Few Words About Love [1]


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From me shall come no other words, better than love!
As long as I live no other purpose, other than love!

Cosmos found no Mihrab[2], other than love!
Universe billows on no shores, other than love!

Be the slave of love, this is the earnest way
For all wise men, this is their precious trade

Universe is solely love and all else deceit and lies
Everything childish games except being in passionate love

If this world was completely void of love
Then who could have possibly been left alive?

Melancholy crushes once love has left
Loveless, though with hundred lives, all is dead

If the enchantments of love, not intoxicate
No escape from bondage of “your self”

Content be not like a mule to graze and sleep
If you are a cat, bring its love within

You can victor, though with cat’s love alone
Powerful you are, far better than a lion

No seed shall grow except with love!
No refuge except in sanctuary of love!

What is more precious than burning flames of love?
Without which, no smiling blossoms, no sobbing clouds?

I heard the drunkenness tale of a mad lover
Beginning of the idol-worshipper’s sad legend

Those very same disbelievers sitting in fire of hell
They loved the sun, hence worshipping the luster of flames

Behold not into the heart, it is the sultan of life!
Step not into the love, it is the essence of life!

It does talk both about Qiblah [3] and Laat [4]
Its melancholy slithers both around Kaabah [3.5] and bars

If love was to fall on bosoms of rocks
The lovers clutch the jewels amongst

If magnetism was not in love forever[5]
No desire to pull the iron as lover

If there was no love in movement’s ways
Amber would not have pulled, inward, the hay!

So many rocks so many jewels in existence
But not all pull the iron or the hay persistent

There are countless thousands of jewels
To their midst something or the other they pull

If fire rages trapped beneath the earth
It would crack the ground, gushing out ablaze

If a cloud remains above for too long
Desire of nature of its pull, rains it towards the ground

Nature of all things is nothing except pulling on each other
And sages call this pulling on one another:
                        “LOVE”

If you muse so carefully, you could see clear
It is love that has kept the universe together

If the heavens were emancipated from love
Would this earth have flourished with life?

I found myself truly dead without love
So sold [6] my heart and bought some lover’s life

Plumes of love’s smoke covered like dusk the Horizons [7]
My sleepy eyes let my wisdom awakened sober arise

Tightened the belt of love for this tale
Singing [8] aloud the songs of love in universe

I hope you are not to benefit miserly from these words
Or considering them verses of mere rhythmic poems

Goodness came of out me, though the critics may write vile
They scribble their own sins, while that is the reward for mine




[1] This is the introduction to the book Nezami wrote called Khosrow and Shirin which is similar tale to Romeo and Juliet. This book was commissioned by Abu-Talib Toqrol Bin Arsalaan The Saljuqi king whom lived around 900 years ago.


[2] Private chambers or room for worship original Arabic word from Koran 

[3] Arabic word to mean a fixed direction to face while in prayers used in Koran for both Jews and Muslims.

[3.5] Kaabah in Arabic means the cube, which is the name of the cubed shaped building in Makkah that is the Qiblah or the direction for prayers for all Muslims. Nezaami says that it’s the love that attracts people and makes them travel miles upon miles to the pilgrimage of Kabaah and again is the love that makes people walk towards the vices in life. Love, like other things in our lives, either is used or abused. This function or ability to manipulate love either for loving or abusing is perhaps the most fundamental attribute of human beings that separates them from all other creatures in the universe.

[4] Laat the name of an ancient Arabian idol , Koran Chapter An-Najm (The Star) [53:19]

[5] IIt is the gravity and pull of love that is the nature of love, which glues the universe together for all forms and shapes. There is a most unique pulling force in existence, though like magnetism we cannot behold, but it is as real as anything we can fathom. What Nezaami teaches us is beyond belief: All things are put together via love, all love are from the same origin even though the manifestation and form varies. If you perceive different types of love e.g. mother child or man woman… then you are mislead and that is not love. If you see one unique force enveloping all things with absolute and eternal pull then you behold love.

[6] This is a Koranic concept to sell one’s self to the Creator in return for true life/living filled with loving affection. Koran Chapter Al_Baqara (The Cow) [2:207]


[7] Afaaq was the name of the beloved wife of Nezaami, which in Arabic means the Horizons in plural form. I decided to make the ‘h’ capital so that it would refer to his wife to remind the reader of Nezaami's love for her which modeled most of the story the book was written about. The reference to the sleepy eyes is this: The plumes of smoke made the horizons dark like in night, so he is falling asleep i.e. his eyes closing to the false pleasures of this world but awakens the wisdom that was previously asleep.


[8] The Farsi or Arabic word used is ‘Salaa’. Salaa in Arabic means to pray or send one’s blessings directed towards another, similarly in Farsi it means to sing it out aloud to attract attention to the call. 





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