A quick post! Last night was a late night so I didn't write anything, but mash Allah my mind is exploding with how amazing class was yesterday.
Poetry. Specifically, Sufi poetry of Rumi and Hafez.
I have been exposed to Rumi's poetry and that of other sufis many times, but never has it really stuck. I don't really get the mysticism, I am not compelled by the imagery of love and wine. It all feels rather pithy and overblown, like so many of the romantic poets I read last year at Bread Loaf.
The form of sufi poetry we looked at was the GHAZAL (pronounced ga-ZAHL). It is the most prolific form of Persian poetry, and predates Islam, dating to the 6th century.
One issue that came up for me right away was the question facing faithful seekers and humanists across the ages and cultures: how much do I remain "of the world" and how much do I attempt to be removed from it, being only physically "in the world"? Most sufis seek self-annihilation, so they desire to be not even "in the world" physically. One early Sufi poet, a woman named Rabi'a, said that LOVE was key to an understanding of God, so experiencing love and giving love (activities arguably "of this world") were key to spiritual experience. I like that.
So I was surprised to know that Sufism was the mainstream form of Islam until the 19th century. Yes! What happened? Why is the Islam we know politicized today? Because of Colonization. When lands where Muslims lived became overrun by colonizers, leaders of these lands decided that Sufism was not the tool they needed to fight the invaders with. It was too escapist, too soft, and made people too dependent on one another, rather than independent and ready to work hard, as the new modern world required them to. These leaders recognized that if Muslim-led countries would be able to compete with colonizers and colonized countries, they would need a style of governance more appropriate for capitalist battles. So Suffism was swatted down, and politicized Islam arose in its place.
The wine imagery: Why is there so much drinking in poems by Muslims, who are instructed not to drink?
Simplest answer: The wine is symbolic of otherworldly intoxication that one experiences when one approaches the divine.
Interestingly, the cub-bearer figure, present in many ghazals, is often a young boy, and is portrayed both as a master, and the provider of the intoxicating experience. Homoeroticism is a strong strain in these portrayals. Why do we think that homosexual relations are a new thing?
Ghazals were written to be performed. This is where my lesson-planning funny bone started to twitch. Last year we had Poetry Out Loud in which students memorize poems by outside authors (whom we haven't studied, and they don't necessarily know what the poems are saying). The kids were not into it, and many failed to memorize their poems, even though I know them to be fans of poetry and great poets themselves. I'm wondering how to redo poetry this year (Poetry Out Loud is a school wide, required thing, not my choice) to make it more personal and engaging for them. I think we're going to write ghazals.
Just this morning I read about the venue in which poems are shared, the mushairah. Check out this description of the event:
Most mushairahs were based on a well-known ‘pattern’ line (or verse) announced in advance, so that everybody’s ghazals composed in this pattern were formally identical (sharing meter, rhyme, and refrain). This formal identity made them extremely comparable, so that individual achievement stood out strikingly. Recitation-- or chanting in a popular style called tarannum (an example: Jigar Moradabadi, 1957)-- of the first line of a verse was followed by a longish pause full of obligatory praise and exclamatory comment from the audience, after which the poet repeated the first line and only then followed it with the second line. Mushairahs were thus lively and participatory.
OK, I'll have to come back to this post, or do a poetry part II post, because there is so much more to say.
Poetry. Specifically, Sufi poetry of Rumi and Hafez.
I have been exposed to Rumi's poetry and that of other sufis many times, but never has it really stuck. I don't really get the mysticism, I am not compelled by the imagery of love and wine. It all feels rather pithy and overblown, like so many of the romantic poets I read last year at Bread Loaf.
The form of sufi poetry we looked at was the GHAZAL (pronounced ga-ZAHL). It is the most prolific form of Persian poetry, and predates Islam, dating to the 6th century. One issue that came up for me right away was the question facing faithful seekers and humanists across the ages and cultures: how much do I remain "of the world" and how much do I attempt to be removed from it, being only physically "in the world"? Most sufis seek self-annihilation, so they desire to be not even "in the world" physically. One early Sufi poet, a woman named Rabi'a, said that LOVE was key to an understanding of God, so experiencing love and giving love (activities arguably "of this world") were key to spiritual experience. I like that.
So I was surprised to know that Sufism was the mainstream form of Islam until the 19th century. Yes! What happened? Why is the Islam we know politicized today? Because of Colonization. When lands where Muslims lived became overrun by colonizers, leaders of these lands decided that Sufism was not the tool they needed to fight the invaders with. It was too escapist, too soft, and made people too dependent on one another, rather than independent and ready to work hard, as the new modern world required them to. These leaders recognized that if Muslim-led countries would be able to compete with colonizers and colonized countries, they would need a style of governance more appropriate for capitalist battles. So Suffism was swatted down, and politicized Islam arose in its place.
The wine imagery: Why is there so much drinking in poems by Muslims, who are instructed not to drink?
Simplest answer: The wine is symbolic of otherworldly intoxication that one experiences when one approaches the divine.
Interestingly, the cub-bearer figure, present in many ghazals, is often a young boy, and is portrayed both as a master, and the provider of the intoxicating experience. Homoeroticism is a strong strain in these portrayals. Why do we think that homosexual relations are a new thing?
Ghazals were written to be performed. This is where my lesson-planning funny bone started to twitch. Last year we had Poetry Out Loud in which students memorize poems by outside authors (whom we haven't studied, and they don't necessarily know what the poems are saying). The kids were not into it, and many failed to memorize their poems, even though I know them to be fans of poetry and great poets themselves. I'm wondering how to redo poetry this year (Poetry Out Loud is a school wide, required thing, not my choice) to make it more personal and engaging for them. I think we're going to write ghazals.
Just this morning I read about the venue in which poems are shared, the mushairah. Check out this description of the event:
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| A real Mushairah in India |
OK, I'll have to come back to this post, or do a poetry part II post, because there is so much more to say.
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