Poetry is one of oldest languages known to man. So much can be expressed with few words – that is the power of poetry. From ancient Egypt to early Greek and Roman times, poetry has been used as a way of remembering oral history, genealogy, and even law.
Poetry, and discussions of it, has a long history, Aristotle’s Poetics, focused on the use of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy.
Known as jaahili poetry, the pre-Islamic era in Arabia was known for its love for poetry as an art form that distinguished a man for his eloquence (faseeh) and of course as a form of entertainment. The Prophet is known to have loved poetry and has even encouraged the use of it to propagate his message. For example, Prophet Muhammad tells us: “God is beautiful and He loves beauty.” Poetry is that expression of beauty – appreciating and loving God’s creation. Indeed, as the Prophet taught his companions – “In some poetry there is wisdom.”
Amr ibn al-Sharid tells us more: “I was riding behind the Prophet on the same mount when the Prophet asked me: ‘Do you memorize any poetry by Umayyah ibn Abi al-Salt?’ When I answered in the affirmative, he asked me to recite. I quoted one line, and he asked for more. He kept asking for more until I had recited one hundred lines.” (Related by Muslim, Ahmad, Tirmidhi and Bukhari in Al-Adab al-Mufrad.)
Islamic traditions have a long history of Muslim theologians combining their expertise in the Islamic sciences and simultaneously being literary geniuses – writing many verses of poetry. Even Arab grammarians are known to have used poetry to write rules of grammar – one of the most famous is the Aajrumiyyah.
Jalaluddin Rumi (d 1270) is well known for his Mathnawi which consist of about 27,000 couplets – the largest poem about spirituality ever written. Muhammad Iqbal (d 1938) – whose poetry in Urdu, Arabic and Persian is considered to be among the greatest of the modern era, and whose vision of an independent state for Muslims of British India was to inspire the creation of Pakistan.
With our often reactionary discourses of the last century, characterised by a focus on law, preserving culture from others, we seem to have had very little time for culture and creativity.
So it was refreshing then to read in Shaykh Akram Nadwi’s Madrasa Life: ‘Every morning after reciting Qur’an I read the poetical works of Hafiz, Rumi or Iqbal’.
Shaykh Akram’s one day in the madrasa life in the famous Nadwatul Ulama in Lucknow, India, seems to be full of poetry with one poem after another is repeated. Here is a couplet that is very interesting:
‘Have the poets forsaken the ruins
Or do you know home only after imagining it?’
What is the effect of such poetry? The shaykh gives us an example of the effect of one of the poets:
‘Hafiz’z couplets struck a chord in my heart, inspiring love for God in me. His couplets cast such a spell on me, that I felt compelled to continue enjoying this Divine taste’.
So we end with this poem called The Child’s Invocation (Bachaey ki duaa), hoping it too will inspire creativity and a love of the Divine which poetry truly is able to express:
My longing comes to my lips as supplication of mine
O God! May like the candle be the life of mine!
May the world’s darkness disappear through the life of mine!
May every place light up with the sparkling light of mine!
May my homeland through me attain elegance
As the garden through flowers attains elegance
May my life like that of the moth be, O Lord!
May I love the lamp of knowledge, O Lord!
May supportive of the poor my life’s way be
May loving the old, the suffering my way be
O God! Protect me from the evil ways
Show me the path leading to the good ways
A brilliant article, mashaAllah. Poetry has a way of speaking to what is spiritual in man and conveying a meaning far deeper than prose with the fewest of words. I particularly appreciated Sh Akram’s Madrasah Life for its inclusion of poetry; it really helps us to appreciate (and perhaps share) the spiritual element of his experiences.