sufi - poesie

Zitat :

Gibran Khalil Gibran was born on January 6, 1883, to the Maronite family of Gibran in Bisharri, a mountainous area in Northern Lebanon. Lebanon at the time was a Turkish province, part of Greater Syria (Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine) and subjugated to Ottoman dominion. His mother Kamila Rahmeh was thirty when she begot Gibran from her third husband Khalil Gibran, a tax collector who proved to be an irresponsible husband leading the family to poverty. Gibran had a half-brother six years older than him called Butros and two younger sisters, Mariana and Sultana, to whom he was deeply attached throughout his life, along with his mother. Kamila came from a family with a prestigious religious background, which imbued the uneducated mother with a strong will and later helped her raise up the family on her own.
Khalil Gibran, aged 25, oil painting by Yusef Hoyiek.
Oil painting of Gibran by Yusef Hoyiek, 1908.

Growing up in the lush region of Bsharri, Khalil proved to be a solitary and pensive child who relished the natural surroundings of the cascading falls, the rugged cliffs and the neighboring green cedars, the beauty of which emerged as a dramatic and symbolic influence to his drawings and writings. Being laden with poverty, his education was limited to visits to a village priest who doctrined him with the essentials of religion and the Bible, alongside Syriac and Arabic languages. Recognizing Gibran's inquisitive and alert nature, the priest began teaching him the rudiments of alphabet and language, opening up to Gibran the world of history, science, and language. At the age of ten, Gibran fell off a cliff, wounding his left shoulder, which remained weak for the rest of his life ever since. To relocate the shoulder, his family strapped it to a cross and wrapped it up for forty days, a symbolic incident reminiscent of Christ's wanderings in the wilderness and which remained etched in Gibran's memory.

At the age of eight, Khalil Gibran, Gibran's father, was accused of tax evasion and was sent to prison as the Ottomon authorities confiscated the Gibrans' property and left them homeless. The family went to live with relatives for a while; however, the strong-willed mother decided that the family should immigrate to the United States, seeking a better life and following in suit to Gibran's uncle who immigrated earlier. The father was released in 1894, but—being an irresponsible head of the family—he was undecided about immigration and remained behind in Lebanon.

On June 25, 1895, the Gibrans embarked on a voyage to New York. They settled in Boston's South End, which at the time hosted the second largest Syrian community in the U.S. following New York. The culturally diverse area felt familiar to Kamila, who was comforted by the familiar spoken Arabic, and the widespread Arab customs. Kamila, now the bread-earner of the family, began to work as a peddler on the impoverished streets of South End Boston. At the time, peddling was the major source of income for most Syrian immigrants, who were negatively portrayed due to their unconventional Arab ways and their supposed idleness.

At the school, a registration mistake changed his name to Khalil Gibran, which remained so for the rest of his life despite repeated attempts at restoring his full name. He entered school on September 30, 1895, merely two months after his arrival in the New World. Having had no formal education, he was placed in an ungraded class reserved for immigrant children, who had to learn English from scratch. Gibran caught the attention of his teachers with his sketches and drawings, a hobby he had started during his childhood in Lebanon. They contacted Fred Holland Day, an artist himself but also a supporter of artists, who opened up Gibran's cultural world and set him on the road to fame.
Gibran in 1931.
Photograph of Gibran in 1931.

In 1904 Gibran had his first art exhibition in Boston. From 1908 to 1910 he studied art in Paris with August Rodin. In 1912 he settled in New York, where he devoted himself to writing and painting. Gibran's early works were written in Arabic, and from 1918 he published mostly in English. In 1920 he founded Aribitah (the Pen Bond), a society for Arab writers. Among its members were Mikha'il Na'ima (1889-1988), Iliya Abu Madi (1889-1957), Nasib Arida (1887-1946), Nadra Haddad (1881-1950) and Ilyas Abu Sabaka (1903-47).

Khalil Gibran died on April 10, 1931 in a New York hospital. He was forty-eight years old and had liver cancer caused by a long term battle with alcohol. His family buried him where he was born, in Bsharri, Lebanon. The people who attended his burial service said it wasn't a time of mourning, but of celebration.

Gibran's works were especially influential in the American popular culture in the 1960's. His best known work is The Prophet, a collection of 26 poetic essays, which has been translated into over a hundred languages.

source: http://4umi.com/gibran/biography.htm

A Lover's Call

* Where are you, my beloved? Are you in that little
* Paradise, watering the flowers who look upon you
* As infants look upon the breast of their mothers?
*
* Or are you in your chamber where the shrine of
* Virtue has been placed in your honor, and upon
* Which you offer my heart and soul as sacrifice?
*
* Or amongst the books, seeking human knowledge,
* While you are replete with heavenly wisdom?
*
* Oh companion of my soul, where are you? Are you
* Praying in the temple? Or calling Nature in the
* Field, haven of your dreams?
*
* Are you in the huts of the poor, consoling the
* Broken-hearted with the sweetness of your soul, and
* Filling their hands with your bounty?
*
* You are God's spirit everywhere;
* You are stronger than the ages.
*
* Do you have memory of the day we met, when the halo of
* You spirit surrounded us, and the Angels of Love
* Floated about, singing the praise of the soul's deed?
*
* Do you recollect our sitting in the shade of the
* Branches, sheltering ourselves from Humanity, as the ribs
* Protect the divine secret of the heart from injury?
*
* Remember you the trails and forest we walked, with hands
* Joined, and our heads leaning against each other, as if
* We were hiding ourselves within ourselves?
*
* Recall you the hour I bade you farewell,
* And the Maritime kiss you placed on my lips?
* That kiss taught me that joining of lips in Love
* Reveals heavenly secrets which the tongue cannot utter!
*
* That kiss was introduction to a great sigh,
* Like the Almighty's breath that turned earth into man.
*
* That sigh led my way into the spiritual world,
* Announcing the glory of my soul; and there
* It shall perpetuate until again we meet.
*
* I remember when you kissed me and kissed me,
* With tears coursing your cheeks, and you said,
* "Earthly bodies must often separate for earthly purpose,
* And must live apart impelled by worldly intent.
*
* "But the spirit remains joined safely in the hands of
* Love, until death arrives and takes joined souls to God.
*
* "Go, my beloved; Love has chosen you her delegate;
* Over her, for she is Beauty who offers to her follower
* The cup of the sweetness of life.
* As for my own empty arms, your love shall remain my
* Comforting groom; you memory, my Eternal wedding."
*
* Where are you now, my other self? Are you awake in
* The silence of the night? Let the clean breeze convey
* To you my heart's every beat and affection.
*
* Are you fondling my face in your memory? That image
* Is no longer my own, for Sorrow has dropped his
* Shadow on my happy countenance of the past.
*
* Sobs have withered my eyes which reflected your beauty
* And dried my lips which you sweetened with kisses.
*
* Where are you, my beloved? Do you hear my weeping
* From beyond the ocean? Do you understand my need?
* Do you know the greatness of my patience?
*
* Is there any spirit in the air capable of conveying
* To you the breath of this dying youth? Is there any
* Secret communication between angels that will carry to
* You my complaint?
*
* Where are you, my beautiful star? The obscurity of life
* Has cast me upon its bosom; sorrow has conquered me.
*
* Sail your smile into the air; it will reach and enliven me!
* Breathe your fragrance into the air; it will sustain me!
*
* Where are you, me beloved?
* Oh, how great is Love!
* And how little am I!

aus dem buch: a tear and a smile

Zitat :

Rumi

Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (مولانا جلال الدین محمد بلخى), also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (جلال‌الدین محمد رومی), but known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi, (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century Persian poet, Islamic jurist, theologian, and mystic. Rūmī is a descriptive name meaning "the Roman" since he lived most of his life in an area called Rūm because it was once ruled by the Byzantine Empire.

According to tradition, Rumi was born in Balkh, Bactria, in contemporary Afghanistan, which at that time was part of the Persian Empire, and was the hometown of his father's family. Scholars, however, believe that he was born in Wakhsh, a small town located at the river Wakhsh in what is now Tajikistan. Wakhsh belonged to the larger province of Balkh, and in the year Rumi was born, his father was an appointed scholar there. Both these cities were at the time included in the Greater Persian cultural sphere of Khorasan, the easternmost province of historical Persia, and were part of the Khwarezmian Empire.

His birthplace and native language both indicate a Persian heritage. Due to quarrels between different dynasties in Khorasan, opposition to the Khwarizmid Shahs who were considered devious by Bahā ud-Dīn Walad (Rumi's father) or fear of the impending Mongol cataclysm, his father decided to migrate westwards. Rumi's family traveled west, first performing the Hajj and eventually settling in the Anatolian city Konya (capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, now located in Turkey). This was where he lived most of his life, and here he composed one of the crowning glories of Persian literature which profoundly affected the culture of the area.

He lived most of his life under the Sultanate of Rum, where he produced his works and died in 1273 CE. He was buried in Konya and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. Following his death, his followers and his son Sultan Walad founded the Mawlawīyah Sufi Order, also known as the Order of the Whirling Dervishes, famous for its Sufi dance known as the samāʿ ceremony.

Rumi's works are written in the New Persian language. A Persian literary renaissance (in the 8th/9th century) started in regions of Sistan, Khorāsān and Transoxiana and by the 10th/11th century, it reinforced the Persian language as the preferred literary and cultural language in the Persian Islamic world. Although Rumi's works were written in Persian, Rumi's importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders. His original works are widely read in their original language across the Persian-speaking world. Translations of his works are very popular in other countries. His poetry has influenced Persian literature as well as the literature of the Urdu, Bengali, Arabic and Turkish languages. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages and transposed into various formats; He has been described as the "most popular poet in America" in 2007.

source: wiki

Zitat :

The general theme of Rumi's thought, like that of other mystic and Sufi poets of Persian literature, is essentially that of the concept of tawhīd – union with his beloved (the primal root) from which/whom he has been cut off and become aloof – and his longing and desire to restore it.

The Masnavi weaves fables, scenes from everyday life, Qur’anic revelations and exegesis, and metaphysics into a vast and intricate tapestry. Rumi is considered an example of Insan-e Kamil — Perfect Man, the perfected or completed human being. In the East, it is said of him that he was "not a prophet — but surely, he has brought a scripture".

Rumi believed passionately in the use of music, poetry, and dance as a path for reaching God. For Rumi, music helped devotees to focus their whole being on the divine, and to do this so intensely that the soul was both destroyed and resurrected. It was from these ideas that the practice of "whirling" dervishes developed into a ritual form. His teachings became the base for the order of the Mevlevi which his son Sultan Walad organized. Rumi encouraged samāʿ, listening to music and turning or doing the sacred dance. In the Mevlevi tradition, samāʿ represents a mystical journey of spiritual ascent through mind and love to the Perfect One. In this journey, the seeker symbolically turns towards the truth, grows through love, abandons the ego, finds the truth, and arrives at the Perfect. The seeker then returns from this spiritual journey, with greater maturity, to love and to be of service to the whole of creation without discrimination with regard to beliefs, races, classes, and nations.

According to Shahram Shiva, one reason for Rumi's popularity is that

Rumi is able to verbalize the highly personal and often confusing world of personal/spiritual growth and mysticism in a very forward and direct fashion. He does not offend anyone, and he includes everyone. The world of Rumi is neither exclusively the world of a Sufi, nor the world of a Hindu, nor a Jew, nor a Christian; it is the highest state of a human being — a fully evolved human. A complete human is not bound by cultural limitations; he touches every one of us. Today, Rumi's poems can be heard in churches, synagogues, Zen monasteries, as well as in the downtown New York art/performance/music scene.

According to Professor Majid M. Naini, Rumi's life and transformation provide true testimony and proof that people of all religions and backgrounds can live together in peace and harmony. Rumi’s visions, words, and life teach us how to reach inner peace and happiness so we can finally stop the continual stream of hostility and hatred and achieve true, global peace and harmony.

In other verses in the Masnavi, Rumi describes in detail the universal message of love:

Lover's nationality is separate from all other religions,
The lover's religion and nationality is the Beloved (God).

The lover’s cause is separate from all other causes
Love is the astrolabe of God's mysteries.

source: wiki

source: http://www.armory.com/~thrace/sufi/poems.html