Of Love & Longing

Ayatollah Khomeini’s mystical poetry

AYATOLLAH Sayed Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini (1902-1989), the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is commonly known in the West for his political reading of Islam and as a religious fundamentalist. Khomeini as a hermit and mystic poet who composed poetry about selfless love, wine and mystic union is, for most people outside Iran, contradictio in terminis. Yet mysticism and poetry are two essential aspects of his personality, usually overshadowed by his outspoken political views.

Imam Khomeini has penned many poems with titles like, The Wine of Love, Life’s Caravan, Son of the Tavern, The Flight of the Soul, The Wine of Awakening, The Miracle of Love, The Path of Nothingness, Divulge Your Secret, The Agony of Love, Monastery of the Heart,The Assembly of the Rogues and The Jug of Love etc.

On the 34th anniversary of his passing today, we reproduce three of his Ghazals for the interest of our readers.  It’s being said that Imam Khomeini’s poetry is a kind of play with the images and themes of Hafiz, the undisputed master of the ghazal.

I

Life’s Caravan

My life has reached its end, but yet, my Friend
has not come. 

My story now concludes; but conclusion to this pain
has not come

The goblet of death is at hand, yet I never had my turn
at the goblet of wine.

The years have come and gone, but a sweetheart’s tenderness
has not come.

The bird of my spirit’s been trapped, and, fallen without wings to fly, is confined to this cage,

Yet she who should set me free, who should break apart this cage,
has not come.

The lovers of a darling face are all nameless and without vestige
While for those of fame, even a whiff of the air of her affection
has not come.

In rank and file of the caravan of the lovers of her face,
they wait expectantly.

To whom then should I complain that at last the soul quickening
beloved has come?

She bestows the spirit of the dead, and seizes the souls of the lovers.

To the ignorant alone, belief in such a ravishing love
has not come.

II

The Account of Perplexity

I want the pain, not the drug.

I want the anguish that sticks in the throat,
not a pleasant melody.

I am a lover, I am a lover, I am your patient;
I don’t want to be healed from this.

I would even pay for your cruelty for my soul;
I don’t want to abandon this cruelty.

From you, my beloved, cruelty is fidelity,
So, I don’t want any other fidelity,
You are both my Safa and my Marwa;

I don’t want Marwa with Safa.
The Sufi has no news about the union with the Friend.
I don’t want a Sufi without Safa.

You are my supplication and my remembrance;
I want neither remembrance nor contemplation nor supplication.
In whatever direction I turn, you are my qiblah.

I want no qiblah nor that which shows its direction.
Whoever you gaze upon becomes your sacrifice.
I am the sacrifice, I don’t want any sacrifice.
Every horizon is enlightened by your visage,
You are manifest, I don’t want a mere trace of you.

Explanation

This poem reminds one of the lines of Baba Tahir: Some want the drug, some want the pain,

Some want the drug, some want the pain,
Some want union, some want separation,
I am not of those who want the drug, the pain, union or separation.
I want what the beloved wants.

The idea expressed in this poem is that even in the hiddenness of God, He is manifest to the true lover. The very hiddenness itself becomes a mode of manifestation. The pain which is described in the first eight lines is the pain of the lover, the longing for union with the divine. The cruelty is the experience of this longing caused by the need for union. The word translated as ‘cruelty’ here, jafa’, indicates the kind of torment a mistress may inflict upon her lover, as by withholding her favors. The lover wants this cruelty, because he wants to feel the union with the divine. He wants no other fulfillment of any promise by God except that he should be so favored as to feel the need for union with Him. Safa and Marwa are the two hills between which pilgrims must run back and forth during the Hajj ceremony, to commemorate the searching of Hajar, the wife of Abraham, for water herself and for the son Isma’il. Lines (15) and (16) recall the ayah of the Qur’an: “Withersoever you turn, there is the face of Allah” (2:115).

III

The Consolation of the Pir

Kiss the hand of the shaykh who has pronounced me a disbeliever.
Congratulate the guard who has led me away in chains.
I’m going into a solitary retreat
from noon by the door of the Magus,

So that in one gulp I may be filled
with the wine of both worlds.
I will not drink the water of Kawthar;
I will not take this heavenly favor. 

The beam which shines on your face, oh Friend,
has made me a conqueror of the world.

Console the heart of the dervish from whom the eternal secret
Has been disclosed; who has made me aware of my destiny.
I congratulate the Pir of the tavern who has himself grasped
My annihilation, my nothingness, and who has captivated me,

 A servant of my Pir, who comforts the heart himself,
Of one who has forgotten himself and whom he has turned upside down.

Explanation

This kind of poem, like the next thirty1 which follow, is a ghazal. Persian is a poetic language. Ordinary rhymes are easy to come by, so most poetry uses feminine rhymes which would be awkward and silly and impossibly difficult to manage in English. In Farsi, the poem has a rhyme scheme like this:

IV

Spring at Old Age

Spring has come. I shall begin youth after old age.
I will sit beside the Friend, and have the fruit of my life.
I shall return to the rose garden. I shall mingle with the flowers and the buds.
At the side of the garden I shall caress the moon-faced sweetheart.

I shall cast behind me autumn and its yellowness one day,
For in the garden I shall get news of the rosy-cheeked dear.
My feathers and wings molt in January with agony over the sweetheart.
In April with memory of union with the darling, 

I’ll get wings and feathers once again.
In the time of autumn I would perch in this ruined land,
If Spring has come, it is because I am ready to take off
for the sake of union with her. 

If the wine-bearer spills some wine of the goblet onto the lovers,
If she spills it out of drunkenness, I shall pull the veil from her face.

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