Religion of Love - by Ibn al-‘Arabi - now this is some real Arabic
لقد صار قلبي قابلاً كل صورة * فمرعى لغزلان ودير لرهبانِ
وبيت لأوثان وكعبة طايف * وألواح تورات ومصحف قرآنِ
أدين بدين الحب أنّا توجهت * ركايبه فالدين ديني وإيماني
My heart has become capable of every form:
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
And a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Ka‘bah
and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Qur’an.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love's camels take,
that is my religion and my faith.
la-qad sara qalbi qabilan kulla surah
fa-mar‘an li-ghizlanin wa-dayrun li-ruhbani
wa-baytun li-awthanin wa-ka‘batu tayif
wa-alwahu tawratin wa-mus-hafu qur’ani
adinu bi-din al-hubbi anna tawajjahat
rakayibuhu fa-al-dinu dini wa-imani
--lines 13-15 from Ghazal 11 in Tarjuman al-ashwaq by Muhyi al-Din ibn al-‘Arabi (1164-1240), a Spanish Arab Sufi whose three spiritual guides were all women.
The first spiritual focus he mentions, before all the religions, is the "gazelles." In Arabic poetry that refers to women. Comparing his heart to a "pasture" for them means it's a place of safety and nurturance for women. Sisters, don't you wish there were more men like this?! The third spiritual focus he invokes, even before he gets to Islam, is Paganism. Please take note of this opening, I hope to see Islam-Pagan dialogue happening in my lifetime, and this poem would be a great place to start.
Ironically, the shadow that was cast over my life for 20 years happened in part through my interest in the Arabic language. But that's too long a story to go into here. Anyway, this is part of my process of maturing as a spiritual woman, reflecting back on what I found of lasting value in those years. Reflecting that as I emerged from the shadow into my present blessed life, my use of the Arabic language has continued, and it feels good to have some continuity extending through my years. In particular, I revisited this poem two years ago, when I had just re-emerged from the shadow and was beginning to face a new life. That's when I wrote the following commentary on those lines--
The white light shining through colored glass takes on its color. Anyone receiving this light transmitted through glass of a given color would receive the light along with the added coloration. But sometimes, when a light shines especially bright, it overpowers the local glass coloration and is seen on the other side as still white, therefore containing all colors, by virtue of its great brightness.
And people everywhere can see the clear white light, no matter what their local coloration. These lines of poetry in particular express how I experience the diversity of world religions in my own heart. I hear an echo of these famous lines in the modern Tajik poem by Zulfiya Atoi when she invokes "Love--humanity's religion."
Apart from the fundamentalism of today tearing everything up, Islam (in the form of Sufism) has been contributing these ideas of universal love, accepting all religions, for many centuries. As far as I've been able to find out, Sufism was the first to introduce these ideas to the world's religious discourse. Nowadays the popular image of Islam being the worst enemy of this spirit strikes me as an unutterably profound tragedy.
يُوَنّا-هيپاتيا كيبيليا