sāfar wa-lā tajza‘ wa-skun ’ilayy
wa-mut wa-‘ish wa-sma‘ kay tabqa ḥayy
yā sā’ilan minnī kayf al-wuṣūl
’in kān tiṣaddaqnī |
fimā naqūl |
’adnū wa-khudh minnī |
ba‘ḍ al-’uṣūl274 |
Meter (non-classical): XLSLLL XLSL. Structure: RR ababab RR cdcdcd RR efefef RR ghgghh RR; some asmāṭ have internal rhyme (QRQR).
The mystic and poet al-Shushtarī (ca. 610/1212–668/1269) was born in Shushtar (a village near Guadix, in Spain) and later moved to Egypt and Syria. His verse comprises poems in classical form, muwashshaḥāt, and zajal s. A zajal is a strophic poem in the vernacular, or a mixture of vernacular and classical Arabic. It is usually simpler in structure than a muwashshaḥah, but often longer. It is probably older than the muwashshaḥah but surfaces later in written sources, no doubt because of its language. Like the muwashshaḥah it originated in Spain, where Ibn Quzmān (d. 555/1160) is the great master of the genre; like the muwashshaḥah it spread to the East. Al-Shushtarī was the first to make mystical zajals. For a secular zajal, see the poem by al-Ghayṭī, below, p. 89.
Travel and fear not; stay, dwell with me!
Die, live, and hear, that you may stay alive.
O you who ask me, “How does one arrive?”
If you believe what I shall say,
Come near and learn some rules from me.
You will find happiness by joining me;
Thereafter I’ll give you sweet medicine to drink.
Look into your mirror and behold a miracle;
Transcend your temporal conditions, banish doubts,
For nothing will be veiled from your own self.
And when your life turns pure, untroubled, a short while,
You’ll see Existence, all spread out and folded up.
Say to the censor he has suffered quite enough!
If he would listen to his own advice
He would take heed; but he has gone astray
Swimming in seas of error, without knowing where:
Such is he who sets sail with the sweet breeze of whims.275
Where is the one who’ll perish in his love for us
And understands the meaning, from amongst our tribe?276
He’ll tell the one who sings to chant for us:
“Naked I want to walk, the greatest thing,
Just as, before, Ghaylān and Mayy once walked.”277