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Poems of the Vay
Poems of the Way

Ay
Seyyed PHfossein Vlasr

AWS Z

The Foundation for Traditional Studies

Published by The Foundation for Traditional Studies

Copyright 1999 The Foundation for Traditional Studies

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever

without written permission from the publisher except in case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The calligraphy of the Persian poems appearing on pages 62, 68, and 70 is by
the contemporary Persian calligrapher Amir Hossein Tabnak.

For information:

The Foundation for Traditional Studies

P. O. Box 370
Oakton, VA 22124

ISBN: 0-9629984-6-x
 Table of Contents

Introduction
by Luce Lopez-Baralt 1

Evordinn
Alhamdu li’Lilah—Praise be to God 13
Ode to the One 14
O Friend of God—Ya Habib Allah 15

Our Birth and Our Return

Welcome Adam 19
The Eternal Covenant 20
O Saki 21
The Wine of Remembrance 22
Occidental Exile 23

Fh oty and Enchanted Places

The House of God 27
Ra’s al-Husayn 29
Machu Picchu 31
Terengganu 32
Enchanted Island 33

S acred Vlights
Luminous Night 37
The Newly Born Moon of Ramadan 38
Laylat al-Qadr (The Night of Power) 40
Laylat al-Mi‘raj (The Nocturnal Ascent) 42
“The Primordial Ganctuary
Wonders of Creation 47
Sacred Mountain 49
Spring Flowers 5]
The Crescent Moon 52

Pprdalucia— Reminiscences of An
Ever-present Past
La Mezquita 55
The Golden Calligraphy of Love 56
Golden Geometry in Alcazar 57
San Lorenzo de el Escorial 58
Flamenco 59

“Lhose in €Duest of Divine Kinotvledge

The Friends of God 63
To the Murcian Gnostic, Muhyi al-Din ibn ‘Arabi 64
To the Pole of the Age 65
From Hamadan to Toledo 66
To the Sacred Memory of Sayyidi Ibrahim
‘\zz al-Din al-Shadhili al-‘Alawi al-Maryami 67

s) aaaaea ee
Divine Bi-Unity 71
Who Am |? 72
Who is the Knower, What is the Known? 73
The Castle Within 75
Silent Music ry
 Why Here Why Now? 78
Life and Death 80
Human Beings Are Asleepn—When They Die
They Awaken 82

—Giages of the Path to the One

Stations of Wisdom 87
Under the Shadow of
An Olive Tree that is Neither of the East nor of the West':

The Mystical Poetry of Seyyed Pfossein Vlasr

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, whose impressive intellectual legacy in the

field of Islamic thought and mysticism needs no elaborate
encomium because it is simply one of the finest in the twentieth
century, is giving us his greatest gift yet: his own soul in the inner
courtyard of intimacy, as he himself confesses in his Poems of the
Way. The world has long benefited from Dr. Nasr’s prodigious
intellectual work, as attested to by his numerous books and
essays such as his renowned Three Muslim Sages, Sufi Essays,
Islamic Life and Thought, Islamic Art and Spirituality, Knowledge
and the Sacred, and Religion and the Order of Nature, among so
many others. His distinguished academic career spans both the
East and the West, and its scope has been so vast that one thinks
of Nasr in global rather than in international terms. After
studying in Iran and later at Harvard and MIT, he taught at
Tehran University and at the Imperial Iranian Academy of
Philosophy, at the American University of Beirut (where he held
the prestigious Aga Khan Chair), at the University of Utah, and at
The George Washington University, where he is now University
Professor of Islamic Studies. His frequent lectures in Pakistan,
India, Malaysia, Peru, Britain, Canada, among many other
countries, have also helped to internationalize his scholarly work.
Now, however, Seyyed Hossein Nasr is crowning his academic
opera magna with the surprising revelation of his deep
communion with the One.
The academic world in both hemispheres is in for an
overwhelming surprise with this book of poetry, for Seyyed
Hossein Nasr is known primarily for his expertise in philosophy,

‘Quran, Surah XXIV, 35.

 mysticism, history, literature and science. It is not the first time,
however, that a distinguished erudite ends up revealing himself
as a contemplative and truly spiritual sage: Muhammad Iqbal,
Frithjof Schuon, Louis Massignon, and Annemarie Schimmel are
cases at hand. Now posterity will remember Nasr both as a
scholar and as a mystical poet. And an exquisite one at that: his
Poems of the Way, whose very title pays homage to Ibn al-Farid’s
Poems of the Way,’ constitutes a veritable actualization of Sufism,
written in a delicate verbal geometry of light and shadow that
evokes the exquisite opalescence of Persian poetry. A pungent
Persian saudade as well as a quintessential Persian perfume
permeates the terse verses that paradoxically sing the mystical
life of an Islamic mystic in Shakespeare’s language. Nasr has
succeeded in writing a poetry that is neither of the West nor of
the East, like the blessed olive tree of Surah XXIV, 35 of the
Quran, but that miraculously belongs to both at the same time.
Art is able to solve the conflicts with which other disciplines
struggle in vain. The English language of Nasr’s contemporary
Sufi poems is elegant, terse and contained, yet its solemnity is
punctuated by surprising tenderness, like the moving prayer: O
Reality, pure and inviolable, protect me! (p. 87). As is to be
expected in a discourse that is truly mystical, our poet stretches
his language to its outermost limits when he, unraveling his
passion and his bewilderment (his hayrah, as Ibn ‘Arabi would
have it), tries to express the mystery of the unus/ambo and the
total eradication of space and time he experienced when the
heresy of separation was abolished for a blessed instant. O night
of inwardness how bright thou art, / O darkness whose Light casts a
thousand suns (p. 37), cries the poet in anguish in the midst of
his mystical aphasia, his tongue rendered mute in the abyss of
infinite contemplation. Once again he evokes that wine with
which we were drunk / Before the vine was planted on this earth
(p. 22), because his mystical intoxication is similar to that of Ibn
al-Farid’s, the Egyptian poet famous for his Al-Khamriyyah or

“English translation by A.J. Arberry, London: Emery Walker, 1952.

2
 symbolic Praise of Wine. Our author also celebrates the
paradoxical silent music that flows from his heart (p. 77)—truly
he has heard the same unimaginable melody of the
Pythagoreans, of the Sufis, of St. John of the Cross. Nasr’s is
indeed a ‘language of unsaying’, that bears a powerful
resemblance to the apophatic discourse of ecstatics such as Ibn
‘Arabi, Meister Eckhart or Plotinus that Michael Sells* explores at
length. When the subject of discourse is Transcendent and
Unfathomable, it is not surprising that logic be superseded. “The
Tao that can be spoken is not the Tao,” assures the Tao Te Ching.
St. Augustine’s teaching remains valid as well for the
contemplatives of all ages: we speak about God not ut ille
diceretur, sed ne taceretur (“not because we can say anything
about him, but so as to avoid remaining silent”).
Luckily, Seyyed Hossein Nasr chose to reject the ever-present
temptation of every authentic mystic: silence, and translates his
sense of spiritual wonderment into a cascade of verses that
scintillate (just like the ‘Friends of God’) in the luminosity of His
proximity. Nasr’s vigorous Poems of the Way constitute a veritable
sparkling diamond of light. Better still, they create an ocean of
light, because its poetry is alive: it flows, convinces, caresses,
dances with the mystified reader the eternal dance of Shiva. The
reader is carried on the wings of this primordial rhythm, just as
the poet himself was carried away when he felt the beating of
the feet and the throbbing of the guitar (p. 59) of the flamenco
dance set him free for an instant from the chain of separative
existence. Nasr’s golden calligraphy is indeed able to convey a
definite something of the inapprehensible mystical experience
he celebrates with such vulnerability, and with such
overwhelming passion.
| have long been waiting for this book of poems. Nasr had
published a short selection of his poetry in scattered journals,
and | had the honor of translating some of his mystical poems
into my native Spanish. They received rave reviews in that land

*Mystical Languages of Unsaying. The University of Chicago Press, 1994.

 that was part of Islam for eight centuries* but this success hardly
came as a surprise to me, given both the intrinsic artistic quality
of the verses and their uncanny familiarity with Spanish
mysticism. As Miguel Asin Palacios began to demonstrate long
ago, Spanish mystics such as St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa
of Avila ‘Christianize’ and adapt into Spanish some of Sufism’s
most famous mystical symbols, like the dark night of the soul,
the wine of mystical intoxication and the seven concentric
castles of the innermost conscience. (This last symbol goes back
in Islamic spirituality at least to Hakim al-Tirmidhi and Abu'l-
Hasan al-Ndari in the ninth century.) For a Spanish-speaking
reader Nasr’s poems are not totally foreign, and it must be said
that in a way his poetic experiment bears some resemblance to
that of the Spanish mystics: he is not only updating Sufism but
rendering its venerable mystical and symbolical tradition into
English, which is for him a language of exile.
And yet, the first thing that strikes the reader of Poems of the
Way is its deep-rooted celebration of universality. Not only do
the verses extol the beauty of Bali, of Peru’s Machu Picchu, of
Terengganu in Malaysia, of Cozumel in Mexico, of Murcia,
Cordova, Seville, and El Escorial in Spain, but they also are
signed in places as diverse as Madrid, Washington, Malaga,
Cancun, and Cairo. The poet expresses his amazement at the
beauty of creation in a myriad of images that flow, like a spell,
with mesmerizing verbal beauty:
The starry heavens, mountain peaks sublime,
Forests teaming with life, arid deserts pure, ...
Nebulae far away in immense spaces hidden,
Reefs underneath the sea with fishes of every hue,
A broken rainbow hidden from the eye,
Which casts its glance upon the surface of the sea
Unaware of the myriad shades in blend,
A paradise of harmony of colors and forms. .. .
(‘Wonders of Creation’, p. 47)

“See El sol a medianoche: La experiencia mistica—tradicién y actualidad, Madrid:

Trotta, 1996.

4
 All these /oci, which constitute God’s ‘Inexhaustible Treasury
Divine’, in spite of their unearthly beauty, are but witnesses to
this world of changing forms. The poet again ponders in his
celebration of Bali, (p. 33) that the countless forms into which
the imaginal world pours only betray our bitter, earthly exile of
evanescent silhouettes. The contemplative cannot be satisfied in a
station of change and uncertainty. He knows all too well that our
works may crumble unto dust on earth, / But we belong to peaks
that shine above, / In the eternal Sun which never sets (p. 31).
The reader is immediately struck by the passionate nostalgia
with which the verses evoke our primordial, spiritual home. We
can only find safety from the turmoil of a vanishing world by
looking within. Seyyed Hossein Nasr longs to walk The path of
return to the point from whence all issues, / The center from which
nothing departs (p. 65). Thus he sets forth on his sacred
pilgrimage to the Ka’bah of his heart. This is the true /ocus of
divine Life, for every mystic knows—and Nasr repeats the
venerable spiritual instruction employing a hadith of the Prophet
of Islam—that The heart of the believer is the Throne of the
Compassionate (p. 43). The mystical lesson is indeed universal,
for the hadith would translate in St. Augustine’s elegant Latin for
the famous dictum “In interiori hominis habitat veritas”. But Nasr,
ever the Persian poet, celebrates his locus of Divine
manifestation with luminous metaphors which evoke the
incandescent hearts or gu/ub of such masters as ‘Attar, al-Kubra,
Suhrawardi, Hujwiri, Ibn ‘Arabi, and al-Ndari. Like the pilgrims
circumambulating the holy House of God, and like many Sufis
and Spanish mystics before him, our contemplative poet circles
feverishly around his heart like moths around the candle of the
night, /Around this pole supreme of Truth and Presence (p. 27).
And he discovers with inexpressible joy that his inner galb, like
the Ka’bah, becomes an ocean of light (p. 27) in spiritual
contemplation. Unlike the passing forms of earthly life, unstable
abode of becoming and of change (p. 87), this sacred interior
temple which holds the Throne of the Compassionate is
invulnerable: immutable like a diamond firm (p. 27). So were
Hakim al-Tirmidhi’s and St. Teresa of Avila’s interior diamantine
castles. The pristine purity and hardness of the diamond is a
leitmotif with which the Poems of Way try to evoke the perfect
safety of the innermost heart as the sublime abode of God. The
verses themselves turn diamantine, brilliant and pure when they
depict the crystalline perfection, coldness of life eternal of our
inexpugnable interior abode. Alfred Lord Tennyson gave us the
same merciful assurance: “The lesson [of the mystical
experience] is one of central safety: the Kingdom is within”.
Our interior heart, veritable Jocus of the manifestation of the
Divine Truth, totally eradicates the relative categories of time and
space and of constant change and lets us savor eternity for a
privileged instant. The sublime lesson is simple, yet categorical:
Question not why, but understand this simple truth:
Here is the Center that is the Center of all wheres:
Now is the moment at the heart of all times.
To be here now with all thy being
Is to be in all those worlds and eons of thy dream
And beyond thy dream in that awakening from all
dreaming.
(‘Why Here, Why Now?’, p. 78)

Not only do time and space dissolve when we return to our

primordial spiritual home—identity itself melts mercifully in the
abyss of Divine Love. The ego is obliterated so that the mirror of
the soul might reflect the beauty of the Face of God in that
sacred instant beyond time When | and thou must melt like snow
before the Sun of high noon (p. 74). This supreme mystery of the
unus/ambo is explored at length in the magnificent poem ‘Divine
Bi-Unity’, so reminiscent of Ibn ‘Arabi’s perplexing mystical
utterances regarding the transformation of the Lover into the
Beloved: Oh, how can! address Thee as Thou, / When | am not
and Thou art | (p. 71). The mystic desperately wants to be
forever freed from his limited self: deliver me from this duality (p.
71), the poet cries, for he knows all too well that he is to find his
true identity only in the fathomless Ka’bah of his heart:
 | am I, only in the proximity of the One,
Nay | am only | in that I, singular and victorious,
When alone is I-ness in Its majestic I-ness.
When the veil is rent asunder, | am naught or all,
Only in that supreme | am | myself.
(‘Who Am 1?,’ p. 72)

The poet turns to this central Pole, divine (p. 32) of the
Absolute Truth to be redeemed from his Occidental exile. It is
important to note that Nasr gives a new, profound meaning to
this ‘Occidental exile’—an Islamic mystical symbol whose
significance is twofold in his Poems of the Way. In a first level of
meaning, the poet is referring to his banishment from his
beloved Iranian homeland, whose exalted peaks and vast deserts
he longingly evokes in his poem ‘Occidental Exile’. He is an
Eastern poet writing in the West, a Sufi expressing his thoughts
not in Persian but in English, his language of exile. But his exile is
also spiritual. He feels exiled in the Occident of this world while
yearning for That Orient we carry in our hearts (p. 23). Nasr is
masterfully rewriting the traditional /eitmotif of so many Sufis
who preceded him. The Persian Suhrawardi describes in rich
detail his pelerinage mystique toward the ‘Orient’ of his own soul
in his Récit de I’éxil occidental, which in turn Henry Corbin
explores in his much quoted essays on Sufism, Creative
Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi and L’homme de lumiere
dans le soufisme iranien. To arrive in this “Sinai mystique, la méme
ou reside I’Esprit saint’’ implies a symbolic return to the Orient
from where the mystic came originally, and where he rejoins his
Perfect Nature in ecstasy: “le sommet du déme mystique, le
pole...c’est la... que le pélerin rejoint sa nature parfaite, son
Esprit-saint.° The mystical pilgrim, upon reaching this celestial
pole, has finally become ‘oriented’ in this géographie visionnaire:

*L‘imagination créatrice dans le soufism d‘Ibn ‘Arabi, Paris: Flammarion, 1958, p. 53.
*L’homme de lumiére dans le soufism iranien, Paris: Editions Présence, 1971, pp. 69
and 70.
 “L’Orient oriente ici sur le centre qui est le sommet du déme
cosmique, le pdle”’ Nasr’s version is close to Suhrawardi’s: Our
return from exile is return to that Center / To our real land of birth
(p. 23). Our poet, however, directly associates the Orient with
illumination—that Orient which is light pure (p. 23). Once again
we can see that he is a true Sufi, for Muslim mystics have
claimed for centuries that when they finally reached the ‘Orient’
of their souls their symbolic ‘Occidental exile’ came to an end.
Only then were they worthy of the name ishragiyyun—that is to
say, they were ‘Orientals’, and, at the same time, they were
‘illuminated’. /shraq implies also the ‘East’ or the ‘Orient’, and,
consequently, to reach the East is ‘to be enlightened’. Nasr thus
joins these traditional illuminati from his native homeland, and in
joining them, his ‘Occidental exile’ is finally ended. He is finally
engulfed in mystical light. His banishment was, evidently, more
spiritual than geographical in nature.
In spite of his geographical and spiritual homesickness, and
perhaps precisely because of it, Nasr succeeds in ‘Orientalizing’
his language and his culture of exile. He interweaves his poetry
with the most revered Sufi metaphors—the luminous night, the
‘Station of Intimacy’ (al-qurb), the interior castle, the pure wine
of ecstasy that the saki pours. Specific Islamic concepts, such as
the Moon of Ramadan, the /aylat al-gadr (The Night of Power)
and the Mi’raj or Nocturnal Ascent of the Prophet Muhammad
also punctuate his verses, which are often signed not only in our
Western calendar but in the dates of the Islamic calendar as well.
His Poems of the Way also celebrate the sacred /oci of Islam,
such as the Ka’bah and the Mosque of Cordova, and above all,
the Supreme Unity which they represent. Our poet extols with
great poetical sophistication his own traditional past and he pays
constant homage to his Sufi predecessors. In some cases he
cleverly paraphrases his Islamic cultural heritage, so as not to
task his Occidental reader too much: when he speaks of the

‘Ibid., p. 70.
tablet of my soul (p. 71), he is alluding to the Lawh al-mahfaz,
the symbolic Guarded Tablet where God’s primordial Pen
inscribed His plans for the created world with ineffaceable ink.
The whole book has a delicate but ever present Islamic aura that
also owes much to the poet’s constant quotes from the Quran
(both direct and indirect) and from the Prophetic literature of
the hadith. But all these Islamic themes are rendered in vibrant
English, intertwined with allusions to Dante and even to the
Bible in its traditional Latin version.
Nasr has written an immensely original book of poetry. Maybe
it was meant to be written in a language of separation and exile,
spiritually and geographically, and even linguistically. Perhaps
writing his poetry in the West was Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s higher
destiny. His Poems of the Way will reach many more souls and
will contribute to the understanding between East and West in a
more effective way. The poet knows, however, that the ultimate
Truth, in the end, belongs neither to the East nor to the West,
like the blessed olive tree of Surah XXIV, 35:

From East to West the Light of His Word does shine,

For It issues from that central Pole, divine,
Which is neither to the East nor West confined,
And yet both East and West in Its Light unites.
(‘Terengganu’, p. 32)

Verily, whithersoever we turn, we behold His Face (p. 55). Nasr’s

book of poems, so full of barakah, repeat the lesson of Surah Il,
115, and will undoubtedly be used by more than one reader as a
mirror of their own souls. The Poems of the Way, jewels which
know no death nor decay, (p. 31), answer by themselves the
poet’s own prayer: Let my soul be crystallized as a star (p. 90). He
crystallized his enlightened soul in his words, diamantine and
brilliant as the spiritual light they will be shedding for
generations to come.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr is a veritable homme de lumieére dans le
soufisme iranien, even though he is writing from his Occidental
exile. His banishment is, as we have seen, both symbolic and
 real. | had the privilege of first meeting this distinguished
scholar, philosopher, critic, historian, and scientist—now mystical
poet—in the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy in his
native Tehran, and | cannot thank him enough for finally sharing
the innermost recesses of his soul and forever congealing in light
his station of Intimacy.

Luce Lopez-Baralt
Universidad de Puerto Rico

10
 ea ry ete
8 he

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“tpn

Kordinm
Athamdn ti’Ltah— Praise te to God

Thy Mercy.encompasses us O Lord,

As life in the domain of death,
As knowledge in the sea of ignorance,
As the inebriating beauty of Thy Face
Reflecting through earthly forms
In a world which without them
Would suffocate of its own ugliness.
How to thank Thee, O Lord,
When the very breath that thanks Thee
Is vivified by Thy ever-present Mercy.
For is not the very substance of existence
The Breath of Thy Compassion manifested?
And is not the love which quickens life
A reflection of Thy Love for Thine own theophany?

Seville, Spain
January 6, 1985

Written in gratitude to God shortly after a glorious sunset and

under the full moon.
 NW
aS
Ode to the One

Thou art the One, Absolute, Infinite,

The Goodness that is the source of all goodness.
Above all that we can think or imagine,
Thou art above thou-ness itself,
Thy Essence beyond all that is, nay beyond the light of Being.
We bear witness to Thy Oneness.
Yet, who are we this Oneness to behold?
It is Thou within us who testifies,
Who bears witness to Thy Oneness pure.
Our selves are but veils hiding Thee from Thee,
But Thy Self resides in our heart of hearts
And our substance, pure and primordial,
Reflects now and forever the glory of Thy Oneness.

Bethesda, Maryland
August 11, 1996

14
OC Friend of GodA—YVA fHhavit Attah

O Pillar of Existence, O Seal of Prophecy,

O Prophet of God, His beloved,
At once praised and praising His Majesty.
O most perfect of His creatures, drawn near
In that Nocturnal Ascent which crowned thy earthly life,
The being for whom He created the heavens,
The servant of the One, yet master of the world
Whose light sustains that spectrum of forms
Which constitutes the abode of our existence.
In humility | bow before thy grandeur,
Asking thy forgiveness in seeking to describe
In words so unworthy of the dust of thy feet
An inkling of the blinding light of thy life
Which illumined the land of Hejaz and beyond,
Creating an aura that continues to light
The path of those for whom thou art the guide.
Thy green flag shall continue to wave
Unto the darkest hours of historic time,
Until that Truth of which Thou wert and remain
The supreme messenger and defender
Manifests its full glory once again
Amidst the human misery of a world gone astray.
O Muhammad whose praise is sung by the Lord,
As by His angels and, too, servants on earth,
| need Thy succour to achieve this arduous task,
Of describing, however humbly, the contours of a life
Which remains forever the model of perfection,

15
Revealing in all its nobility and beauty
What it means to be truly human.

Bethesda, Maryland
May 13, 1993

16
 ‘. . . * oe - | e4
f lS ALIEN LE LEE OEE LE DOL IGEN
?
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Our Return
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Welcome Adam

Welcome Adam, God's fairest creature,

Purity personified, yet thrown into a world
Where darkness with light does mix.
The angels do hover over thee,
Thy sleep is a return to the celestial abode
Where thou didst wander before thy descent below.
May thou rememberest not only the names taught thee
But His Name Who alone abides and always is.
Welcome O Adam generated here below,
By the sun which is the sun of faith
And generosity pervading all thy life.
Welcome Adam as the remembering Adam,
Here to heal the wounds of mother nature
Created by a humanity blind to its Edenic birth.
May thou remain here below on earth,
The Adam who saw the Face of the Beautiful
Reflected upon the mirrors of paradise.

Washington, DC
April 3, 1989

19
The Eternal Covenant

On that pre-eternal day

Before the veil of Thy creation was removed,
We did with Thee a covenant make,*
Bearing witness eternally to Thy Lordship
Through our yea which reverberates
Within every moment of recorded time.
Let us remember that yea here below,
Let us recall Thy Lordship here and now.
Let that yea echo within our soul
For what would our life be in this abode
Without the edifying power of Thy remembrance?
A meaningless noise devoid of sense or rhyme.
But the yea is present, ready to be recalled,
Let us turn our earthly journey to a heavenly song,
A prelude to our return, to that direct encounter
When we did Thy Lordship witness
In that pact which accompanies us from eternity to eternity,
That covenant which binds us to Thee
From the moment of departure from Thy Presence
To that joyous return to the embrace of Thy bosom.

Bethesda, Maryland
July 27, 1996

*”And when thy Lord drew forth from the children of Adam from their loins their
descendants, and made them testify concerning themselves (saying) ‘Am | not your Lord?’
They said: ‘Yea! We do testify.” The Quran, al-A’raf (The Heights) VII, v. 172.

20
OC Saki

Where art thou O Saki, where art thou?

Come forth for my soul yearns for that wine,
That ruby wine tasted by the pure in paradise.
My being is the chalice molded by Divine Hands,
Let me empty it of the dark water of separative existence,
Let me prepare it for that wine pure
Which in making me drunk awakens me to the Day of Light.
Come O Saki pour thy wine into the vessel of my soul,
Wherever thou art, | shall search and find thee
And having found thee shall never let thee go,
Until my thirst is quenched and my being drenched
In that wine which we drank in the pre-eternal dawn
And shall drink again in the beatific eve of our earthly life.

Bethesda, Maryland
November 12, 1995

21
The Wine of Remembrance

The masters of old have so often sung

Of that wine with which we were drunk
Before the vine was planted on this earth.
O Saki pour forth that wine
To make me drunk in this world of sorrow,
Of treachery, of separation, of loss,
To make me sober in that world of dominion
Where the wine of remembrance we first tasted.
Let me drink of that nectar pure,
Ruby crystals reminding me of the Friend,
Of that Beauty in which | was immersed
Before the pang of separation pierced my being
And | fell here below into a sobriety
Which is but the stupor of forgetfulness.
O pour the wine of remembrance,
For in the remembrance of the Friend | find
That drunkenness which is sobriety true,
The sobriety which is drunkenness in this world of veil and shadow.
That sleep which is an awakening to the Light of Day,
That awakening which sees illusory existence here
As shadows that disperse before the luminosity of that pure wine,
That wine of remembrance drunk only by the pure.*

Bethesda, Maryland
July 27, 1996

*Concerning paradise, the Quran says, “The Lord will slake their thirst with a wine pure and
holy; (and it will be said with them): Lo! This is a reward for you. Your endeavor (upon
earth) hath found acceptance.” The Quran, al-Insan (Man) LXXVI; v. 21-22.

22
Occidental Exile

| live in exile, exiled from my land of birth,

From her exalted peaks and vast deserts,
From the vivid colors of all that grows from her soil,
From her azure bright skies,
Exiled in the occident of this world.
But is not this domain of transience,
This world of birth and death,
Of shadows cast upon the cascades of light
Itself the occident, whether it be in East or West,
Of that Orient which is light pure,
Unadulterated by the imperfections of earthly life?
It is from that world that we are all exiled,
It is that world from which we all hail
And to that world that we must return,
Return after our earthly journey’s end.
That Orient we carry in our hearts
At that center which is the seat of the All-Merciful,
Our very core, yet beyond our daily reach
Until we turn inward the wayward soul
And break the shell of our hearts
Hardened by the march of forgetfulness through time.
Our return from exile is return to that Center,
To our real land of birth.
| live in exile but in joy of being exiled from the world,
For did not the Blessed Prophet utter,
‘Happy are those who are in exile in this world?’*
Sensing as they do the home to which they belong,
The luminous Orient of all existence and ours,
Joyous in the thought of their homecoming.

State Park, Pennsylvania and

Bethesda, Maryland
September 1997

*Islam began in exile and shall become as it began, and happy are those who are in
exile.” A hadith of the Prophet.

24
 ‘ 3 PSE PPO BEE LEIBA GAY
Kreck aA tae i AP AD, me », plas ter TIS
7
nh
ot th Fc ee *

Enchanted Places
The House of God

This primordial temple dressed in Words Divine,

Woven of golden light upon the darkness of celestial night.
Axis of the earth, symbol of the sacred abode
Whose origin in heaven resides, yet is here reflected.
Stark truth, immutable like a diamond firm,
Sign of the pristine purity of the eternal religion
To which Adam and Abraham belonged,
And which bloomed in fullness in that thundering revelation
Which in this mother city, the Umm al-Qura,
Upon the unlettered Prophet of Makkah descended.

To stand before this Ka‘bah, the House of God,

Is to behold the presence of the One,
For whose sake humanity from near and far
Circle like moths around the candle of the night
Around this pole supreme of Truth and Presence,
Men and women, black and white from north and south,
From where the sun rises and from the West they come,
Offering unending tribute to the Master of the House,
Under the burning sun of the hours of the day
And at night when the house becomes an ocean of light,
Reminder of the day of the Spirit
Amidst the darkness of our earthly exile.
To stand before this Majesty is to sense
Our nothingness before the Absolute, Al/ah,
Who yet resides at the heart of His creature, man,
In that other Ka‘bah where His Name reverberates,

27
Emanating the barakah of the Spirit
Within and without in the eternal now.
How fortunate to behold this site of the sacred Ka’bah,
How blessed to enter the Ka’bah of the heart.

Jeddah
22 Safar 1408
October 16, 1987

28
Ra's al-}fusayn

O Husayn, beloved of the Beloved of God,

Thy body is interred in the sands of Iraq
And thy head along the gently flowing Nile.
Two worlds pay thee homage through thy shrines,
Two reflections on earth of a single majestic being.
Thy head was severed on that lamentable day,
That ‘ashara when the cosmos mourned thy death.
But thy head itself became life’s locus anew
In this land of the Pharaohs and of Islam.
A whole city grew around that noble head severed,
And still revolves around the axis of thy tomb
Flowing with that barakah palpable to the senses.
Men and women praying at thy mosque,
Sufis gathering to celebrate His Names,
Births and deaths punctuated with a visit,
To thy sight, O light of the eye of him
Whom God loved beyond all his creatures here.
While thy body is witness to the pilgrims’ cries,
And the agony of those afflicted in this earthly journey,
Thy head controls life’s rhythm in this vast city,
A head which is also a heart of this medinah of Victory
Thy Qahirah where poets and saints have lived and live,
Celebrating in their lives and words that truth
For which thy noble blood was spilled
And for which thy life was given.
Thy mosque in Cairo rests as witness clear
To the triumph of all that in truth is lived,
For though error does parade as reality,

29
It evaporates like the mist of dawn
Before the rising sun of that Truth Supreme
For which thou didst die, O martyr exemplar,
The Truth to whose abode thy earthly remains
Guide us through the barakah they emanate,
Acting as reminder of the message of thy life
Which is the final triumph of that Truth
That alone will utter the ultimate word.

Conceived in Cairo in March 1987

Written in Washington, DC
April 16, 1987

30
Machu Picchu

Mountain peaks clinging to Heaven,

Bridges from above to this lowly realm.
Verdant with the exuberance of life,
Primordial life that passes not away.
Their vertical walls disappearing ethereally
In that mist which opens unto infinite space.
Is this a Taoist painting come to life
Or the Tao manifesting Its wondrous ways to man
In this marvel of nature that reveals
The mystery of the wedding of Heaven and earth?
The ruins recall the passing of man’s work
The fragility of what he makes and molds,
The mountains remain witness to that realm
Which perishes not nor does pass away.
Their snow-clad peaks shine in the afternoon light
As jewels which know no death nor decay
As reminders of that exalted empyrean
Which is our abode of origin and home.
Our works may crumble unto dust on earth,
But we belong to peaks that shine above
In that eternal Sun which never sets,
The Sun of that day of eternal life
Whose morn terminates not nor light diminishes
The Day of the Lord which never does end.

Washington, DC
October 28, 1985

31
Terengganu

The Word of Allah echoes in this Pacific clime

Far away from the austere mountain of Hira’,*
Yet, Its power remains, Its resonance firm
As It penetrates the soul of this gentle people,
Bearers of Its message in this land far away.

The Word is burned into the substance of their souls,

Emanating as golden light appearing as threads,
Weaving in songkets patterns that allude
To that magic beauty that to Heaven belongs.
Forms in flora in symmetry bound
In a geometry that feeds the inner eye
In colors, in theophanies that remold the soul
With majestic Quranic verses the unifying crown.

How far we wander away from our abode

To be recalled by the Word and Its distant echoes
In this fleeting journey of life, of His Presence,
Reflected in tile patterns of the Alhambra and Seville,
As well, in the songkets of Terengganu and the nearby.
From East to West the Light of His Word does shine,
For It issues from that central Pole Divine,
Which is neither to the East nor the West confined,
And yet both East and West in Its Light unites.

Terengganu, Malaysia
November 26, 1986

*The mountain outside Mecca where the Prophet received the first revelation of the
Noble Quran.

32
Enchanted Istana

Enchanted island, emerald island of the gods,

The faces of the divinities lurk everywhere
In a presence imbuing with grace both art and life
In a land in which art is life itself.
A thousand masks, gods and demons abound,
The imaginal world pours forth in countless forms
And the rhythm of the gamelan and the drums,
The beat of that music and that dance
Pervading the heavenly roofs and verdant fields,
Reflecting in their green mirror the infinite sky.
The Divine seems to veil and unveil Itself
In myriad forms beyond our ken,
And yet, | see here but the single Face,
The Face of the One cast in so many veils of beauty
In this celestial land of enduring grace
Enchanting the soul through its enthralling magic.

Bali
July 4, 1993
 Tie, ia SeSe ne

oat

acrea V\ignts
i.
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READ
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Luminous Night

Where has the Sun set this day of light?

Below the horizon to usher in the night.
But that setting is only an outward sign,
The Sun has set in the cave of the heart.
There it remains shining, while the world is black.
The day seems bright, manifesting the light,
The night a contraction, shadows and darkness.
But the night is the day of the gnostic whose heart
Remains luminous by the presence of the Sun.
O Sun of the Spirit thy rays are so strong,
They pierce the veils of shadows and the dark.
If day be external life which hides Thee,
It is but night in the sight of Thy Light,
While the night is day by Thee made bright.
For him in whose heart Thy Light does shine
Day is but darkness parading as light.
And night when inwardness does abound,
And the Light of the cave illuminates the heart,
True day, when the truth is made manifest.
The day of forgetfulness is night,
The night of remembrance a luminous day.
O night of inwardness how bright thou art,
O darkness whose Light casts a thousand suns
Into oblivion if they be compared.
Thou holy night art indeed luminous night,
Luminous night amidst the dark day of earthly life.

St. Anne des Monts, Quebec

May 30, 1985
Night of the 11th of Ramadan 1385 (A.H.)
The Viewty Born Moon of Kamadan

The crescent moon of Ramadan adorns the deep azure sky,

Slender like a warrior’s sword glittering in the evening light.
Symbol of the war against the passions within
Carried out in this holy month of fasting and vigil
When we wear the armor of God, the shroud of death,
Purified by the fast in the hours of day
And prayer in the darkness of the nights inwardly open
To the light of the Divine Word which descended
During this month upon the heart of His Beloved.

The crescent grows to fullness, expanding our breast,

Recollection of the perfection of His chosen one, the ‘Praised’,
And returns to its slender form to remind us of ourselves,
Slender beings receiving in the crescent’s cup
The nectar of Divine Grace which flows from on high
Solely into a chalice of all substance freed.
For only in becoming nought do we receive
Like the crescent open to the flow of the elixir,
And only in being vigilant, a dagger drawn,
Can we carry out the inner war to empty ourselves
Of ourselves and all that is other than He.

Welcome O crescent moon of this holy month

Appearing upon the horizons and within our souls.
Help us to do His Will detached from all becoming,
And act in this world as His agent pure
To fast and pray as did His chosen one,
Through whom His Word was revealed to us in full

38
During this month held dear by all who love
The One, His Prophet and His Word revealed.

O crescent moon of Ramadan thy beauty unveils

The nature of that barakah which flows so abundantly
In this month inaugurated by thee now,
And terminated by thy presence once again
When thy appearance upon the dark horizon speaks
Of the end of this blessed month of fast
And thanksgiving for all the gifts received.
And all that we possess not reminds us in turn
Of the central truth of our inner nature, as poor,
Ready to receive from the One who Richness is,
A crescent moon, a chalice made to receive,
The grace which flows from His Resplendent Fullness.

Washington, DC
May 9, 1986
Beginning of Ramadan 1406

39
Laylat at-€Qadr (The Wight of Porver)

Thou didst reveal it in the Night of Power,

That Night when the archangel appeared,
When the horizons wore an emerald dress,
When the soul of the Blessed Prophet was bathed
In the light and sound of Thy Sacred Word.

O Night of Power, the heart of Ramadan,

This month of blessing cherished by us all.
O holy month in whose embrace The Word descended,
Whose days and nights afford us a glimpse
Of the open door of the paradisal abode.

The mountains could not bear the weight of His Word,

Of the trust of that Divine Sonority which
In the Night of Power did descend.
But the soul of the Trusted One did bear the weight.
Through him the Word echoes in East and West,
The sounds divine of the Noble Quran
Wed in mystery to the soul of its recipient.

O Ramadan blessed are thy nights,

O Laylat al-Qadr, the heart of this holy month,
Better than a thousand nights, and even months.
We honor thee for what thou didst make manifest.
His Word as sown in the soil of his soul,
Of the soul of the Habib, of him whom He loved.

40
O Night of Power thou doest reflect power
But a power that guides to His Mercy,
A power which crushes not but saves,
Through that Word which issues from compassion,
Through that Prophet who is mercy to all the worlds.

St. Anne des Monts, Quebec

May 28, 1985
Night of the 17th of Ramadan 1385 (A.H.)

41
Sy wa

Las
Laytat al-Wni'rAaj (The Viecturnal Ascent)

The archangel did the Prophet guide,

Take God’s Friend on that sacred night
From Makkah to Jerusalem to the Divine Throne,
To a station so high, so nigh to the One
That the archangel could not approach
Lest his wings be burnt.
The Blessed Prophet did before Him prostrate,
In perfect submission, an empty cup ready to receive
The nectar of the secrets of the here and beyond.
Through the Heavens journeyed the Friend of God,
And other prophets encountered in each realm.
Return he did, with the gift of inner prayer,
With knowledge of mysteries beyond our ken
And set before us the model supreme of realization.

So let us set forth to emulate that nocturnal journey.

Let every prayer be an ascent to the Divine Throne
And every breath permeated by His Name
A drawing near to the Station of Intimacy,
Every night a witness to the celestial ascent
And every day a recollection of Divine Proximity.
Let us break the confines of this earthly vessel
And journey on the steed of prayer to the Heavens.
Let our spirits soar on high to that Throne,
The Throne from which flows His Mercy, Compassion,
The Throne that is yet the heart of our hearts,

42
Lest we forget, “The heart of the believer is the Throne of
the Compassionate”,
And our ascent above to the Abode of the One,
Penetration into our heart, into that Center wherein He resides.

Bethesda, Maryland
Ramadan 1418
January 1998

*A hadith of the Prophet.

43
‘ ; SpE nets als 3 Ltt td al ~~
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Wonders of Creation

Why hast Thou created all these wonders?

The starry heavens, mountain peaks sublime,
Forests teaming with life, arid deserts pure,
Animals and plants in colors and forms diverse,
Observable to Thy servants in whatever clime
They live and pass these precious days on earth?
Perhaps to fulfill their needs as Thy witnesses
To the richness of Thy creation in harmony
Reflecting the Oneness of the Source of all.
Perhaps to aid in the praise of Thy Name,
For all things do praise Thee; as Thy Word Supreme,
The Noble Quran has taught in verses known.
But what of those wonders hidden from the eyes
Of man until this evening of his earthly life,
Nebulae far away in immense spaces hidden,
Reefs underneath the sea with fishes of every hue,
A broken rainbow hidden from the eye,
Which casts its glance upon the surface of the sea
Unaware of the myriad shades in blend,
A paradise of harmony of colors and forms
Unearthly in a beauty that is here
Yet belongs to a world strange to terrestrial man?
Is it that as Thy witnesses we must at last observe
And be conscious, aware of what Thou didst bring
Out of Thy Inexhaustible Treasury Divine,
To know all that the cosmos does contain
Before Thou drawest the curtain upon this cosmic act,

47
To fulfill the goal of Thy creation which is
To know the “Hidden Treasure” which Thou art?
As the sun sets upon Thy glorious creation,
Scarred by a humanity forgetful of its end,
We bear witness to Thy Glory manifest
In heights and depths beyond normal human ken,
Yet revealed at this late hour to affirm
The infinity of Thy “Treasury Invisible”,
The power of Thy Majesty Supreme,
The beauty of Thy creation primordial
Reflected in the depth of the seas as well,
In the stars twinkling in the firmament
To which we bear witness as children of Adam
In whom Thou didst breathe Thy Spirit Eternal.

Cozumel, Mexico
August 7, 1987
Sacred VNountain

Sacred mountain, mark of an enchanted land,

Reminder of when Heaven and earth were wed.
Her peak touching the void; her base,
A gate to ascent above this noisy realm,
To go beyond this pettiness that binds,
To reach the expanses of this azure vault
Wherein the soul of its earthly fetters is freed.

Protector of all who realize her power,

Refuge for those who find upon her slopes
A haven to contemplate what is and what is not,
A place of combat to gain that vision which guides.
Her peak kissing the infinite heavenly expanse
Orients us in this journey here on earth.
For wherever we travel we see her majestic form,
An axis unifying the worlds above and below,
Reminiscent of our own being we forgot.
For we are also the axis of the world
And must wed Heaven and earth in harmony,
With feet on this solid terrestrial ground
And heads stretched toward that realm beyond
To which we depart at the end of our journey of life.

And as sages lie buried on that sacred peak,

Their souls departing from that sublime top
To the empyrean, their original abode,
So must we be a sacred mountain firm,
Dispenser of the grace of Heaven upon the earth,
A ladder reaching from the dust to the sky,

49
Our souls departing from this sacred peak
To the realm where we resided then and ever more.

O sacred mountain in beholding thy sight,

We are reminded of what we should, can be,
Of what we must be to be what we are,
A bridge joining this lowly world of death
To the eternal abode of immortal beatitude
To which we depart at this sojourn’s end
Having beheld Thy sight and climbed Thy peak
To rest in that tranquility sublime
To which Thou hast been our witness here on earth.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

July 15, 1986

50
Spring Flowers

Spring flowers blossom without prelude,

Renewing life with suddenness,
Dressing the forms of nature with colorful robes
With this symphony of hues marking the origin,
Appearing as the descent from Heaven
Of the echo of that first fiat lux
Which bestowed existence and life besides.
The flowers bloom turning to the sun
And grow in response to her warming rays.
But in the street of my Beloved,
They bloom before every other orchard,
And blaze in colors before other gardens.
For from her abode there radiates that love
Whose warmth nurtures these flowers,
The love of the eternal spring which never passes away
And which, engulfing the early blossoms,
Causes them to bloom to their fullness
To realize their celestial likeness,
As an early sign of whither comes the spring
And wherein is to be found that eternal spring flower,
The flower which, warmed by the rays of Divine Love,
Withers not away nor dies.

Washington, DC
April 7, 1985
E22
“ass
NYA

The Crescent VNoon

Suddenly she appears in the dark sky,

Slender, gentle yet vigilant,
Perfect passivity, perfect activity, perfect union
Of that primordial duo, beauty and majesty.
Symbol most lucid of the Universal Man
In whom this union was so completely consummated.
The crescent moon waxes and wanes
Throbbing to the rhythm of cosmic life,
Caught in the battle between light and darkness
In which light always triumphs for it is,
Whereas darkness only appears to be.
The moon waxes and wanes but remains obedient
In all conditions submitted to the Light of the One.
Little wonder that this new moon
Announcing again and again a fresh phase of life here below
Has become the emblem of God’s last religion,
The symbol of that submission supreme which is al-islam.

Written following the vision of the

new moon of Rabi’ al-thani 1418(A.H.)
August 1997 in the sky of Mexico.

52
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Ever-present Past
LA Mezguita

Sacred space reposing upon itself,

Punctuated by the rhythm of a thousand heres and nows
Which in truth are but a single center,
A single moment of our life on earth,
And yet the alpha and omega of our existence,
Here in this ubiquitous center and in the now
Which is but repeated in a life given to Him.
How we remember the One in a space resplendent with His Name
And still echoing His Word despite all the ravages of time
And the ugliness of a worldly art, parading as divine,
Veiling in part its celestial beauty.
And there, there is the mihrab, blazing sun,
Its golden colors shining through the azure hues
Reminding us here far away from His House
Of the direction of prayer to the One God,
Orienting our being while we remember the Truth
That whithersoever we turn, we behold His Face.*
What wonder that the golden rays of the supernal world
Shine through this niche of eternal beauty
Even in this land of the setting sun,
Causing us to recall that wherever we are
There is open before us the here that leads to the yonder
And the now which is already Eternity
Beckoning us to the call of the Friend.

Cordova-Seville, Spain
May 5-6, 1994

*”"Whithersoever ye turn, there is the Face of God.” The Quran, al-Baqarah

(The Cow) Il, v. 115.
55
The Golden Calligraphy of Love

Standing before this venerable mihrab,

The light of the golden calligraphy shining upon us.
The light is dimmed in this ignorant darkness,
But it shines eternally like that love
Whose letters are woven of congealed light.

Cordova, Spain
January 6, 1985

56
Grtden Geometry in Alcazar

Snow crystals in golden hue

Hovering above yet never falling,
Witness to this world of changing forms,
Reminders of our celestial abode.
If on earth we falter in forgetfulness,
Above, we are those golden crystals
Embedded eternally in the diadem,
In the crown that radiates from His luminous Essence.
And all things do perish save the Face of God.*

Seville, Spain
January 8, 1985

*”All things perish except His Face.” Quran, al-Qasas (The Story) XXVIII, v. 88.

57
San Lorenzo de et Escorial

Verdant mountains clasping in their bosom

Remains of so many crowned heads
Of a past long forgotten, yet living,
Of an age which yet subsists as the old ways
Recede into memory before the throbbing of a new life
Filled with a glitter that is but a dying flash
In an hour that has grown dark.
But there also rests here the legacy of hands and heads
Which belong to another world nearby yet far away,
To that civilization which breathed its last
In this country of knightly warriors
When the shores beyond the sea were being conquered at will.
Legacy not of bones but of mind and heart,
Registered not in caskets but on parchment
To preserve for us even today those treasuries
Of a thought and art, witness to the One Who alone Is,
In submission to His Will, be He Exalted.
We need that heritage to know ourselves,
To live as friends as did those men of old
In this land of green hills and parched plains,
Of lofty snowclad sierras and azure shores,
In that distant moment when the children of Abraham,
That Patriarch who was servant of the One,
Lived in harmony in this enchanted abode of beauty
From which the echoes of the Spirit have not fully vanished.

San Lorenzo de el Escorial, Spain

August 20, 1991

58
SHlamenco

| hear the music of the Friend from afar,

The throbbing of the guitar, the rhythm of the castanets,
The beating of feet to the very rhythm of life,
The sad voice in nostalgia for the paradise within.
And | see dimly the figure of those dancers
Re-enacting the primeval dance of the divinely created,
Adam and Eve at the dawn of human time.
Here we are, before this dissolving presence,
Of movement and sound that carry us beyond
Our cares of life in this confining abode.

Oh play on, sing on, dance on,

Let my fetters break and let me be free
Fromthis chain of separative existence,
To be carried on the wings of this primordial rhythm
To that moment when | was not
And yet resided beside the Friend,
The Beloved with whom the pre-eternal pact | made,
The covenant which | recall as this heavenly art
Of those chanters and dancers of Sacra Monte and beyond
Returns me to the Eternal Now, beyond all that changes and
becomes,
To the Instant wherein all whens and wheres
In past and future are contained,
To the origin of that cosmic rhythm reflected,
Repeated and reacted in this timeless art that is flamenco.

Madrid, Spain
August 23, 1991
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The Friends of God

The friendsof God when they do speak,

It is the truth that flows from their mouths.
When they are silent, think them not to be mute,
For their silence is inward remembrance.
The friends of God, their glances pierce the veils of darkness,
Their ears harken to the call of the Friend for whom they are
friends.
Their will surrendered to His will,
Their footsteps tracing the path to His abode.
They are immersed in the ocean of His Light,
And although among us, drunk by the wine of His Love,
Scintillating in the luminosity of His Proximity.
O friend become a friend of God before this life ceases to flow
And in His friendship find that peace thou seekest.
Enter the inner courtyard of His Intimacy.
Breathe that air filled with the fragrance of His Beauty
And leave the care of the world to those whose only friend is the
world.

Washington, DC
August 26, 1996

63
iss WS

To the WMurcian Gnostic, Muhyi al-Din thn /Arati

The city of thy birth, Murcia, has forgotten thee,

It lives in ignorance of its most famous son.
But thy name continues to echo across the waters
In lands near and far, from the snow-clad mountains,
Those peaks which gaze upon Fez and Marrakesh,
To the steaming forests of Bengal and Malaya.
For thou wert indeed Muhyi al-Din, reviver of religion,
Reviver of the Religion of the Heart, witness to the One,
The religion of Divine Unity which always is and shall be.
Thou didst record the ‘Unveilings of Makkah’,
And the ‘Wisdom of the Prophets’, from beginning to end.
Thy poems interpreted the ‘Desires’ which are those for God,
Dressed in the love of earthly forms.
Yes, if thy city of birth has forgotten thee,
Thy name shall forever be remembered
By those who know the One and love the One.
And the mountains of Murcia upon which thou gazed
Still stand witness to the Majesty of the One
To remind those who can harken to His message,
Of the song of that celestial music of which
Thou wert the supreme troubadour in these Western lands.

Madrid, Spain
January 10, 1985
To the Pole of the Ager

O Pole of the Age, teacher of the teacher of teachers!

The unique master Abu’l-Hasan did hear thy call
From the heights of the Rif in the plains of Iraq
Where he searched with such zest for the true guide to God.
And he journeyed so far to receive from thy hands
That treasure of Knowledge Divine which shines to this day
In the hearts of so many gnostics and sages,
Spread like luminous stars from East to West.
Thy earthly remains atop a mount of the Rif,
Still beckon to pilgrims of the Spirit.
Our thanks to God for having opened the gate
To allow us to drink of that sweet barakah
Emanating from thy bones, this tomb that is yet a way
To the realms above, to the world of light,
That barakah which still flows with the mountain breeze
To the valleys below, aiding those who march still now
Upon that royal road among whose guides thou art a prince,
A lord among the masters of the path of perfection,
The path of return to the Point from whence all issues,
The Center from which nothing in reality departs.

Fez, Morocco
May 10, 1994

*Dedicated to Shaykh ‘Abd al-Salam ibn Mashish—may Allah sanctify his secret—after
pilgrimage to his tomb on Jabal al-‘Alam in the Rif Mountains in Northern Morocco.
rom Hamadan to Toledo

O son of Sina, O master of philosophers,

O sage called the ‘Prince of Physicians’.
Thy bones are interred beside the mighty Alvand
And thy voice still echoes in the narrow alleys of Isfahan.
Between Persia and al-Andalus, how long the distance
And how difficult the journey even in this day.
Yet did thy science to this city of Toledo come
Even before the water of thy shroud had dried.
Thy wisdom still reverberates in these Moorish streets
Of the city from which thy works were proclaimed
To this land of the setting sun.
For to the Spirit distance is of no avail
And the light of the Intellect shines near and far
Issuing as it does, whether known or not,
From the Light which is neither of East nor West.

Toledo, Spain
January 9, 1985
To the Sacred Memory of
SAyyidi JoraAhim ‘Jzz al-Din at-Shadhili
atAtawi at-Naryami

Last time in this Sacred Precinct of the Ka’bah,

Before this primordial Home of the One God
Rebuilt by him whose name thou didst bear,
We circumambulated the Holy Temple
In memory of the blessed Name of Him to whom
This House, the axis of the Universe, belongs.
Thou hast now left us for the abode beyond,
For the paradisal realm where thy soul belongs
To contemplate the One in constant ecstasy,
The One who was the goal of thy earthly life.
But thy memory endures here below on earth
And seems even more vivid in this House of God
Where man faces the reality of the Life Divine,
Whose locus is the inner Ka‘bah, the heart.
Indeed Ya Ibrahim thy memory is sacred to us.
So may His blessings inundate thy being
As thy life and works have brought barakah to all.
We walk upon the path mindful of thy role
And ask for His Mercy now upon thy sanctified soul.

al-Makkat al-Mukarramah
19 Safar, 1407 (A.H.)
October 12, 1987 (A.D.)

67
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Divine Bi-Lnity

If |cry Thou, it is Thee calling Thine own Name,

For how can Thy Oneness accept this | as |.
Thy I-ness echoes through all the I’s
Who address Thee Thou and call Thy Name;
Beyond | and Thou and we and they and he and she,
Beyond all the names art Thou as One;
Yet, every subject echoes Thy oneness
For only Thou canst utter this I,
Which Thy creatures take as their own.
Yes, there is | and there is Thou,
But Thy Unity encompasses both
As Thy reflection upon the tablet of my soul
Utters O Thou who art my |,
Deliver me from this duality;
Let Thy Oneness reign as it ever was
In that eternal moment, then and now.
Oh, how can | address Thee as Thou,
When | am not and Thou art I;
Through Thy grace make this Truth to shine;
Let Thy Unity as the victorious come
To rend asunder the claimant |
To reveal the One who is | and Thou.

Washington, DC
January 26, 1985

71
WA Am J?

Neither this body am I, nor soul,

Not these fleeting images passing by,
Nor concepts and thoughts, mental images,
Nor yet sentiments and the labyrinth of the psyche.
Who then am I? A consciousness without origin,
Not born in time, nor begotten here below.
| am that which was, is and ever shall be
A jewel in the crown of the Divine Self,
A star in the firmament of the luminous One.
| am the mirror in which the Self reflects,
Reflects Her infinite Beauty, inexhaustible.
| am |, only in the proximity of the One,
Nay | am only | in that I, singular and victorious,
Who alone is I-ness in Its majestic I-ness.
When the veil is rent asunder, | am naught or all,
Only in that supreme | am | myself;
| am nothing yet the Self of selves.
Let me then not be, to realize who | am,
A star crystallized in the intimacy of the supernal Sun
Invisible in that intensity of Light Divine
Which removes all darkness, all separation,
Revealing the Divine | as the Real, alone Real,
As the Self supreme, the One, the Victorious.

Bethesda, Maryland
November 12, 1995

72
Who is the Kinotver, What is the Kouotwn?

From that tender age of early childhood,

We do open our eyes to all the world’s colors,
Her forms, her abiding and changing wonders,
We know the environs around us
And the stars far away as well,
Twinkling as if they addressed us here below
With a message, direct and plain,
Confirming our domain of knowledge extending to vast spaces
beyond
As our mind wanders over aeons gone by and days to come.
But who is the knower of all that is known?
And what is it that we ultimately know?
Our consciousness rooted in the Divine can reflect,
It can know but not the temporal origin of knowing,
For the knower is beyond the confines of time.
It is none other than the One, the | who alone is |,
Who knows through me and thee and all who know,
And He knows none other than that which is
In the final count the objective pole of Its own Reality,
Of It-Self objectified and made outward.
Indeed all knowing is by the Absolute of the Absolute,
All else is a shadow and reflection of knowing.

Wake up and let thy ego disperse,

Like the morning shadows before the rising Sun.
Lift thyself from in between and let the |,
That | which alone is | know Itself.
Become nothing like the mirror’s surface
And let the Friend see Her Face in that mirror;
73
Become nothing and let the eternal Knower
Know that which is none other than Herself.

The secret of thy life is the door that is open before thee,
Pass through it to behold and taste the supreme elixir of non-being.
Pass through that door and let the Knower know Herself.
O mirror of the Countenance of the One,
Pass through that door before the journey’s end
When the door will shut before thy face
And the occasion of letting the Friend know
That which is to be known through the window of thy being
Passes away, inaccessible to thy grasp.
Realize while thou canst, that only the Divine | knows,
And It knows that which is the outward,
But the outward of that inner Reality which forever remains It-Self,
Knowing Itself through the alpha and omega of time,
As It does in that Eternal Moment beyond all becoming,
That moment when the Knower was and is and shall be the Known,
That moment in which no otherness finds room,
When | and thou must melt like snow before the Sun of high noon.
Know thy-self and thou shalt know Thy Lord,*
The Lord who as the reigning | alone knoweth.
Live in that moment when | and thou
And all the I’s between the alpha and omega of recorded time
Fade away before the radiant Sun.

Cancun, Mexico
Beginning of August 1997

*’He who knows himself knows his Lord.” A hadith of the Prophet.

74
The Castle Within

Majestic castle hovering over the dale,

Impervious to changes born of the womb of time,
Witness to all those pages of history,
To the cross and the crescent, to their peace and conflicts.
Many a knight has beheld the sight of thy gates
And many a king has dwelt within thy mighty walls.

Even now as before, those walls veil the queen

Who resides within that majestic castle supreme.
She is the lady for whom the troubadours sing
Whose beauty bestows light upon the eyes.
| have travelled long to behold her sight
And in her embrace to forget the woes of life
To experience the union which alone wholeness brings.

The majestic castle resides also within

For the heart is the castle of the inner man.
As the holy saying has uttered so forcefully,
‘To enter this castle is to be protected, safe,
From all the pain, the suffering of the world of time.’*
To gain the embrace of the beloved dwelling therein
Is to attain that peace that all of life does seek.

O fair queen of the majestic castle, hear,

In thy embrace is union to be felt
And Thy presence the supreme Beloved reflects.
Queen of the castle of my heart as well,
In entering thy castle, into my heart | draw.
In beholding thee, | the supreme Beloved behold.

75
The traveller has come from afar and does need
Thy welcoming embrace to his final home of rest.
A single glimpse of thy face is reward indeed
For all the hardships of the journey endured.

Grant me a single moment in thy arms

In the castle wherein is to be found
The Center from which all life issues forth,
To which all the impulses of the soul return.
The single moment in the majestic castle is
The goal, the end, the purpose of my life
Fulfilled in that bi-unity human and divine,
In the union with the Beloved, bestower of life and death.

Conceived in Siguenza, Spain, on September 6, 1986

Written in Washington, November 2, 1986

*”Enter My fortress; and whosoever enters My fortress is protected from My chastisement.”

A hadith of the Prophet.

76
Silent VWusic

Silent music flows from my heart

Celebrating the remembrance of the Friend.
We are words chanted by the Eternal Singer,
In music woven of silent harmony,
Emanating from our Center where He resides.
Let not thy being be noise in chaos heard,
Remove that veil of senseless sound,
Let that primordial music flow
Which He hears as thy eternal nature.
For when the heart recalls the Friend
That music rends asunder the veil
And flows from our being, a luminous sound,
Silent to the outward ear,
Yet heard by those whose hearing is attuned
To the undying melody of that silent music.
Let silent music flow from thy heart
To fill the world with that scintillating sound
That saves and frees us from every bond,
To unite us with that eternal harmony.

Washington, DC
November 13, 1985

77
WiAy Here Why Vow?

Here | am at this place, at this time,

But why here and why now?
Why not in a clime more fair,
Resplendent with beauty natural and human?
Why not in times when men lived centered,
Their vision fixed upon Thy Countenance
Aware of the presence of the sacred near and far?
Why am | in this place torn asunder by blight,
Shorn by the blades of inequity, drowned in darkness,
Immersed in the turbid waters of negligence and forgetfulness?
Why at a time when men have lost sight of Thy Face,
Wondering ever faster and yet aimlessly
In search of they know not what,
While destroying the web of life itself
And all that might remind them of that radiant Face?

Question not the where and when

The hands of destiny for thee have chosen.
Causes beyond thy ken have placed thee here and now.
Question not why, but understand this simple truth:
Here is the Center that is the Center of all wheres,
Now is the moment at the heart of all times.
To be here now with all thy being
Is to be in all those worlds and aeons of thy dream
And beyond thy dream in that awakening from all dreaming.
So remember, here is the Center containing all heres,
And now the eternal moment containing all whens.

78
Ask not why here and now
But be in the here and now,
To find the key to all existence, to taste being’s alpha and
omega,
To experience not only all the climes and times,
When She manifested the Beauty of Her Face,
But also the eternal naught beyond all moments of time, all
stretches of space.
Be here and now with all thy being and wonder not why.

Bethesda, Maryland
June 25, 1996

79
Life and Death

Life and death are twins braided together,

Together in the single strand of our existence.
Life is the path to the abode of death
And death the gate to eternal life.
How oppressive this life would be without death
With no escape from the weight of earthly things,
And how abhorrent a death without access to that Mercy
Which is Life Divine and fountain of all life.
Here below we cherish life even if false
Little aware that it is death which punctuates life,
Elevates us to awareness of realms above,
Bestows upon life its precious nature.
Yes, better it be to taste a true death
Than live a false life devoid of the truth,
A parody of that heavenly life for which we were created.

O thou in search of eternal life,

Of boundless joy, of peace beyond understanding!
Die now so as not to suffer the pang of death,
At that moment that is beyond thy choosing.
Die that voluntary death and be reborn in the present moment,*
In that luminous realm beyond all corruption and pain.

80
Choose while thou canst that spiritual death
Which is birth in the land of the Spirit pure,
Choose while thou canst before the hand of death
Closes for thee the door to eternal bliss.

Bethesda, Maryland
July 26, 1996

*"Die before you die”. A hadith of the Prophet.

81
Gas

Human Beings Are Asteep—VWphen They Die

They Arwakent

Did not the Blessed Prophet, he whose heart was always awake,
Utter that we are asleep and awaken when we die?
Who is it who is asleep?
Who is it who awakens?
Here below we dream the dream of negligence,
Imagining to be awake, yet slumbering.
The ego asserts itself as the subject that dreams
Claiming to be awake, yet it is but a sleep-walker.
Let this ego die that voluntary death
Before the angel of death shatters the pillars of thy earthly
existence.
Let the Self awaken within thee
And know, it is the World Soul that dreams the ego.
We are but the dream of that One who yet sleepeth not.
Awaken now to that Reality which thy dreamy eyes
Blinking in the darkness cannot perceive.
Awaken now while the gift of this miraculous now
Is still present before thee, the gift of the All-Merciful.
Awaken unto the world of light from that murky existence
That thy ego mistakes for reality.

*A hadith of the Prophet.

82
Let thy heart awaken to His call
And see thy ego and the world as a dream,
From which thou hast already awakened.
For he who has already awakened here and now has died to the world;
He will not die when the angel of death does knock at the door.

Conceived in Konya, Turkey

Completed in Bethesda, Maryland
Ramadan, 1418
January, 1998

83
Stations of Wisdom

O Reality, pure and inviolable, protect me,

| take refuge in Thy incorruptible Name.
The world corrodes my soul and leads to death;
It devours and kills and mutilates,
For it is the abode of becoming and of change.
Its forms unclear, its contours vague,
It veils Thy Truth and seduces and ensnares,
Dissolving the soul into amorphous forgetfulness.
But Thou art purity, beyond all corruption,
White snow covering in its innocence this lowly world,
Crystalline perfection, coldness of life eternal,
O Reality, pure and inviolable, protect me.

O Reality ever powerful and vigilant,

Awaken me from all dreams of negligence.
Thy Name is a thunder bursting that death-like stillness,
That stupor which is the suffocation of the Spirit within
Rendered mute by the sloth of a soul that dreams.
Thy Name is the lightning that illuminates the horizons
And shatters all that stands in its way.
Give me the power of Thy perfect Act,
Let that Act remove from within my soul
All that inertia which makes me dead in life.
Let every breath celebrate Thy perfect Act,
Let me be awake as at the moment of death.
Thou art like the dryness of the desert, austere,
And like the sword of the holy warrior invincible.
Let me take part in that inner holy war,
Let me not rest until | die in Thee.
87
O Reality that art Peace and Beauty that frees,
The world is but ugliness petrified, clamor congealed.
Without Thee my soul is dispersed, dust in the wind.
No peace can | attain nor lasting beauty behold.
Let me gather myself in Thy open embrace,
In that Beauty which is Peace, that Peace whose Beauty saves.
Thy Nature is soft like a humid day
And placid like a mountain lake.
To behold Thee is to be freed from care,
From all the anxiety that dissipates the soul,
From all the ugliness that imprisons my being.
Thy Beauty is the splendor which draws us all
To the holy courtyard of inwardness, the heart,
To the Center where all we love is found,
To the gate that opens unto Infinite Life,
To the Peace and Mercy of Thy Sacred Face.
Keep me present in Thy Holy Presence,
To remain collected, content with Thy Name,
Wherein is found all that | love, can love,
Wherein the caravan of the journey of life can rest
At last at peace at home where all began.

O Reality whose Love embraces all that is.

Thou art Love and Warmth in this coldness of earthly life.
| am drowning in the storm of life, below;
Cast Thy rope of Mercy to save my soul.
The heat of Thy Love does melt the hardened heart
And Thou dost save those who turn their face to Thee,
For Thou art by nature Merciful, caring for all.
How can Thou not save me who in Thy Mercy confides?
Thy love is like a rose that has grown in my heart,

88
Watered therein by the spring of Life Divine,
Gushing forth when the Sun of Thy Being melts
The hardened shell of the heart of Thy creature man.
O Reality whose Love embraces us all,
| confide in Thee, desperate as a drowning man,
For |am drowning in this sea of change
And only Thy remembrance can save my immortal soul
And reinstate it in the world of permanent Love.
Let not my soul ever forget this Love supreme,
Nor that Reality which cares and saves, here, now.
| live and die confident in that Love,
Which moves the sun and the stars, within the sky,
Which enlivens the soul and gives it eternal life.

O Unique Reality, beyond equal and like,

All beside Thee is shadow, evanescent mist of dawn
That fades away in the light of the morning sun.
The world is not, we are not, Thou art.
The Source of all, Thyself Being and Beyond.
Transcendent above all that one can think
Or grasp with imagination’s wings or eyes, or feel.
How can one seize Thee when Thou alone hast Being
While we are non-existence dressed to appear as beings?
O let me not be, and true to my nature remain;
Grant me the gift of nothingness to realize,
To pass through the gate of annihilation of self,
To see that only Thou art Real, the One.
Like a shining moon in the darkness of the night,
All things do perish save Thy Face Divine,
And such is now as it was at that dawn
When at alpha point Thou didst create the world,

89
Casting those forms of celestial origin upon
That mirror of nothingness that the world and |
Were and are and will always be,
As dust before Thy Majesty, Thy Throne,
O Unique Reality, beyond equal and like.

O Immanent Reality, Self of all the selves,

The Sun shining at the heart of every |,
The Supreme Self who alone can utter |,
In whom alone am | my real I.
All else is projection of that consuming Sun,
That Self which alone knows all that can be known,
The Self whose knowledge is the world itself
And to know It brings freedom from the world that binds.
O Self of all the selves let me be my-Self,
Of all the confines of the ego free.
Thou art the supernal Sun which alone is Real;
Let my soul be crystallized as a star,
To reside at the proximity of that luminous Sun,
Let Thy Name shine in my heart and reign
Supreme as the Self which alone can say | am.
Slay the ego which claims itself
To be the | that knows and feels and lives,
Warping the vision of things as they really are;
Let me cease to be myself as self,
And remove from me the mantle of selfhood now,
Rend asunder the veil of my heart and claim
Thy I-ness through this self of mine which is Thine.
In Thee am | myself and Thou my-Self
Who alone dost see and hear and know and feel.
Dead to the world and my self, let me subsist,
In Thee who alone art the Being of my being,
Sacred Reality, whose Blessed Name is all,
O Immanent Reality, Self of all selves.

Malaga, Spain
January 6, 1986

91
 “Seyyed Hossein Nasr, whose impressive intellectual legacy in the
field of Islamic thought and mysticism is simply one of the finest
in the twentieth century, herein gives us his greatest gift yet: his
own soul in the inner courtyard of intimacy, as he himself confesses
in Poems of the Way. These forty poems constitute a veritable
actualization of Sufism, written in a delicate verbal geometry of
light and shadow that evokes the exquisite opalescence of
- Persian poetry.”
—from the Introduction by Luce Lopez-Baralt

“The true spirit of Sufism and therefore of Islam itself resonates in

these moving poems. Here, eloquently expressed, is thirst for the
eternal and longing for the return to our true home, joined to
constant awareness of the Divine Presence in the here and now.
To read them is to be immersed in that Presence, a refreshment of
the Heart and illumination of the mind.”

— Gai Eaton

About the Author

NYY Ma eesiUmLiom legume ibelate Miiiliitsax-te Mm
igeliimaali(elatetets Ri}
classical Persian poetry, was educated in science, philosophy and
Islamic studies in America and taught for two decades at Teheran
University. Founder and first president of the Iranian Academy of
Philosophy, he is now university professor of-Islamic Studies at
George Washington University. He is the author of over thirty works
primarily in English and Persian. His works include his Gifford =
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