{"id":580,"date":"2006-06-14T11:49:10","date_gmt":"2006-06-14T15:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/06\/14\/the-kasdah-of-hj-abd-el-yezd\/"},"modified":"2008-04-08T00:27:33","modified_gmt":"2008-04-08T04:27:33","slug":"the-kasdah-of-hj-abd-el-yezd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2006\/06\/14\/the-kasdah-of-hj-abd-el-yezd\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SirYears ago I read through Philip Jos\u00e9 Farmer<\/a>‘s Riverworld<\/a> books. Those of you who have read them will recall that Richard Burton<\/a>Wikipedia entry<\/a><\/footnote> (along with lots of other historical personages) played a pretty big role in the series.<\/p>\n

One of the indirect results of my doing that reading was that I was driven to find a copy of Burton<\/a>‘s “Kasîdah<\/a>“, or to use the full title “The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî<\/a>“. The work is referenced directly a couple of times in the Riverworld<\/a> books, and is referenced thematically almost constantly. Also the titles of two of the books“The Dark Design<\/a>“, and “The Magic Labyrinth<\/a>“<\/footnote> come from lines in the Kasîdah.<\/p>\n

As I found out more about The Kasîdah<\/a>, the (true!) story behind itYou can get some basic details here<\/a>.<\/footnote> fascinated me. Particularly fascinating were the part where Burton<\/a> used his super-spy powers to go “under cover” as a muslim and make the pilgrimage to Mecca (on pain of death if he were to be exposed as an infidel!), and the part where he had the English literary world fooled into thinking he was only the translator and not the author for over a decade.<\/p>\n

Even more fascinating, though, was the content of the work. It’s a kind of Sufi<\/a> text, and it’s also pretty much the only place where Burton<\/a> wrote directly about his own beliefs (perhaps the shield of anonymity that his ‘merely the translator’ ruse gave him made it easier to be so direct). <\/p>\n

\"RichardTraditionally<\/a> a kasîdah<\/a> is an Arabic or Persian panegyric<\/a>. There is a definite three part thematic structure (nostalgia\/journey\/message) and a requirement for the same meter and rhyme scheme has to run through the entire composition, no matter how long the poem is. There’s some nice details on the tripartite structure in the Wikipedia entry for the form<\/a>. Burton<\/a> honours this form, but his instantiation of it might shock some of those 9th century Islamic scholars–it contains many references to 19th Century scientific and philosophical concepts, most notably the evolution of species. He introduces these as part of the metaphorical journey of the poem–a journey that starts as an individual one journeying from blind belief towards a very rational kind of Light, and which may be interpreted as “the philosophical and evolutionary journey of the vast caravan of humanity, from its forgotten origins to its unknown destination”That line lifted wholesale from the Everything2 entry on the Kasîdah<\/a>.<\/footnote>.<\/p>\n

A recent post on Will’s blog<\/a> got me thinking about the Kasîdah<\/a> again, which lead to this post.<\/p>\n

I’m not going to reproduce the whole thing<\/a> here, but I can point you to a couple of different places where you can read it online, and maybe pull out a few quick selections from the text (which are nice, but even better in context).<\/p>\n

I should also point out that there is a lovely bound edition<\/a> still in print–I got a copy of this at the time I first got interested, since the work wasn’t available online at the time. It’s kept in print by a Sufi<\/a> organization, and I love the idea of this book as an equivalent to the Gideon’s Bible.<\/p>\n

The Kasîdah<\/a> can be found online in many places now. One example is at the library of Adelaide University in Australia.<\/a> I quite like page layout of that one for online read. An alternate example is the copy at ScaredTexts.com<\/a>, which does a better job of maintaining the accents.<\/p>\n

And here are a few selections, pulled from the Adelaide version<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Friends of my youth, a last adieu!
\n\u2003haply some day we meet again;
\nYet ne\u2019er the self-same men shall meet;
\n\u2003the years shall make us other men:\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am always a sucker for the “same man, same river” thing.<\/p>\n

How Thought is imp\u2019otent to divine
\n\u2003the secret which the gods defend,
\nThe Why of birth and life and death,
\n\u2003that Isis-veil no hand may rend.<\/p>\n

Eternal Morrows make our Day;
\n\u2003our Is is aye to be till when
\nNight closes in; \u2019tis all a dream,
\n\u2003and yet we die,\u2014and then and THEN?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This framing of one of the questions that the work deals with reminds me strongly of some passages in Santaya<\/a>‘s Lucifer: A Theological TragedyI can’t believe this is still not available online. I should publish my OCR version sometime. Meanwhile, I point you to where I quoted some of it before<\/a>.<\/footnote>… in fact, I would almost be willing to bet that Georges<\/a> was a fan of Burton<\/a>‘s.<\/p>\n

There is no Good, there is no Bad;
\n\u2003these be the whims of mortal will:
\nWhat works me weal that call I \u2018good,\u2019
\n\u2003what harms and hurts I hold as \u2018ill:\u2019<\/p>\n

They change with place, they shift with race;
\n\u2003and, in the veriest span of Time,
\nEach Vice has worn a Virtue\u2019s crown;
\n\u2003all Good was banned as Sin or Crime:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a remarkably broad view for someone from the society Burton<\/a> was raised in. It’s pretty easy to imagine that his travels, adventures, and other experiences<\/a> broadened his mind mightily and forced him to reexamine the unspoken dogma of his society though.<\/p>\n

All Faith is false, all Faith is true:
\n\u2003Truth is the shattered mirror strown
\nIn myriad bits; while each believes
\n\u2003his little bit the whole to own.<\/p>\n

What is the Truth? was askt of yore.
\n\u2003Reply all object Truth is one
\nAs twain of halves aye makes a whole;
\n\u2003the moral Truth for all is none.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now you start to see why reading this work would make a woman of Burton<\/a>‘s time cry, as his wife is reported to have done in despair at her husband’s expressed beliefs.<\/p>\n

There is no Heav\u2019en, there is no Hell;
\n\u2003these be the dreams of baby minds;
\nTools of the wily Fetisheer,
\n\u2003to \u2019fright the fools his cunning blinds.<\/p>\n

Learn from the mighty Spi\u2019rits of old
\n\u2003to set thy foot on Heav\u2019en and Hell;
\nIn Life to find thy hell and heav\u2019en
\n\u2003as thou abuse or use it well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am also quite happy with the notion that we make our own Heaven or Hell here on earth. You can see though how this could have put Burton<\/a> at odds with his society–especially since he’s not shying away from some very aggressive phrasings. “Dreams of baby minds”. Yeah.<\/p>\n

With Ignor\u2019ance wage eternal war,
\n\u2003to know thy self forever strain,
\nThine ignorance of thine ignorance is
\n\u2003thy fiercest foe, thy deadliest bane;<\/p>\n

That blunts thy sense, and dulls thy taste;
\n\u2003that deafs thine ears, and blinds thine eyes;
\nCreates the thing that never was,
\n\u2003the Thing that ever is defies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Thine ignorance of thine ignorance is \/ thy fiercest foe, thy deadliest bane” is perhaps my favourite line in the work. It’s a very classical idea of coursesee Apollo<\/a> & Plato<\/a><\/footnote>, but expressing it as an anti-faith sentiment would have been an uncommon formulation at the time.<\/p>\n

These a just glimpses into the work, and I assure you that spending a little time with the whole thing<\/a> will be rewarding. Also, if you read the Riverworld<\/a> books afterwards, it’s almost an entirely different experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Years ago I read through Philip Jos\u00e9 Farmer‘s Riverworld books. Those of you who have read them will recall that Richard BurtonWikipedia entry (along with lots of other historical personages) played a pretty big role in the series. One of the indirect results of my doing that reading was that I was driven to find a copy of Burton‘s “Kasîdah“,… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[260,458,238,194,264],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-beautiful-things","tag-books","tag-philosophy","tag-poem","tag-santayana","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-9m","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}