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April, 2016

  1. How Can I Take Off My Eyes From Your Luminous Face? Part 2

    April 18, 2016 by hjz5060

    I’ve cried so much that no tears are left
    Even the count of the stars has exhausted
    Let someone go and ask him why he has stopped visiting me?

    The poet expresses his grief here. He says that I have waited for you for so long and you have not yet arrived. My eyes have dried up by the amount of tears that have flowed out of them in your remembrance. I am still waiting for you to come back my love. In the waiting process, I have been counting the stars and now even the stars have been completely counted by me, I do not have anything else to do now. Please someone go and ask why she is not coming to meet me.

    O Graceful, come to me, I feel like exchanging glances with you
    Come with your dazzling beauty I like to prostrate before you
    I feel like dying today

    The poet now says that enough is enough, I have the reached the limit of my patience today. Please come to me and exchange glances with me. I will admire your beauty and I know that it is indeed deadly. Even though I know it is deadly, I still want to witness your beauty. My time has come, I feel like dying today because of that. There is no better way of dying than that.

    Come and undo your serpentine locks of hair
    Inflict more wounds on those who are already wounded in love
    Cut the distances, come close to me
    Let’s reveal each other’s woes, as I desire

    The poet is basically reiterating what he has said before, but this time in an immature way. Let’s cut the distances, let’s be one.

    Rafique’s eternal prayer is to die at the
    feet of the beloved
    and when I open my eyes in the grave I want the beloved before me
    To sit with you are my worship and never to leave your company because I see God in you
    You are mine and I want to be yours eternally and if need be I’ll snatch you from the
    Rest of the world

    Rafique, the poet says that his ultimate goal is to die in the feet of his beloved. In Islam it is considered that when you die, you open your eyes for questioning and answering about the deeds you did in your life. That being said, he wants to open his eyes to his beloved because he only wants to answer questions asked by the beloved. I want to sit with you and I would consider it as an act of worship. You are mine and I am yours. We are meant for each other. Enough is enough return to me or else I will snatch you from the rest of the world and forever make you mine.

    Now you have understood the profoundness in Sufi poetry. Now you know the pain and agony these people had whilst they wrote these pieces which even rhyme in Urdu. I leave you today with a  very special gift, the gift of Qawwali; the music of the Sufis.

     

     


  2. How Can I Take Off My Eyes From Your Luminous Face? Part 1

    April 18, 2016 by hjz5060

    How can I take off my eyes from your luminous face? Because I see my Creator through you
    I long to have your sight, my spiritual master & cause in your countenance I see God and His prophet.

    The poet is saying here that the person he loves has such a blessed and luminous face that the essence of God can be seen from it. One is forced to ponder that if his true love is this beautiful, how many times more beautiful would God be Himself. He further states that I am waiting anxiously to bear the responsibility of having your glance at me because it is as if God and His messenger are looking at me.

    Your name is my rosary
    To worship you is our dedication
    Your face is like the House of God, reflection of Ka’bah

    Religion is sometimes defined as one’s ultimate concern in the planet. The way the poet has put it, it means that his love is his ultimate concern and thus his only religion. I have your name on my lips all the time as if it is a good deed, just like you say the name of God which considered a good deed. Getting a sight of his love is equivalent of witnessing the house of God. That is how important she/he is to the poet.

    My mystical love for you is a unique affliction No physician has the cure for it
    But you’
    You’re the only remedy for my agony

    The poet implies here that your love is actually an illness for me. This is because it is eating me from the inside, it is destroying my existence. Unfortunately, it cannot be cured by mere doctors or physicians, only your love can cure this illness. It is you who is my medicine and my lifeline.

    Uncontested I remain even though I look at you endlessly
    I long to keep looking at you unendingly

    It is asserted here that I can keep on watching you day and night and even still I am not satisfied by the time I am given. This is because your beauty increase with every second that passes while I have my gaze on you. This thirst of watching you will always remain, hence I wait for that time to come when I can see you for this long.

    If my Beloved is not before me, then the prayer offered is a waste
    To see your refulgent face is like a
    Pilgrimage to me
    And to keep looking at the glowing sight
    Is my prayer

    The poet again come back to his ultimate concern. He says that if you are not in front of me, all my prayers are a waste because it is you who I want to please. As you know that for a Muslim to perform a pilgrimage of the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia is considered one of the most important achievements in his life. In that context, the poet nonchalantly says that getting a glimpse of his love’s face is his pilgrimage and to keep looking at this sight is my prayer. There, this is my religion for you, the religion of love.

     


  3. This Mere Drunkenness…

    April 8, 2016 by hjz5060

    In awe of every glance of the cup-bearer, I drank
    I drank playing with the waves of joy.

    O all-merciful! Please forgive all my wrongs
    I drank confounded by the extreme desire.

    I do not dare to drink without permission
    but the patronage of veiled eyes of my beloved beckoned.

    O abstinent! Look at the mischievousness of my drinking
    I drank by befriending the forgiveness [of God].

    Purple clouds are over-cast
    and the sound of music is all around.

    Whose tresses are open in the rains?
    The winds are perfumed.

    Let us dance in the garden courtyard
    the clouds brought music [with them].

    After seeing her eyes O Adam!
    I can feel the ambience of tavern.

    Near and far, somebody lives
    somebody do lives in my heart.

    From the time I have seen her eyes
    I remain mildly intoxicated.

    My beloved lives in my heart, like
    light lives in darkness.

    This mild intoxication
    is because of your eyes,
    that taught me drinking.

    Your love and your longing,
    your intoxicating glances
    made me a drunkard.

    What wine, what intoxication
    all this is [due to] your kindness.
    You served me [wine] with your eyes such
    that I have forgotten myself.

    The whole world is ecstatic, the order of the world is ecstatic.
    The day is ecstatic, so is dawn and so is evening.
    The glass, cup and wine are all ecstatic.
    Because of your intoxicating eyes, everyone and everything is ecstatic.

    This poem is basically telling how the lover is expressing himself. How he is blaming the person he loves for making him an alcoholic. But there is one twist in the tale.

    Of all the wines you have in your tavern
    serve me a little from your eyes

    He is not mentioning the alcohol we are thinking about.  He is actually saying that when someone looks into your eyes, it is as if a magical spell is cast on them. This is the alcohol he wishes, this is the drunkenness he desires.

    I am a follower of love since the beginning of life
    [and] I do not care for piousness or irreligiousness.
    My head has found your house,
    now I do not search for the mosque.

    The lover now proclaims that you love is important than any other thing in the world. Your love is my religion and you are my god.

    A little information on why I am interested in this sort of poetry. Since my grandfather was a Sufi( follower of the Islamic mystical school of thought) he was interested into this type of poetry and music. It is because of him that my entire family is interested in the sufi way- true love. I too listened to this type of music with and that is why I am an admirer of this genre.

     


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