The early poetry of the Sufis was mostly confined to quatrains or
rubaiyat
.
The four-line verses allowed for the expression of a single theme or idea,
without the need to tell a story. Abu Sa’id’s quatrains could be easily
incorporated into a discourse and used to illustrate a point.While Abu Sa’id
remains largely unknown among non-Persian speakers, the English
translations of the quatrains of
Umar Khayyam
(d. 1124) made them one
of the most famous collections of Persian verses in the world. Edward
Fitzgerald’s 19
th
century English translation, though not very faithful, does
capture the sense and the imagery of the original.
However, during the 12
th
and 13
th
centuries Sufi poetry reached its
pinnacle in the form of the narrative poem, or
masnavi
. The three greatest
exponents of this style were Sana’i, ‘Attar and Rumi, known simply as
Maulana (‘Our Master’).
Abu’l Majd Majdud Sana’i
(d. 1130) was a native of Ghazna. For a
while he lived the life of a court poet, but finally retired from the world to
become a dervish. His best-known work is called
Hadiqatu’l Haqiqa,
or ‘The
Garden ofTruth’ in which he presents the Sufi theories on God, the Prophet,
gnosis, love of God, etc. through different anecdotes and allegories. Besides
this
masnavi
, he also composed numerous other couplets or
ghazals
.
Fariduddin Attar
(d. 1229) was born in Nishapur where he also died.
Legend has it that he was killed during the Mongol invasion, which finally
culminated in the capture of Baghdad in 1258. Attar was a prolific writer
and is thought to have written 114 works. Numerous ghazals and
masnavis,
or narrative epics, bear his name. His compilation of the biographies of the
Sufis,
Tadhkiratul ul-Auliya
23
, is one of the major sources of the lives of the
23
English translation by Bankey Bihari, Lahore, 1961
T owar d s Mys t i c i sm 50
