(AD 967–1049; AH 356–440)
Like Omar Khayyam, Abu Said Ibn Abil-Khair is known as a writer of quatrains. He was born at Mahna in the district of Khawaran in Iran. He has been described ‘as the first master of theosophical verse, the first to popularize the quatrain as a vehicle of religious, mystic, and philosophic thought, and to make it, [in the words of the Orientalist Dr Ethé,] “the focus of all mystic-pantheistic irradiations”, and the first “to give the presentations and forms of the Sufi doctrine those fantastic and gorgeous hues which thenceforth remained typical of this kind of poetry”’.1
He is referred to as a Sufi sheikh or master and is treated as a saint rather than a poet, his verse being overshadowed by the work of great Persian poets like Attar and Rumi. Abu Said Ibn Abil-Khair was the first to codify and record the rules for Sufi novices in the khanaqah. Early classical Persian Sufi sources employ five different terms (khanaqah, ribat, sumaa, tekke and zawiyah) practically interchangeably to denote the meeting house of the first Sufi fraternities.
To gladden one poor heart of man is more,
Be sure, than fanes1 a thousand to restore;
And one free man by kindness to enslave
Is better than to free of slaves a score.
*
O Thou whose visage makes our world so fair,
Whose union, night and day, is all man’s prayer,
Art kinder unto others? Woe is me!
But woe to them if they my anguish share!
*
In search of martyrdom the Ghazis go
To fight Faith’s battles: do they then not know
That martyred lovers higher rank, as slain
By hand of Friend, and not by hand of Foe?
*
Let no one of Thy boundless Grace despair;
Thine own elect shall ever upward fare:
The mote, if once illumined by Thy Sun,
The brightness of a thousand suns shall share.
*
Till Mosque and College fall ’neath Ruin’s ban
And Doubt and Faith be interchanged in man,
How can the Order of the Qalandars
Prevail, and raise up one true Mussulman?
*
Sir, blame me not if wine I drink or spend
My life in striving wine and love to blend;
When sober, I with rivals sit; but when
Beside myself, I am beside the Friend.
*
Said I, ‘To whom belongs Thy Beauty?’ He
Replied, ‘Since I alone exist, to Me;
Lover, Beloved and Love am I in one,
Beauty and Mirror, and the Eyes which see!’
*
O God, I crave Thy Grace for hapless me!
For hapless me enough Thy Clemency!
Each some protector, some defender claims;
But I, poor friendless I, have none but Thee!
*
The gnostic, who hath known the Mystery,
Is one with God, and from his Selfhood free:
Affirm God’s being and deny thine own:
This is the meaning of ‘No god but He.’
*
Last night I passed in converse with the Friend,
Who strove to break the vows which I would mend.
The long night passed: the Tale was scarce begun.
Blame not the night, the Tale hath ne’er an end!
*
Since first I was, ne’er far from Thee I’ve been;
My lucky star hath served me well, I ween;
Extinguished in Thine Essence, if extinct,
And if existent, by Thy Light I’m seen.
Dr Ethé