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In allusion there is meaning not contained by plain expression
The subtlety of vessels, in reality, comes from the meanings they contain
and these meanings are enhanced by their vessels' subtlety
-Ibn al-Fārịd
Whoever approaches the poetry of the saints
By grammar and prosody [alone] will suffer grave mistakes...
-Ahmadu Bamba
Whoever wants to understand the poem, must go into the land of poetry. Whoever wants to understand the poet, must go into the poet’s land.
-Goethe
Loving ṬaHa is delightful
How lovely is that Great Noble!
He’s the treasure of creation,
and to all goodness, a doorway
And he’s peace and our protection,
and he’s food and our refreshment
He’s a pearl and he’s a treasure,
He’s the kernel and quintessence
The land without love of ṬaHa
is a wasteland so forsaken
And hearts without love of ṬaHa
are ruins, wrecked and desolated
And in each and every heart is
a portion of ṬaHa’s passion
He’s the soul’s enchantment, truly and he is the answered prayer
No beloved can distract you
from him, nor hearts, nor violins
Without that, I don’t care at all
for any blessing or torment
Cut off all links to temptation
And leave off songs’ invocation
Cast aside all the fair beauties
And forget the sealed wineries
And the clubs and all the concerts
Of the singers or the mansions
All of this is but a mirage
Seek the spirit of the meanings
The quintessence, real reality
Reciting the seven cited
By Divine Qualities truly
A rank without any equal
He’s the chosen of creation
Before the being of all beings
The presence of TaHa emerged
Before even space existed
And he had a life, extended
Before time even was reckoned
And I was before creation,
My heart busy with his passion...
The crucial element in Igilango Geesi lies in the very notion of using the English language in a manner that surpasses the owners of the language themselves…. When you use language in the Igilango Geesi manner, you are transforming the English language, you are doing things with it and in it that the owners of the language themselves had not thought imaginable….
In the light of this dimension, it is not Soyinka's intention to merely wake up the "napping" English language for the edification of Englishmen and women. His intention is to take the English language to areas of being that the owners of the language had not thought imaginable; or, which is the same thing, had once thought imaginable but had irrevocably lost and can recover now only if they have the humility, the grace, and let it be said, the self-interest to make themselves receptive to a fundamental aspect of world literary and intellectual history in the twentieth century.
-Biodun Jeyifo
Ibrahim Niasse (d. 1975)
Praise Poetry in West Africa
Conclusion
"No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead."
-T.S. Eliot
“I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.”
-Jorge Luis Borges
Hal ghādara'l-shu'arā'u min mutaraddami?
Have the poets left a place for a patch to be stitched?
-'Antara ibn Shaddad
walakinnahum qad ghādarū mutaraddama
But they have left a place for a patch to be stitched
-Ibrahim Niasse
West African Praise Poetry and Music Videos
The Barzakh of Poetry
Speech
Silence
Oludamini Ogunnaike
Texas Christian University
Thursday, Sept. 10th, 2020
Prose
Music
Poetry
Thought
Feeling
awrāq
adhwāq
Eternity/Stillness
Rhythm
Motion
One sound
Rhmye
Many sounds
Being
Nothingness
Humanity
Spirit
Body
Dhikr
Hilya
The Arabic Qạsīdah
nasīb-amatory prelude; separation (farq), ạtlāl->Medina (inner landscape)
rahīl-desert journey; tarīqah
madīh-praise, request; union, haqīqah
Example: "Paris"
Her love came to me before I knew love
so it struck an empty heart and become lodged in it
His love came to me before I knew love
And I am burning in the fires of my longing for Ahmad
The Arabic panegyric genre potentially contains both a literary portrait of the patron and a poet’s self-portrait in one and the same ode: a double portrait. Portraiture is representation or description of a human subject, and it can be visual, verbal, or musical…. Portraits express an intended relationship between the portrait image and the human original. The portraitist plays an intermediary role between the human subject and his image. Although the professed purpose of the Arabic panegyric is to praise a patron—an Arab poet portrays the praised individual in the madīḥ section (and portrays himself in the nasīb, the raḥīl, and the madīḥ sections)—the qaṣidah …[is] a verbal portrait or self-portrait
“…the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature…within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional.”
-T.S. Eliot
“at the same time, the best Sufi authors draw near to each other, even merging, textually and authorially, due both to their joint proximity to a common Origin, and to their influence on each other, via the spiritual-social network linking them together.”
-Michael Frishkopf
'Alqama ibn 'Abada (~6th C)
Upon every quarter, you have bestowed blessings
and Shas is deserving of a share of your bounty
And so on every quarter, you have freely bestowed blessings
verily I am like Shas having desired a gift
Du'ā
If they were to depict me in reality, they would not see
Anyone, save that beloved in whom we take delight
-Ibrahim Niasse
Hyperintertexuality
Living Sources
Hyperintersubjectivity in Sufi Anthropology and Literature
Tirmidhī’s Shamā’il al-Muṣtafā:
“He was not too tall nor too short. He was of middle height. His hair was not short and tightly curled, nor was it lank, but in between. His face was not narrow, nor fully round, but there was a roundness to it. His skin was white with a reddish tint. His eyes were black, and he had long eyelashes. He was big-boned and had wide shoulders. He had no body hair except in the middle of his chest running down to his navel. The palms of his hands and soles of his feet were thick. When he walked, he walked as if he was descending a slope. When he looked at someone, he looked at them full in the face. Between his shoulders was the seal of prophecy, the sign that he was the last of the prophets. He was the most generous-hearted of people, the most truthful of them in speech, the gentlest of them in temperament, and the noblest of them in lineage. Whoever saw him unexpectedly was in awe of him. And whoever came to know him, loved him. Anyone who would describe him would say, ‘I never saw, before him or after him, the like of him.’ Peace be upon him.”
dreams within dreams,
ink, letters, words, sentences...
Microcosm
Macrocosm
Qasṭallānī’s Mawāhib al-Ladūniyya:
When God made the divine decree to bring creation into existence, He brought forth the Muhammadan reality from His Lights. He then drew from this reality all the worlds, upper and lower. God then informed our lord Muhammad of his Prophethood, while Adam was nothing but soul and body. Then from him gushed forth the springs of the souls, making him superior to all created things, and the greater father to all things in existence.
al-Hajj Mālik Sy, Khilās al-Dhahab:
How thunderous is the thunder and how the dove laments
In its cooing and a tear flows from the pen
For when God wished to create us
He took from His own light, the light of the distinguished prophet
The worlds, this highest of them and the lowest
Are rays shining forth from the best soul
God informed our guide of his prophecy
While Adam was between soul and breath
The springs of the spirits overflow from the light of guidance
for he is the highest archetype, the origin of humanity
The creation of the creatures and sending of the prophets were but a prelude
to his appearance so know this and do not sleep!
In the world of the senses (mulk), the spirits follow
the spirit and body of this ultimate nobility [the Prophet]
Before, he was hidden in veils
in which he was glorifying God ceaselessly
The full moon stood for eons in each veil
in order to worship our Lord tirelessly...
al-Haqq
Intersubjectivity and
Intertextuality in Sufi Cosmo-poetics
descent/unfolding
/elaboration/faỵd
ascent/return
/integration/fanā'
al-khalq
My praise of him is in silently bowing down my head
Not in what I can write down on paper
For what can I say, in praise of someone
Whom the Lord of the world has described as “the most exalted in character”!
Say whatever you want in praise of him, provided
That you describe him as a servant of the Creator
Say: His servant, His friend, His beloved
His pure one, the opener of all locks
The master of all noble messengers and the best from among them
He is the origin of all creatures, without exception
He is the handful of Divine light which from
the time before Adam has been distributing (God’s) sustenance
Everything, without exception, was brought into being from his light
The origin of all origins, the seal of those who have come before
He is the essence of the essence of the Truth, His talisman
And a succour for us, with his/His subtle assistance
He is His oil, His niche, His lamp
His glass, hidden from people’s eyes
He is His magnetic lodestone
Who attracts the hearts to the Presence of the Creator
The secret of theophany; the secret of the secret of his God
He is the secret of His Lord, the Uncreated, the Everlasting
He is the straight path, Muhammad
Who obliterates error through his radiant light.
-Abu Bakr 'Atīqu
O God, Blessings and peace be upon
our lord Muhammad the Opener
of what was locked and the Seal
of what came before, the Helper of
the Truth by the Truth and the Guide
to your straight path and upon
His family in accordance with right of his rank and tremendous degree
All of the affairs of creation are from that mighty affair
So my eye and my chest and my paper and my tongue
And my pens and my ink, all of me is in service of his remembrance
By the remembrance of the Messenger of God, I am exalted and elevated
-Ibrahim Niasse
The Burda
My two friends halt and alight at al-Muḥaṣṣab
And do not seek to turn away from its valley (khayf)
What a great honor to be chosen as a campsite by
The most deserving of God’s servants of glory and exaltation
A Prophet for whom the highest paradise was prepared
Amir Sulaiman
"Truth Is"
al-Fazāzī's 'Ishriniyyāt
Pre-Islamic/Non-Arabic Praise Traditions:
“Singer stop , do not waste your time
In singing the prasies of men
Sing the praises of the Prophet and be content"
-'Uthman dan Fodio
al-Yadālī's inspiration for his famous poem, Ko Yaro in Djenné
al-hājj 'Umar Tāl's ta'shīr : 3,000 line, Safīnat al-sa'āda li ahl ḍ̣u‘uf wa’l-najāda
(“The Vessel of Felicity for the Weak and Needy”)
Highest praise be to the Creator of the best of creation,
For sending him to us from amongst us while he had been
Elevated upon the throne, how great is the one who dwells so lofty
The most deserving of God’s servants of glory and exaltation
The beloved, by whom God gives and withholds
Blessings and peace of the Exalted upon the exalted,
The guardian of creation, the hero, since he is the most generous of protectors
Is he not the full moon, since the affair has become great beyond reckoning
The most perfect of creation in rank and a most dazzling torch.
A Prophet for whom the highest paradise was prepared
Sa'adī
Ibn al-Fārịd
Géwél (griot) genres of praise poetry
Black Atlantic Musical Genres:
Hip-Hop, Funk, Cuban, zouk, Brazilian, etc.
He attained eminence by his perfection
The darkness was lifted by his beauty
Lovely are all of his qualities
Blessings upon him and his family
Arabic and 'Ajami genres
of madīḥ poetry
I begin by mentioning God, praising him first
And I eulogize through the praise of God out of gratitude and exaltation
And I end my discourse with blessings for
I bless a blessing that fills the earth and sky
Upon he for whom the highest of heights is prepared
A prophet who has a home in the Holy Presence
Whose veils are the angels, while he is venerated
He came last in his mission, while he was yet first
He stands in a station not occupied by any messenger
The veils of glory were rent for him
We drank a wine, remembering the beloved
Which had made us drunk before the vine’s creation
Selected Lyrics
Chorus:
We’re praying to God, to be crazy for Baye
Niasse Coumba Abdallah.
I’ll be Baye your side.
Barham,
O perfect in lights and mysteries,
take me by the hand tomorrow
The sun of guidance rose over us,
the darkness was lifted by the one who was guided
Namely, the gallant, the exile, goal
He has attained the utmost
His is perfection, his is beauty
and the example to be followed
al-Baghdādī's Witriyyāt
Verse 2
You’re the souls and the places.
You’re skies and the earth and the seas.
You’re the spaces and the times.
You’re the master of the skies who brings the light
In the universe.
So Baye, be my love.
though I have followed you from beginningless eternity (Azal)
And the light, that lightning in the heaven, when the angels were glorifying Adam,
...
Your light was the one that was put with the father of all Muslims, and then the fire became cooolnes and peace to Ibrahim, and the light passed by Yunus to Yussuf, Idrissa, Harun, Musa, Nuh, Ayyub, Mariama the virgin to Isa, now that light moved to Makkatul Mukarrama and called itself Muhammad ibn Abdallah,
So the Muhammadan Reality is continued to soar over to Medina Baye and called itself Ibrahim ibn ‘Abdallah.
I got drunk on a wine whenever I began to sip it
I got drunk gleefully from you in the excess of its goodness
But this intoxication was before the vine or cosmos were
Nor was there even any wine, so woe to you if you drink it!
I died passionately in that wine, and they were amazed
By Barham, the servant of God, due to the excess of his love
I found my beloved after my death by his love
He is the beloved lover due to the excess of his intimacy
I sent my soul ahead as a petitioner, and it did not petition
Save that the Messenger and his party responded
So I become the pupil of the eyes and its essence
And I become a support for the non-Arab and his Arabs
My flood floods the sea and land alike
And I am the same as the Amir and his companion
My sanctity supreme I realized
For verily from me to me was what I traded to drink it
I am the soul and the horizons wherever you see them
You see me, for I am all from the presence of his Lord
-Ibrahim Niasse
Give me an excess of love for you and wonder
And have mercy on a heart scorched by a glance of your love
And if I ask to see you truly
Then allow me, graciously
And let not your answer be, “Thou shalt not see"
O heart, you have promised me to be patient in loving them
So be sure to bear it do not dismay
Passion is life, so die in it lovingly.
Your duty is to die and be absolved…
'Uthmān Dan Fodio's "'Ishriniyya"/Takhmīs al-hija'iyya:
O you for whom the highest of heights is prepared
O you for whom the veils of glory are rent
O you with a face brighter than the sun
I bring to you my problems, you are my refuge
Help me! Save me! Of that [deliverance], you are the source
The blessings of my Lord with His peace
upon my beloved, the best of creation
Clear and translucent, close by at hand
kind, affectionate, the lion of the gallant
Thus is the Hashimi prophet
Thus is the Exalted, the Guide, the Tihami*
Thus is the Elevated, saviour of the Invincible
Thus is the intercessor on the Day of Resurrection
The essence of Perfection, the essence of Beauty
The axis of Majesty, the axis of Nobility
The negator of error, the dispeller of shadows
The purity of water, for each who thirsts
Abundant in fine qualities, and in distinctions
Abundant in favors, his generosity is overflowing
the finest of qualities, the finest of men
the finest of deeds, the finest of names
the exalted light, exalted in honour
of exalted origin, of exalted station
The full moon of happiness, the fulfiller of promises
The fulfiller of covenants, the fulfiller of rights
The Axis of existence, the sufficiency of the travelers
who brings together the black and the doves
The guide of the servants, guide of the hands
Victor over enemies, victor over oppression/darkness
The tree trunks bend, the rain gushes forth
when he points to the clouds
The signs/verses of ṬaHa are unsurpassed in beauty
and never, ever come to an end
O how time has become fragrant and overflowing with perfume
and the loft of pigeons coo
My heart is in his hands, my longing is for him
Give as alms unto him, the purest salutations of peace
Upon the Imam, the highest of mankind
increase the blessings of peace from The Peace
I, in order to praise the best of servants
can only hope for help from his greatness
O you who granted to him what you granted to him
then purified him, grant me my wishes:
Lord, efface from me, all my evil
For I take refuge in Thee
Diminsh my sin and revive my heart
for you are my Lord, who brings to life dead bones
Cover my sins and veil my faults
Remove my troubles and forgive my sins
Fulfill our hopes in you graciously
Forgive tenderly, by this Imam
He takes on our trials, O abundant of gifts,
open for us, the ways of peace
Provide for us, O creator of the creatures
at the moment of death, a beautiful end.