existences are really non-existence;
thou art the absolute Being which manifests the perishable.
We all are lions, but lions on a banner:
because of the wind they are rushing onward from moment to moment.
Their onward rush is visible, and the wind is unseen:
may that which is unseen not fail from us!
Our wind whereby we are moved and our being are of thy gift;
our whole existence is from thy bringing into being"
June 15, 2010
Amazing. Use as a tool for poetic entertainment or spiritual enlightenment. Coleman Bark's candidly admits to his poetic/ecstatic interpretation of Rumi's work rather than a straightforward scholarly approach...this works for me. Love/d it.
August 12, 2013
CLASSICAL ARABIC AND ISLAMIC MASTERPIECES OF WORLD LITERATURE FROM THE ISLAMIC GOLDEN AGE-----"THE KORAN," AL-KHANSA, HAFIZ, ABU-NAWAS, RUMI, AL-JAHIZ, "ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS," IBN SINA (AVICENNA), IBN RUSHD (AVERROES),IBN ARABI, IBN-TUFAIL (ABUBACER) & AL-HALLAJ---FROM THE WORLD LITERATURE FORUM RECOMMENDED CLASSICS AND MASTERPIECES SERIES VIA GOODREADS—-ROBERT SHEPPARD, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
"THE INK OF THE SCHOLAR"---THE ISLAMIC GOLDEN AGE
The "Islamic Golden Age" was an historical period beginning in the mid-8th century lasting until the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258, generally associated with the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate around 750 AD, and the moving of the capital from Damascus to Baghdad, but also including contributions from remnant Ummayad kindgoms in Iberia (modern Spain and Portugul) and North-West Africa. The Abbasids were influenced by the Qur'anic injunctions and Hadith such as "the ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr" that stressed the value of knowledge and reason, and were also more cosmopolitan than the Umayyads, being allied with the Persian Barmacids and less ethnocentrically focused on the narrower tribal culture of the Kureysh, the original tribe of Muhammad.
The rise of Islam was instrumental in uniting the warring Arab tribes into a powerful empire. The Abbasids claimed authority as belonging to the same family and tribe to which the Prophet Muhammad belonged, and were for that reason considered holy. During this period the Arab world became an intellectual center for science, philosophy, medicine and education; the Abbasids championed the cause of knowledge and established the House of Wisdom (Bait-ul-Hikmat) at Baghdad, where both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars sought to translate and gather all the world's knowledge into Arabic, and also the second court language Persian.
The Arabs displayed a remarkable capacity of assimilating the scientific knowledge of the civilizations they had overrun. Many classic works of antiquity that might otherwise have been lost were translated into Arabic and Persian and later in turn re-translated into Turkish, Hebrew and Latin. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, gained crucial familiarity with the works of Aristotle through translations into Arabic and then into Latin accompanied by the commentary of the great Muslim Aristotelian scholar Ibn Sina (Avicenna).
During this period the Arab world was a collection of cultures which put together, synthesized and significantly advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Roman, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, Greek, Byzantine and Phoenician civilizations. The decimal system and "zero" travelled from India into Arabic culture during this time and in 9th century it was popularized in the Islamic regions by the Persian mathematician al-Khwarizmi. Later in 12th century the renown Western monk Abelard introduced what Westerners call "Arabic Numerals" to Europe, but which the Arabs themselves termed "Hindsi" or "Indian Numerals," indicating their true origin. They also began the use of Algebra and advanced logarithims in order to solve complex mathematical problems.
There is little agreement on the precise causes of the decline in Arabic creativity and intellectual leadership ending the Islamic Golden Age, but in addition to the devastating invasion by the Mongols and crusaders with the destruction of libraries and madrasahs, it has also been suggested that political mismanagement and the stifling of "Ijtihad" (independent reasoning) in the 12th century in favor of institutionalised "Taqleed" (imitation and uncritical following of precedent) played a part.
THE KORAN (QURAN) IN WORLD LITERATURE
Any understanding of the literatures of Islamic nations must begin with a familiarity with the Koran, just as any understanding of of Western Literature must include a basic familiarity with the Bible. Muslims believe the Quran to be verbally revealed through Angel Gabriel (Jibril) from God to Muhammad gradually over a period of approximately 23 years beginning from 609 AD, when Muhammad was 40, to 632 AD, the year of his death.
Muslims regard the Quran as the main miracle of Muhammad, the proof of his prophethood and the culmination of a series of divine messages to humanity that started with the messages revealed to Adam, regarded in Islam as the first prophet, and continued with the Scrolls of Abraham (Suhuf Ibrahim), the Tawrat (Torah) of Moses, the Zabur (Tehillim or Psalms) of David, and the Injil (Gospels) of Jesus. The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in Jewish and Christian scriptures, summarizing some, dwelling at length on others and in some cases presenting alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance, sometimes offering detailed accounts of specific historical events, and often emphasizing the moral significance of an event.
Regardless of whether one believes or disbelieves in the Koran, equally as in the case of whether one believes or disbelieves in the Christian or Jewish Bible, it is an inescapable necessity for every educated person to read and be familiar with these works as literature if one has any hope of understanding World Literature, Western Literature, Islamic and Arabic Literature, English, French, German, Russian or any national literature of any culture affected by their influence. No one can understand English or American Literature without familiarity with the King James and other versions of the Bible, the words, phrases, style and stories and themes of which permeate and recur in Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, and a thousand believing and unbelieving authors and works. Similarly, any understanding of German Literature is impossible without knowledge of the Bible of Luther. The Koran thus takes its place in World Literature by virtue of its shaping influence on the mindset and consciousness of over one billion Muslims across dozens of nations, cultures and literatures as well as the cultural foundation of dozens of Muslim authors and works of worldwide importance such as Rumi, Attar, Hafiz, the Thousand and One Nights, Mafouz Naguib, Ghalib and others. Thus it is required reading, at least in part, for any Citizen of the Republic of Letters or of the modern world, alongside the Bible, the Buddhist Sutras such as the Fire Sermon, the Bhagavad Gita and the Dao De Ching, as part of the common heritage of mankind.
Compared to the Bible, the Koran is a much shorter work, lacking the extended historical accounts and chronicles of the Old Testament and the multiple repetitive Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of the New Testament, and can be read in a relatively short time in translation by most people for basic familiarity.
The basic theme of the Koran is that of monotheism, an invocation to belief and adherence to the single God, Allah, of Muhammad, who is also conceived as the same God of the Christian and Jewish Abrahamic tradition, albeit with differences of understanding with the other religions. A good deal of the Koran is concerned with laying down rules of behaviour in common life, religious practice and society, as the Suras were broadly used for instruction of the Ummah, or new congregation of Islam in Mecca and Medina during Muhammad's life as he recited them. The Koran also contains repetitions of many famous Bible stories such as Adam and Eve, the Flood, Genesis, Exodus and life of Moses, the conception of Jesus by Mary and others. In the Koran Moses and Jesus are considered fellow prophets of Allah, though Jesus is not considered as the son of God as in the Bible. A large part of the Koran contains exhortations to belief in its one God Allah and adherence to its rules of behaviour, with the bliss of paradise as promised reward and certain damnation in Hell as the consequence of failure to do so. Similar to the Bible, a significant part of the Koran focuses on the coming Apocalypse, or end of time and the consequent Last Judgment of all souls.
PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIC POETRY---AL-KHANSA, CELEBRATED WOMAN POET
Even before Muhammad and the rise of Islam Arabic literature had developed a strong poetic tradition. At that time Arabic culture was largely based on oral tradition, with poetry at its center. For a nomadic people such as the Bedoin Arabs, poetry was the main reservoir of the people's knowledge and expression of their very existence. Poets were highly honored, attaining even what today we might term "superstar" status. The poetry was the poetry of the tribe or clan, articulating its legends, heroes, geneology, iteration of its strong "tribal code" of norms and exploits. Celebrated poets included traditionalists such as Imru 'al-Qays, the "Brigand Poets" or poets who individualistically broke with the control of their tribes and lived outside the tribal system, and the celebrated Pre-Islamic woman poetess Al-Khansa.
Al-Khansa (575-646) put women in a central place in her poetry. A traditionalist in one sense, she wrote poems of lament for brave fallen heroes of her tribe, such as her fallen brothers, yet celebrated the women who remained alive and powerful in keeping life going and honoring and transmitting the proud warrior values to their children, despite the vicissitudes of battle, defeat and victory. She made women's role in the symbolic order potent and visible, even in a patriarchal tribal society.
HAFIZ---FATHER OF THE GHAZAL GENRE OF LOVE POETRY
Hafiz is the pen name of the Persian poet Shams al-Din Muhammad Shirazi who is celebrated as the originating master of the "ghazal," a form of poetic artistic unity which is neither thematic nor dramatic in the Western sense, but consists in the creation of a poetic unity by weaving imagery and allusions round one or more central concepts, of which both divine and sexual love are the most common. Hafiz was a master of interweaving the erotic and the mystic through superb linguistic craftsmanship and intuitive insight. Some stanzas from his "The House of Hope" give some feel for his themes, often sensual and melancholy:
The house of hope is built on sand,
And life's foundations rest on air;
Then come, give wine into my hand,
That we may make an end of care.
Look not to find fidelity
Within a world so weakly stayed;
This ancient crone, ere flouting thee,
A thousand bridegrooms had betrayed.
Take not for sign of true intent
Nor think the rose's smile sincere;
Sweet, loving nightingale, lament:
There is much cause for weeping here.
What envying of Hafiz's ease,
Poor poetaster, dost thou moan?
To make sweet music, and to please,
That is a gift of God alone.
ABU-NAWAS---EROTIC COURT POET OF THE CALIPH HAROUN AL-RASHID OF THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
Abu-Nawas (755-815) is perhaps the most beloved of Arab poets of any period. He appears repeatedly as a character in the classic "One Thousand and One Nights," or "Arabian Nights" along with the renown Abbasid Caliph Haroun al-Rashid and his Barmacid Vizir Jafar. He is the archetypal sensual, erotic and profligate poet and Baghdad court favorite of the Caliph. He wrote pangyric poetry as well as heterosexual and homosexual ghazals, and handled Bacchic poems of "wine, women and song" with incomparable skill. He wrote with an existential edge to his Epicurean ethos that embraced every kind of pleasure and satisfaction. His death is a subject of legend, some saying he died in prison for writing blasphemous verse, others that he died in a whorehouse, some saying he was murdered in reprisal for lampooning a powerful court personage, and still others that he died peacefully in his sleep in the home of a learned Shi'ite scholar.
RUMI----SUFI MYSTIC POET OF THE ECSTASY OF LOVE
Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) was renown as both the foremost Sufi mystic poet and the founder of the Mavlevi sect of Sufi dancing dervishes. Originally an academic scholar and professor, he was persuaded by a wandering Sufi mystic, Shams al-Din Tabrizi, to take up the Sufi life and put the love of God at the center of his existence. Striving after divine illumination in diverse ways, from devout meditation to the ecstatic pleasures of wine, sexuality and the Dervish entrancement of dance, he emphasized a devotion to a spiritualized love that disregards rites and convention and concentrates on inner feeling and approach to the ecstatic infinite. His odes have been chanted by Hadjj pilgrims on the road to Mecca for centuries and are sung with the greatest reverence even today.
AL-JAHIZ---THE GREATEST PROSE WRITER OF CLASSICAL ARAB CULTURE
Abu Uthman 'Amr ibn Bahr (776-868) of Basra, Iraq was known as "Al-Jahiz" or "the goggle eyed" due to a malformation of his eyes and was one the dynamic personalities in the Mu'tazilite circles, which met regularly in Basra reminiscent of the famous "salons" of Paris. Basra was also the location of the annual Al-Mirbad literary festival of Arab and Islamic culture that took place yearly featuring competitions and debates on philosophical issues, and at which he was renown for his wit, cutting humor, endless anecdotes and depth of knowledge. His book "Spiritual Leadership" was praised at the court in Baghdad by the Caliph al-Mamun, who appointed him as court scribe, personal secretary and speech writer. His monumental work the "Book of Animals" is the first encyclopedia on animals and zoology. His most famous work is the "Book of Misers" which is a unique portrait gallery of human characters rich in their contradictions and ironies. It features an acute analysis of the passion of avarice, satirical and comic narratives, and cutting insight into human psychology. If the Eighteenth Century is sometimes called the Age of Voltaire, the Ninth Century in the Abbasid Caliphate could be called the "Age of Al-Jahiz"
through his dominance of prose writing in Arabic.
THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS OF THE ARAB GOLDEN AGE
If Classical Greece had the great triumvirate of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates in the realm of philosophy, the Islamic Golden Age featured Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Ibn Arabi. Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina played a major role in saving the works of Aristotle, whose ideas came to dominate the non-religious thought of both the Christian and Muslim worlds. They would also absorb ideas from China and India, adding to them tremendous knowledge from their own studies. Ibn Sina and other speculative thinkers such as al-Kindi and al-Farabi combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam. Avicenna argued his famous "Floating Man" thought experiment, concerning self-awareness, where a man prevented of sense experience by being blindfolded and free falling would still be aware of his existence, perhaps a forerunner of Descartes "cogito ergo sum"----"I think therefore I am."
Ibn Arabi was the foremost advocate of metaphysical Sufism, as expressed in his magnum opus "Bezels of Wisdom" which transformed Islam's personal God into a principle of absolute being, where all is God and God is all, in which humanity in his Sufist interpretation, occupies a central role as revealed divine being, perhaps reminiscent of Bishop Berkeley's pan-idealism.
The Arab philosophers of the Islamic Golden Age also stimulated other non-Muslim philosophers such as Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides.
IBN TUFAIL AND IBN AL-NAFIZ---FATHERS OF THE ARABIC PHILOSOPHIC AND SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS
Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) and Ibn al-Nafis were pioneers of the philosophical novel. Ibn Tufail wrote the first fictional Arabic novel "Hayy ibn Yaqdhan" ("Philosophus Autodidactus") as a response to al-Ghazali's "The Incoherence of the Philosophers," and then Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a fictional novel "Theologus Autodidactus" as a response to Ibn Tufail's "Philosophus Autodidactus." Both of these narratives had protagonists (Hayy in Philosophus Autodidactus and Kamil in Theologus Autodidactus) who were autodidactic feral children living in seclusion on a desert island, both being the earliest examples of a desert island story, a forerunner of Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe." However, while Hayy lives alone with animals on the desert island for the rest of the story, like Mowgli in Kipling's "Jungle Book" in "Philosophus Autodidactus," the story of Kamil extends beyond the desert island setting in "Theologus Autodidactus," developing into a story of his re-entry into civilization, the earliest known coming of age plot and eventually becoming the first example of a science fiction novel.
AL HALLAJ---SUFI MARTYR
Al-Hallaj (857-922) was a great Sufi mystic, poet and theologian whose life and spiritual mission was reminiscent of the fate of Jesus Christ. A great spiritual searcher, he attended debates and salons in Basra and Baghdad, then embarked on thirty years of wandering, perpetual fasting, meditation, contemplation and silence in search of Sufi enlightenment. His pilgrimage to Mecca led to further enlightenment and he began to attract large numbers of followers, breaking the normal Sufi practice of esoteric secrecy by public preaching, including reform of corrupt clerics. His movement was perceived as a threat by the highly corrupt religious establishment, and he suffered a fate similar to Jesus and the Apostles. Corrupt clerics accused him of blasphemy and he was imprisoned in Baghdad eight years, tortured, half-killed and exhibited on a scaffold. The Caliph, failing to force him to recant his beliefs, finally had him decapitated, burnt and his ashes scattered into the Tigris River.
SPIRITUS MUNDI AND THE ISLAMIC GOLDEN AGE
The Islamic Golden Age is also reflected in my own work, the contemporary and futurist epic Spiritus Mundi. One of its characters Mohammad ala Rushdie is a novice Sufi of the Mevlevi Order, writer and also an activist for the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. He is taken hostage by terrorists and meets the Supreme Leader of Iran, later reciting to him a short story he has written "The Supreme Leader and the Three Messiahs," reminiscent of Dostoyevski's "The Grand Inquisitor" set in an Islamic setting. Part of the plot of the novel involves a geopolitical conspiracy of an allied China-Russia-Iran to execute a Pearl Harbor-like sneak attack invasion of the Middle-East oil reserves to sever the "oil jugular" of the West, leading to a threatened WWIII. It is foiled by a cosmic quest of the protagonists intoa mythic dimension and a change of heart in the Iranian Supreme Leader following a visit of the Angel Jibreel (Gabriel) who commands him to "Open the Gates of Ijtihad" or creative reasoning against the tradition of blind precedent and conformity to the past as a means giving rebirth to the spirit of the lost Islamic Golden Age and preventing Armageddon and World War III.
For a fuller discussion of the concept of World Literature you are invited to look into the extended discussion in the new book Spiritus Mundi, by Robert Sheppard, one of the principal themes of which is the emergence and evolution of World Literature:
For Discussions on World Literature and n Literary Criticism in Spiritus Mundi: http://worldliteratureandliterarycrit...
Robert Sheppard
Editor-in-Chief
World Literature Forum
Author, Spiritus Mundi Novel
Author’s Blog:
http://robertalexandersheppard.wordpr...
Spiritus Mundi on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17...
Spiritus Mundi on Amazon, Book I: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CIGJFGO
Spiritus Mundi, Book II: The Romance http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CGM8BZG
Copyright Robert Sheppard 2013 All Rights Reserved
"THE INK OF THE SCHOLAR"---THE ISLAMIC GOLDEN AGE
The "Islamic Golden Age" was an historical period beginning in the mid-8th century lasting until the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258, generally associated with the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate around 750 AD, and the moving of the capital from Damascus to Baghdad, but also including contributions from remnant Ummayad kindgoms in Iberia (modern Spain and Portugul) and North-West Africa. The Abbasids were influenced by the Qur'anic injunctions and Hadith such as "the ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr" that stressed the value of knowledge and reason, and were also more cosmopolitan than the Umayyads, being allied with the Persian Barmacids and less ethnocentrically focused on the narrower tribal culture of the Kureysh, the original tribe of Muhammad.
The rise of Islam was instrumental in uniting the warring Arab tribes into a powerful empire. The Abbasids claimed authority as belonging to the same family and tribe to which the Prophet Muhammad belonged, and were for that reason considered holy. During this period the Arab world became an intellectual center for science, philosophy, medicine and education; the Abbasids championed the cause of knowledge and established the House of Wisdom (Bait-ul-Hikmat) at Baghdad, where both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars sought to translate and gather all the world's knowledge into Arabic, and also the second court language Persian.
The Arabs displayed a remarkable capacity of assimilating the scientific knowledge of the civilizations they had overrun. Many classic works of antiquity that might otherwise have been lost were translated into Arabic and Persian and later in turn re-translated into Turkish, Hebrew and Latin. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, gained crucial familiarity with the works of Aristotle through translations into Arabic and then into Latin accompanied by the commentary of the great Muslim Aristotelian scholar Ibn Sina (Avicenna).
During this period the Arab world was a collection of cultures which put together, synthesized and significantly advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Roman, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, Greek, Byzantine and Phoenician civilizations. The decimal system and "zero" travelled from India into Arabic culture during this time and in 9th century it was popularized in the Islamic regions by the Persian mathematician al-Khwarizmi. Later in 12th century the renown Western monk Abelard introduced what Westerners call "Arabic Numerals" to Europe, but which the Arabs themselves termed "Hindsi" or "Indian Numerals," indicating their true origin. They also began the use of Algebra and advanced logarithims in order to solve complex mathematical problems.
There is little agreement on the precise causes of the decline in Arabic creativity and intellectual leadership ending the Islamic Golden Age, but in addition to the devastating invasion by the Mongols and crusaders with the destruction of libraries and madrasahs, it has also been suggested that political mismanagement and the stifling of "Ijtihad" (independent reasoning) in the 12th century in favor of institutionalised "Taqleed" (imitation and uncritical following of precedent) played a part.
THE KORAN (QURAN) IN WORLD LITERATURE
Any understanding of the literatures of Islamic nations must begin with a familiarity with the Koran, just as any understanding of of Western Literature must include a basic familiarity with the Bible. Muslims believe the Quran to be verbally revealed through Angel Gabriel (Jibril) from God to Muhammad gradually over a period of approximately 23 years beginning from 609 AD, when Muhammad was 40, to 632 AD, the year of his death.
Muslims regard the Quran as the main miracle of Muhammad, the proof of his prophethood and the culmination of a series of divine messages to humanity that started with the messages revealed to Adam, regarded in Islam as the first prophet, and continued with the Scrolls of Abraham (Suhuf Ibrahim), the Tawrat (Torah) of Moses, the Zabur (Tehillim or Psalms) of David, and the Injil (Gospels) of Jesus. The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in Jewish and Christian scriptures, summarizing some, dwelling at length on others and in some cases presenting alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance, sometimes offering detailed accounts of specific historical events, and often emphasizing the moral significance of an event.
Regardless of whether one believes or disbelieves in the Koran, equally as in the case of whether one believes or disbelieves in the Christian or Jewish Bible, it is an inescapable necessity for every educated person to read and be familiar with these works as literature if one has any hope of understanding World Literature, Western Literature, Islamic and Arabic Literature, English, French, German, Russian or any national literature of any culture affected by their influence. No one can understand English or American Literature without familiarity with the King James and other versions of the Bible, the words, phrases, style and stories and themes of which permeate and recur in Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, and a thousand believing and unbelieving authors and works. Similarly, any understanding of German Literature is impossible without knowledge of the Bible of Luther. The Koran thus takes its place in World Literature by virtue of its shaping influence on the mindset and consciousness of over one billion Muslims across dozens of nations, cultures and literatures as well as the cultural foundation of dozens of Muslim authors and works of worldwide importance such as Rumi, Attar, Hafiz, the Thousand and One Nights, Mafouz Naguib, Ghalib and others. Thus it is required reading, at least in part, for any Citizen of the Republic of Letters or of the modern world, alongside the Bible, the Buddhist Sutras such as the Fire Sermon, the Bhagavad Gita and the Dao De Ching, as part of the common heritage of mankind.
Compared to the Bible, the Koran is a much shorter work, lacking the extended historical accounts and chronicles of the Old Testament and the multiple repetitive Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of the New Testament, and can be read in a relatively short time in translation by most people for basic familiarity.
The basic theme of the Koran is that of monotheism, an invocation to belief and adherence to the single God, Allah, of Muhammad, who is also conceived as the same God of the Christian and Jewish Abrahamic tradition, albeit with differences of understanding with the other religions. A good deal of the Koran is concerned with laying down rules of behaviour in common life, religious practice and society, as the Suras were broadly used for instruction of the Ummah, or new congregation of Islam in Mecca and Medina during Muhammad's life as he recited them. The Koran also contains repetitions of many famous Bible stories such as Adam and Eve, the Flood, Genesis, Exodus and life of Moses, the conception of Jesus by Mary and others. In the Koran Moses and Jesus are considered fellow prophets of Allah, though Jesus is not considered as the son of God as in the Bible. A large part of the Koran contains exhortations to belief in its one God Allah and adherence to its rules of behaviour, with the bliss of paradise as promised reward and certain damnation in Hell as the consequence of failure to do so. Similar to the Bible, a significant part of the Koran focuses on the coming Apocalypse, or end of time and the consequent Last Judgment of all souls.
PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIC POETRY---AL-KHANSA, CELEBRATED WOMAN POET
Even before Muhammad and the rise of Islam Arabic literature had developed a strong poetic tradition. At that time Arabic culture was largely based on oral tradition, with poetry at its center. For a nomadic people such as the Bedoin Arabs, poetry was the main reservoir of the people's knowledge and expression of their very existence. Poets were highly honored, attaining even what today we might term "superstar" status. The poetry was the poetry of the tribe or clan, articulating its legends, heroes, geneology, iteration of its strong "tribal code" of norms and exploits. Celebrated poets included traditionalists such as Imru 'al-Qays, the "Brigand Poets" or poets who individualistically broke with the control of their tribes and lived outside the tribal system, and the celebrated Pre-Islamic woman poetess Al-Khansa.
Al-Khansa (575-646) put women in a central place in her poetry. A traditionalist in one sense, she wrote poems of lament for brave fallen heroes of her tribe, such as her fallen brothers, yet celebrated the women who remained alive and powerful in keeping life going and honoring and transmitting the proud warrior values to their children, despite the vicissitudes of battle, defeat and victory. She made women's role in the symbolic order potent and visible, even in a patriarchal tribal society.
HAFIZ---FATHER OF THE GHAZAL GENRE OF LOVE POETRY
Hafiz is the pen name of the Persian poet Shams al-Din Muhammad Shirazi who is celebrated as the originating master of the "ghazal," a form of poetic artistic unity which is neither thematic nor dramatic in the Western sense, but consists in the creation of a poetic unity by weaving imagery and allusions round one or more central concepts, of which both divine and sexual love are the most common. Hafiz was a master of interweaving the erotic and the mystic through superb linguistic craftsmanship and intuitive insight. Some stanzas from his "The House of Hope" give some feel for his themes, often sensual and melancholy:
The house of hope is built on sand,
And life's foundations rest on air;
Then come, give wine into my hand,
That we may make an end of care.
Look not to find fidelity
Within a world so weakly stayed;
This ancient crone, ere flouting thee,
A thousand bridegrooms had betrayed.
Take not for sign of true intent
Nor think the rose's smile sincere;
Sweet, loving nightingale, lament:
There is much cause for weeping here.
What envying of Hafiz's ease,
Poor poetaster, dost thou moan?
To make sweet music, and to please,
That is a gift of God alone.
ABU-NAWAS---EROTIC COURT POET OF THE CALIPH HAROUN AL-RASHID OF THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
Abu-Nawas (755-815) is perhaps the most beloved of Arab poets of any period. He appears repeatedly as a character in the classic "One Thousand and One Nights," or "Arabian Nights" along with the renown Abbasid Caliph Haroun al-Rashid and his Barmacid Vizir Jafar. He is the archetypal sensual, erotic and profligate poet and Baghdad court favorite of the Caliph. He wrote pangyric poetry as well as heterosexual and homosexual ghazals, and handled Bacchic poems of "wine, women and song" with incomparable skill. He wrote with an existential edge to his Epicurean ethos that embraced every kind of pleasure and satisfaction. His death is a subject of legend, some saying he died in prison for writing blasphemous verse, others that he died in a whorehouse, some saying he was murdered in reprisal for lampooning a powerful court personage, and still others that he died peacefully in his sleep in the home of a learned Shi'ite scholar.
RUMI----SUFI MYSTIC POET OF THE ECSTASY OF LOVE
Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) was renown as both the foremost Sufi mystic poet and the founder of the Mavlevi sect of Sufi dancing dervishes. Originally an academic scholar and professor, he was persuaded by a wandering Sufi mystic, Shams al-Din Tabrizi, to take up the Sufi life and put the love of God at the center of his existence. Striving after divine illumination in diverse ways, from devout meditation to the ecstatic pleasures of wine, sexuality and the Dervish entrancement of dance, he emphasized a devotion to a spiritualized love that disregards rites and convention and concentrates on inner feeling and approach to the ecstatic infinite. His odes have been chanted by Hadjj pilgrims on the road to Mecca for centuries and are sung with the greatest reverence even today.
AL-JAHIZ---THE GREATEST PROSE WRITER OF CLASSICAL ARAB CULTURE
Abu Uthman 'Amr ibn Bahr (776-868) of Basra, Iraq was known as "Al-Jahiz" or "the goggle eyed" due to a malformation of his eyes and was one the dynamic personalities in the Mu'tazilite circles, which met regularly in Basra reminiscent of the famous "salons" of Paris. Basra was also the location of the annual Al-Mirbad literary festival of Arab and Islamic culture that took place yearly featuring competitions and debates on philosophical issues, and at which he was renown for his wit, cutting humor, endless anecdotes and depth of knowledge. His book "Spiritual Leadership" was praised at the court in Baghdad by the Caliph al-Mamun, who appointed him as court scribe, personal secretary and speech writer. His monumental work the "Book of Animals" is the first encyclopedia on animals and zoology. His most famous work is the "Book of Misers" which is a unique portrait gallery of human characters rich in their contradictions and ironies. It features an acute analysis of the passion of avarice, satirical and comic narratives, and cutting insight into human psychology. If the Eighteenth Century is sometimes called the Age of Voltaire, the Ninth Century in the Abbasid Caliphate could be called the "Age of Al-Jahiz"
through his dominance of prose writing in Arabic.
THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS OF THE ARAB GOLDEN AGE
If Classical Greece had the great triumvirate of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates in the realm of philosophy, the Islamic Golden Age featured Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Ibn Arabi. Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina played a major role in saving the works of Aristotle, whose ideas came to dominate the non-religious thought of both the Christian and Muslim worlds. They would also absorb ideas from China and India, adding to them tremendous knowledge from their own studies. Ibn Sina and other speculative thinkers such as al-Kindi and al-Farabi combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam. Avicenna argued his famous "Floating Man" thought experiment, concerning self-awareness, where a man prevented of sense experience by being blindfolded and free falling would still be aware of his existence, perhaps a forerunner of Descartes "cogito ergo sum"----"I think therefore I am."
Ibn Arabi was the foremost advocate of metaphysical Sufism, as expressed in his magnum opus "Bezels of Wisdom" which transformed Islam's personal God into a principle of absolute being, where all is God and God is all, in which humanity in his Sufist interpretation, occupies a central role as revealed divine being, perhaps reminiscent of Bishop Berkeley's pan-idealism.
The Arab philosophers of the Islamic Golden Age also stimulated other non-Muslim philosophers such as Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides.
IBN TUFAIL AND IBN AL-NAFIZ---FATHERS OF THE ARABIC PHILOSOPHIC AND SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS
Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) and Ibn al-Nafis were pioneers of the philosophical novel. Ibn Tufail wrote the first fictional Arabic novel "Hayy ibn Yaqdhan" ("Philosophus Autodidactus") as a response to al-Ghazali's "The Incoherence of the Philosophers," and then Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a fictional novel "Theologus Autodidactus" as a response to Ibn Tufail's "Philosophus Autodidactus." Both of these narratives had protagonists (Hayy in Philosophus Autodidactus and Kamil in Theologus Autodidactus) who were autodidactic feral children living in seclusion on a desert island, both being the earliest examples of a desert island story, a forerunner of Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe." However, while Hayy lives alone with animals on the desert island for the rest of the story, like Mowgli in Kipling's "Jungle Book" in "Philosophus Autodidactus," the story of Kamil extends beyond the desert island setting in "Theologus Autodidactus," developing into a story of his re-entry into civilization, the earliest known coming of age plot and eventually becoming the first example of a science fiction novel.
AL HALLAJ---SUFI MARTYR
Al-Hallaj (857-922) was a great Sufi mystic, poet and theologian whose life and spiritual mission was reminiscent of the fate of Jesus Christ. A great spiritual searcher, he attended debates and salons in Basra and Baghdad, then embarked on thirty years of wandering, perpetual fasting, meditation, contemplation and silence in search of Sufi enlightenment. His pilgrimage to Mecca led to further enlightenment and he began to attract large numbers of followers, breaking the normal Sufi practice of esoteric secrecy by public preaching, including reform of corrupt clerics. His movement was perceived as a threat by the highly corrupt religious establishment, and he suffered a fate similar to Jesus and the Apostles. Corrupt clerics accused him of blasphemy and he was imprisoned in Baghdad eight years, tortured, half-killed and exhibited on a scaffold. The Caliph, failing to force him to recant his beliefs, finally had him decapitated, burnt and his ashes scattered into the Tigris River.
SPIRITUS MUNDI AND THE ISLAMIC GOLDEN AGE
The Islamic Golden Age is also reflected in my own work, the contemporary and futurist epic Spiritus Mundi. One of its characters Mohammad ala Rushdie is a novice Sufi of the Mevlevi Order, writer and also an activist for the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. He is taken hostage by terrorists and meets the Supreme Leader of Iran, later reciting to him a short story he has written "The Supreme Leader and the Three Messiahs," reminiscent of Dostoyevski's "The Grand Inquisitor" set in an Islamic setting. Part of the plot of the novel involves a geopolitical conspiracy of an allied China-Russia-Iran to execute a Pearl Harbor-like sneak attack invasion of the Middle-East oil reserves to sever the "oil jugular" of the West, leading to a threatened WWIII. It is foiled by a cosmic quest of the protagonists intoa mythic dimension and a change of heart in the Iranian Supreme Leader following a visit of the Angel Jibreel (Gabriel) who commands him to "Open the Gates of Ijtihad" or creative reasoning against the tradition of blind precedent and conformity to the past as a means giving rebirth to the spirit of the lost Islamic Golden Age and preventing Armageddon and World War III.
For a fuller discussion of the concept of World Literature you are invited to look into the extended discussion in the new book Spiritus Mundi, by Robert Sheppard, one of the principal themes of which is the emergence and evolution of World Literature:
For Discussions on World Literature and n Literary Criticism in Spiritus Mundi: http://worldliteratureandliterarycrit...
Robert Sheppard
Editor-in-Chief
World Literature Forum
Author, Spiritus Mundi Novel
Author’s Blog:
http://robertalexandersheppard.wordpr...
Spiritus Mundi on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17...
Spiritus Mundi on Amazon, Book I: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CIGJFGO
Spiritus Mundi, Book II: The Romance http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CGM8BZG
Copyright Robert Sheppard 2013 All Rights Reserved
January 11, 2021
"هل وجهك زهرة جميلة
أم عذاب حلو؟
إني لا أشتكي
لكن قلبي يريد
أن يُسمعك أحزانه."
"لم يستطع أحد ان يحلّ معضلتي
ولم يتمكن أحد من إخباري من أين أتيت.
الآن، بعد أن أصبحت تائهاً
عند مفترق الطرق، قلبي ينزف،
أتساءل، أين هو الطريق إلى البيت.."
أم عذاب حلو؟
إني لا أشتكي
لكن قلبي يريد
أن يُسمعك أحزانه."
"لم يستطع أحد ان يحلّ معضلتي
ولم يتمكن أحد من إخباري من أين أتيت.
الآن، بعد أن أصبحت تائهاً
عند مفترق الطرق، قلبي ينزف،
أتساءل، أين هو الطريق إلى البيت.."
August 9, 2009
I felt transformed to a magical mystical place.
November 25, 2022
نجمة واحدة لعنوان الكتاب فقط
لا شي عدا ذلك
لا شي عدا ذلك
July 25, 2024
مؤرقاً بالأسئلة طوال عمري،
كالمجنون، رحت أقرع الباب.
وعندما فتح..!!
رأيتني أنا الذي كنت أقرع من الداخل
في العشق، اطلب الجنون،
وحياة مهجورة وعقلاً مسلوباً.
كالمجنون، رحت أقرع الباب.
وعندما فتح..!!
رأيتني أنا الذي كنت أقرع من الداخل
في العشق، اطلب الجنون،
وحياة مهجورة وعقلاً مسلوباً.
January 16, 2024
الكتاب عبارة عن مختارات / انطولوجيا شعرية ولكن مقتطفات (مقتطفة جدا) هههه أو بالأحرى متقطعة. لم تعجبني. لا أعرف هل الخلل كان في الترجمة أو الاختيار.
طبعاً أعشق أشعار الرومي. المراجعة لهذا الكتاب بالتحديد. سأجرب ربما كتاب آخر اسمه الموسيقى الخلفية لنفس الشاعر وبترجمة خالد الجبيلي.
طبعاً أعشق أشعار الرومي. المراجعة لهذا الكتاب بالتحديد. سأجرب ربما كتاب آخر اسمه الموسيقى الخلفية لنفس الشاعر وبترجمة خالد الجبيلي.
September 3, 2008
This book has a special significance for me, because Barks dedicated it to my friend John Ryan Seawright, one of the shining lights of modern Southern letters until his untimely death. These poems like all of Rumi's poetry, call out to the reader on a multiplicity of levels. One small example:
Not Here
There's courage involved if you want
to become truth. There is a broken-
open place in a lover. Where are
those qualities of bravery and sharp
compassion in this group? What's the
use of old and frozen thought? I want
a howling hurt. This is not a treasury
where gold is stored; this is for copper.
We alchemists look for talent that
can heat up and change. Lukewarm
won't do. Halfhearted holding back,
well enough getting by? Not here.
Not Here
There's courage involved if you want
to become truth. There is a broken-
open place in a lover. Where are
those qualities of bravery and sharp
compassion in this group? What's the
use of old and frozen thought? I want
a howling hurt. This is not a treasury
where gold is stored; this is for copper.
We alchemists look for talent that
can heat up and change. Lukewarm
won't do. Halfhearted holding back,
well enough getting by? Not here.
July 15, 2021
I'm not sure if this quote is from this book or another one, however, it epitomizes why I love Jalaluddin Rumi so much.
"The door is wide and open, do not go back to sleep."
So much is to be learned about the mystical and spiritual worlds, who better to guide you than Rumi.
"The door is wide and open, do not go back to sleep."
So much is to be learned about the mystical and spiritual worlds, who better to guide you than Rumi.
April 11, 2022
حبّيت إشاراته عن الاتّحاد, وحبّيت بع�� تعبيراته.
أنا من الذين يؤمنون أن الشعر يخفت بريقه عندما يُترجم . وأظن حدث ذلك في بعض قصائد الرّومي هنا.
الخضرة في كل شيء
هي أنت
الجمال في كل شيء
هو أنت
ثروتي, علمي, أستاذي
هي أنت
الخلوة, النقاء,والحجّة
هي أنت
لا توجد حقيقة هناك
إلا أنت
أنا من الذين يؤمنون أن الشعر يخفت بريقه عندما يُترجم . وأظن حدث ذلك في بعض قصائد الرّومي هنا.
الخضرة في كل شيء
هي أنت
الجمال في كل شيء
هو أنت
ثروتي, علمي, أستاذي
هي أنت
الخلوة, النقاء,والحجّة
هي أنت
لا توجد حقيقة هناك
إلا أنت
January 27, 2020
النجمتين لعنوان الكتاب فقط، ماعدا ذلك لا شيء يذكر.
October 14, 2022
لم يستطع أحد أن يحل معضلتي
ولم يتمكن أحد من إخباري من أين أتيت
الآن، بعد أن أصبحت تائهًا
عند مفترق الطرق، قلبي ينزف،
أتساءل، أين هو الطريق إلى البيت.
ولم يتمكن أحد من إخباري من أين أتيت
الآن، بعد أن أصبحت تائهًا
عند مفترق الطرق، قلبي ينزف،
أتساءل، أين هو الطريق إلى البيت.
January 6, 2021
Reading Coleman Barks’s renditions of Rumi reminds me of being a little kid looking up at the stars on a clear night; It’s big, important, beautiful, increases my understanding of reality, and yet I generally have no idea what the hell I’m looking at.
These poems exposed me to new concepts and made me think in new ways; their meanings also almost always felt out of reach. I’d finish a sentence thinking “whoa that’s so profound!”And then take another look at it and think “wait what the hell does that mean?” It was like I was being pulled toward deeper truths without ever having them explained them to me. I loved every bit of it.
These poems exposed me to new concepts and made me think in new ways; their meanings also almost always felt out of reach. I’d finish a sentence thinking “whoa that’s so profound!”And then take another look at it and think “wait what the hell does that mean?” It was like I was being pulled toward deeper truths without ever having them explained them to me. I loved every bit of it.
June 19, 2009
I had heard about this book on NPR, so checked it out of the library. I skipped around and read several good poems, but have to admit I am just not that much of a poetry reader. So I never finished the book.
February 23, 2022
One of my favorite re-reads. I feel like there’s always something new to be found in Rumi poetry. It feels very bold, spontaneous, intuitive and free. Some verses grab my attention at the certain moment and I like to write them down and it is interesting to reflect on it sometime later.
August 9, 2012
I picked this book up in a store while looking for Masnavi Ye Manavi, Rumi's word is so warm.
October 7, 2012
I LOVED this book! The poems of Rumi sing to my soul and fill my heart. Coleman Barks did a marvelous job on this book. Highly recommended!!
March 16, 2013
While I enjoy Rumi, I prefer collections that have more than one translator. I find it gives the reader a better scope of his work and its interpretations.
May 28, 2024
For poetry month, I checked out this book. There are so many phrases of Rumi that I have liked so I wanted to know more. This particular book is translations made by Coleman Barks. Apparently, Coleman is responsible for bringing Rumi to so many people. How cool! This is a case where the translator gets some recognition. Wonderful!
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