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Islamic poetry

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  Quote eaglecap Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Islamic poetry
    Posted: 29-Mar-2005 at 13:01
I know Islam has made some good contributions to history, including literature.

I have read some Islamic poetry but off hand my mind is blank-any contributions!!!
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  Quote Antiochus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Mar-2005 at 13:09
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  Quote eaglecap Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Mar-2005 at 19:41
I have read the Prophet and it is one of my favorite literary pieces.

Then Almitra spoke again and said, "And what of Marriage, master?"

And he answered saying:

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.

Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together, yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

http://www.columbia.edu/~gm84/gibran3.html
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  Quote vagabond Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Apr-2005 at 16:55

Gibran is probably the best known in the west - look for Rumi and Hafez as well - one of my favorite Rumi pieces

Let go of your worries and be completely clear-hearted,
like the face of a mirror that contains no images.
If you want a clear mirror, behold yourself
and see the shameless truth, which the mirror reflects.
If metal can be polished to a mirror-like finish,
what polishing might the mirror of the heart require?
Between the mirror and the heart is this single difference:
the heart conceals secrets, while the mirror does not.

Cyrus had corrected the translation of one of these at one point on the old site - I hope this is the right version.

In the time of your life, live - so that in that wonderous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it. (Saroyan)
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  Quote ramin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Apr-2005 at 17:12
I'm sorry but the last one is in Persian not Arabic. and obviously not Islamic (They say Rumi was gay!)
"I won't laugh if a philosophy halves the moon"
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Apr-2005 at 16:01

Originally posted by ramin

I'm sorry but the last one is in Persian not Arabic. and obviously not Islamic (They say Rumi was gay!)

Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi was Turkish and he was a man.

I think Ottoman "Divan Edebiyat" has the best examples of Islamic literature and poetry. It uses a language synthesis of Turkish, Arabic and Persian. I dont understand anything from it because of the enormous number of foreign words and usage in it, but it sounds pretty cool...

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  Quote Beylerbeyi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Apr-2005 at 12:01

So, 'Islamic poetry' is the latest manifestation of the muddy thinking process rampart in the contemporary West.

How much sense would it make if someone asked what 'Christian poetry' is like? You'd ask, 'which language do you have in mind?' So, Arabic poetry, Persian poetry, Turkish poetry exist, 'Islamic poetry' does not exist. Unless, of course, you were talking about religious poetry (Sufi poetry, etc.) which is actually about religion. But you unfortunately aren't.

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  Quote Cywr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Apr-2005 at 13:29
Funny thing is, you have muslims here who speak in such terms, thus even things that aren't even exclusivly Islamic, become defacto Islamic.

Edited by Cywr
Arrrgh!!"
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  Quote vagabond Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Apr-2005 at 17:42

Ramin - You seem to feel that - to be considered Islamic - literature must be written in Arabic?  I disagree - there is a long tradition of literature in several countries that do not use Arabic as a principle language - Persia and Turkey have already been mentioned, Mogul literature is another example.  A quick web search also found Islamic poetry and literature being written today in languages as diverse as Swahili and bahasa Indonesia.

Beylerbeyi - you are seeing monsters under the bed again.  In a few short sentences you have hijacked a thread with the potential to expose folks to some of the best, and least known literature that the world has to offer and turned the discussion into a diatribe against the "evil West"?  What a positive and productive outlook.

In the english language the convention is to use the term Islamic as an adjective describing both the cultures and the products of the cultures of the period from the growth of Islam through the decline of the Ottoman Empire - hence - "Islamic Art"  "Islamic Literature" and yes - even here at AE, the subcategory "Islamic World". 

An article from Cornell and a syllabus with links from an old Berkeley course in World Civilization.

http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/islamlit.htm

http://www-learning.berkeley.edu/wciv/ugis55a/readings/islam .html

 

In the time of your life, live - so that in that wonderous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it. (Saroyan)
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  Quote Cywr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Apr-2005 at 17:45
He is making a legitimate point IMHO, even if it perhaps doesn't belong in this thread. There are funny things in everyday language that we take for granted and think nothing of, but we should question.
Arrrgh!!"
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  Quote ramin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Apr-2005 at 01:05
Originally posted by Oguzoglu

Originally posted by ramin

I'm sorry but the last one is in Persian not Arabic. and obviously not Islamic (They say Rumi was gay!)

Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi was Turkish and he was a man.

check his biography again.
He was a man who fell in love with his preceptor and inspiration Shams-al-din Tabrizi. He titled his famous Masnavis after him "Divan-E Shams".

Originally posted by vagabond

Ramin - You seem to feel that - to be considered Islamic - literature must be written in Arabic?
No-no!... I didnt say that, I was just talking "specifically" about Rumi and his Divan-E Shams. However, his other work (Masnavi Manavi) which is dervish spiritual poetry, can interpreted as an islamic literature.
"I won't laugh if a philosophy halves the moon"
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  Quote Beylerbeyi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Apr-2005 at 08:31

Beylerbeyi - you are seeing monsters under the bed again.  In a few short sentences you have hijacked a thread with the potential to expose folks to some of the best, and least known literature that the world has to offer and turned the discussion into a diatribe against the "evil West"?  What a positive and productive outlook.

I respect your point and intent, but I don't agree with your assessment of what's positive and productive. The reason is, by agreeing with this nonsense you are propagating it. 

In the english language the convention is to use the term Islamic as an adjective describing both the cultures and the products of the cultures of the period from the growth of Islam through the decline of the Ottoman Empire - hence - "Islamic Art"  "Islamic Literature" and yes - even here at AE, the subcategory "Islamic World".

Your convention is nonsense in many ways. 'Islamic World' as a pre-modern term is indeed meaningful. One can similarly talk about 'Christendom', and make sense. 'Islamic art' is semi-meaningful, because Islam, being a iconoclastic religion, restricts certain visual art forms, causing an increase of interest in others. 'Islamic literature' is, on the other hand, is quite meningless, unless you are talking about literature about Islam itself. It makes far more sense to discuss poetry in terms of language. Also, since you use the term 'Islamic' as relating to politics and culture as distinct from religion, as in 'Islamic poetry produced by cultures from the growth of Islam to the decline of the Ottoman Empire', I wish you good luck in convincing the Greeks and Bulgarians and Serbs and many others that their poetry under the Ottomans was 'Islamic'.  

He is making a legitimate point IMHO, even if it perhaps doesn't belong in this thread.

Thank you. And it belongs in this thread, which is called 'Islamic poetry'.   

Funny thing is, you have muslims here who speak in such terms, thus even things that aren't even exclusivly Islamic, become defacto Islamic.

Very true. This is because 'islamism' appeared as a reaction to western orientalism, which lumps the muslims from all over the planet into one fictitious category. Anti-western (and at the time anti-imperialist) traditionalists actually liked the idea and adopted it. This is a modern phenomenon.

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  Quote MengTzu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-May-2005 at 04:23
Any Sufi literature?
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  Quote ramin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-May-2005 at 01:48
Mulana
"I won't laugh if a philosophy halves the moon"
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  Quote Behi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-May-2005 at 10:26
Originally posted by Oguzoglu


Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi was Turkish and he was a man.

I think Ottoman "Divan Edebiyat" has the best examples of Islamic literature and poetry. It uses a language synthesis of Turkish, Arabic and Persian. I dont understand anything from it because of the enormous number of foreign words and usage in it, but it sounds pretty cool...

I don't Understand too why do you think He was Turk , If he was, Why he didn't use turkish Language, & why there is no turkish word in his poems &....

You know him turk because his shrine located at Ghonie

Molana was Aryan as me & all of his compatriot & whose that his book was elected as most favorite book in US few months ago
 

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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Mar-2012 at 01:43
Rabia al Adawiyya

My Greatest Need is You

Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure
Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word
My choicest hours
Are the hours I spend with You --
O Allah, I can't live in this world
Without remembering You--
How can I endure the next world
Without seeing Your face?
I am a stranger in Your country
And lonely among Your worshippers:
This is the substance of my complaint.


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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Mar-2012 at 21:20
Rabia al Adawiyya:


Dream Fable

I saw myself in a wide green garden, more beautiful than I could begin to understand. In this garden was a young girl. I said to her, "How wonderful this place is!"

"Would you like to see a place even more wonderful than this?" she asked.

"Oh yes," I answered. Then taking me by the hand, she led me on until we came to a magnificent palace, like nothing that was ever seen by human eyes. The young girl knocked on the door, and someone opened it. Immediately both of us were flooded with light.

Only Allah knows the inner meaning of the maidens we saw living there. Each one carried in her hand a serving-tray filled with light. The young girl asked the maidens where they were going, and they answered her, "We are looking for someone who was drowned in the sea, and so became a martyr. She never slept at night, not one wink! We are going to rub funeral spices on her body."

"Then rub some on my friend here," the young girl said.

"Once upon a time," said the maidens, "part of this spice and the fragrance of it clung to her body -- but then she shied away."

Quickly the young girl let go of my hand, turned, and said to me:

"Your prayers are your light;
Your devotion is your strength;
Sleep is the enemy of both.
Your life is the only opportunity that life can give you.
If you ignore it, if you waste it,
You will only turn to dust."

Then the young girl disappeared.


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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Mar-2012 at 01:05
Rabbia al Adawiyya:

Reality

In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?


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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Mar-2012 at 00:21
Rabbia al Adawiyya:

My Beloved

My peace, O my brothers and sisters, is my solitude,
And my Beloved is with me always,
For His love I can find no substitute,
And His love is the test for me among mortal beings,
Whenever His Beauty I may contemplate,
He is my "mihrab", towards Him is my "qiblah"
If I die of love, before completing satisfaction,
Alas, for my anxiety in the world, alas for my distress,
O Healer (of souls) the heart feeds upon its desire,
The striving after union with Thee has healed my soul,
O my Joy and my Life abidingly,
You were the source of my life and from Thee also came my ecstasy.
I have separated myself from all created beings,
My hope is for union with Thee, for that is the goal of my desire.


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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Mar-2012 at 23:35
Sa'di Shirazi

Who is the Real Seeker?

I will not say, O Brother, what the spiritual concert is, 
Until I know who is listening to it.

If he begins his flight from the tower of the spirit.  
The Angels will not keep up with his soaring.

But if he be a man of error, vanity and play,
The Shaytan will grow more powerful in his brain.

The Rose is torn apart by the morning breeze,
But not the log; for it can only be split by an ax.

The world feeds on music, drunkenness and rivalry.
But what does the blind man see in a mirror?


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