The Translator of Desires

Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi, Michael Sells

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780691212548
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Poesia mediorientale

A masterpiece of Arabic love poetry in a new and complete English translation The Translator of Desires, a collection of sixty-one love poems, is the lyric masterwork of Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi (1165–1240 CE), one of the most influential writers of classical Arabic and Islamic civilization. In this authoritative volume, Michael Sells presents the first complete English translation of this work in more than a century, complete with an introduction, commentary, and a new facing-page critical text of the original Arabic. While grounded in an expert command of the Arabic, this verse translation renders the poems into a natural, contemporary English that captures the stunning beauty and power of Ibn 'Arabi's poems in such lines as "A veiled gazelle's / an amazing sight, / her henna hinting, / eyelids signalling // A pasture between / breastbone and spine / Marvel, a garden / among the flames!"The introduction puts the poems in the context of the Arabic love poetry tradition, Ibn 'Arabi's life and times, his mystical thought, and his "romance" with Ni??m, the young woman whom he presents as the inspiration for the volume—a relationship that has long fascinated readers. Other features, following the main text, include detailed notes and commentaries on each poem, translations of Ibn 'Arabi's important prefaces to the poems, a discussion of the sources used for the Arabic text, and a glossary.Bringing The Translator of Desires to life for contemporary English readers as never before, this promises to be the definitive volume of these fascinating and compelling poems for years to come.

Appendix 1
NIŻĀM PREFACE

Prologue

Praise be God, the glorious, the one who acts, the beautiful, the lover of beauty;¹ who created the world in the most complete form and adorned it; and in making it, apportioned out degrees of wisdom about the beyond; who alluded to the place of his secret and determined it; and unfolded it before his intimates and made it clear;² who bathed the earth in beauty and passed his entranced lovers away in the contemplation of that beauty.

May God bless Muḥammad bin ʿAbdullāh who manifests his most beautiful form who was sent forth with the complete sharia and exemplary life; destined for the highest station and endowed with universal wholeness. God’s blessings and peace upon him, his family, and companions.

Mecca, 598

Now: when I arrived in Mecca in the year 598 (1202 CE), I found a large number of notables, scholars, and intellectuals—men and women of Persian background—who had settled there. There was no one, however noble, who was as attentive to the state of their soul and immersed in the moment as the learned shaykh and imam of the shrine of Abraham (blessings upon him): that immigrant to the sacred land, Makīn al-Dīn bin Rustam of Isfahan, may God rest his soul, and his learned and elderly sister, the Shaykha of the Ḥijāz, Fakhr al-Nisā’ bint Rustam.³

I heard the shaykh recite from al-Tirmidhī’s hadith collection and other works in the company of his circle of distinguished scholars.⁴ He held his symposia in a garden, and he was, God rest his soul, a kind and captivating companion, delightful conversation partner, generous host, and dear friend. His advanced age left him free to express exactly what was on his mind.

As for his sister, Fakhr al-Nisā’, “Pride of Women”—she should rather be named “Pride of All Scholars” (men and women alike). She was known for her impeccable hadith scholarship. So I wrote to her asking permission to receive her hadith reports from her in person. “My expectation in such matters has passed,” she responded. “My time has come. Urgent demands preoccupy me now, and I am unable to grant the sessions you request. Death seems to be charging in on me, and my advanced age turns me to contrition.” When her words reached me, I replied, “My condition and yours in hadith are one / To know and to act accordingly is our only aim.”

I heard al-Tirmidhī in the voice of Makīn,
imām of the people in the Balad al-Amīn⁵

Niẓām

She had her brother compose for me a general diploma granting me permission to pass on all of her hadith transmissions and had him deliver it to me in person. In addition to the general diploma, he also wrote out for me in his own hand all of his own hadith narrations. In response I composed the following verses for him.

Now, this shaykh (God bless him) had a daughter—a lissome maiden who would bind the gaze, dazzle a gathering with her speech, and astonish anyone engaging her in conversation. Her name was Niẓām, and she was known as Sun Splendor.⁶

She was the shaykha of the two holy shrines for woman scholars, worship-pers, itinerants, and renunciates in Mecca and Medina.⁷ She was, without exaggeration, the very quintessence of culture throughout the sacred land. Her gaze cast a deep spell. Her Iraqi wit scintillated. When she elaborated, she was thorough; when she spoke succinctly, she left her rivals in silence.⁸ When she spoke with artistic formality, she remained lucidly clear. In power of expression, she surpassed Qass bin Saʿda; in generosity she put Maʿn bin Zāʾida to shame; in loyalty she would have left faithful Samawʾal to stop in his tracks, leap bareback onto the steed of treason, and ride off in shame.⁹

Were it not for my concern for small-minded, suspicious souls, I would expand further on the character and virtues with which God had endowed her so generously. She is a rain-graced meadow, a sun among scholars, the prodigy of her time, the jewel of her generation; in generosity unstinting, in aspiration sublime. She was her own father’s teacher. She’s the mistress of every assembly she graces with her presence. She dwells among the noble, and she camps among the brave—and in the black pupil of the eye, and deep within the heart. Tihāma glows in her presence; gardens burst into life when she is near, the hills bloom. Knowing and acting in her are one. Her touch is an angel’s, her resolve a king’s.

Whenever I was with her, I remained aware of her noble character and ever mindful of her aunt and father, my dear friends. In this volume,¹⁰ I have made for her a priceless necklace from the nasibs and decorous ghazals that I composed.¹¹ Yet I have expressed only a part of what I have discovered over the course of our long acquaintance, intimate company, and shared affection; from the subtlety of her thought and the purity of her station. For she is the request and the fulfillment, she, the virgin most pure.¹² Yet from these treasures and lockets (al-dhakhāʾir wa al-aʿlāq),¹³ I have harmonized verses from the surges of longing of an impassioned soul.

So I have given voice to an afflicted soul and signaled the relationship we had, hearkening back to those long-passed times and that blessed company. Each name that I mention in this volume refers to her, each yearned-for abode is her abode, and throughout this work I employ our ac customed style to allude to divine influences, inspirations, and correspondences.¹⁴ For, the end for us is better than the beginning.¹⁵ In regard to her knowledge (God grace her with favor), to which I refer, none can better inform you than one who is ever aware.¹⁶

May God protect readers of this volume—as well as those of my larger poetic dīwān—from unseemly thoughts regarding men of upright character and celestial concerns. Amen.

In the name of the almighty, other than whom there is no lord. And God speaks the truth and shows the way. (Q 33:4)

Appendix 2
QURRAT AL-ʿAYN PREFACE

Here, by the grace of God, is the story of what happened to me when I was circling the Kaʿba. I was in a particularly sweet state of mind when I was overcome with a condition [ḥāl] that I had felt before. So as not to disturb anyone, I withdrew from the area covered with paving-stones to the sands along the periphery of the shrine, and continued my circling there. Some verses came to my mind, and I recited them for myself and to anyone who might have been listening:

 

I wish I knew if they knew

whose heart they’ve taken

Or my heart knew which

high-ridge track they follow

Do you see them safe

or perishing?

The lords of love are in love

ensnared, bewildered

No sooner had I spoken than I felt a jolt from a hand softer than undyed silk. When I turned around, I found before me a Rūmī maiden. Never had I encountered so radiant a face, so sweet a voice, such modesty; such refined thought, elegant allusions; such spirit in conversation. There was none like her in wit, learning, beauty, and intuition.

“What was it you were saying just now, master?” she asked.

“I wish I knew if they knew / whose heart they’ve taken,” I said.

“How very strange that you, the sage (ʿārif) of your time, would say something like that!” she objected. “Is not everything that is taken known to the one who takes it? Is it possible to have something and not know it? On the other hand, it is certainly fitting for one without knowledge (maʿrifa) to exclaim ‘would that I know’!¹ The true path requires a sincere tongue.² How could one like you fall short in such a way? What was it you said next, master?” she asked.

“Or my heart knew which / high-ridge track they follow,” I said.

“Master,” she said, “the high-ridge track leads between two layers of the heart. Knowledge of it is forbidden. How is it that one like you wishes for that which cannot be attained? The path requires a sincere tongue. How is that one like you would fall short in such a way? And what was it you said next?”

“Do you see them safe / or perishing?” I said.

“They are safe indeed,” she said. “What you should be asking is whether you are safe or perishing. And what did you say after that?”

“The lords of love in love / are ensnared, bewildered,” I said.

“Amazing!” she exclaimed. “How can one pierced through the heart by love have any trace of self left to be bewildered? Love consumes. It numbs the senses, drives away intellect, astonishes thoughts, and sends the one in love off with the others who are gone. Where is there place for bewilderment, and who is left to be bewildered? The path requires a sincere tongue. It is unbecoming for one like you to fall short in this regard.”³

“Cousin,” I said, “may I ask your name?”⁴

“Comfort for the eye,” she answered.

“For me,” I said.⁵

Then she bid me farewell and departed. Later on, I came to know her, frequented her company, and beheld in her subtleties of mystical knowings (may God find favor with her!) that no one could possibly describe.⁶

Appendix 3
APOLOGIA

If I mention a ruin, a station, meadows, or the like; or say “her,” “o you,” “oh,” or “would it not be”; or speak of him, her, or the two of them; or mention men or women in the plural; or fate taking me upland to Najd or down to Tihām; ...