The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-YezdîBurton, Richard Francis, Sir
Philosophy
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
English poetry -- 19th century
Here Wine is used in its mystic sense of entranced Love for the
Soul of Souls. Umar was hated and feared because he spoke boldly
when his brethren the Soofis dealt in innuendoes. A third
quotation has been trained into a likeness of the Hymn of Life,
despite the commonplace and the _navrante vulgarité_ which
characterize the pseudo-Schiller-Anglo-American School. The same
has been done to the words of Isâ (Jesus); for the author, who is
well-read in the Ingîl (Evangel), evidently intended the
allusion. Mansur el-Hallâj (the Cotton-Cleaner) was stoned for
crudely uttering the Pantheistic dogma _Ana l Hakk_ (I am the
Truth, _i.e._, God), _wa laysa fi-jubbatî il Allah_ (and within
my coat is nought but God). His blood traced on the ground the
first-quoted sentence. Lastly, there is a quotation from
Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, etc.: here {Greek: paîze}
may mean sport; but the context determines the kind of sport
intended. The Zâhid is the literal believer in the letter of the
Law, opposed to the Soofi, who believes in its spirit: hence the
former is called a Zâhiri (outsider), and the latter a Bâtini, an
insider. Moses is quoted because he ignored future rewards and
punishments. As regards the two Eternities, Persian and Arab
metaphysicians split Eternity, _i.e._, the negation of Time, into
two halves, _Azal_ (beginninglessness) and _Abad_ (endlessness);
both being mere words, gatherings of letters with a subjective
significance. In English we use Eternal (_Æviternus_, age-long,
life-long) as loosely, by applying it to three distinct ideas;
(1) the habitual, in popular parlance; (2) the exempt from
duration; and (3) the everlasting, which embraces all duration.
Omniscience-Maker is the old Roman sceptics _Homo fecit Deos_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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