February 17, 2010
The poetry of Ayatollah Khomeini
Daniel Kalder in the Books Blog of The Guardian:
This was what I was really interested in – something that would reveal a side of Khomeini unknown to those of us in the west; a more tender aspect of the bearded, reactionary theocrat.
And what a poem! If the first two lines are startling:
I have become imprisoned, O beloved, by the mole on your lip!
I saw your ailing eyes and became ill through love.Then what follows a few lines down is absolutely amazing:
Open the door of the tavern and let us go there day and night,
For I am sick and tired of the mosque and seminary.The whole thing ends with a repudiation of Islam in favour of the "tavern's idol".
Even allowing for the fact that the Ayatollah is utilising a poetic persona, the poem is remarkable: free thinking, even heretical.
More here.
Posted by Abbas Raza at 08:02 AM | Permalink
Comments
For some reason this reminds me of the political front persona of so many U.S. politicians who "do their poetry" when they get into office.
Book poetry and politics make strange duplicities.
Posted by: Dredd | Feb 17, 2010 8:38:19 AM
Wasn't Radovan Karadzic a poet too?
Posted by: Bryon | Feb 17, 2010 10:57:13 AM
Well, it's good to know the Ayatollah Khomeini wrote verse. It may suggest he had a private side bereft of those famous murderous certainties.
I have a problem, however, with the tone this writer takes in his remark that, in this sort of verse, "everything is really about something else. Bummer."
Oh, yeah? What bummer is this? Since last year this time, when Azra Raza and Sara Suleri published their fantastic book on the ghazals of Mirza Ghalib, I have been reading lots of pertinent Urdu and Persian poetry -- in translation, alas. If I had my life to do over again, I would start learning Urdu and Persian, immediately, the better to wrap my mind and heart around this stuff. You may be sure, when a Muslim cleric writes poetry in which he displays a yearning for "a tavern," it's code. As I understand it, it is a longing for direct knowledge of God, for the reason-shattering quality of that experience, for the true journey of the heart that blasts away all fussiness. Whether we relate to that longing in religious terms, or in purely secular/Dionysiac ones, we probably all hope to be shattered, to be left not as we were, by something so vast it cannot be contained by the normal constraints of agreed-upon reality. It is most interesting to read that even the Ayatollah Khomeini, who lived so tightly by these rules he was hopeful of doing a literary genius to death through their exercise, intuited privately that they were the very shackles that restrained him from the greatest love of God. I don't think this should be made fun of.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Feb 17, 2010 12:23:59 PM
I wonder if he has one about Mohammed's Flying Horse?
Or the swing of the arm, when stoning women?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Feb 17, 2010 12:55:10 PM
The poetry is just warmed-over Saadi/Hafiz/Rumi. Conventional to the point of boredom. It doesn't mean that Khomeini wanted a shattering mystical experience; it means that he wanted other people to praise him as a poet.
Posted by: Zora | Feb 17, 2010 2:27:54 PM
Zora, I take your point. It's not original, and it alludes to precedents that are crucial to literacy and general high culture, so that a person who makes these associations must be perceived as educated. But, considering the vastness of Persian poetry, must the Ayatollah's choice of models be meaningless except as a demonstration of his literacy? If yes -- well, pretty ironic anyhow.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Feb 17, 2010 2:37:13 PM
Khomeini the mystic? See THE GREEN SEA OF HEAVEN, 50 Ghazals of Hafiz, Elizabeth Grey translator. This book has a great introduction on the subject of Persian mystical poetry.
Posted by: Larry | Feb 17, 2010 4:18:11 PM
3quarksdaily continues to astonish. Thank you.
For a more contemporary rendition of the late Imam's little gem see:
http://quantumtantra.blogspot.com/2010/02/persian-version-of-urge.html.
Posted by: nick herbert | Feb 17, 2010 7:26:18 PM
Hafiz is a favorite of mine.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Feb 18, 2010 2:52:03 AM
I have a view of poetry that says for a poem to be good — regardless of what language it's done up in, how mystically it's dressed, how lovely it's presentation, how true it is to tradition— it must be authentic.
For Khomeini to write "I saw your ailing eyes and became ill through love," while calling for the murder of another man because of something he wrote makes me ill and tells me the ayatollah was lying through his teeth.
There's no truth or poetry at the heart of a poem like that, which for me, poetic theory nothwithstanding, makes it a lousy poem and Khomeini a lousy poet.
Posted by: Jim | Feb 18, 2010 11:03:30 AM
Jim, point taken. I don't actually disagree. But don't you think there's an outside possibility the Ayatollah had the sense to be soul-sick? And that this poem could reflect that? Murderers light candles for dying relatives, mortgage bankers volunteer at hospices. To say the Ayatollah was too false to be sick of himself, when it is his very falseness that he was probably sickest from, is to leave him outside humanity. If he longed for the simple sweetness of prayer and for the ruin of his complex treacheries, who can blame him? But you're right -- it's the general way of life that matters, not the moments of insight and remorse that are powerless to change things, and disposed of in insincere poetry.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Feb 18, 2010 11:18:45 AM
'For Khomeini to write "I saw your ailing eyes and became ill through love," while calling for the murder of another man because of something he wrote makes me ill and tells me the ayatollah was lying through his teeth. '
This is an oversimplification. I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of Khomeini's feelings with respect to those he loved even though he was fanatically calling for the death of Rushdie. Just as I have no doubt that, say, Pinochet, was a very nice man to his family and loved ones all the while torturing and killing Chilean leftists after the coup d'etat. The dehumanization of villains (real and perceived) only succeeds in reinforcing crude dichotomies and creating a view of humankind that is clearly false and counterproductive.
Posted by: Pepito | Feb 18, 2010 11:49:31 AM
Elatia,
You wrote: "As I understand it, it is a longing for direct knowledge of God, for the reason-shattering quality of that experience, for the true journey of the heart that blasts away all fussiness. Whether we relate to that longing in religious terms, or in purely secular/Dionysiac ones, we probably all hope to be shattered, to be left not as we were, by something so vast it cannot be contained by the normal constraints of agreed-upon reality.
There are times when we find it too difficult to imagine our enemies internalizing these sentiments. This is not dissimilar to being incredulous over political views, that we find unacceptable for ourselves, being held by people who are otherwise well educated and intelligent.
Was Khomeni inauthentic? Was he authentic in a highly circumscribed moment? I don't know. At the risk of being romantic and sentimental, I ask if this suggests a possible conduit to common ground as we try to negotiate and communicate with our enemies. At the least, it should suggest pause, for a moment, as we force ourselves to consider the viewpoint of another.
Dealing with gangster states likes North Korea, and the old Milosevic, Sadam Hussain, and Ceaucescue regimes is another story, entirely. Psychopaths have no soul or conscience or capacity for empathy. For others, at least, we might consider there may be a spark of humanity. Who knows, it may even be the difference between peace and war.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Feb 18, 2010 12:41:43 PM
Political leaders generally succeed only by extinguishing any sparks of humanity they may have. Writing bad poetry serves to cover this lack up.
Posted by: J.H. | Feb 18, 2010 12:54:44 PM
Dealing with gangster states likes North Korea, and the old Milosevic, Sadam Hussain, and Ceaucescue regimes is another story, entirely.
Norman, Saddam wrote romantic novels and Hitler was if not an artist, a competent illustrator. Brutal European colonizers are now humanists and upholders of human rights. (France has only recently decided to write off Haiti's $77 million debt - reparation for loss of slave labor revenues) The final judgment always comes down to the overall balance in the end.
The question is how much time does the world have to look at the softer side of tyranny.
Posted by: Ruchira | Feb 18, 2010 1:08:07 PM
This is so interesting! Zora’s right that it is conventional to the point of boredom, but that doesn’t mean it’s not authentic. Consider that being soul-sick is a very routine aspect of the Iranian cultural repertoire, something that is plumbed deeply but also taken up very casually as entertainment, healthy catharsis, and generic refuge for positioning oneself relative to mundane slings-and-arrows. Khomeini’s legacy is so vastly much more than the Rushdie affair, whether it’s measured in terms of lives destroyed or the more positive effects of the revolution (which are undeniable if not exactly foreground right now). What I think Khomeini-as-poet reveals more than anything else is the love-hate relationship between institutional Shi’a Islam and the outlaw Sufi spirit that is essential to Iranian culture generally and surfaces most clearly in the poetry. The pendulum swings.
Posted by: Zara | Feb 18, 2010 1:18:38 PM
Ruchira,
Tyranny is tyranny is tyranny. I'm with you on that. An illustration or a poem does not a human make.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Feb 18, 2010 1:53:53 PM
Norman, after only a year and a few months, Jim has gotten you into a poetry thread habit. Fantastic editorial and poetic prowess. Even after going on four years, I can't truly participate in science threads.
Zara, I was hoping you were reading. That's very illuminating. If the Sufi pilgrimage is to the country of the heart, then it may be zealots especially need to go there. Thanks so much for writing.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Feb 18, 2010 5:50:46 PM
Elatia, Pepito, and Norman--
In calling Khomeini a liar and his poem inauthentic I didn't mean to dismiss his humanity. Dismissing the humanity of a villain is, among other things, dangerous. Villains are in part what humans are. To set villains outside of humanity is comforting because it helps us ignore the monster in ourselves. Recognizing monsters as human we know where to scout for them.
But I get your point of specific authenticity. At the moment he wrote the poem maybe he did see the wreck inside himself and long for something else. I've seen that wreck myself and have even written of my self-disappointment without it being inauthentic.
I guess what I was saying is that, big picture, seeing himself in that poem and proceding along his trajectory anyway, he was an incorrigible hypocrite.
Maybe it was not his poetry that was inauthentic, just him.
Posted by: Jim | Feb 19, 2010 9:57:49 AM
Elatia,
And they say you can't teach old dogs new tricks. They should bite their collective tongues.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Feb 19, 2010 5:05:49 PM
Zara,
Will you tell me more about this:
"Consider that being soul-sick is a very routine aspect of the Iranian cultural repertoire"
Being an American I don't know what that repertoire is.
Posted by: Jim | Feb 20, 2010 12:11:52 AM
This is a fascinating discussion, about whether artistic integrity can be coexistent with certain types of extremist politics. Surely, in the end it is all about choices: Khomeini decided that the supremacy of God's will, as interpreted by himself and his fellow mullahs, must supersede individual freedoms and any eschatological doubts he may heave entertained in his private writings. Gauguin, on the other hand, chose the fulfillment of his needs as an artist over those of his family, which he abandoned.
Posted by: aguy109 | Feb 20, 2010 5:39:21 PM
Jim,
Yikes, that’s a tall order! But very briefly… The dominant mood of much of the classical Sufi Persian poetry is the sadness, gham, of a profound, existential state of longing. Being alive in this world is separation from the divine, and the pain and longing of that separation is a measure or reflection of a kind of grace. The poet becomes a connoisseur of the pain; the union that ends separation is conceived as ecstatic and self-erasing.
This has been so commonly expressed, for so long, through metaphors of romantic love and separation from the beloved—and the poetry is so much the dominant art form in the culture, and the theme maps so neatly to quite separate aspects of social structure and custom and the general unavailability of the beloved—that an emotionally extreme longing is seen as pretty much the normal way that opposite-sex relationships play out, and it even colors normal same-sex friendships.
There’s a synergy between this die-for-love extremity and the glorification of martyrdom, the cathartic rituals of grief that dominate the religious calendar, and the notion of fighting for justice against impossible odds.
What is seen from the outside as fundamentalism is not at all a zombie-like attachment to ideology, but a passionately emotional expression where the ideology is a relatively superficial conduit for something more deeply existential. Iranian atheist communists under the Shah were just as passionately inspired by martyrdom as their religious cousins, and just as flamboyantly emotional in their expressions of longing for union.
Khomeini was deeply embedded in this worldview, and yet he could manipulate it to political ends with terrifying skill. For what it’s worth, I think the poetry was fairly early in his career. But being “soul-sick” in the Sufi sense has nothing to do with doubt—that’s a Christian frame.
(The origins of all this are linked to the bakhti movement India, uniquely Iranian appropriations of Shi’a Islam, and even continuities with pre-Islamic Iranian religions. That’s another story, but it’s a completely different universe from Wahhabi fundamentalism.)
Elatia -- thanks!
Posted by: Zara | Feb 20, 2010 11:16:33 PM
Orhan Pamuk speaks of a similar sentiment, Hüzün, the sorrow of separation from the divine in his memoir / reflections in Istanbul.
The origins of all this are linked to the bakhti movement India, uniquely Iranian appropriations of Shi’a Islam, and even continuities with pre-Islamic Iranian religions. That’s another story, but it’s a completely different universe from Wahhabi fundamentalism.
Thanks for the historical background, Zara. Unfortunately though, that "another story" and many others like it, are gradually being buried in different, hardening narratives. May be I come across always as cold hearted in all such discussions. But the reality on the ground and its tangible manifestations are what matter more than the occasional doubt in the private heart.
Posted by: Ruchira | Feb 21, 2010 12:07:04 AM
What a display of ignorance! This is a distorted abstract of a mystical ghazal,a poem about LOVE OF GOD, and metaphors are used to describe the experience of a mystic, which is a high stage of knowledge
Posted by: emm | Apr 19, 2010 12:31:16 PM
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