SUFI PIETY, MUSIC, DANCE AND POETRY
(image from spritofthescripture.com)
The Creator
And so the people said: there is no god but God
and in the name of God, the most beneficent, the merciful
praise be to Him.
For he creates all in the world, spinning like a dervish, cyclical
He made at the Beginning what he will remake at the End
Power unbounded, he is from the firmament, fantastical and mythical
He is all External. In everyone, he shapes their Internal
Indivisible it seems at times, omnipresent always
Inexplicable is your endless love for mankind
(image from theunboundedspirit.com)
In the first stanza I created a devotional tone and interlaced messages and elements from the Shahadda and of dhikr poems that praise the many names of God (such as beneficent and merciful). I also used words sometimes ascribed to many different deities to describe god calling him indivisible’, ‘omnipresent’, and ‘inexplicable’ to further elaborate on the grand nature of God and inspired by the ninety-nine names of Allah. I think rhythm is as important in poetry as it is in music. Thus, each line of the poem as roughly fourteen syllables which help give the work a flowing rhythm.
An element of imagery that I used which I particularly liked was that of God as a whirling dervish being controlled and pious yet frenetic as well. However, I’m not sure it would be widely acceptable in man Muslim nations culturally to compare God’s creation of the universe to the twirling of a religiously devout human. So much of cosmic structure seems cyclical and orbital that the image of the dervish is worth such a risk.