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Qasidah burdah translation
Qasidah burdah translation







So what is wrong with your eyes: when you say “Stop!” they just weep?Īnd with your heart: when you say, “Be sane!” it acts crazily? Or blowing of wind from the direction of KazimahĪnd lightning flashing from Idum in the dark that you see? Wa-awmadal barqu fizh zhalmaa-i min -idami Am habbatir riHu min tilqaa-i kaazhimatin That you have mixed blood in tears that flow from eyes steadily? Is it from thinking of neighbours past in Dhu Selemi Mazajta dam’an jaraa min muqlatin bi dami Words can be and are both – and the Burda is both brilliantly.On Words of Love and the Intense Suffering of Passion (English Translation courtesy of – The Burdah (The Singable Translation) by Mostafa Azzam) The sheer variety of musical styles of the Burda serve as a perfect example of how Eastern poetry belies the Western dichotomy of poetry versus song. You can find that version on YouTube and you should.

qasidah burdah translation

The first I read was by the American scholar Hamza Yusuf, in a beautifully produced little hardback accompanying a CD set by the Fez Singers. Fear not, translations of the poem that retain historical references and religious context are easy to find. My translation of the first chapter remains quite faithful to the language but less so to the religious elements – you could say I’m following a Western tradition of mangling Sufi poems by stripping them entirely of Islamic context. I left the Sufi order, am entirely estranged from devotional practices and quite comfortable in a marriage of convenience with religion now, but the sometimes joyful, sometimes haunting renditions of the poem, its music and magic, have stayed with me and never fail to move me. It’s recited regularly the world over by millions of people, out of spiritual devotion, as an oLering of praise but also out of love. Mystical visions aside, on a purely worldly level, if any poem could be said to be alive, particularly in the hearts of common men and women, it is the Burda. He saw a vision of the Prophet Muhammad, who was pleased with it – helping complete a hemistich in the third chapter – and placed his cloak over the Imam as a sign of acceptance. The story goes that the Sufi mystic Imam Busiri became paralysed and composed the poem as a means of intercession. ‘Qasida Burda’, or ‘The Poem of the Cloak’, is an honorific title the poem gained through the lore surrounding it. I’m old enough to know better but still didn’t heedįor years, while a disciple in a Sufi order, I recited ‘Qasida Burda’ so often I committed much of its ten chapters to memory, even though they’re in a language I don’t speak but know, in the way many Muslims of South Asian heritage come to know Arabic – enough to read its script and puzzle out some meaning. You know a bereft lover is to logic like a sieve. I can’t bear to hear any good advice you’ve come to give, I hope you’re spared from ever feeling this transparentĪnd exposed to critics – ailed and afflicted with lament.

qasidah burdah translation qasidah burdah translation

O my friend, reproachful of debilitating love: I’m sorry.īut if you’re fair, don’t be too harsh in blaming me. Love extinguishes brief pleasures with enduring grief. Yes, spectral visions of my beloved still rob me of sleep Tinged red like crushed berries your yellow asters streak. The proof is in lines etched along the curve of each cheek How can you deny love with these witnesses against you –Īnguish that’s left you sick, tears you can’t see through? Leaves you sleepless thinking of the willow on the mountain face.

qasidah burdah translation

Passion has you weep at every meagre shadowy trace, Your hands say stop and stem the flow your eyes keep pouring outĪnd you urge your heart to wake up but it refuses to turn about.ĭo you think one gushing with love can hide their desiresīetween the mist of its tears and the smoke of its fires? You see illuminate the mountain near his city where you’d hike? Or is it cool levanters blowing into them? Or the lightning strike Do memories of who was by your side between the two sanctuariesĬause claret-tinted tears to make your eyes this blurry?









Qasidah burdah translation