Lamentations

Because the path of love is so narrow
Not at peace with ourselves, nor in fight with others
It is a place of infamy and honor
On the path of love, belief and disbelief same color

Concept: Path of love is narrow so things get trapped there. All things must go through the passage of love carved by the Sultan of Love and in this narrow road war and peace trapped… honor and infamy stuck… belief (Iman) and disbelief (Kofor) lumped together!? It is the gravity of love that pulls two things together, be it a man towards honor or infamy, love of something caused the man to be honorable or wicked. It is the pulling force of love that attracts a heart towards belief and same love attracts the heart to disbelief. Allah has sprinkled this universe with love and this love is the superglue that holds all things, seen or unseen, together firmly. Sufi does not classify love, Sufi just says 'love' and it comes from the Creator and all things begin and end with the love of Allah.


Where I find You on the edge of a blade
Casting life towards it, hurrying with love’s haste
Though to remove the face from the blade inclined
The slaughter of this one, is to uncover a thousand lives

Concept: Sanaa-ee sees the Creator as though on the edge of a sharp sword. He rushes towards Allah as if throwing himself on the blade in haste. Although his mind tells him to turn away, his heart tells him this slaughter better than a thousand lives. The pain and fear felt when one departs his heart from this life and rushes towards the Creator is as above.


The One whose mention drives me to do good
However, lives with the enemy in the same skin
If It loves my enemy just the same
This is my bad fortune, not Its betrayal

Concept: We love Allah and we wish to please The Excellency and Its name drives us to worships and acts of charities but we find Allah blessing our enemies as well! Allah feeds them, rains upon them, clothes them and gives them health just the same!? Sanaa-ee uncovers a gem: “It is my lack of luck in my mind if I find Allah to bless the enemy, but in reality Allah broke no promise and did not betray me”. Be not arrogant, Allah is for everyone friend or foe.


The light that I cannot fist to grasp
The fire that I cannot even touch with the hand
The destiny that bears heavy upon this miserable man
The bad luck that upon seeing You, suddenly turning Your back

Concept: Sufi struggles hard to see the Creator and like fisting the light it is impossible. Or like holding the fire on the hand, unbearable and one has to let go of it quickly. So this is the destiny for us miserable men who cannot behold Allah. And when we are about to behold The Excellency, Allah turns It back to us, because we are unworthy. Such is our fate as miserable men.


Your existence entitles you to hundreds of toils
Whomsoever has ever advised you these many facts?
Cease to seek, yearn and exist
Be calm since you are above a treasure asleep

Concept: Man’s existence is nothing except toiling and suffering. Sanaa-ee considers this as such a terrific and comprehensive advice! Man has to grasp the fact that all things in his life are surrounded by hardship stomachs pains with hunger, lips parched with thirst, head hurts with stress, child is born with pain, life ends in agony. He advises us to stop seeking and desiring and being! Because if we can manage to stand still, we find that our heart is like a sleeper on top of a treasure. But running after the seeking and yearning of this world and preoccupation with existence, wakes us up, just makes us a man running far away from the treasure.

An affair that is not Your affair shall never commence
Wealth and land total loss at Your hearth
My face dyed with Your melancholy gold
Your loss has set ablaze flames on this bush

Concept: face colored like gold is about being jaundiced due to excessive crying and sadness. To Sanaa-ee that is the color of gold. ‘this bush’ is similar to the bush that was burning for Prophet Moses, and this bush is the man himself and the flames are the loss of being thrown away from the Creator. So Sanaa-ee is the Moses and the bush set ablaze at the same time. 


Background: Werner Heisenber

© 2003-2002,  Dara Shayda