Umar Ibn al-Farid - Whispering, then listening close (from The Poem of the Sufi Way)

December 30, 2009

--- On Wed, 30/12/09, Poetry Chaikhana <ivan wrote:

Here's your Daily Poem from the Poetry Chaikhana --

Whispering, then listening close (from The Poem of the Sufi Way)

By Umar Ibn al-Farid(1181 - 1235)

English version by Th. Emil Homerin

Whispering, then listening close from the vision of one casting away his all, instantly, out of an omnipotent hand.Thus I read the knowledge of the scholars in a single word, and I reveal all the worlds to me with a simple glance.I hear the many voices of those who pray in every tongue in a space of time

shorter than a flash.And I bring before me what before had been too far away to bear, in a blink of my eye.I inhale the bouquet of gardens and the sweet scents clinging to the skirts of the four winds, in a simple breath.I survey the far horizons round me in a momentary thought, and cross the seven

heavens with a single step.

-- from Umar Ibn al-Farid: Sufi Verses, Saintly Life, Translated by Th. Emil Homerin

Amazon.com / Photo by dierk schaefer /

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Thought for the Day:

Constancy establishes reality.

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Manish Vyas & Dina Awwad

Sufi Splendor

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Hi Alan -The poetry of Shaykh Umar Ibn al-Farid is considered by many to be the pinnacle of Arabic mystical verse, though surprisingly he is not widely known in the West. (Rumi and Hafiz, probably the best known in the West among the great Sufi poets, both wrote primarily in Persian, not Arabic.) Ibn al-Farid's two masterpieces are The Wine Ode, a beautiful meditation on the "wine" of divine bliss, and The Poem of the Sufi Way, a profound exploration of spiritual experience along the Sufi Path and perhaps the longest mystical poem composed in Arabic. Both poems have inspired in-depth spiritual commentaries throughout the centuries, and they are still reverently memorized by Sufis and other devout Muslims today.When he was a young man Ibn al-Farid would go on extended spiritual retreats among the oases outside of Cairo, but he eventually felt that he was not making deep enough

spiritual progress. He abandoned his spiritual wanderings and entered law school.One day Ibn al-Farid saw a greengrocer performing the ritual Muslim ablutions outside the door of the law school, but the man was doing them out of the prescribed order. When Ibn al-Farid tried to correct him, the man looked at him and said, "Umar! You will not be enlightened in Egypt. You will be enlightened only in Mecca..."Umar Ibn al-Farid was stunned by this statement, seeing that this simple greengrocer was no ordinary man. But he argued that he couldn't possibly make the trip to Mecca right away. Then the man gave Ibn al-Farid a vision, in that very moment, of Mecca. Ibn al-Farid was so transfixed by this experience that he left immediately for Mecca and, in his own words, "Then as I entered it, enlightenment came to me wave after wave and never left."Shaykh Umar Ibn al-Farid stayed many years in Mecca, but eventually returned to Cairo. He

became a scholar of Muslim law, a teacher of the hadith (the traditions surrounding the sayings and life of the prophet Muhammed), and a teacher of poetry. Unlike many other respected poets of the age, Ibn al-Farid refused the patronage of wealthy governmental figures which would have required him to produce poetry for propaganda, preferring the relatively humble life of a teacher that allowed him to compose his poetry of enlightenment unhampered.==Ibn al-Farid is reminding us of that transcendent, holographic moment when the dissecting mind steps aside and we finally witness reality as a singular wholeness. Each glance reveals to us the panorama of existence.Thus I read the knowledge of the scholarsin a single word,and I reveal all the worlds to mewith a simple glance.Everything is distilled down to its essence, for only a drop, a taste, a glimmering is needed to discover the All.This vision is

impossible for the physical eye to catch, and too immense for the mind to hold, but when we cease to look and learn to selflessly see... I survey the far horizons round mein a momentary thought,and cross the seven heavenswith a single step.IvanPS - Have a good (and sane! ;-) full moon eclipse here at the end of the year...

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.

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