The Spirit of Nasir-i Khusrau Alavi Appears, Sings an Inebriated Ghazal, and Vanishes

Once you have taken the sword in your hand and grasped the pen do not grieve if your body’s steed be lame or halt:

Virtue is born of the edge of the sword, and the point of the pen, my brother, as light from fire, and fire from narvan-tree.

Know, that to the faithless, both sword and pen are without virtue; when faith is not; reed and steel have no worth.

Faith is precious to the wise, and to the ignorant it is contemptible; before the ignorant, faith is like jasmine before a cow.

Faith is like fine linen, of which one half makes a shirt for Elias, and the other half a shroud for a Jew.

That youth who created dominions, then fled back to his mountains and deserts,

Kindled a fire on his mountain-peaks - did he emerge of fine assay, or was he utterly consumed?

Whilst other nations are eager in brotherhood, with him brother is at war against brother.

From his life the life of the whole East derives; his ten-year-old child is a leader of armies.

Yet ignorantly he has broken himself from himself, not recognizing his own potentialities.

He possesses a heart, and is unaware of that heart; body is parted from body, heart from heart;

A traveller, he has lost the road to the good, his soul is unconscious of its true purposes.

Finely sang that poet familiar with Afghan, who proclaimed fearlessly what he saw,

That sage of the Afghan nation, that physician of the sickness of the Afghans;

He saw the people’s secret, and boldly uttered the word of truth with a drunkard’s recklessness:

‘If a free Afghan should find a camel richly caparisoned and loaded with pearls,

His mean spirit, with all that load of pearls, is only delighted with the camel \-bell.’

In our nature, fever and ardour spring from the heart; waking and slumber possess the body from the heart.

When the heart dies, the body is transformed: when the heart vies for glory, the sweat turns to blood.

The body is nothing, nothing, when the heart is corrupt; so fix your eyes on the heart, and be attached to naught else.

Asia is a form cast of water and clay; in that form the Afghan nation is the heart;

If it is corrupt, all Asia is corrupt, if it is dilated, all Asia is dilated.

So long as the heart is free, the body is free; else, the body is a straw in the path of the wind.

Like the body, the heart too is bound by laws – the heart dies of hatred, lives of faith.

The power of faith derives from unity; when unity becomes visible, it is a nation.

Imitation of the West seduces the East from itself; these peoples have need to criticize the West.

The power of the West comes not from lute and rebeck, not from the dancing of unveiled girls,

Not from the magic of tulip-cheeked enchantresses, not from naked legs and bobbed hair;

Its solidity springs not from irreligion; its glory derives not from the Latin script.

The power of the West comes from science and technology, and with that selfsame flame its lamp is bright.

Wisdom derives not from the cut and trim of clothes; the turban is no impediment to science and technology.

For science and technology, elegant young sprig, brains are necessary, not European clothes;

On this road only keen sight is required, what is needed is not this or that kind of hat.

If you have a nimble intellect, that is sufficient; if you have a perceptive mind, that is sufficient.

If anyone burns the midnight oil he will find the track of science and technology.

None has fixed the bounds of the realm of meaning which is not attained without incessant effort.

The Turks have departed from their own selves, drunk with Europe, having quaffed honeyed poison from the hand of Europe;

Of those who have abandoned the antidote of Iraq what shall I say, except ‘God help them’?

The slave of Europe, eager to show off, borrows from the Westerners their music and dances;

He gambles away his precious soul for frivolity – science is a hard quest, so he makes do with fun.

Being slothful, he takes the easy way; his nature readily accepts the easy alternative.

To seek for ease in this ancient convent proves that the soul has gone out of the body.

Do you know what European culture is? In its world are two hundred paradises of colour;

Its dazzling shows have burned down abodes, consumed with fire branch, leaf and nest.

Its exterior is shining and captivating but its heart is weak, a slave to the gaze;

The eye beholds, the heart staggers within and falls headlong before this idol-temple.

No man knows what the East’s destiny may be; what is to be done with the heart bound to the exterior?

What is able to control the East’s destiny is the unbending resolve of Pahlavi and Nadir:

Pahlavi, that heir to the throne of Qubad whose nail has resolved the knot of Iran,

And Nadir, that sum-capital of the Durranis who has given order to the Afghan nation.

Distressed on account of the Faith and Fatherland his armies came forth from the mountains:

At once soldier, officer and Emir; steel with his enemies, silk with his friends;

Let me be ransom for him who has seen his self and has weighed well the present age!

The Westerners can have their magic tricks; to rely on other than oneself is infidelity.

The Martyr – King Speak again of the Indians and of India – one blade of her grass no garden can outmatch;

Speak of her in whose mosques the tumult has died, of her in whose temples the fire is quenched,

Of her for whose sake I gave my blood, whose memory I have nursed in my soul.

From my grief you may guess at her grief; alas, for the beloved who knows no more the lover!

The Indians reject the statutes of Europe; they are immune to Europe’s magic charms;

Alien laws are a heavy burden on the soul even though they descend from heaven itself.

The Martyr – King How man grows from a handful of dust with a heart, and with desire in that heart!

His concern is to taste the delight of rebellion, not to behold anything but himself;

For without rebellion the self is unattainable, and while the self is not attained, defeat is inevitable.

You have visited my city and my land; you have rubbed your eyes upon my tomb;

You who know the limits of all creation, in Deccan have you seen any trace of life?

I scattered the seeds of my tears in Deccan; tulips are growing from the soil of that garden;

The river Cauvery unceasing on its journey - in its soul I have beheld a new commotion.

The Martyr – King You who have been endowed with heart-illumining words, I burn still with the fever of your tears.

The incessant digging of the nails of the initiates has opened a river of blood from the veins of the lute.

That melody which issues out of your soul imparts to every breast an inward fire.

I was in the presence of the Lord of All, without whom no path can be traversed;

Though there none may dare to speak, and the spirit’s only occupation is to behold,

I was afire with the ardour of your verses and some of your thoughts came on my tongue.

He said, ‘Whose is this verse which you recited? In it pulses the true vibration of life’.

With the same ardour, congenial to the soul, convey from me one or two words to the Cauvery.

You, Zinda-Rud, ‘living stream’, he too a living stream – sweeter sounds melody interwoven with melody.