ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Wine of Love, Mystical Poetry of Imam Khomeini Ghazal Poetry The Consolation of the Pir Kiss the hand of the shaykh who has pronounced me a disbeliever. Congratulate the guard who has led me away in chains. I'm going into a solitary retreat from now on by the door of the Magus, So that in one gulp I may be filled with the wine of both worlds. I will not drink the water of Kawthar; I will not take this heavenly favor.

The beam which shines on your face, oh Friend, has made me a conqueror of the world. Console the heart of the dervish from whom the eternal secret Has been disclosed; who has made me aware of my destiny. I congratulate the Pir of the tavern who has himself grasped My annihilation, my nothingness, and who has captivated me, A servant of my Pir, who comforts the heart himself, Of one who has forgotten himself and whom he has turned up side down.

Esfand 1367 AHS [February-March 1989] Explanation This kind of poem, like the next thirty[^1] which follow, is a ghazal. Persian is a poetic language. Ordinary rhymes are easy to come by, so most poetry uses feminine rhymes which would be awkward and silly and impossibly difficult to manage in English.

In Farsi, the poem has a rhyme scheme like this: --iramkard —-iramkard —— —-iramkard —— —-iramkard —— —-iramkard —— —-iramkard —— —-iramkard The sound “iramkard” is a combination of the ending sound of a verb, a first-person pronoun, and an auxiliary verb, which results in the triple rhymes that runs through the poem. Imam Khomeini's poetry is a kind of play with the images and themes of Hafiz (d. 1338 CE), the undisputed master of the ghazal.

In this poetry there is always a contrast between official hypocritical religion, represented by the mosque and the seminary, and the true religion, symbolized by the tavern, the wine, the cupbearer, the Zoroastrian priest, idols, sexual love, etc. This tension is heighten in Imam Khomeini's poetry precisely because he is as official a representative of official religion as one could ever hope to find, and yet he sees himself, in his most private vision, as an iconoclast.

Consider the first line: “Kiss the hand of the shaykh who has pronounced me a disbeliever.” This pronouncing that someone is a disbeliever is the job of the official clergy, as Imam Khomeini in his official capacity as a jurist condemned Salman Rushdie.