Lucía Andrea
Illanes Albornoz
🏳️⚧️ 𒊩 𒈨 𒊬𒊏 𒌓 𒁲𒆷 𒂊𒀀 🏳️⚧️
Treasures hide in springs unseen
Sarāʔiru l-aʕyān
ﻧﻮﻉ ﺍﻟﺸﻌﺮ: موشحة عن التصوف
ﺍﻟﺸﺎﻋﺮ: محمد بن علي بن محمد بن عربي الحاتمي الطائي الأندلسي الشهير بمحيي الدين بن عربي
منطقته: ﺍﻷﻧﺪﻟﺲ
ﻋﺼﺮ: ﻗﺮﻥ ﺍلثاني-ﺍلثالث ﻋﺸﺮ
| سرائر الأعيان | لاحت على الأكوان | للناظرين |
| والعاشق الغيران | من ذاك في حران | يبدي الأنين |
| يقول والوجد | أضناه والبعد | قد حيّره |
| لمّا دنا البعد | لم أدر من بعد | من غيّره |
| وهيّم العبد | والواحد الفرد | قد خيّره |
| في البوح والكتمان | والسرّ والإعلان | في العالمين |
| أنا هو الديّان | يا عابد الأوثان | أنت الضّنين |
| كلّ الهوى صعب | على الذي يشكو | ذلّ الحجاب |
| يا من له قلب | لو أنّه يذكو | عند الشباب |
| قرّبه الرّبّ | لكنّه إفك | فانو المتاب |
| وناد يا رحمن | يا برّ يا منّان | إنّي حزين |
| أضناني الهجران | ولا حبيب دان | ولا معين |
| فنيتُ بالله | عمّا تراه العين | من كونه |
| في موقف الجاه | وصِحتُ أين الأين | في بينه |
| فقال يا ساهي | عاينتُ قطَّ عين | بعينه |
| أما ترى غيلان | وقيس أو من كان | في الغابرين |
| قالوا الهوى سلطان | إن حلّ بالإنسان | أفناه دين |
| كم مرّةٍ قالا | أنا الذي أهوى | من هو أنا |
| فلا أرى حالا | ولا أرى شكوى | إلاّ الفنا |
| لستُ كمن مالا | عن الّذي يهوى | بعد الجنى |
| ودان بالسُّلوان | هذا هو البهتان | للعارفين |
| سَلَوْهم ما كان | عن حضرة الرحمن | والآفِكين |
| دخلتُ في بستان | الأُنْسُ والقُرْبُ | كمَكْنَسه |
| فقام لي الريحان | يختال بالعُجْب | في سُنْدُسه |
| أنا هو يا إنسان | مطيِّبُ الصَّبِ | في مجلسه |
| جِنّان يا جِنّان | اِجْنِ من البستان | الياسمين |
| وحلّل الريحان | بحرمة الرحمن | للعاشقين |
Type of poem: Muwaššaḥah[1] on Ṣufism/divine love
Name of poet: Muḥammad b. ʕalī b. Muḥammad b. ʕarabī al-Ḥātimī aṭ-Ṭāʔī al-Andalusī, famously known as Muḥyi d-Dīn b. ʕarabī
Region of poet: al-Andalus
Era: 12th-13th century
Nota bene: this poem extensively utilises the poetic device of Iltifāt: sudden shifts between perspectives via grammatical person.
| Treasures hide in springs unseen | transcending all the worlds that be[2] | appear when lovers' eyes do meet |
| The lover burnt by jealousy[3] | possessed by thirsting envy | declaims in groaning agony |
| He shouts: “O Fiery Passion!” | that wore him out and the abandonment[4] | has left him speechless! |
| “Ever since our separation | I'm bewildered and perplexed! | Who led my love astray?” |
| So the slave's in searing thirst | while the Singular, the One[5] | has granted him a choice |
| In disclosing and concealing | and secrets and revealing[6] | in all the worlds that be |
| I am He[21], the Judge! | O Worshipper of idols! | Your love is but possession! |
| Love is always hard | for those who find complaint | in separation's humiliation[7] |
| O You possessed of heart! | if only it had burnt | from the flame of your companion! |
| The Lord lets him draw near | but therein lies a lie: | repentance[8] is but fleeting |
| He cries out: “O Merciful! | O Benevolent, O Giving! | I am in sorrow!” |
| I languish in your absence | and no friend have I near | not a single soul! |
| I vanished into God | whom my eye began to see | through his essence |
| In my place of exaltation | I shouted: “Where is anywhere | amidst his union?” |
| So he[9] said: “O, You heedless!” | Have I truly seen an eye | through his eyes?[10] |
| So don't you see Ġaylān[11] | and Qays[12] or many more | amongst those left behind?[13] |
| They said: “Love is a sovereign, | when it dwells within a person” | Their creed destroyed them![14] |
| So many times the lovers said: | “I love you like none other | none other than myself!”[15] |
| Their course is but themselves | their minds find no complaint | the end is their destruction[16] |
| “I'm not like them that turned | away from those that loved them | after reaping love's harvest!”[17] |
| For they[17] owe consolation! | that is but defamation | to those that have insight! |
| They comfortably forget | the presence of the Merciful | and the deceivers |
| I became one with the garden:[18] | “O Solace! O Shelter![19] | His presence swept me away.” |
| There rose for me the myrtle | that's adorned with conceit | in its silken garment[20] |
| “I am Him[21], O human! | who lends fragrance to your passion | in His gathering!” |
| O Gardener! O Lovers! | Gather from the garden | some jasmine! |
| And grant then the myrtle | by the sanctity of the Merciful | to the lovers![22] |
[1] Muwaššaḥah or Tawšīḥ, Moaxaja in Spanish - "girdled" poetry, named owing to its strophic structure and with
reference to the fashionable girdle, double belt, or scarf worn by women of high status in al-Andalus at the time - is a
form of Classical strophic poetry, e.g. composed in Classical as opposed to vernacular Arabic, that originated in
al-Andalus, specifically attributed to either Muqaddam b. al-Muʕāfah al-Qabrī in the 10th century, el Ciego de Cabra,
the Blind Man of Cabra, near Córdoba, then named Qabrah or b. ʕabd Rabbih in the 9th/10th century, also from near Córdoba,
the famous author of the ʕiqdu l-Farīd, The Unique Necklace.
A Muwaššaḥah is always composed of half-verse pairs - as in Arabic poetry in general - in the form of strophes of three or more Bayt ("verse" (etymologically related to "tent, house") pl. Abyāt,) or Ġuṣn ("branch, twig", pl. Aġṣān,) and, at the end, a Qufl ("lock, bolt", pl. Aqfāl) or Simṭ ("string, thread" (particularly of a necklace,) pl. Sumūṭ.) The first - optional - Qufl is named the Maṭlah ("overlook, vantage"; "remainder of water in a basin", pl. Maṭlāt.) The last - obligatory - Qufl is named the Ḫarjah ("departure, exit", pl. Ḫarajāt - Jarcha in Spanish) - the latter being the most important, refined, and renowned part of a Muwaššaḥah, establishing the ultimate intention and premise of the poet; some Ḫarjah were composed in Romance or Mozarabic - Hispanic Vulgar Latin of the day and age - or Hebrew. Often, a Ḫarjah is composed from the perspective of a beloved person, often women but not always, or even an abstract object or interceding person, etc. pp.
In contrast to Classical poetry, a Muwaššaḥah may be composed in a much larger ranges of metres than those documented - and thereby arguably fixed - by al-Ḥalīl b. Aḥmad al-Farāhīdī in the 8th century. The Classical range of genres - Faḫr, Madīḥ, Hijāʔ, and Riṯāʔ (exaltation, panegyric, satire, and lamentation,) Waṣf (description,) Ġazal (love,) etc. - is more limited in that the genres of Ḥamriyyah, Rabīʕiyyah, Rawḍiyyah, and Nawriyyah (poetry on wine, spring, gardens, and the blossoming of flowers) as well as love predominate; homoerotic poetry is also just as strongly present as it was in Classical poetry where often it is unclear whether the beloved person being referred to is female or male. Stylistically speaking, a Muwaššaḥah tends to have very spontaneous, concise, and direct yet witty qualities.
Andalusian language, culture, identity, and also, of course, poetry - arguably the genesis of the first, true autochthonous and quite pluralistic (yet certainly tumultously so) Hispanic identity with all it entailed - across the centuries decidely set itself apart from that of the - comparatively miniscule in number anyway - Yemenites, Syrians, and Umayyads present in the peninsula beginning in the 8th century, whilst maintaining very strong ties to and influence from the ʕabbasid era heartlands of the Islamic World at the time, viz. Mesopotamia, where, among others, Persian influence was much stronger than peninsular Arabian. This also affected poetry: Arabic or Arabian poetry, Classical poetry, was - eventually - viewed as little but poetry on "towering camels" - there were, of course, no camels and no desert culture in al-Andalus and while Andalusian language identity was of course primarily Arabic - and Romance or Mozarabic and then Hebrew - it was not Arabian - and hence, a more uniquely Andalusian form of poetry was born: the Muwaššaḥah, the counterpart to Classical poetry and, later, the Zajal ("shout",) the counterpart to vernacular poetry.
Much of what has been preserved is due to the 11th/12th century Ayyūbid-era Egyptian poet b. Sanāʔ al-Mulk, known also as al-Qāḍī as-Saʕīd, of Cairo, in his Dār aṭ-Ṭirāz, The House of Brocade, containing the vast majority of the body of old Andalusian Muwaššaḥah along with a great deal of history and analysis thereof.
In addition to this, the repertoire of Classical Andalusian Music (Ṭarabu l-Ālah) in the Maġrib encompasses a large number of Muwaššaḥāt, though only fragments thereof.
Both the Muwaššaḥah and the Zajal, in altered form, have continued to enjoy a great deal of popularity, including in modernity and post-modernity, in the Arab world, such as in Lebanon in the form of extemporaneous poetic duels and have exerted considerable influence on the poetry of Western Europe from France to England, possibly including the poem of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as well as Hispanic poetry and song to this day and age.
[2] viz. above and prior to all potential and possible yet ultimately illusionary worlds, kinds of existence and being, universes, etc., the reality of which is fleeting and only becomes apparent and unveiled to the mystic when granted so by the Divine.
[3] Ġayrah (here in its hyperbolic form Ġayrān) is, as a cultural concept, distinct from jealousy in the sense that it constitutes possessive jealousy: exclusive jurisdiction over both the subject (how a person is conceived, perceived, constituted, etc.) and the object (the person itself,) fueled by and inflaming burning passion.
A jealous lover - al-ʕāšiqu l-Ġayrān - in this sense is a contradiction in terms. The contradiction, conflict, and tension as well as its sublation in union from changing perspectives and sets of relations is a crucial to this poem as a whole.
[4] lit. thereafter, viz. departure of the beloved, abandonment thereby.
This set of verses is very rich in temporal structure at a grammatical inasmuch as lexical level, via which the premise is primarily and secondarily expressed. This is only in some part directly carried over into the translation, which instead primarily operates via periphrasis.
[5] viz. God.
[6] viz. in matters of secrets concealed, divulged, and revealed to and shared between lovers, especially when the beloved is Divine.
[7] viz. the humiliation experienced by whom is separated from their beloved by any kind of barrier, originally the physical barrier-cloth placed before or in the doorway of a house that one would be stood before, more loosely speaking: any kind of separation one imposes between one's beloved and oneself.
Taken from a short poem by b. Abī Fatn:
الموت أهون من طول الوقوف على
باب, عليّ لبوّاب عليه يد
ما لي أقيم على ذلّ الحجاب كأن
قد ملّني وطن أو ضاق بي بلد
Death is easier than all time spent standing at
the door, where over me the doorkeeper has power
Why am I stood, enduring the humiliation of the barrier, as though
my country has tired of me or my homeland became my anguish
[8] lit. return.
[9] Instance of Iltifāt: shifting among first to, here, third person for purposes of rhetoric, congruent with the wider meaning and context of these Aġsān. The speaker is addressing himself from the perspective of his reflection (or third person, being himself) in a state of mystical excitation in and from a vision.
[10] That is to say: in union there remains separation, for the eye of the one that meets the eye of the beloved turns out to be separate from the other and thus cannot thereby truly perceive the most profound of truthful reality. The eye may see but solely from its perspective whereas the perspective of the eye that is seen is closed and cut off from the eye that is seeing. Only if the seeing eye and the eye that is seen were to meet in true union would the two disappear in perfect unity of being.
Only in direct experience of transcendent reality whereby all that remains of the self is annihilated and all senses are extinguished is union attained and mysteries are revealed.
[11] Abu l-Ḥāriṯ Ġaylān b. ʕuqbah b. Nuhays b. Masʕūd al-ʕadawī ar-Rubābī at-Tamīmī known as Ḏu r-Rummah ("of the frayed cord", possibly referring to a cord amulet,) who lived in the 7th-8th century and composed, inter alia, love poetry in the genres of Nasīb and Ġazal.
That is to say: one of two famous lovers and love-poets.
[12] Either or both of: 1) Qays b. al-Mulawwaḥ, who lived in the 7th century, known as Majnūn from the Arabian love story Majnūn Laylā turned Persian narrative romantic poem by Niẓāmī Ganjavī in the 12th century 2) Qays b. Ḏarīḥ, who also lived in the 7th century, known as Majnūn Lubnā from the Arabian love story Qays wa-Lubnā (Qays and Lubnā.)
That is to say: another of two famous lovers and love-poets.
[13] viz. in Qurʔānic context: those that remain or are left behind in torment in this world with the evildoers, absent from salvation in the next world.
This first sentence asks: as for those mentioned left behind [absent from salvation or in torment]...
[14] viz. worldly, earthly love, as opposed to divine love, when taken as one's faith, creed, or religion, causes them to be left behind in worldliness and destroys in whom it dwells to this degree.
This second sentence answers: ...that is what has made them remain [absent from salvation or in torment] and destroyed them.
[15] An inverted reference to a particularly popular poem by the seminal 9th-10th century mystic Abū l-Muġīṯ al-Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr al-Ḥallāǧ known as Manṣūr al-Ḥallāǧ which is attributed to or projected onto a pair of lovers exemplified by the historical Ġaylān, Qays b. Ḏarīḥ, and Qays b. al-Mulawwaḥ ("Maǧnūn".)
The original reads: "I am whom I love and whom I love is I / we are two souls dwelling in our body", an expression on part of the mystic of (divine) love of such a degree of selflessness that the distinction between the lover and the beloved fades away: the lover becomes his beloved, the beloved becomes his lover.
In this poem, through merely two substituted words ("ألذي (that)" vs. "من (who(m))" vs. "هو" (he; here: is) for "أهوى" (I love)) and a change in construction as well as perspective ("I am he that loves" vs. "I am whom I love" and "whom that is I" vs. "and whom I love is I", as well as merging the two separate phrases into one,) this is inverted such that the utmost degree of selflessness becomes conceited selfishness mistaken for love: the lover loves - but ultimately only himself, the beloved does not even appear.
[16] viz. no path is available to them except for their own destruction for they cannot deviate or turn away from their conceited selfishness that they mistake for love that leads them from themselves towards themselves, nor is even a mere complaint about their condition directed towards anyone at all a possibility; the sudden shift to the first person is an instance of Iltifāt[9].
[17] viz. like those that would turn away from someone that continues to love them and has loved them after having already obtained, reaped, or harvested all that there was for them to obtain, etc. from said love and said person; the sudden shift to the first person is an instance of Iltifāt[9].
This may (or may not) also refer to the greater harvest of Divine vs. merely worldly love.
[18] viz. entered, entered into, entered into the affairs of, turned towards, turned into, joined with, became one with, converted to the creed of, etc.
[19] viz. the solace of intimate divine presence.
[20] A description typical of Nawriyyah/Rawḍiyyah-genre Andalusian poetry: Myrtle is perennial, spreads around, stands upright and tall, towering above many other plants, pleasantly and strongly fragrant, and it has a silken garment: glossy, shiny, smooth leaves and white flowers - hence, it is personified as being (self-)conceited: proud, arrogant, haughty, vain, pompous, boastful, self-indulgent, in love with itself, etc.
[21] viz. God.
[22] viz. and grant them long-lasting, perennial, eternal love, as myrtle is perennial - as per, from the same Nafḥu ṭ-Ṭībi min ġuṣni l-Andalusi r-Raṭīb (The Breath of Perfume from the Branch of Flourishing Al-Andalus) of Aḥmad al-Maqqārī in which this poem appears:
فسأل بعض عن معناه فقال بعض الحاضرين أراد به العذار وقال آخر إنما أشار إلى دوام العهد لأن الأزهار كلها ينقضي زمانها إلا الريحان فإنه دائم فاستحسن الشيخ هذا أو وافق عليه.
And some [of those gathered] asked as to the meaning [of the then-popular Zajal this Ḫarjah was taken from] so then some of those present said: [what is] meant by this is excuses and others said that rather [this] refers to the permanence of the promise/vow/covenant [between the lovers] because flowers all end in time except for myrtle for it is perennial and so the Šayḫ [b. ʕarabī] approved of this or agreed upon it.
A Muwaššaḥah is always composed of half-verse pairs - as in Arabic poetry in general - in the form of strophes of three or more Bayt ("verse" (etymologically related to "tent, house") pl. Abyāt,) or Ġuṣn ("branch, twig", pl. Aġṣān,) and, at the end, a Qufl ("lock, bolt", pl. Aqfāl) or Simṭ ("string, thread" (particularly of a necklace,) pl. Sumūṭ.) The first - optional - Qufl is named the Maṭlah ("overlook, vantage"; "remainder of water in a basin", pl. Maṭlāt.) The last - obligatory - Qufl is named the Ḫarjah ("departure, exit", pl. Ḫarajāt - Jarcha in Spanish) - the latter being the most important, refined, and renowned part of a Muwaššaḥah, establishing the ultimate intention and premise of the poet; some Ḫarjah were composed in Romance or Mozarabic - Hispanic Vulgar Latin of the day and age - or Hebrew. Often, a Ḫarjah is composed from the perspective of a beloved person, often women but not always, or even an abstract object or interceding person, etc. pp.
In contrast to Classical poetry, a Muwaššaḥah may be composed in a much larger ranges of metres than those documented - and thereby arguably fixed - by al-Ḥalīl b. Aḥmad al-Farāhīdī in the 8th century. The Classical range of genres - Faḫr, Madīḥ, Hijāʔ, and Riṯāʔ (exaltation, panegyric, satire, and lamentation,) Waṣf (description,) Ġazal (love,) etc. - is more limited in that the genres of Ḥamriyyah, Rabīʕiyyah, Rawḍiyyah, and Nawriyyah (poetry on wine, spring, gardens, and the blossoming of flowers) as well as love predominate; homoerotic poetry is also just as strongly present as it was in Classical poetry where often it is unclear whether the beloved person being referred to is female or male. Stylistically speaking, a Muwaššaḥah tends to have very spontaneous, concise, and direct yet witty qualities.
Andalusian language, culture, identity, and also, of course, poetry - arguably the genesis of the first, true autochthonous and quite pluralistic (yet certainly tumultously so) Hispanic identity with all it entailed - across the centuries decidely set itself apart from that of the - comparatively miniscule in number anyway - Yemenites, Syrians, and Umayyads present in the peninsula beginning in the 8th century, whilst maintaining very strong ties to and influence from the ʕabbasid era heartlands of the Islamic World at the time, viz. Mesopotamia, where, among others, Persian influence was much stronger than peninsular Arabian. This also affected poetry: Arabic or Arabian poetry, Classical poetry, was - eventually - viewed as little but poetry on "towering camels" - there were, of course, no camels and no desert culture in al-Andalus and while Andalusian language identity was of course primarily Arabic - and Romance or Mozarabic and then Hebrew - it was not Arabian - and hence, a more uniquely Andalusian form of poetry was born: the Muwaššaḥah, the counterpart to Classical poetry and, later, the Zajal ("shout",) the counterpart to vernacular poetry.
Much of what has been preserved is due to the 11th/12th century Ayyūbid-era Egyptian poet b. Sanāʔ al-Mulk, known also as al-Qāḍī as-Saʕīd, of Cairo, in his Dār aṭ-Ṭirāz, The House of Brocade, containing the vast majority of the body of old Andalusian Muwaššaḥah along with a great deal of history and analysis thereof.
In addition to this, the repertoire of Classical Andalusian Music (Ṭarabu l-Ālah) in the Maġrib encompasses a large number of Muwaššaḥāt, though only fragments thereof.
Both the Muwaššaḥah and the Zajal, in altered form, have continued to enjoy a great deal of popularity, including in modernity and post-modernity, in the Arab world, such as in Lebanon in the form of extemporaneous poetic duels and have exerted considerable influence on the poetry of Western Europe from France to England, possibly including the poem of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as well as Hispanic poetry and song to this day and age.
[2] viz. above and prior to all potential and possible yet ultimately illusionary worlds, kinds of existence and being, universes, etc., the reality of which is fleeting and only becomes apparent and unveiled to the mystic when granted so by the Divine.
[3] Ġayrah (here in its hyperbolic form Ġayrān) is, as a cultural concept, distinct from jealousy in the sense that it constitutes possessive jealousy: exclusive jurisdiction over both the subject (how a person is conceived, perceived, constituted, etc.) and the object (the person itself,) fueled by and inflaming burning passion.
A jealous lover - al-ʕāšiqu l-Ġayrān - in this sense is a contradiction in terms. The contradiction, conflict, and tension as well as its sublation in union from changing perspectives and sets of relations is a crucial to this poem as a whole.
[4] lit. thereafter, viz. departure of the beloved, abandonment thereby.
This set of verses is very rich in temporal structure at a grammatical inasmuch as lexical level, via which the premise is primarily and secondarily expressed. This is only in some part directly carried over into the translation, which instead primarily operates via periphrasis.
[5] viz. God.
[6] viz. in matters of secrets concealed, divulged, and revealed to and shared between lovers, especially when the beloved is Divine.
[7] viz. the humiliation experienced by whom is separated from their beloved by any kind of barrier, originally the physical barrier-cloth placed before or in the doorway of a house that one would be stood before, more loosely speaking: any kind of separation one imposes between one's beloved and oneself.
Taken from a short poem by b. Abī Fatn:
الموت أهون من طول الوقوف على
باب, عليّ لبوّاب عليه يد
ما لي أقيم على ذلّ الحجاب كأن
قد ملّني وطن أو ضاق بي بلد
Death is easier than all time spent standing at
the door, where over me the doorkeeper has power
Why am I stood, enduring the humiliation of the barrier, as though
my country has tired of me or my homeland became my anguish
[8] lit. return.
[9] Instance of Iltifāt: shifting among first to, here, third person for purposes of rhetoric, congruent with the wider meaning and context of these Aġsān. The speaker is addressing himself from the perspective of his reflection (or third person, being himself) in a state of mystical excitation in and from a vision.
[10] That is to say: in union there remains separation, for the eye of the one that meets the eye of the beloved turns out to be separate from the other and thus cannot thereby truly perceive the most profound of truthful reality. The eye may see but solely from its perspective whereas the perspective of the eye that is seen is closed and cut off from the eye that is seeing. Only if the seeing eye and the eye that is seen were to meet in true union would the two disappear in perfect unity of being.
Only in direct experience of transcendent reality whereby all that remains of the self is annihilated and all senses are extinguished is union attained and mysteries are revealed.
[11] Abu l-Ḥāriṯ Ġaylān b. ʕuqbah b. Nuhays b. Masʕūd al-ʕadawī ar-Rubābī at-Tamīmī known as Ḏu r-Rummah ("of the frayed cord", possibly referring to a cord amulet,) who lived in the 7th-8th century and composed, inter alia, love poetry in the genres of Nasīb and Ġazal.
That is to say: one of two famous lovers and love-poets.
[12] Either or both of: 1) Qays b. al-Mulawwaḥ, who lived in the 7th century, known as Majnūn from the Arabian love story Majnūn Laylā turned Persian narrative romantic poem by Niẓāmī Ganjavī in the 12th century 2) Qays b. Ḏarīḥ, who also lived in the 7th century, known as Majnūn Lubnā from the Arabian love story Qays wa-Lubnā (Qays and Lubnā.)
That is to say: another of two famous lovers and love-poets.
[13] viz. in Qurʔānic context: those that remain or are left behind in torment in this world with the evildoers, absent from salvation in the next world.
This first sentence asks: as for those mentioned left behind [absent from salvation or in torment]...
[14] viz. worldly, earthly love, as opposed to divine love, when taken as one's faith, creed, or religion, causes them to be left behind in worldliness and destroys in whom it dwells to this degree.
This second sentence answers: ...that is what has made them remain [absent from salvation or in torment] and destroyed them.
[15] An inverted reference to a particularly popular poem by the seminal 9th-10th century mystic Abū l-Muġīṯ al-Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr al-Ḥallāǧ known as Manṣūr al-Ḥallāǧ which is attributed to or projected onto a pair of lovers exemplified by the historical Ġaylān, Qays b. Ḏarīḥ, and Qays b. al-Mulawwaḥ ("Maǧnūn".)
The original reads: "I am whom I love and whom I love is I / we are two souls dwelling in our body", an expression on part of the mystic of (divine) love of such a degree of selflessness that the distinction between the lover and the beloved fades away: the lover becomes his beloved, the beloved becomes his lover.
In this poem, through merely two substituted words ("ألذي (that)" vs. "من (who(m))" vs. "هو" (he; here: is) for "أهوى" (I love)) and a change in construction as well as perspective ("I am he that loves" vs. "I am whom I love" and "whom that is I" vs. "and whom I love is I", as well as merging the two separate phrases into one,) this is inverted such that the utmost degree of selflessness becomes conceited selfishness mistaken for love: the lover loves - but ultimately only himself, the beloved does not even appear.
[16] viz. no path is available to them except for their own destruction for they cannot deviate or turn away from their conceited selfishness that they mistake for love that leads them from themselves towards themselves, nor is even a mere complaint about their condition directed towards anyone at all a possibility; the sudden shift to the first person is an instance of Iltifāt[9].
[17] viz. like those that would turn away from someone that continues to love them and has loved them after having already obtained, reaped, or harvested all that there was for them to obtain, etc. from said love and said person; the sudden shift to the first person is an instance of Iltifāt[9].
This may (or may not) also refer to the greater harvest of Divine vs. merely worldly love.
[18] viz. entered, entered into, entered into the affairs of, turned towards, turned into, joined with, became one with, converted to the creed of, etc.
[19] viz. the solace of intimate divine presence.
[20] A description typical of Nawriyyah/Rawḍiyyah-genre Andalusian poetry: Myrtle is perennial, spreads around, stands upright and tall, towering above many other plants, pleasantly and strongly fragrant, and it has a silken garment: glossy, shiny, smooth leaves and white flowers - hence, it is personified as being (self-)conceited: proud, arrogant, haughty, vain, pompous, boastful, self-indulgent, in love with itself, etc.
[21] viz. God.
[22] viz. and grant them long-lasting, perennial, eternal love, as myrtle is perennial - as per, from the same Nafḥu ṭ-Ṭībi min ġuṣni l-Andalusi r-Raṭīb (The Breath of Perfume from the Branch of Flourishing Al-Andalus) of Aḥmad al-Maqqārī in which this poem appears:
فسأل بعض عن معناه فقال بعض الحاضرين أراد به العذار وقال آخر إنما أشار إلى دوام العهد لأن الأزهار كلها ينقضي زمانها إلا الريحان فإنه دائم فاستحسن الشيخ هذا أو وافق عليه.
And some [of those gathered] asked as to the meaning [of the then-popular Zajal this Ḫarjah was taken from] so then some of those present said: [what is] meant by this is excuses and others said that rather [this] refers to the permanence of the promise/vow/covenant [between the lovers] because flowers all end in time except for myrtle for it is perennial and so the Šayḫ [b. ʕarabī] approved of this or agreed upon it.
𒌌𒉡𒌋𒄷𒌋𒆷𒀀𒋗𒅋𒌋𒈠𒈠𒉌
© 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026 Lucía Andrea Illanes Albornoz | email: lucia@luciaillanes.de
CC BY 2.0 background photography Sevilla-4-9 courtesy of ajay_suresh on Flickr
Created with Vim, hosted by OVH & Hurricane Electric DNS, served by nginx & PHP on Ubuntu.
© 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026 Lucía Andrea Illanes Albornoz | email: lucia@luciaillanes.de
CC BY 2.0 background photography Sevilla-4-9 courtesy of ajay_suresh on Flickr
Created with Vim, hosted by OVH & Hurricane Electric DNS, served by nginx & PHP on Ubuntu.