| December 4, 2002 | Wednesday | Ramazan 28,1423 |
The European ‘Gazel’
Shoaib should not behave like a spoilt brat
THIS year Eid in New York will be celebrated with a song called “Muslim”.
An African-American group called Native Deen will perform this and other songs in front of an expected audience of 1,000 on Dec 7, when the Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramazan.
The Washington-based group borrows its name from an Arabic word “deen,” meaning faith, and fuses African-American and Islamic cultures to convey its message: pray five times a day, do not smoke or drink and be proud of Islam.
After its New York concert, the group plans to visit Britain from Dec 13 to 17 on a five-city tour.
But the scene for celebrating Ramazan the American way was set by no one less than US President George W. Bush, who invited Muslim leaders to the White House earlier this month to break their fast with Americans of other faiths.
Addressing the gathering, he assured the Muslims that the US government did not equate Islam with terrorism and would not allow anybody to victimize them in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks.
Such pledges are reassuring for the Muslims who live in an increasingly hostile environment since Sept 11. According to Human Rights Watch, hate crimes against the Muslims have increased 1,700 per cent since 9/11.
Following the example set by his boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell invited Muslim leaders to the State Department last week to end their fast with him.
Just as it did at the White House, the evening began with the Azan given by one of the guests.
“It was as though for that moment the stately Thomas Jefferson room of the US State Department was in a Muslim country,” says Erfan Vickers, executive director of the American Muslim Council who was moved by “... Azan in a room adorned with reminders of the author of the Declaration of Independence.”
After saying the evening prayers in the John Adams room, the gathering moved to the more regal Benjamin Franklin room to dine with the secretary of state who spoke warmly of the Islamic faith and the contributions it has made to world culture.
“Following the dinner, autographs, photos and the secretary’s departure, the Muslims contemplated among themselves the meaning of the evening. They wondered when dinners would turn into dialogue. When an edifice or a room would be named after a Muslim. When a cabinet member would call the Azan,” mused Vickers.
But none of these gatherings can match the warmth and affection witnessed at the Iftar and dinner hosted by the George Washington University earlier this month. The purpose of the dinner was to allow Jewish and Muslim students to come together and discover each other.
“While the two communities are fighting each other in the Middle East, we thought it would be nice for students from the two faiths to meet here, away from the battlefield,” said the university’s president, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, who initiated the idea.
“I wish people were as warm and forgiving as these students,” said Syed Hasan Ahmad, the ambassador of Bangladesh who attended the dinner with diplomats from several Muslim countries and Israel. Yes, Israeli and Muslim diplomats shared the table and ate together, wishing each other peace.
The programme included introduction to fasting in Islam and Judaism, the Muslim call to prayer and Jewish ritual of hand-washing and blessing over the meal.
IT is asked which oriental form of ‘poetry’ succeeded to germinate itself in European imagination as the dominant form to reach out the mystical sublimity of Persian mysticism in 19th century; it is ‘Gazel’ (or Ghazal for us).
“The Ghazal or the Eastern Ode, says John Richardson, in his ‘A Specimen of Persian Poetry or Odes of Hafez, with an English translation and paraphrase’ (1774) is a species of poem the subject of which is general Love and Wine, interspersed with moral sentiments, and reflections on the virtues and vices of mankind. Every verse in the same Ghazal must rhyme with same letter...”
The Ghazal, as Richardson understood, was basically a poem the subject of which was thought to be general Love and Wine at first. Isn’t it strange that it was introduced in Europe by Friedrich Rucker, a disciple of Joseph Von Hammer, who studied the symbolism of Ghazal and drank deep at the spiritual fountainhead, of its symbolism and immortalized Rumi through his translations. In mystical symbolism Wine invariably means devotion. Sleep is explained by meditation on the divine perfections, and perfume by hope of the divine favor, gales are illapses of grace; kisses and embraces, the raptures of piety, idolaters, infidels, and libertines are men of the purist religion, and their idol is the creator himself; the tavern is retired Oratory, and its keeper a sage; beauty denotes the perfection of the supreme being; tresses are the expansion of his glory; lips, the hidden mysteries of his essence, down cheek, the world of spirits who encircle his Throne, and a black mole, the point of indivisible unity; lastly wantonness, mirth, and ebriety, mean religious ardour and abstraction in all terrestrial thoughts so in Rumi’s symbolism all allusions to human beauty denote some mystical concepts.
Ruckart not only wrote Ghazals - which he pronounced as ‘Gazel’ - but he tried to convey the spirit of Persian mysticism in his translations - unlike Scot Fitzgerald who appears to be poles apart from Ruckart. According to William Hastie, Omar Khayyam is not a Sufi poet; but an old tipsy toper, whose drink is literally and really that of Bacchus; and he drinks - and drinks - and drinks! Till we hear him snore even in broad day; and till his dimmed eyes and fuddled brain cannot distinguish the plainest thing even in the clearest light.
However, with Ruckert the translator in him was in consonance with Rumi. He even surpassed his master, Von Hammer, “by the greater accuracy of his scholarship, his finer and deeper insight, and his unrivalled lower of sympathetically reproducing in German the spirit of oriental poetry, according to Hastie.
His rendering of certain Ghazals of Rumi in 1879 and 1822 are masterpieces of their kind in the fineness and delicacy of their form and a good number of orientalists believe that they have never been equalled by similar subsequent attempts.
Ruckert’s ‘Ghazals’ became so popular that Platen and Paul Heyse, his fellow Germans, also employed this form. In English literature the best regular ghazals were written by Archbishop Trench but they were only an imitation of one of Ruckert’s versions. H. Bicknell and Nicholson, famous for his ‘Selected Poems from the Divan-i-Shams Tabrizi have also followed suit. Some lesser Spanish poets have also employed ‘Gazel’ to convey their intimate feelings.
Following are the two English translations of Ruckert’s German versions. It has been claimed that Hegel was so enamoured of Rumi’s Ghazal poetry that he wrote about Rumi: Rumi is to be celebrated in this connection, of whose poetry, Ruckert has furnished us with some of the first specimen, in which, with his marvellous power of expression, he even allows himself to play in the most skillful and free manner with words, rhymes as the Persian similarly do: Love to God, with whom Man identifies his self through the most unlimited self- surrender and whom, as the one, he now beholds in all the realms of space, leads him and refer and carry back all and everything to God.”
Following are the specimens of Rumi’s ‘Gazels’ in English, translated by William Hastie. They may not appear perfect but they could be assumed as Englishman’s version of the Gazel in German:-
(I) Lord, that I thee may find, O stretch to me thy hand/Close — clasped for ever, kind, O stretch to me thy hand/ O’ver Earth it gathers dark, and ever deeper here/Where dim cross footpaths wind, O stretch to me thy Hand!
(II) Come and be Love’s willing slave;/Thee love’s slavery will save,/ Leave the slavery of the world,/ Take Love’s service, sweet and brave,/ The Free, the world makes enslaved;/ Aye to Slaves, Love Freedom gave./ As The world release I crave./ Free me from the smell that clings;/ Give me Life as from the Grave./ O Love, The Quail in spring’s Free Fields,/ In song of wildest Joy must rave.
The ‘Gazel’ suffered at the hands of free verse and nowadays its vogue has eclipsed. Instead The Japanese Haiku is in the ascendant. Of course the economic clout of Japan is behind its rise.
PAKISTAN made a clean sweep of both the Test and the One-day internationals against Zimbabwe and the margins were emphatic. This should put the team in the right frame of mind for the sterner Tests ahead. But in every department, Pakistan showed discipline, the most heartening being fielding. Zimbabwe provided only modest opposition but this should not detract from Pakistan’s performance.
There could have been the temptation to get complacent or treat some of the matches as picnic-outings. But the temptation was resisted. Pakistan will need this same positive attitude in South Africa. The inclusion of Abdul Razzak will strengthen the team further though it will be a hard choice between Kamran Akmal and Rashid Latif. Kamran Akmal did not do anything wrong behind the stumps and he is a useful batsman. Rashid Latif is the more experienced. It’s good to know that we have a choice.
The batsmen are in form and it was good to see Saleem Elahi make back to back centuries and Faisal Iqbal seize the first chance he got and make a hundred. Inzamamul Haq did not get too many chances to bat but he seems to be in good nick though he’s been out to careless shots and he needs to watch this. Yusuf Youhana is in devastating form and the lay-off seems to have done him good. He’s not giving his wicket away after doing all the hard work.
The bowling is sharp and I was glad to see Mohammad Zahid back in action. He was understandably nervous but he should enjoy bowling on the bouncier tracks of South Africa. He could profit from some sessions with a bowling coach but in the absence of one, there seems to be no reason why someone like Wasim Akram can’t take him in hand and get him to pitch the ball in the right spot more consistently. He is a natural fast bowler in the Glen McGrath mould and he needs to aim for the same metronomic accuracy. He should try for line and length with pace as a bonus. The point is that we should persevere with him.
Shoaib Akhtar is skating on thin ice. He was reprimanded for scratching the ball by the match-referee, Clive Lloyd, and has been fined and given an one-match suspension for making gestures to the crowd and throwing a bottle into the stands. One expects a fast bowler to be aggressive and be a bit of a ‘character’. But he’s got to learn how to handle his celebrity.
The fact that he is one of the fastest bowlers in the game does not provide him with a licence to behave like a spoilt brat. He is one of our most valuable players but we need him to be focused. He needs to be told in no uncertain terms that he is a cog in a wheel, not the wheel. As I wrote earlier, he is going to be watched very carefully and what was sauce for the goose in Zimbabwe will not be sauce for the gander in South Africa and in the World Cup. He is going to be one of our key players. He needs to be mindful of this. Besides, this tomfoolery is not doing his bowling any good. I heard Jeff Thompson refer to himself as a “quiet assassin”, when he was asked whether he used to sledge or stare down at batsmen. And he was quicker than Shoaib Akhtar and an Australian to boot.
The main interest on the third day of the Perth Test match was whether Australia could wrap it up and this Australia duly did, a classical clinical job against hapless England. There was an object lesson for other captains for the way that Steve Waugh came up the game-plan. Turning his fast bowlers loose from one end and using Shane Warne to bottle up the other end. It was a simple game-plan. The Ashes have been retained. There was never any doubt about this. But there is even greater pressure on England. The prospect of whitewash is looming. And the knives are out for Nasser Hussain.
There was a time when Nasser could do nothing wrong. Now he seems to do nothing right. Messrs Botham, Gower, Allott and Bob Willis, the television commentators, seemed to be operating with a script. When he gave the new ball to Silverwood rather than Harmison, they went on and on that Nasser had sinned gravely. Thereafter, his every field placing was criticised. That, I suppose, is the price one has to pay to be a losing captain.
Wisdom comes from hindsight. When these gentlemen were themselves captaining England or playing, surely they made mistakes. It is when these players have retired and become TV experts, that they become infallible. Nasser is doing the best he can. He can hardly be held responsible if player after player gets unfit. We need to bring some perspective into criticism.
But the most important fact is that Australia is the better team. There is nothing Nasser can do about it. There’s no point in whining and looking for scapegoats. The Australians are on a roll. Pakistan know exactly what England must be feeling. We’ve been there but we did not panic. That’s what England have to do, grin and bear it and wait for another time.