O! Pain and again a thousand pain, O! pain
I have no news of morrow for sure
Tomorrow when I become estranged from Self and others
My Lord have mercy upon I, And leave me not aloof

Concept: The last verse of this poem is fully in Arabic which are taken from Koran [21:89], where Zakariah the caretaker of Virgin Mary, prays invocations in the silence of a temple and asks for a son (John/Yahyaa) to inherit the management of the temple so the people will not be lost to evil doers and negligence. Jaami, as a tradition left from Koran, verbatim prays on the tongue of past pious men by using the exact words to ask Allah not to leave him singular or aloof in the day of judgment i.e. without any help from Allah or without his loved ones. 






Sometimes wine and sometimes goblet we call upon You
Sometimes seeds and sometimes the trap we call upon You
Other than your name, no other words upon the tablet of cosmos
Wondering, with which name we should call upon You


There is not one particle of cosmos in existence
That inside has no lustrous flash of Yours
Yesterday other than You, I beseeched
But today, other than You, not a trace

Concept: All objects in the universe first we seek and then we find, except the Creator, first we find (the moment of our creation) and then we seek (to gain proximity and sense the beauty and fall in love). Jaami is making a confession: All my life I was looking for other than you and all found was You in every particle of the universe. Today (that I am wiser) I find no one else and no matter what I seek, I only find You!?


Every vision that has seen Your beauty
Crying blood ever since away from You afar
I am amazed living life without You
Bewilderment of the one who saw Your Face but living afar

Concept: Jaami is bewildered: How can I live knowing that I saw You, though I hardly recall, and how can I live knowing You are the Creator but I can not see You so afar.


One half of the life wasted in idling
The other half in urgencies and shame
A life each moment worthy of a universe
Behold! With what trickery and state it passed

Jaami spent a life dealing with people
From that gained nothing but a passing gale
Aloof from all things now sitting on top of a treasure
Escaped from friendship and enmity of all people

Heart has been stabbed hundred times with Your guilt
Hundred lesions to afterlife it casts off
In Your covenant anyone seeking peace and health
The day you were begot the peace and health expired

Concept: Jaami narrates a LAW of universe: When you were born all peace and health expired. If your heart is broken, it is because you are the slave of your Creator and shall be returned to The Excellency wounded bleeding near exhaustion. If you suspect that a better life can be possible, then you are fooling yourself. Just like the gravity is the law of bodies in motion, such is the law of mankind living.


The ever-blooming orchards of grace, the spoken words
Introduction to the Divan of knowledge, the spoken words
The secrets even the holy ones forbidden from
On the tip of the tongue of Aref placed, the spoken words

Concept: Ar-Rahman the Creator taught man personally how to speak. This form and act of speech is unique to man and Jaami narrates the spoken words are the conduit for an Aref to his Lord. Aref is an Alem (knowledgeable scholar) who has been given knowledge by Allah as a gift, and this knowledge was not learnt from books, classes or thinking. I suspect that third verse is related to Koran Al-Baqara (The Cow) [2:30]. This is when Allah created the human being and angels (the holy ones) questioned Allah: why created someone who is corrupt and violent? Allah responded by a test. When angels were asked to disclose names of things or certain knowledge of things and they could not and Man was able to name/describe those knowledge and thus Allah proved to angels the superiority of the creation of Man. Therefore, the ability for Man to disclose in spoken words is a terrific conduit to supreme knowledge often not known to himself a second before, the ever-blooming grace of Allah upon mankind. Divan means an official book of records normally refered to books of poetry.



© 2003-2002,  Dara Shayda