(d. AD 1131; AH 525)
No reliable information exists of the date of birth of Hakim Abul-Majd Majdud ibn Adam Sanai Ghaznavi, but he lived in the Afghan city of Ghazna. He is the first of the great Sufi teachers and masnavi writers of the Islamic world, an equal of Fariduddin Attar and Jalaluddin Rumi, who acknowledged his debt in the following verse:
Attar was the spirit, and Sanai its two eyes;
We come after Sanai and Attar.
Sanai wrote seven masnavis and a divan, but his best-known poem is Hadiqat-ul Haqiqah (The Walled Garden of Truth), a classic Sufi text which contains some 11,000 verses. Sanai’s influence on Persian literature has been immense. He was probably the first poet to use such verse forms as the qasidah, the ghazal and the masnavi to explore Sufi ideas. His divan contains some 30,000 verses and is deserving of more critical attention than it has so far received.
O nourisher of the soul and adorner of the body,
Who blesses the unwise with wisdom;
Creator and provider of the earth and the world,
Protector and helper of the dweller and the home.
Everything is created by You, the dweller and the dwelling;
Everything exists because of You, the world and the earth.
Fire, air, earth and all that’s on it
Follow Your command and are in Your domain,
From the heavens to the earth under Your control.
Reason and soul are all at Your mercy;
From every tongue Your praise ensues;
Your great names are proof of Your
Bounty and mercy and benevolence;
Each one of them is greater than heaven and earth and angel;
They are a thousand and one, yet ninety-nine.
Each name is related to the need of man,
Yet the uninitiated cannot see them.
O Lord with Your blessing and grace
Let this searcher see Your name.
Belief and unbelief in your path exclaim:
There is only one and none else that joins Him!
None can know Him of himself;
His nature can only be known by Him.
Reason ran after Him, but did not make it;
Weakness hastened on the path and found Him.
It was His mercy that said, ‘Know me,’
Or else no reason or intellect could know Him.
How can our mere senses His truth perceive?
How can a nut rest on a sliding dome?
Reason can take you to His door
But only His grace can take you beyond.
By reason alone one cannot get there;
Like others before you, do not commit that folly.
His grace is our guide on this path;
His works are guide and witness to Him.
O you who are incompetent to know yourself
How can you ever know God?
Since you know not this first step
How will you know Him as He is?
Give me wine, O Saqi, to dispel the pain of Love,
Make alive in the drinkers the spirit of Parvaiz!1
Instill in this wine the fragrance of flowers.
Put in my hand the pearl-shedding cloud!
In cup after cup reflected your dark hair
Unravelling like those tresses, my vows of piety!
Do not play this music that can make you drunk,
Play this music only when the time is right, arise!
Since my heart was ensnared by Love
My heart has become the wine in Love’s cup.
It makes us drunk and destitute in the world.
O the cup, that painful cup of Love!
For fear of the sickness of this Love
On my tongue I never take the name of Love.
My life, my soul, my belief, my heart it wants;
Love’s that bad, and its message to the soul is Love.
I gave my life, my heart, my belief to it
But yet no answer did I get from Love!
So long as this world exists, I do not want the pain of Love,
But I love Love and cannot break the vows of Love!
So long as the story of Love and lovers adorns this world
My name shall be written boldly in the book of Love.
The name of ‘drunkard’ from the puritans I’ve got,
Still I love and am obedient to the command of Love!
Their heart is caught in the snare of the Beloved’s curls,
Those who ride with beauties in the field of Love!
I will play in this field of Love till eternity.
I have trapped my heart in the curls of Love!
In this world, my Love is the reason for goodness;
Since He is the reason for goodness,
I became the goodness of Love!
O Friend, I want your sustenance,
O Beloved, I want to serve and obey.
It’s my duty to obey and follow You.
My life, my soul, I bestow on You.
I heard the whisper of Your love once,
I yearn to hear that invocation once again!
If You were to ruin the mosque where I worship
My face would turn to the signs of Your ruins!
If You take away my heart with clever tricks
I will use tricks the same to get back to You.
Each night I pray is a happy night for me,
Because the messenger of my Friend is near to me.
Everyone loses his light when night comes.
For me, my light comes when time for prayer comes.
Day of separation gone, the night of Union arrives;
O day, please end, let the night remain!
O Friend, so long as You abide, no sorrow can I have
So long as I live: You are my Lord and I a slave!
Each moment, Friend, when I come in front of You
Happiness is allowed and pain and sorrow forbidden!