Islamic Poems

There is a beloved hidden within thine heart;

I will show him to thee, if thou hast eyes to see,

His lovers are fairer than the fair,

Sweeter and comelier and more beloved.

 

By love of him the heart is made strong,

And earth rubs shoulder with the Pleiades.

The soil of Najd was quickened by his grace,

And fell into a rapture and rose to the skies!

 

In the Muslim’s heart is the home of Muhammad,

All our glory is from the name of Muhammad.

Sinai is but an eddy of the dust of his house.

His dwelling place is the sanctuary to the Ka’aba itself.

 

Eternity is less than a moment of his time.

Eternity receives increase from his essence.

He slept on a mat of rushes,

But the crown of Chrosoes was under his people’s feet.

 

He chose the nightly solitude of Mount Hira,

And he founded a state and laws and government.

He passed many a night with sleepless eyes

In order that the Muslims might sleep on the throne of Persia.

 

In the hour of battle, iron was melted by the flash of his sword;

In the hour of prayer, tears fell like rain from his eye.

When he prayed for Divine help, his sword answered “Ameen”

And extirpated the race of kings.

 

He instituted new laws in the world.

He brought the empires of antiquity to an end.

With the key of religion he opened the doors of this world;

The womb of the world never bore his like.

 

In his sight high and low were one,

He sat with his slave at one table,

The daughter of the chieftain of Tai was taken prisoner in battle

And brought into that exalted presence;

 

Her feet in chains, unveiled,

And her neck bowed with shame,

When the Prophet saw that the poor girl had no veil,

He covered her face with his  wn mantle.

 

We are more naked than that lady of Tai,

We are unveiled before the nations of the world.

In him is our trust on the Day of Judgment,

And in this world, too, he is our protector.

 

Both his favour and his wrath are entirely a mercy:

That is a mercy to his friends and this to his foes.

He opened the gates of mercy to his enemies.

He gave to Makkah the message: “No penalty shall be laid upon you.”

 

We who know the bonds of country

Resemble sight, which is one though it be the light of two eyes.

We belong to the Hijaz and China and Persia.

Yet we are the dew of one smiling dawn.

 

We are all under the spell of the eye of the cup-bearer from Makkah,

We are united as wine and cup.

He burnt clean away distinctions of lineage,

His fire consumed this trash and rubble.

 

We are like a rose with many petals but with one perfume:

He is the soul of this society, and he is one.

We were the secret concealed in his heart:

He spake out fearlessly, and we were revealed.

 

The song of love for him fills my silent reed,

A hundred notes throb in my bosom.

How shall I tell what devotion he inspires?

A block of dry wood wept at parting from him!

 

The Muslim’s being is where he manifests his glory:

Many a Sinai springs from the dust on his path.

My image was created by his mirror,

My dawn rises from the sun of his breast.

 

My repose is a perpetual fever.

My evening hotter than the morning of Judgment Day:

He is the April cloud and I his garden,

My vine is bedewed with his rain.

I sowed my eye in the field of Love

And reaped a harvest of vision.

“The soil of Madinah is sweeter than both worlds:

“Oh, happy the town where dwells the Beloved.”

 

I am lost in admiration of the style of Mulla Jami:

His verse and prose are a remedy for my immaturity.

He has written poetry overflowing with beautiful ideas

And has threaded pearls in praise of the Master-

 

“Muhammad is the preface to the book of the universe:

All the worlds are slaves and he is the Master.”

From the wine of love spring many spiritual qualities:

Amongst the attributes of Love is blind devotion.

 

The saint of Bistam, who in devotion was unique,

Abstained from eating a water-melon.

Be a lover constant in devotion to thy beloved,

That thou mayst cast thy nose and capture God.

 

Sojourn for a while on the Hira  of the heart.

Abandon self and flee to God.

Strengthened by God, return to thy self

And break the heads of the Lat and Uzza of sensuality.

 

By the might of Love evoke an army,

Reveal thyself on the Faran of Love.

That the Lord of the Ka’aba may show thee favour

And make thee the object of the text,

“Lo! I will appoint a vice-regent on earth.