Enough of learning, my friend!
To it there is never an end
An alphabet should do for you,
It’s enough to help you fend.
You’ve amassed much learning around,
The Quran and its commentaries profound.
There is darkness amidst lighted ground.
Without the guide you remain unsound.
Learning makes you a Sheikh or his minion,
And thus you create problems trillion.
You exploit others who know not what,
Misleading them with wild opinion.
You meditate and you say your prayers
You go and shout at the top of the stairs.
Your cry reaching the high skies,
Its your avarice which ever belies.
The day I learnt love’s lesson,
I plunged into the river of divine passion;
An overwhelming gale, I was confounded and lost
When Shah Inayat cruised me across.
- Original Punjabi
-Biography available here.
June 8th, 2007 - 5:16 pm
ya saddiqi,
How are you? Its been a while, but things are well, alhamdulillah! I was reading this poem which was very nice, though I do find English an odd language for poetry, and I came to the last stanza and it left me bewildered. Could you help me to understand what is meant by,
Thank you my friend. I hope to see you soon, insha’allah.
June 8th, 2007 - 5:52 pm
Asalaamu alaikum.
I could be way off, but I understood it as an homage to his spiritual guide: that his guide had been the one who assisted him in the path of love, that when he found himself overwhelmed and lost in the practice that his guide pulled him back to the surface and helped him to get past his confusion, that his guide provided him stability amongst the currents of the path. Allahu alim. Perhaps I have completely misunderstood, and Sidi Yursil will enlighten us both with some profound and wonderous meaning that I missed.
June 9th, 2007 - 11:05 am
I bought a book of Bulleh Shah’s poetry a couple of years ago, and was shocked and appalled by what I read. But now that I have discovered the writings of the Naqshbandi Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, considered to be the reviver of the second Millenium (Mujaddid Alf Sani) by many, I have a much better understanding of what kind of stages the Sufis go through.
June 9th, 2007 - 11:43 am
as-salamu’alaikum,
I think Aaminah explained the meaning I see perfectly.
Come by some time Sidi Hakim, I miss your company!
-Yursil
June 9th, 2007 - 12:31 pm
Asalaamu alaikum Abd al-Qadir,
What many people completely misunderstand about poetry by the Lovers is that much of it is not literal. This is why many Muslims find the writing offensive, because they think the references to wine, love, and “one with Allah” to be very specific and literal things, when they are not.
At the same time, this is one reason why poets such as Rumi are so popular amongst non-Muslims. They are missing the real point of his poetry, but they have found a meaning that says something to them because they read it simply, and without comprehension.
Also, for those of us that have to read translations, we must be very careful of the translations we choose and that can be hard to do. The way that a non-Muslim will translate something may be very different from the understanding of a Muslim and how they would translate. And then how a “common” Muslim might translate something will be different from how one who has shared the deeper path of tasawwuf might translate it. And culture plays a part in translation as well, if they are translating it for a western audience, they may not stick as closely to the cultural specifics as the author meant them, thinking that outsiders to the culture will not “get it”. And… non-writers that translate poetry… well, that’s another issue because so much of the meaning and beauty can be lost simply because it does not convey well from one language into the other, and a non-writer may not have the skill to keep the literary quality. That said, a writer who is translating may also lose the real meaning because they are trying too hard to keep the literary quality.
June 10th, 2007 - 2:07 pm
I think things might be clarified if you know the last line actually says, “An overwhelming gale.”
June 13th, 2007 - 12:57 pm
Thank you sister.
June 19th, 2007 - 5:39 am
assalam alaikum, beautiful poem
another version has “hik alif meem tenu darkar” instead of ik alif
i.e. an Aleph(Allah) and Meem (Muhammad sallallho alehe wassallam) is all you need.
Many thanks