(AD 1356–1433; AH 757–837)
The mystic and poet Qasimul Anwar was born in the village of Sarab near Tabriz in Iran, although he settled in Herat, now in western Afghanistan. Hardly a prolific poet, Qasimul Anwar wrote a slim divan and a couple of masnavis. He was a minor poet, but he has an individual voice.
Do me a favour, Saqi.
Fill me up
That shining cup
Of wine with
That spirit of the holy,
That soul most high, divine.
Give us this day
That wine that
Brings success and
Frees us from all care;
And bestow also a draught
Upon that preacher fair!
If you desire, Saqi, that
The atoms of the universe
Also dance with you,
Then loosen your dark tresses,
Curled and tangled,
And they will follow too!
Chide me not, my concerned friend.
Stop your constant warning and talk
Of fear and dread;
All your good advice will not drive away
This madness from my head.
You say, ‘Lose yourself
To find yourself again.’
The meaning of this riddle
I find very hard to explain.
Each time I die
I get a hundred other lives
In its place.
None can limit the power
Of Christ’s miracles or
His healing grace.
Qasim did not become a lover
Out of his own desire;
But what can he do
When he is in the power
Of one who is
So fair, so true?
Before the mosque and temple
Came to be,
We existed with You
In another plane.
No need for a message
To be passed to us.
When we are together
We need no intermediary.
Let not the mention of the other
Come on your tongue;
It’s not the way for people of the heart
To speak of others but the Friend.
Sobriety is not necessary
When you tread on the mystic path;
Here each atom in the universe
Is intoxicating, drunk.
O puritan, don’t pronounce
That this is bad and that forbid;
Every good thing is allowed
To those who are good.
‘In six days’ runs God’s Word, while Seven
Marks the divisions of the Heaven.
Then at the last ‘He mounts His Throne’;1
Nay, Thrones, to which no limit’s known.
Each mote’s a Throne, to put it plain,
Where He in some new Name doth reign:
Know this, and so to Truth attain!
‘Fie, fie!’ the zealot answers back
Whate’er I say. I cry, ‘Alack!’
‘Who from the Prophet’s cup drinks free
God’s Wine, escapes calamity,
And over-boldness to dispense
With proper forms of reverence!’
O drunk with fancies, cease to bawl,
Nor plague us with thy drunken brawl!
To glory in thine ignorance
Is but thine blindness to enhance.
O Qasimi, what canst thou find
In jurists blind with leaders blind?
Repeat a Fatiha, I pray,
That so this plague may pass away!
E. G. Browne