Persian to English translation of the poems composed by Imam Khomeini, from 1986-1989, by Dr Muhammad Legenhausen is an illuminating discovery to the English-speaking world.  The expression of emotions, mysticism and overflowing imagination in the poems demystifies all the preconceived notions about an iconic figure of the twentieth century, who is mistaken as a philistine person.

By translating eight of the many poems from Persian to English (ghazals) composed by Imam Khomeini (1902-1989) the translator’s desire is to reinterpret the popular image of a man who is known to the world as the leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979), a profound modern Islamic leader, and a religious zealot by many.

In the translator’s foreword Dr Muhammad Legenhausen cautions the readers in the very beginning that in order to understand the poetry of Imam Khomeini, one must be acquainted with the compositions of the fourteenth-century Persian bard, Hafez. The translator acknowledges in his foreword that not all spontaneity and fluidity of songs in Persian can be reproduced in English, that it is just an endeavour to avoid all interpolation while maintaining intelligibility across cultures, without being dull. He avoids word-by-word translation rather he attempts idea-to-idea translation of the poems. The reader is informed in the preface that the titles of the poems are not original and they are translated from Persian titles given to the poem by the Institute for the Compilation and Publication of the Works of Imam Khomeini (Iran).

* Click to Follow Voice of Ladakh on WhatsApp *

The title of the book Jug of Love is carefully chosen considering ‘Jug’ and ‘Cup’ have widely been used in mystical poetry as objects symbolizing the desire for being lost (read Hafez, Maulana Rumi). But the love in which Hazrat Imam Khomeini is lost is the love with which he is able to ward off his fears, apprehensions and deficiencies which act as hindrances to the reunion with his beloved.

Mysticism is the leitmotif in the selected poems. The book opens with the poem where the poet is renouncing the company of the hypocritical dervishes (priests) who spend their whole life inside the monastery without understanding God in the true sense. The poet is yearning for the wine of true love, which he fails to find in the books of the seminary, and inside the mosque thus criticizing the superficial understanding of religion by people. The poet believes that union is not possible with the Beloved as long as we try to find Him using our scientific temper. The unison is only possible when one becomes intoxicated with the divine wine of love and forgets his own identity and existence, which is purely a mystical thought.

The ‘we’ and ‘I’ of the intellect are a halter.

There is neither ‘I’ nor ‘we’ in the retreat of the drunkards.

The poems, which follow, carry forward the idea of talking about the pain of the separation of a lover from his Beloved.  The ecstasy of divine love, the madness of the divine experience, and the drunkenness of this heart-lost lover offer readers a new insight and shatters down all the misconceptions and epithets related to the poet. While reading the poems the true nature of the poet is revealed to us.  The poet is no longer a theologian, reformist or political leader but has metamorphosed into a qalandar, a mystic. This mystic lover asks us to shun the robe of pretence and hypocrisy because in the station of love, fallacy has no way. While reading the poems it seems that, the poet is inviting us for a mystical journey with him, the final destination being in the arms of his Beloved. The poet is yearning for once glance (nigah-e-karam) from the Beloved and says that neither the sheikh nor the seminary can quench his thirst or cure his disease. He compares himself to a moth circling around the lamp, a rouge who is waiting at the gates of the tavern to quench his thirst with just a drop of divine wine, a drop that will become a sea.

With just one glance from her, maybe, a drop will yet become a sea.

The poet rejects the shallow world and apparent knowledge of the religion and calls us to do the same. He becomes the tavern’s pir intoxicated with the wine offered by the bartender from the goblet. In the end, he bids farewell to the world and tells us that though the world considered him a lunatic, but he knows that his end was good.  Stripped of his individuality, in the end he becomes one with the Real Being. Hence, God reveals Himself in every union of the loving souls.

References from the holy Koran, history is made very often as well as the influence of Hafez is prominent if a reader is acquainted with his works. The language is evocative, phrases used by mystic poets like ”O you saqi” used in the poetry of Hafez with interjection to ”O You” is one which occurs in numerous places in the Koran has been borrowed and employed by Imam Khomeini. Use of symbols like the jug, moth, desert, goblet as well as similes and metaphor are in abundant. The imagination of the poet is romantic and overflowing, expressions of his emotions are apt. However, the idea sometimes becomes repetitive but one cannot deny the air of mysticism, supernatural and metaphysical which we breathe while reading the poems.

The theme is very contemporary, castigating hypocritical observance of the superficial forms of religion without an inner spirit. A reader who loves poetry, have read mystics like Meera and Kabir, romantics like John Keats and Byron, or oriental bards like Maulana Rumi or Hafez mystify them with a spontaneous overflow of emotions, can bond and relate with the poems and feel the same kind of pleasure and pain like the poet does. The translation is commendable because the idea is conveyed in a lucid manner; collection of these promethean poems is a personal confession of emotions of an influential figure who has always been misunderstood by history. This collection of poetry is recommended for people who have a romantic temper.