ISLAMIC MYSTICAL POETRY

ISLAMIC MYSTICAL POETRY

RABIA BASRI (d. AD 801; AH 185)

Your Prayers

You Have Infused My Being

If I Worship You

Two Loves I Give Thee

My Rest is in My Solitude

If I Did Not Pray

In My Soul

MANSUR HALLAJ (d. AD 922; AH 309)

I am at Your Service

What Can I Do, O Lord?

O You Who are the Object

Stillness

I Lost Myself in Finding You

Kill Me, O My Trusted Friends

I Guide My Sight with the Eye of Knowledge

Amazed at Thou and I

Which Place on Earth?

My Heart

When the Stallion of Loneliness

I Witnessed My Maker

You Dwell in My Heart

Hidden Love is Always in Danger

You Went Away but Remained in Me

O Sun, O Moon, O Day

Four Letters

I Swear by Allah

If You Want to Sing

I Swim in the Sea of Love

Truth

ABU SAID IBN ABIL-KHAIR (AD 967–1049; AH 356–440)

Quatrains

SHEIKH ABDULLAH ANSARI OF HERAT (AD 1006–88; AH 395–480)

Prologue

When I Could, I Did Not

I Have No Key

I Come as a Slave

O Lord Give Me Wisdom

We Have No Excuse

Desperate Lovers

If I Err

The Limit of Speech

AHMAD JAM (AD 1048–1141; AH 439–535)

Your Beauty

Wherever I Look

Drunk with Love

True Destination

Of Thy Mercy I am Sure

SANAI GHAZNAVI (d. AD 1131; AH 525)

In the Name of God the Beneficent, the Merciful

True Knowledge

Give Me Wine

In the Grip of Love

Love’s Command

Invocation

The Night of Union

NIZAMI GANJAVI (AD 1140–1202; AH 535–95)

I Have Made a Shrine

Majnun

FARIDUDDIN ATTAR (AD 1145–1221; AH 539–617)

The Fire of Your Love

The Pain of Love

Your Beauty

Mosque or Tavern?

O You Who Have Revealed

What Madness is This?

All-pervading Consciousness

Drunken Reason

Since I Received Your Gift

I Shall Be Drunk Tonight

The Path of Love

You Will Not Mourn

Lovers are Strangers

My Drunkenness

In Love

How Can Sober Reason Understand?

I Have Broken My Vows

In the Place of Majesty

Wouldst Thou Inherit Paradise

Praise

UMAR IBN AL-FARID (AD 1181–1235; AH 576–632)

The Wine Ode

from Poem of the Sufi Way

With My Beloved

Give Me Excess of Love

MOHYUDDIN IBN ‘ARABI (AD 1165–1240; AH 560–637)

When They Departed

As I Kissed the Black Stone

O Doves that Haunt

Their Abodes Have become Decayed

He Saw the Lightning

Halt at the Abodes and Weep

O Ancient Temple

The Soul’s Remorse

JALALUDDIN RUMI (AD 1207–73; AH 604–72)

If You Seek Love

My Desire

My Soul

The Voice of Love

Enter the Tumultuous Night

Today

Where is the Way?

On this Path of Love Sublime

Who am I?

The Song of the Flute

Break Your Chains, O Son

I’m Drunk

Through Love

It is the True Beloved Who Causes All Outward Earthly Beauty to Exist

He Who Needs Mercy Finds It

All False Doctrines Contain an Element of Truth

The Eye of Outward Sense

All Religions are in Substance One and the Same

The Prophet’s Prayer for the Envious People

Knowledge of the Heart

IRAQI (d. AD 1289; AH 687)

The Wine

Make Me Happy

When I Kissed the Earth

SA’DI SHIRAZI (AD c. 1184–1291; AH 579–689)

Couplet

The Throne of the Heart

In Love

In the Company of the Wine-maker

MAHMUD SHABISTARI (d. AD 1320; AH 719)

What am I?

Secret of Unity

Knower and Known

Unity, Travel and Journey

Of Modes of Being

Being is the Sea

Knowledge and Virtue

On Virtues and Good Dispositions

Beauty

Of the Eye and the Lip

Of the Mole

Wine and Beauty

Of Tavern-haunters

Idols

SULTAN VELED (AD 1226–1312; AH 622–711)

To Mevlana

Value of Words

Leave Thy Wisdom

Seek Thou God

Ghazal

YUNUS EMRE (AD 1238–1321; AH 635–720)

He Who Goes with Love

The Mighty One

Come Let Us be Comrades

Those Who Have Mastered Life’s Meaning

Not a Soul

I Drank Wine from the Cup-bearer

Let’s Not Remain Adoring

My Fleeting Life

AMIR KHUSROW DEHLAVI (AD 1253–1325; AH 650–725)

I Asked

So be It

Better to be a Beggar than a King

I am a Believer of Love

We Have Passed Our Lives in Search

Last Night

My Heart Gave Me No Respite

ASHIQ PASHA (AD 1271–1332; AH 669–732)

Love of God

The Path

Knowledge and Reason

HAFIZ SHIRAZI (c. AD 1320–89; c. AH 720–91)

With Your Black Lashes

So Long as Tavern and Wine Abound

Rise Up, O Saqi!

A Corner of the Tavern

Last Night I Dreamt

When Shall I Get to Kiss Thee?

In the Company of Wine-givers

The Puritan Left His Solitude

I Have Lost My Heart

Good Deeds

The Tavern Door

Worshipping the Outer Form

O Puritan Zahid!

Beauty Radiated in Eternity

Ask Not of Me

I am a Slave of Love

The Rule

O King of Beauty

It’s Better to Pawn this Robe

I am a Lover

MAGHRIBI (c. AD 1349–1406; c. AH 750–809)

When the Sun of Your Face

O You Who Gave Life to the World

O Centre and Pivot of Being

Do Not Ask

Beloved’s Street

You are a Drop

O End of Every Beginning

Each Way I Turned

SHAH NIMATULLAH (d. AD 1431; AH 834)

King and Beggar are One

The Point of the Circle

The Named is One

QASIMUL ANWAR (AD 1356–1433; AH 757–837)

Fill My Cup

Before the Mosque and Temple

In Six Days

KABIR (AD 1398–1447; AH 800–51)

O Friend, Hope for Him

Do Not Go to the Garden of Flowers

The Moon Shines in My Body

The Secret Word

The Word

All Jewels

The River and the Wave

Listen to the Heart

Who am I?

Unity

Illusion

Light

ABDUR-RAHMAN JAMI (AD 1414–92; AH 817–97)

By the Garden

The Meaning of Love

O You, Whose Beauty

I am So Drunk

Creation (from Yusuf and Zulaikha)

SARMAD (d. AD 1661; AH 1071)

Quatrains

Congratulations

SULTAN BAHU (c. AD 1628–91; c. AH 1037–1102)

Union with God

Love’s Disease

Where God is

The Heart is a River

The Certain Heart

Belief

The Heart’s River

Sigh of the Afflicted

The True Kalimah

BABA BULLEH SHAH (AD 1680–1757; AH 1090–1170)

Bulleh, Who Knows Who I am?

You Alone Exist

It’s a Topsy-turvy World!

One Point Contains All

He Who is Stricken by Love

Love Springs Eternal

It is You Alone

Fasting, Pilgrimage, Prayer

My Lord Comes as Man

The God You Find

Look into Yourself

Destroy the Mosque and Temple!

SHAH ABDUL LATIF BHITTAI (AD 1689–1752; AH 1100–65)

Peace

They Have Read and Read

You Profess to be Faithful

The Body is a Rosary

Sohni

Creation

SHAH NIAZ (AD 1742–1834; AH 1155–1250)

The Face of Beauty

Though I am Buried

I Drank from the Saqi’s Eyes

I Saw My Beloved in Every Guise

Not-being

MIAN MUHAMMAD BAKSH (d. AD 1907; AH 1324 )

The Characteristics of Love and Lovers

The Valley of Unity or Oneness

Glossary

Copyright Acknowledgements

Who am I?

What can I do my friends, if I do not know?

I am neither Christian nor Jew, nor Muslim nor Hindu.

What can I do? What can I do?

Not of the East, nor of the West,

Not of the land, nor of the sea,

Not of nature’s essence, nor of circling heavens.

What could I be?

—– Jalaluddin Rumi

Not a believer in the mosque am I,

Nor a disbeliever with his rites am I.

I am not the pure amongst the impure,

Neither Moses nor Pharaoh am I.

Bulleh, who knows who I am?

—– Baba Bulleh Shah