Although not a poem in Arabic, this moving account of Divine “pillow talk” or munājāt (intimate discourses) by Ibn ‘Arabi was beautifully translated by Henri Corbin in poetic form (and modified by me to better correspond to the Arabic).
Translation:
Listen, O dearly beloved!
I am the sought essence in the cosmos
I am the centre of the circle and its circumference,
I am the compound and the simple
I am the command descending between Heaven and Earth,
I have only created perceptions for you so that by them, you might perceive Me
So if you perceive Me, you perceive yourself.
But you cannot perceive Me through yourself.
It is through My Eyes that you see Me and yourself,
Through your eyes you cannot see Me.
Dearly beloved!
How often I call you and you don’t hear!
How often I show myself to you and you don’t see!
How often I’ve become fragrance and you don’t smell Me,
And tasty food, a but you don’t taste Me!
What’s with you that you don’t feel me in the things you touch?
Or sense Me in sweet scents?
Why don’t you see Me? Why don’t you hear Me?
Why? Why? Why?
For you My delights surpass all other delights,
And the pleasure I bring you surpasses all other pleasures.
For you I am lovelier to all loveliness
I am Beauty/beautiful, I am Grace/gracious
Dearly beloved!
Love Me, and not other than Me
long for me, concern yourself with me
Don’t worry about anything other than me
Hug me, Kiss me!
Where could you find union like mine?
All that you seek is in it
And I want you for you
but you, you flee from me!
Dearly beloved!
You cannot treat Me fairly,
For if you approach Me,
It is because I have approached you.
I am nearer to you than yourself,
Than your soul, than your breath.
Who among creatures
Would treat you as I do?
I am jealous of you, over you,
I don’t like to see you with others
Not even with yourself.
Be Mine, be with Me
I will be with you
as you are with Me
while you are not even aware
be for Me as you are in Me,
Though you are not even aware of it.
Dearly beloved!
Let us go toward Union.
And if we find the road
That leads to separation,
We will destroy separation.
Come! Let us go hand in hand.
Let us enter the presence of the Real.
Let It be our judge
And imprint Its seal upon our union
For ever.
From: Henri Corbin. Creative Sufism ‘Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, p. 174-75 (modified based on the Arabic original below)
Original:
!اسمع يا حبيبي
انا العين المقصودة في الكون
انا نقطة الدائرة ومحيطها
انا مركبها وبسيطها
انا الامر المنزل بين السماء والارض و السماء
ما خلفت لك الادراكات الا لتدركني بها
فاذا ادركتني ادركت نفسك
لا تطمع ان تدركني بادراكك نفسك
بعيني تراني ونفسك
لابعين نفسك تراني
!حبيبي
كم اناديك فلا تسمع؟
كم اتراءى لك فلا تبصر ؟
كم اندرج لك فى الروائح فلا تشم ؟
وفي الطعوم فلا تطعم لى ذوقا؟
ما لك لاتلمسني فى الملموسات ؟
ما لك لاتدركني فى المشمومات ؟
ما لك لاتبصرنى؟
ما لك لاتسمعني؟
ما لك مالك مالك ؟
انا الذ لك من كل ملذوذ
أنا اشهي لك من كل مشتهى
انا احسن لك من كل حسن
انا الجميل
انا المليح
! حبيبي
حبني لا تحب غيري
اعشقني هم في
لا تهم في سواي
ضمّني قبّلني
ما تجد وصولا مثلي
كل يريدك له
وانا اريدك لك
وانت تفر مني
يا حبيبي
ما تنصفني
ان تقربت اليّ
تقربت اليك اضعاف ما تقربت به اليّ
انا اقرب اليك من نفسك و نسفك
من يفعل معك ذلك غيري من المخلوقين
حبيبي
اغار عليك منك
لا احب ان اراك عند الغير
ولاعندك
كن عندى بي
اكن عندك
كما انت عندي
وانت لاتشعر
حبيبي
الوصال الوصال
…
!تعال
يدي و يدك
ندخل على الحق تعالى
…ليحكم بيننا حكم الابد
Wonderful! I feel the love all around! So beautiful to love and to be loved!
In this beautiful piece ” Listen, O dearly beloved”
– which is apparently God’s words to his creature –
I’m always wondering what does Ibn Arabi mean by:
“It is through my eyes that you see me and see yourself,
Through your eyes you cannot see me.”
Your ego cannot see me. You can see me only when you realize we are one.
Dear Octavio,
I think that Ibn Arabi means that we look through eyes of the body and project an illusory world, and only when you wake up and look with the eyes of Love, we see with the eyes of God.
I had not seen your answer Renee, actually mean the same thing.
This is a simple, yet a beautiful and elegant Web Page
about one of the most eloquent pieces of writing,
by one of the world’s greatest thinker of all time:
“Ibn Arabi” (1165–1240 AD)
The piece is called:” Listen, O dearly beloved “,
which was translated into English by:
“Henry Corbin” (14 April 1903 – 7 October 1978 AD)
I personally believe, that Ibn Arabi has come as close
to understanding the nature of the Creator of the Universe
as humanly possible.
But how?
In the next post, you will see his explanations
on how the revelations would come to him.
” In what I have written, I have never had a set purpose, as other writers.
Flashes of divine inspiration used to come upon me and almost overwhelm me,
so that I could only put them from my mind by
committing to paper what they revealed to me.
If my works evince any form of composition, that form was unintentional.
Some works I wrote at the command of God,
sent to me in sleep or through a mystical revelation…..”
To see a lovely visual presentation of
” Listen, O dearly beloved ” , please watch:
youtube.com
The presentation is called:
” Ibn’ Arabi – ‘Alone with the Alone’: Henry Corbin “
With the permission of the blog owner, I would like
to share how my own revelations led me finally to the
same sentiments expressed in :
” Listen, O dearly beloved ”
>> Since childhood I have been desperately searching
for the secrets of existence and creation.
This search should actually be an instinct in every
human being.
My feelings were and still are, like those verbalised in
the song: “My Sweet Lord” by “George Harrison” :
” I really want to see you
Really want to be with you
Really want to see you lord
But it takes so long, O my lord
………..
I really want to know you
Really want to go with you
……….. ”
-1-
But I didn’t get to know the Creator of the Universe
by religion. It was through science, that I came to just
have a glimpse of God’s nature !
It was then that I realised, only both together – science
and religion – can answer my questions.
Of course even in a million years science cannot find
out the true nature of the Creator. Because God is in
another realm, totally unknown to man.
How can a fetus know anything about what awaits it
outside the womb? This comparison is of course
childish, when we are talking about God.
The religions do not explain much about the
nature of God. They only talk about the attributes of
God, such as being:
Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent etc.
Nothing about who or what Entity ” It ” really is.
-2-
If somebody does not have a communication device
(like mobile, telephone etc.), he or she can never
send messages or receive remote answers!
People who are not spiritual, and never contemplate
about the creation and existence, they will never
receive a message, an answer or a revelation either.
Contemplation is the communication device with the
spritual world. “Ask and you shall receive!”
That was the reason that ancient philosophers and
thinkers like Ibn Arabi were so insightful. They had
time to contemplate!
The “modern” man
does not have even half an hour a year,
time to marvel the night sky and the stars.
-3-
Once, as I was about 5 years old, and I was busy
creating things with my “Lego” pieces, I asked
my grandmother: “Grandma, What is God, who is God?”
I remember her answer was:
“God is a lonely Being, who created all you can see on
Earth and in the sky, to entertain Itself.”
Then she continued:
…. the same way that you are entertaining yourself
with your Lego bricks.
Her simple explanation at that time was easy for me
to understand.
But decades later, by constant contemplations about
the Creator, suddenly a sentence started echoing in my
mind, again and again …
-4-
The echoed sentence was:
“I was The Singularity,
I became The Infinity and Eternity.”
Was that finally a direct answer, after decades of
contemplations and questions?
… I will never know.
If it is, the Creator has suddenly started to turn Itself
into a universe. According to that sentence, the
Creator is Its Creation. The Creator Is The Universe!
There is a revelation going around the world right now.
Namely, many constantly claim, that :
“We are all One, Everything is just One!”
How can that be?
Only if the creator of the universe is also the universe
itself, only then “Everything is just One”!
-5-
It is totally understandable that if there is a creator,
that creator must be “omniscient and omnipotent”,
as all religions claim. How otherwise could an Entity
create such a marvellous universe?
But how on Earth, the same creator could be at the
same time Everywhere? In another words, be
“omnipresent”? This is the case only if the Creator
of the universe is also the universe itself.
-6-
All religions claim that the Creator is Everywhere – of
course even in each one of us.
__________________________
Bible:
Ye Are the Temple of God
1 Corinthians 3:16
” Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
(New American Standard 1977:
Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and
that the Spirit of God dwells in you?) ”
1 Corinthians 6:19
” Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye
are not your own? ”
__________
Please note:
There is difference of opinions regarding the meaning
of “your body”. Some believe, it is meant as
“the body of the Christianity”.
__________________________
Quran
Verse (50:16):
” We verily created man and We know what his soul
whispereth to him, and We are nearer to him than
his jugular vein.”
__________
Please note:
Jugular vein is INside the neck (body.)
Being nearer than jugular vein (and knowing
whatever man is thinking) means being inside the
body, as Spirit.
__________________________
The nature of a “Spirit” is never explained anywhere.
What is a spirit “made” of? It can be interpreted as
“Energy”.
What if there exists no “matter” whatsoever, in
the universe? What if everything is just a form of
energy?
-7-
As I wrote earlier, it was through science, that I
came to comprehend the Creator,
not by any religion.
Specifically two distinct subjects in science gave
me the strongest logical reasoning that I needed,
to:
1. believe in the existence of the Creator, and
2. comprehend Its Creation and how It works.
Of course just as much, as a regular human would
ever be able to.
Those two scientific subjects are well known by
almost any person with a high school diploma,
but most people never really think about them deeply.
Thinking DEEPLY about those two subjects may
truly cause a stroke by any age group.
And I am not kidding at all!
-8-
The two mind-boggling, jaw-dropping
scientific subjects, which should shake
every thinking human being to his/her
foundations, are :
1) The Big Bang Theory
2) The Atom (including all Subatomic Particles)
-9-
Your comments have beautifully expressed my personal journey to the same conclusion. 1 love x
Our using of all kind of words and in all different laguages, whether it is science or philosophy, this only mean that we are so trapped in his understanding, a wise man said about it “Oh god, Lift me from the mud of monotheism”
I think we have to try to understand what is the Mundus Imaginalis that some living saints attain while not dead in order to understand the reality and the truth of the Universe/God.
Hello,
This poem is somehow different in this video. which I believe is the same poem. I couldn’t find the text of this one read on this youtube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNzaitnsJPk&t=119s
Please let me know if you know the lyrics of the poem that is read in the video.
thank you,
arif kizilay
Thanks bro for sharing these beautiful poems in Arabic and English.
I’ve been interested to read ibn Arabi works for awhile and i thank the poster for showing me my first sample. It’s very interesting, it makes much more sense in Arabic which he was kind enough to post, but the English translation has vast differences that aren’t even close to the original. I should take time to post a more direct translation, if I can.
This is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing with original Arabic text and adding your translation for clarity. JazakAllah
(Grammar and spellings not checked yet. I hope you understand anyway.)
Essay:
What is the reality?
“What is real?”: This is a philosophical question.
Haci Bektas Veli: Glücklich ist, wer die Gedankenfinsternis erhellt. – “Happy is, who enlightens the darkness of thoughts.”
Rene Descartes: Cogito ergo sum. – “I think, therefore I am.”
We everyday wake up in our bodies. When we are awake, our senses start to process information by our senses and give us what we can see, hear, feel, smell and taste as a composition/an overall impression to our consciousness/mind.
This is what is happening continuously.
Furthermore, human need to give a meaning to everything, what he is seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling. And the ability of remembering. Orherwise the brain can’t make a understable fully composition/an overall impression. Instead we don’t see any detail of a certain situation.
It is like a Beginner and a Professional looking at a painting. The Beginner can’t see every detail. The Professional can see every detail.
Reality is increasing the set of meanings.
Reality is made by our senses.
In short words: Reality -> set of senses -> set of single meanings -> set of compositions/overall impressions -> Mirroring of the reality in our mind through our senses. And that is happening by how we learned processing information by our senses.
The reality is same for all. The mirrored reality depends on senses. E.g. every animal has eyes. But the difference is the decoder of the eyes. In other words the processing step between sense and meaning.
And the reality is mainly made of the sense of touch and see. The most important thing is converting some information of one sense to another sense.
Seeing what you are hearing.
Hearing what you are seeing.
Feeling what you are seeing.
Seeing what you are feeling.
Tasting what you are seeing.
Seeing what you are tasting.
and so on.
Converting information from one sense to another.
So now we come the quantum entanglement:
Reality is the object (image) itself, whereas the mirroring of the reality and therefore mirroring of the object is the negative object (negative image).
1 – Set of Electromagnetic waves are emitted by a star or artifical light.
2 – Subset of EM waves are reflected by an object.
3 – Subset of entangled EM waves are sensed by eyes or other senses (skin).
4 – Subsubset of EM waves are processed (composition) and can be seen in mind.
And there is something other: Seeing is distant touching.
But you cant see how soft or hard an object is. Unless you touch that object.
–> Superposition of a certain property of an object
e.g. You see a blanket on the bed. The colors are measured by seeing (eyes). But how soft or hard this blanket is remains in superposition until you gonna touch it. You only can guess by experience. But you dont know it until you touch it.
Or if you close your eyes and you are feeling an object. The colors are in superposition.
Or if you close your ears. You cant hear what somebody is saying. The sound is in superposition.
And what we cant measure with our senses is in superposition, too.
Or if you dont understand an information, it is in superposition, too. e.g. there is a kid. It never touched a hot heater. So the set of information is in superposition. If that kid touches the hot and cold heater, the information is not in superposition anymore. Thats what we call experience. Out of the temperature (hot/cold) our brain guesses the rest. Like maximum and minimum.
So what is the reality? Knowing every information so there are no superpositions. Perhaps a computer with every type of sensor can answer us how it is knowing every information.
Or let me give you an answer: It is Physics and Maths.
-> Every type of interaction and every type of properties of an object.
Conclusion: It is not possible to know full reality, because there are infinite compositions of information and/or atoms.
And there is another fact: Every object/thing is disappearing and reappearing. But our eyes are too slow to see. We constantly see objects.
–> The spectrum/the frequencies our eyes can see something. There are hidden porperties (Superposition), because we cant measure it. We are too slow.
–> The spectrum/the frequencies our ears can hear.
–> and other senses count the same.
And thats it: Our mirrored reality deviate from the actual reality, because we haven’t got every sense for every information/spectrum.
And experience is a subset of a set. Subsubset of a subset. Till the experience reaches the highest level of accuracy.
—> The world of colours and shapes is therefore what we think is the reality.
Author: Ender (me)
Ibn Arabis poem with instrumental music: