Who forced you to go for all this

eating and running around and sleeping and waking up

and what s the good of it? If this fate

didn t tickle your palate, why

have you spent your life guzzling and snoring?

How have you become such a disaster to yourself?

Tell the truth (wise men always tell the truth):

if you yourself destined to such a fate

then you must be your own Maker!

but this is manifestly bad doctrine. No,

the truth is that God s chains are upon you

and this abode is your pasturing place.

But munching grass and chewing cud

- damn! - this is work for cows!

How then do you explain your curious love

for the pasture? Ah, gourmet of hay,

all your fear and sorrow is the fear

of decrease - which cannot be avoided.

How in this hurlyburly world do you expect

to find permanence? Becoming the Change

to the wise are signs of Annihilation.

Your state changes, the stars shift about

day gives way to night - are these

not witnesses of the world s impermanence?

My dear tourist; this earth is like

a room in a onenight hotel, your journey

towards to Abode of Eternity.

Do not forget your passing from this place -

even if the house is torn down

religion prospers. Do not debase yourself

for finally someday however late a last

you must depart this caravanserai.

Make your provision for the road

obedience to God, devotion

the coin you spend on this difficult journey.

Gird yourself in armour of godliness and wisdom

for there lurks along the path a hideous dragon.

When you reach the fork, choose the best way

for one street lead to felicity, the other to Hell.

When the Prophet himself has come to you

with promise and threats, how can you claim

that Good and Evil are written, kismet, Fate?

Why try to shift the burden of sin and sloth

on to the shoulders of Destiny? Nonesense!

If God destined you to sin

then - according to you - the sin is God s

the evil-doer is God (hideous belief!)

Even if you don t dare to draw

the logical conclusion, in fear of getting

knocked on the head. Yes, that s your doctrine

even if your tongue proclaims Him Judge

the Wisest of Men, God knows

your tongue and heart do not agree - but you

lie boldfaced to the Lord of the Universe.

The wiseman treads midway

between Fate and Freewill

the path of the learned threads between hope and fear.

Seek you the Straight Way likewise

for either extreme leads to pain and suffering.

Straight indeed is that Way in religion

approved by Intellect, the gift of God to Man.

Justice is the Cornerstone of the Cosmos

- and consider! - by what faculty is justice

distinguished from tyranny except by Reason?

If man follows the tracks of Reason

it would not be wrong to expect to see

pearls spring up in his footprints from the soil.

Reason - Wisdom - only for this

and its radiant dignity does the Lord

of the Universe applaud and deign to address

his creature Man. Wisdom is the prop

for every weakness, relief from every sorrow

comfort in every fear, balm for each ill

noble companion, bulwark in the way of the world

and in religion a trusty guide, a stout staff.

Even if the whole Universe were free

it would be in bondage - but the wiseman

even in chains would be at liberty.

The Sage! Study him well with an awakened eye

and see by contrast with what black plague

this ignorant world is afflicted.

This one tells All actions are performed

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? (missing whilst photocopying)

submission and contentment. That one replies

All good is from God, all evil, O World

your work alone . But both parties

Agree on one thing at least, that a Great Day

is coming, a day of reward and punishment.

But if the work is not mine, how

shall be rewarded? Look: Illogic!!!

Where s the justice in chastising the innocent?

You may see it but I am nonplussed. No,

this arbitrator of your ( your in italic) judgement day

is the Drunkard of Sodom, not the Wise Being

who has built the vault of Heaven.

True wisdom could never lead us astray

in such error - then follow Wisdom s manifest Way.

Know the God of the Universe and be grateful -

these two precepts are worth more to you

than all the powers of Solomon.

Learn to be wise. Do not prattle

but speak in measure. Know that on the Last Day

these things have value, these are priceless.

The True Man is robed in Faith and virtue

- even fine silks cannot disguise

the art-less and wicked. Endeavour

to become a man by SPEECH - know

that for such a man all creatures

are but weeds and thorns. GOOD SPEECH

is to man s heart a air and water

to his body - a source of life.

Listen then O noble heart to the PROOF

for to the truly noble, his words are nobility.

You, whose name has not been formed by anyone,

whose proof not even intellect can grasp.

To label you would be a loathsome act

for you are far removed from genus and species:

neither a subject nor an attribute ,

neither a Substance nor an Accident.

The moralist can t order you about

nor any censor tells you what to say.

The dance of the Sun s disc through the skies

is your command and gives birth to the shades

of animals; you stir the painter s pot,

the whirling spheres, mixing and mingling all

your most heart-catching colours in the stars.

The very mention of your name in the Nest

of Glory cuts off the wing of Gabriel;

on the Throne of Sanctity your lowliness

unveils the jewels which grace the bride of heaven.

Creation testifies that you were here before it,

and pre-eternity swears to your permanence.

O luminous sun, veiled by your shadow of light,

goal of all lovers, beyond their petty loves,

the paradoxical treasure of Qarun

(which is never where you find it) symbolises

your single pearl, concealed within two jewels -

two jewels which created the world, two gems

which chastised Adam.

The Universe is like

a rolling sea, our planet a tiny skiff

and Nature the anchor; its waves are trees, the stones

which wash up on the beach are animals;

but one, the pearl, the crimson carnelian

if YOU - the lonely beast endowed with speech.

And who is the diver? the Active Intellect

(worthy to be the mind of the Prophet himself).

What is the end? the same as was the beginning.

What is the goal? To seek that which is the best.

Behold the Good, if you have eyes, listen

to Truth, if you have ears to hear it with.

Lust s falcon has snatched you up in its beak, a dove

from Time s snare - have you forgotten, my brother,

Adam our father s sin and repentant tears?

I give a gift wrapped in veils of allusion

hoping you can slice away its seals

with meditation s sword: Adam ate

no bread in Eden; man was not the eater

of grain till his feet crossed the threshold of earth.

All this had happened to Adam when Satan s dam

had not yet come to birth.

What do you say

of Satan s refusal to worship man? Was he forced

not to bow, or did he have free choice to refuse?

If the power was his, to prostrate or not, then God

was impotent; but if God had pre-ordained

him to refusal, then God must be unjust.

No, give up thinking of work which is not your work

and cease to tread a path which is not your way.

No longer seek in vain the Water of Life

in the midst of your own darkness, like some lost

and bootless Alexander; for there were Khizr

found the fountain, the demon is no more

companion of the angel of our soul.

YOU whirligig windowless jasper dome

with the hump of an old wife, power of youth

we your brood and you the unloving mother

you our mother! and yet so vengeful.

Black silent clay, this body s your baby

(not pure Intelligence nor rational Substance)

the body - abode of noble sublimities

and you the mother, mother of the house . . .

When I finish my work in this house today

I shall be off alone and tomorrow the house is yours.

MY SON this corpse of yours, this prison

will never be lovely even draped in silk brocades;

embellish your soul with the jewel of SPEECH

for the soul is ugly even in silk brocades.

Can you not see God s chains on your ankles

(only awakened souls can see them)?

Be a man in your chains and cinch your belt

nor dream your cell the realm of DARIUS:

those wh act in moderation find

kingdoms wider far than his.

Patience! no one finds heart s desire

but a man of patience;

and for sexual lust open the Qur an

to the story of Adam and Eve.

Stay out of harm s way and do no hurt

but justly, eye to eye:

stick to no petty grudge like the brambles

nor like the datepalm bend in humiliation

for dung is thrown in the pit because it sinks

sweet incence burned for its refreshing fragrance.

Don t run around with everyone nor shut yourself up alone -

walk wisdom s way - be neither fly nor gryphon:

if there s no one around worth talking to

then 100 times better alone than with idiots

(the SUN s alone - who blames it

or calls it less than the seven PLEIADES?)

Don t screw up your face at more or less;

do with what s given and be equitable with all.

The states of this vagabond world are fleeting

cold after heat, joy after sorrow -

better not to have grabbed for ephemeralities.

Listen - GOOD ADVICE - don t be a bilious fool.

Who cares if the earth is littered with pebbles or gold:

you will lie in your grave beneath a shack or a palace

(remember the man who built a castle in SANAA

now fallen to ruins in a ruined city).

The world s - a cunning devil whom the wise

have never cultivated for companionship;

if you have an ounce of sense don t swagger

in its sulphurous wake like a drunken clot.

The world s a bottomless mudchoked well -

don t lose your purified soul in its cloudy depths

(your soul purified by SPEECH - as the wise

through LOGOS have flown from well s-bottom to the stars).

Take pride in speech as the Prophet (who willed

not even a camel to his heirs) treasured his eloquence;

come to life in speech as Jesus

raised the dead with a word;

make yourself known through speech

for no one known if not by what he says . . .

But if you ve no ideas sew up your trap

for a word unspoken s better than an asinine remark.

Carve your utterance straight as quarrel s shaft

then shoot - don t fumble the bow.

Pay your attention to words than good looks

for man is SUBLIMED through speech not stature

(the almond gives better fruit than willows

or poplars which are taller;

a sober man may look like a tramp

but his words will brand him no drunk).

The ocean of LOGOS are the lovely words of God

sparkling with gemstones, glowing with pearls.

The outward form of Revelation: bitter as a gulp

of seawater - sweet pearls its innards to the wise.

If sunken treasure lies in ocean deeps

look for a diver - why run vainly down the strand?

Why has the Creator sunk these chests

of gems in briny weeded troughs?

Tell for the Prophet s sake! Who told HIM

to entrust the hermeneutic to the wise, words to the rabble?

The diver surfaces with a handful of slime

perhaps because he sees in you an enemy . . .

look for the pith of Revelation, don t follow the herd

content with husks like asses with their braying.

On the NIGHT OF POWER the mosques are bright as day

with your candles - but your heart is pitchy as 12 o clock;

don t waste wax - for tappers cannot banish

darkened from an ignorant heart.

You have not learned piety but from sheer pride

you solve riddles at midnight in an ebon well . . .

if you re not a snake why dot he believers

tremble in your hands and the Christians fear you?

Cease this rambling and giggling at the fortunes of life

for nothing on this dusty globe belongs to you.

How often the spinning spheres distracted the wise

and thrown their perfect peace in turbulence?

DARIUS left behind his slaves, his concubines

his castle and gold and departed with a decaying bag of skin.

Earth is a vulture, no creature safe

from its beak, neither lord nor butler.

A day comes in which is no shelter nor refuge

from the arbitration of a just and equitable Judge;

at that hour all shall be paid for their deeds

both the just and the unjust receive justice;

on that day of tumult in that turbulent crowd

before the martyrs of God I shall take refuge with

THE DAUGHTER OF MUHAMMAD

so that God the Almighty may decide

between me

and the enemies

of the household

of the Prophet.

GOD IN HIS UNITY

MOST ANCIENT OF ALL.

NO MULTIPLICITY.

ALONE OF EVERYTHING

UNCREATED.

What say you? Why did He

make the universe

out of pearl?

neither matter for form

height nor breadth.

You agree: in every case

cause precedes effect

as ONE is prior to numbers

or part to the whole

and since heaven and earth (all agree)

are both effects

why consider heaven alone

a realm of knowledge and power

(like its own antecedent cause)?

What He brings today

from potency into Act

could just as well be

yesterday or tomorrow

since He is not in need

nor impotent. You claim

that between cause and effect

between nothingness and creation

some interval of TIME must intervene

but TIME itself is born

of the rolling spheres.

How can TIME exist?

a non-existent entity?

a beginningless void?

before the spheres themselves?

If you think of nothingness

subsisting in itself

then Unity must have an opposite

a partner in manifestation.

If nothingness

is merely a name or sound

would this not prove that even names

are not without their due effects?

God is above all

as ONE above the numbers:

only thus is TIME s existence known

that of PLACE refuted

genesis necessitated

and Eternity proven.

Do not if you are wise

attribute to HIM

any action but creatio ex nihilo

of a single being in the wink

of an eye

or less.

Do not speak of His Action

in such a way that His Essence

might be passive like our own

moulded in time by act

by the least of intentions.

ABSOLUTE UNITY:

seek nothing outside His Essence

for He is All-comprehensive

while the essences of things

are particular, determined.

If you claim He transcends all vision

do not attribute qualities to Him

for this would make Him

dual in essence

no longer singular, unique and ONE.

True, you see in this universe

a myriad things made of earth

wind, water, fire, metals and seas.

If you could float down

like Harut the fallen angel

from celestial spheres

then could you not

lift yourself up again

like the Morning Star?

EMANATION FROM ESSENCE

NOT FROM BEING:

the cause of the creation of one thing

must be ONE

The First Emanation is Intellect

then Soul, then Body,

plants, the abundance of beasts,

the Rational Animal.

Each Archetype contingent in itself

bu (in reality) an impossible being;

each one manifest in itself but

(in reality) a hidden non-existent.

What say you now? how this painted screen

is set up in the vasty air

like an enamelled pavilion pitched

in a desert of fire?

Does it move by itself or

has someone set it spinning?

keeps it revolving like this

around the zenith on high?

How do you define movement ?

Locomotion? Turning from one state

to another lowly or sublime?

Then explain to me please

its condition and locus

if you know. If you don t know

stay off the path of Wisdom

till your blindfold is untied.

When by way of demonstration

and deduction you speak

of NINE SPHERES -

what say you again?

what lies beyond these verdant fields?

If you answer VACUUM

I say you re wrong - impossible

that solid forms should hang

in a void. If you say

PLENUM - no no - one cannot conceive

a physical body without limit or end

like a sublime substance.

Then what keeps this ball of dust

suspended - so - between water and fire

thunderbolt and raging tempest?

If the elements are opposites in nature

why do the four of them

seem to embrace in an excess of unity

in a single place like

loving brothers? or if you say

they re not opposites in essence

why have they been given NAMES

which express their opposition?

BEGIN NOW

KNOW THYSELF and turn

your steed away from the

whirling spheres

and this duststained toy.

How can you taste Divine Mysteries

with the DEVIL in you

slashing about with his sword

duelling the inner ADAM?

Your vision of the

spiritual essence of things

reminds me of a blind man

dropped in the middle of the

soul-nourishing Garden of the Spirit

trying with his sightless eyes

to visualise the shapes and colours

of its delights.

The philosophy section contains 5 poems.

I shall turn over a new leaf, and whatever

is better, that shall I make my minds aim.

The world of April - for instance -is an emblem of delight:

shall I not by contemplation make my heart fresh as Spring?

On the green lawns and beds of this my poetic Divan

I shall weave lines and feet into hyacinths and sweet basil,

meanings and allusions into ripe fruit and plum roses,

and grow great trees from tiny seeds of precise words.

Clouds make a deserts jaundiced face a garden -

thus shall I too rain gently on my books face

and in the assembly of debate, favour the wise

with fine subtle points like scattering of petals;

if dusty error greys one of my blooms Ill sprinkle

from a clear sky upon it my commentary.

My odes will raise a castle; in its vast court Ill build

a rose-garden surrounded by a veranda of couplets.

A landscape gardener, here Ill raise a scenic panorama,

there spread out a peaceful meadow, broad and smooth.

The gate (inlaid with all the rarest metres of prosody)

shall be guarded by a trustworthy poet -

and the foundation of this blessed edifice shall be

Virtuous and learned guests from every clime of earth

shall gather at my place, leaving no place

for the ignorant (did I build my home and garden

for idiots?!) And the table I spread for these sages

will groan and leave them in a poet-prandial stupor.

Poetry, or speech, is like a body for which

(following the example of Wisdom) one must weave

from precious conceits an inner soul.

Have you ever witnessed such vivification? Watch,

I shall create for you in words the human image.

From subtle metaphors and limpid narrative

I shall fashion curling locks and smiling lips;

significance shall be its face, which then Ill hide

beneath the veil or masquerade of simile.

Ill take up the word like a polo stick

and make it crack; and if in some line I find

my hearts grown dull, Ill polish it with

the sandpaper of meditation; if ignorance-rust

appears on my soul Ill rub it till it shines

with verses from the Quran. The worlds woes

shall vanish before my piety and obedience;

Ill wash my hands clean of Greeds grease

and raise my fingers from my vest-pocket

to the sphere of Saturn. Does my heart sleep

in the nightgown of ignorance? Then let me go nude

and let the alarm of devotion rouse this

sluggish and melancholic body of mine to the pitch

of self-sacrifice. If all my faults

originate within me, to whom should I complain?

No, I shall rise in Gods grace and mercy

and make earths rough ways smooth to my soul;

the good and evil within me I shall judge as if

my heart were a jewellers balance, each moment

adding to the scale of good grain, and from

the pan of evil subtracting a gramme, till

I have shifted the chains and yokes which Satan

forged for me, to the devils own limbs and shoulders!

My personal demon will not repent his viciousness;

its up to me to make amends - and even - if

Ill never be a Solomon in the caravan of devils

at least I can convert (by the threat of intellects sword)

my private imp to Islam. I shall fashion

my saddle and reins from words and deeds, a halter

from the wisdom of Luqman. You may take

your vacation wherever you wish - Ill head

for the Threshold of the Compassionate, turning my head

towards the Guide of Truth, like Salman,

to the Household of the Messenger, to become

there a humble slave, there where in the glory

of the Imam I shall make my name the frontispiece

of the Book of Fame. That Sun of gnosis

will brighten my heart like the moon in Cancer,

that ocean of grace will fill my heart

as a casket of pearls, sunken treasure and corals.

Now now, Nasir, let me give you some advice;

A talented fellow like you could go far - even

to the Emirs court. All you have to do is

give up these crackpot notions and listen to me . .

Avaunt thee! The vapours of asininity curl

round your brows. What can I do to cure you?

How could I ever toady to you in the hope

of filling my saddlebag with crusts? Ive had

Tartars for slaves in my time - how could I ever

enslave myself to a Tartar? You advise me

to be more like X the Miser or Y the pander -

I know your world is like a sick cat

which devours its own litter - why should I

bow before it? Whom could I consider lower

than myself if I were to mortgage my body

like a dog for a bit of bread? Where

could I leave my faith, virtue and knowledge

if I took up the profession you offer me:

Ghoul-in-Waiting?

I have honour enough in this:

that in two tongues I have ordered Wisdom

and transformed it into verse, for the single purpose

of praising the Prophets Family, following in spirit

now Rudaki the Persian, now Hasan the Arab,

weaving my Divan of figures and images better than all

the lost books of China, Rome and Isfahan,

logical, clear as sunlight, furnished with

sensible solution to all thorny problems, which

I have made the guards and shepherds of my verse.

The Pilgrims Position is one of my treasures in prose

and the book you are reading now, one in poetry.

This world is a prison for the believer - why else

should I take up residence in Yamgan

if I werent sure that on the Day of Reckoning

the raging fire will make the prison for those

who have set themselves against the Holy Household?

During our months of working with Nasir-i Khusraw we acquired an almost physical picture of him, almost a memory in reverse, becoming clearer rather than more vague with time. Learned, sober, retiring, proud, bitter, ascetic, moral, intensely pious, sceptical before he believes but - once having assented with his Reason or Intellect to the tenets of faith - ready to sacrifice himself for his religion, ironic, outspoken, scathingly dismissive of anything or anyone he considers vulgar, debased or unintelligent - or even simply trivial or banal - he was not perhaps the mos enjoyable of companions.

At a time when his works are probably more widely admired than they are actually read, it is perhaps not surprising to find that the popular mind contains a different image of the poet; but how totally different from our own impression, based on our daily conversations (as it were) with the poet as a living personality. Myth has made Nasir-i Khusraw magician straight out of The Thousand and One Nights.

That he was an Ismaili all are agreed (excpt, perhaps inevitably, certain scholars who appear not to have read his poems). Around the Ismailis of his period a magical auras of images arises - the Old Man of the Mountain, the Assassins, and even certain tales of the Nights, such as that of Alauddin, which may be unconsciously based on Ismaili themes. Bit by bit, Nasir-i Khusraw was wrapped in this aura, till by the time the so-called Pseudo-Biography appears (probably first in the XVth century, but found fully evolved in the preface to the Tabriz lithograph edition of the Diwan) he has become the complete magus, engaged in occult battles with Assassin kings, master of the jinn, hermit, astrologer; all the astonishing in view of his repeated complaints that he is not the master of jinn ( I am no Solomon).

Now, as Ananda Commaraswamy has maintined, a myth is always true - or it is no true myth. Rather than dismissing the myth of Nasir-i Khusraw we would do better to ask what it means and whether it can help us to penetrate even more deeply into his Diwan than we could do by merely reading it.

First, as Seyyed Hossein Nasr likes to remind us, there are certain sages and poets around whom such stories cluster, and there are others to whom no magic is attributed. Almost without exception those thinkers who become known as miraculous figures are those whose involvement in spiritual matters is more than a merely intellectual participation. That Nasir-i Khusraw, who at first might appear much more staid than many another figure in Islamic literature, should be thought to have lived to the age 140 in a cave protected by talismans - this reveals something about his own spiritual practice as well as his influence on the imaginal history of the Persian world. It tells us that whatever he may actually have written, or even been and done, he was and is in some sense a figure of the miraculous to those who have inherited him.

If we can find no occultism in his poems, then, we must look elsewhere, we must look in a slightly slanted way, at an angel slightly askew, in order to find the seeds which generations have watered into magic blooms.

Most probably, all of the Diwan was written after Nasir-i Khusraws wanderings had ceased, after his search for wisdom amongst all sects had culminated in his meeting in Cairo with the Ismaili Imam, after his mission to Khorasan had ended with exile in Yamgan. It is the poetry of an old man, only in his best moods reconciled to the life of an exile, a hermit - a man who has precisely failed, at least outwardly, to mould the world closer to his hearts desire. When he cautions Ismaili missionaries, warning them that society at large will reward their preaching only with violence, he obviously speaks from direct experience. The golden court of the Fatimid Caliph was like a dream there in his bleak valley. He is no Faust - the magic is not to be found in his accomplishments in the world he despises, the world which rejected his mission.

The magical image of Ismailism in general is quite understandable. Many years after the days of Nasir-i Khusraw, the Nizaris of Alamut, though by no means the sort of people Marco Polo made them out, were certainly performing a sort of grand metaphysical spell when they declared that the Day of Resurrection had already occurred (in the esoteric sense of the unveiling of mysteries and interiorisation of the Divine Law), and that mankind was living in a totally spiritualised age.

The corpus of writings connected with the names of the great alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan, the esoteric treatises of the Brethren of Purity, the Hermetic works assigned to the seventh Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim, the cosmological speculations of the mysterious Umm al-Kitab - these and many other books and tales justify the air of secret knowledge surrounding a School which - after all - glorified in the Name Esoterists (al-batiniyyah).

Nasir-i Khusraw too was proud of the title. But if we search the Diwan for evidence of this sort of Ismaili philosophy, we shall for the most part come away disappointed. Here the doctrine of tawil (or spiritual hermeneutics as Corbin calls it) is mostly confined to a type of allegorisation whereby certain verses of the Quran or certain dogmas and traditions of Islam are shown to refer to people - to the Family of the Prophet, and especially to the Imams. If these figures refer again to cosmic principles in certain Ismaili works, there is little evidence that Nasir-i Khusraw shared such ideas. To him, the Imam is most of all the rightful ruler and sole legitimate interpreter of doctrine. True, we find verses on the emanationist cosmology of Ismailism (which resembles that of the Neoplatonist), but dealt with in a philosophical or theological rather than a mystical way. When Nasir approaches the language of the mystics (as in The Two Jewels for example) he seems to do so more in the manner of one propounding a riddle than one who cloaks the intensity of vision in veils of symbolism. What chiefly concerns him are problems dear to the Peripatetics, such as the eternity of the world, or to the theologians, such as free-will and determination. He is metaphysical, but not mystical in the sense of the later Sufi poets; above all, in the context of Persian literature, he is a moralist.

As a moralist, he often comes close to being a satirist; indeed poems like The Aging Rake, To a Merchant and The Decline of Khorasan are very successful satire, and very funny. Even a poem like A Wasted Pilgrimage, which as E.G. Browne points out comes closest to manifesting the sort of esoterism usually associated with Ismailism, can simultaneously be read (and translated) as an amusing commentary on the Pilgrimage-as-Grand-Tour. Much of Nasirs moralising is not at all the sort of message one expects from a Persian esoterist, at least one in the latter vein of Hafiz or Fakhr al-Din Araqi, but it is certainly not inconsistent with the esoteric point of view, as the marvellous qasidahs of Sanai also prove. Amongst Persian poets, Nasir-i Khusraw is usually ranked with the best six or seven, but while others command the lyric or narrative or mystical, he holds sway over the didactic realm of Persian verse.

This fact, plus the great difficulty and archaicism of his work, means that - aside from a few well-known tags - Nasir is probably the least known of all great Persian poets, even in Iran, not to speak of the West. And yet, once we have accepted that we are dealing with a type of poetry for which there is no longer much taste, especially in the Occident - once we have agreed to let down our defence agianst being preached at - we can finally begin to discover where the real magic of Nasir-i Khusraw is to be found.

If we were to undertake a statistical analysis of our authors Diwan (a task which, I trust, can safely be left to later generations) we might well find that the most frequently used word in it is SPEECH. The Word, the Logos - this is Nasirs principle, his main concern, his key. A man is known, he says, by his speech, what he says. In a world where language has been attacked as the prop for a facade hiding the existential abyss, and reduced to semiotics and linguistics; where the word is feared and mocked as inauthentic and oppressive; the reader must make a distinct effort of will to re-place himself imaginatively in a cosmos where the Logos is the Source, where the Name and the thing named are, on the level of correspondences, identical.

As in all religious systems which base themselves on the Word (whether in a form of a Book, a Scripture, or in the more condensed form of the invocation, the dhikr or mantra - or both), Islam refers itself consciously back to the Primordial Wisdom, the Golden Age in which man was given the Names. That Man is the animal-with-language means precisely that he is the central figure in the realm of manifestation, for it is through his command of language that he exercises his duties as kkalifat-Allah, the Vicegerent of God on earth. In Nasir-i Khusraws insistence on the centrality of the Word, we find the point where he participates most fully in the primordial aspect of the Tradition; where ritual and incantation blend with literature, where morality acquires a taste of transcendence. Even in his satires, there appears a reminiscence of the practices of the Aryan bards, whose curses could ruin the powerful; and in his most exalted moments (in the poem entitled, The Divan for example, or in the Ode of Night), we see Nasir-i Khusraw shaping reality through language in a way which can only be called magical. A good poet creates a world; a great poet then imposes that world, or rather superimposes it on the realm of ordinary reality. That Nasir has achieved this is proved by his status amongst Persian poets; it is also proved by his folk persona of magus and miracle worker. To understand him we must be prepared to more than merely read him; we must accept, at least for the time we read him, to participate in that world he created, and which blossoms again each time the Diwan is opened. Many Persian poets have boasted of their own greatness; Nasir is one of them. Some have been forgotten; others, like Nasir-i Khusraw, have been proved correct.

This is virtually the first book of Nasir-i Khusraws poetry to appear in a European language. In keeping with the theory that each age needs its own translations, we have tried to present him to a period which seems to require something other than the kind of translations from Persian popular in the XIXth and early XXth centuries. At their best ( as with FitzGerald for instance), these translations still stand as genuine donations to the literature they enriched, genuine trans-lations or carryings-across of elements from one culture to another. At their worst, they may have been good scholarship, but they were bad English poetry, much worse than the average translations made at the time from Far Far Eastern or Indian languages.

In preparing the present work, therefore, we have considered it necessary to break for the most part with the earlier custom of attempting to present Persian poetry in metre and rhyme. Most of the poems here are in free verse; as Eliot said, of course, free verse does not exist, and in fact an attempt has been made to produce something like genuine poetry through the use of rhythms and other devices natural to the language. Some poems are in what might be called rough blank verse, with lines of five stresses. A few use rhyme and regular metre. One advantage of this relative freedom is that meaning need never be sacrificed for scansion or rhyme - if meanings have been distorted, therefore, the reader may more justly complain. However, we have not sought to produce a trot or even a very literal version of the poems. In the cause of trying to develop in English something of Nasirs unique combination of elegance and directness (his Shakespearean ability to coin old saying), his ease of topical reference, his satirical punch, his highly persona voice, we - on the one hand - have certainly wandered at time a bit from strict literalness. Some readers may object that Nasir has become too contemporary, too colloquial, even too American! On the other hand, we have not followed FrtzGerald or Pound in actually re-writing our poet. Lines may have been dropped, images understandable only to Islamic readers may have been modified or given more general equivalents, but on the whole the poems read the line for line as they were conceived.

The arguments about methods of translation will never cease, because translation is that undefinable thing, an art - not a science. In our case, we have used the technique of collaboration between a scholar and a poet - and since these two gifts are rarely combined in one human being, we feel justified in hoping that whatever deficiencies the method may possess will be overlooked by readers in return for getting a readable and reasonably accurate version of great and greatly interesting poet.

Finally: we could never have produced this work with the help and encouragement of our teacher Seyyed Hossein Nasr. He, however, exercised no control over the actual process of translation, so that neither error nor ill-judgement must be imputed to anyone other than the authors.

Peter Lamborn Wilson

Tehran - May 26, 1977

Note: Readers will notice that the formal system of transliteration of Persian and Arabic words which we have used in the introductory material is replaced in the poems by much more informal system based loosely on pronunciation. We want the poems to be read as much as possible as poetry rather than scholarship. Difficult references are explained in the Notes on the Poems at the end of the book.

It is hardly possible in such a brief introduction to deal with all the facets of Ismaili thought as they deserve to be discussed (and for this reason a bibliography of further reading has been supplied), or indeed with all the facets of Nasir-i Khusraws many-sided-genius. The few points we have discussed are meant only to serve as a guide for a summary understanding of this remarkable Islamic philosopher and poet, who in many ways bought the Ismaili tradition of philosophy to its apogee. But, as a universal intellectual figure, Nasir-i Khusraw speaks not only as an Ismaili missionary, or even only as an Islamic philosopher, but as a seer whose message addresses itself to men of all times and places. Let his poems speak for themselves.

Gholam-Reza Aavani

Tehran, May 26, 1977.

From an historical point of view, Shiism is based on the doctrine of the spiritual pre-eminence of Ali, the cousin and son-im-law of the Prophet. Shiites quote many sayings of Muhammad in support of this, and point out that the Prophet gave his only daughter, Fatimah, to Ali in marriage. Ali is to me as Aaron was to Muses, except that there is no prophet after me. I am the City of Knowledge and Ali is the Gate; do not enter the City except through the Gate. According to the Shiites, the Prophet expressly appointed Ali as his heir (wasiy) and spiritual successor (khalifah). In the year before he died, Muhammad gathered certain Muslims at Ghadir Khumm after the Pilgrimage. There, he asked the crowd, Am I not the Messenger of God?; they answered, whom I was the (spiritual) master, hence-forward Yeah (bala), and he continued, Those over help him and abandon those who abandon him.Ali is their master. May God help those who

According to a belief accepted by all Muslims, Shiite and Sunni alike, Muhammad is the last prophet. After the end of the cycle of prophecy does the possibility of the divine communication with mankind therefore come to an end? Shiites (and Sufis) maintain that it does continue through the cycle of initiation or sainthood (wilayah). Morever, every divine messenger in addition to his function as law-giver has the deeper function of sainthood, which is either manifested (as in the case of Jesus) or hidden (as with Moses). The function of sainthood in a prophet is no less significant than his function as law-giver. After the end of the cycle of prophecy no new revelation is transmitted to mankind and consequently there is no new Divine Law (Shariah), but this does not mean that initiation, direct contact with the divine, also comes to end. The end of the cycle of the prophecy is the beginning of the cycle of sainthood. Ali is the saint par excellence, the starting point of the new cycle, and he is also the rightful successor of the Prophet in the sense of temporal ruler. The combination of these two functions constitutes the Imamate as the Shiite conceive it, and Ali is the first Imam. After him, this function remains within the family or Household of the Prophet, his descendants through Ali and Fatimah.

There are several branches of Shiism, the two major ones being the Ismailis and the Ithna asharis or Twelvers. Both branches insist on descendants of Ali as Imams, but diverge after the sixth Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq. The Ismailis recognised Ismail, his eldest son, as Imam. The Ithna asharis followed the younger son, Musa. For the Ithna asharis there are only twelve Imams; the last one, Mahdi, went into occultation and will return at some moment to this plane, bringing with him the reign of universal justice. For the Ismailis, however, there must always be an Imam present in this world; the present Aga Khan is the 49th Imam.

In Ismaili doctrine, God is envisaged in the two aspects of transcendence and immanence. In the first, He is beyond and qualification or description; even to call Him the Absolute is to determine and limit Him. There is nothing like unto Him (Qur. IX-42). The Divine Essence as such is beyond any quality, description or determination. God can only be known through His manifestations in the world, His Theophanies or Divine Perradiations. Everything in the Universe describes a Divine Name, or rather is the manifestation of all the Names. Man is the comprehensor of these Names, and himself a total manifestation or microcosm, the vicegerent of God on earth.

The cosmology and cosmogony of Ismailism is explained by the emanation of a hierarchy of intelligences which are ten in number. These are the cause of the creation of this world, the transmitters of knowledge and the vehicle of Divine Grace and guidance. The hierarchy is matched by a corresponding spiritual hierarchy in this world.

As already mentioned, Ismailis have often been called batiniyyah or esoterists. The word batin designates the inner essence or spiritual gist of religion. The whole doctrine of Ismailism is based on the idea of tawil, exgesis or hermeneutic interpretation. Every dogma in religion has two aspects, one exoteric and outward, which is understood and followed by the majority; the other esoteric and inner, within the exoteric truth, superior to it, hidden from the majority and revealed only to the elect. Tawil, is the only method of unveiling this esoteric truth; the word itself means taking something back to its primordial origin.

Nasir-i Khusraw is one of the few poets in the history of Persian literature to be given the honorific title of Hakim of Sage. One can compare this with the same title among the pre-Socratic Greeks. He is one of the early links in that chain of metaphysical peotry, so rich and prolific in Persia, which was continued by such figures as Rumi, Attar, Sadi and Hafiz. But more than other Nasir is a preacher of philosophical wisdom; he never loses an opportunity to encourage his reader to become wise, illumined, awakened. To stand face to face with reality which is perennial and at the same time always accessible.

The reader who takes even a cursory glance at the Diwan is struck by the frequent mention of Speech or Word, which might well be translated as Logos. His use of this word has a philosophical as well as a metaphysical significance. In Christianity, Christ is the Word or Logos of God, while in Islam the Quran plays the same role thus in the former, the Word is incarnated in a person, in the latter in a revealed Book. One of the miracles of Islam is the beauty of this revealed Word in an absolute sense and as an eternal prototype of literary excellence to be imitated but never successfully attained. The Prophet of Islam said, I am the most eloquent among the Arabs.

As to the moral or didactic nature of some of his poems, Nasir should not be taken as a mere preacher of certain moral dogmas as understood in the West today or the proponent of a certain moral school, or - still worse - as a moraliser in its current sense. His teaching is rooted in the essence of Wisdom. In Persian literature, especially in those poets whom we may call metaphysical, such as Rumi, the moral element is always emphasised but in the bosom of metaphysical doctrines. A poet in the traditional sense is one who leads people to enlightenment; unlike Platos poets, he is not to be banished from the ideal city. His moral injunctions are not of a merely individualistic and egoistic nature but have to do with the universal essence of man - man as he is in himself - or rather, as he should be in himself: eternal being, standing face to face with the Absolute.

The Western reader may be unfavourable struck by Nasirs warnings to abstain from the world and from all material desires. This abstinence, amounting almost to revulsion, should not be explained away on any psychological grounds. It is an attitude shared by certain saints and mystics throughout human history. Even if these poems seem at times pietistic and even dry, they are inevitably enlivened by Nasirs powerful poetic imagery, which allows the reader an imaginative participation - at least - in his worldview.

There is, too, a more positive aspect to this moral teaching. Life is a kind of struggle with the difficulties which surround us and keep us from realisation. One must endeavour ceaselessly to attain to the ultimate end of life. Man is inferior to the gigantic force of Nature from one point of view, but he far surpasses them in the potential for Wisdom. His destiny is determined by himself, he is responsible for his actions and must not blame no one but himself for his failures. The struggle should be waged with patience and even love, for pain and suffering will ultimately end in peace: dark night will usher in bring day. So, for Nasir, man is despicable only as one of the mob; as an image of the Divine, he is the highest of all realities on this plane of being.

One refreshing aspect of Nasirs poetry is the total absence of praise of rulers and the powerful; E.G. Browne points out that in this Nasir is virtually alone in his age. Kings and potentates kept poets, in some cases as they might keep clowns and chefs, and paid them for the most fulsome flattery. Addressing such parasites, Nasir says that they are pleased with telling lies; he mentions a bard who said of Sultan Mahmud, May he live for another thousand years! when in fact the king had already been dead for two decades!

Of course, Nasir does eulogise one person: the Caliph al-Mustansir. For him, however, the Caliph is not the representative of worldly rule or secular power, but rather the spiritual master of masters, representative of the Holy Prophet, the Pole of the Age. These eulogies are not mere poetic effusions, but deep felt songs of devotion.