Sunday, May 24, 2020

Best wishes for a happy Eid ul Fitr with Kemal Khujandi

Best wishes for a happy Eid ul Fitr with Kemal Khujandi (14th c.),
one of the greatest Muslim mystics, spiritual leaders, poets and transcendental philosophers!

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Ciidul Fidriga, Ciid wanaagsan!
Наилучшие пожелания для спокойного Ид аль-Фитр!
! پیشاپیش عید فطر مبارک باد
Ramazan Bayramınız kutlu olsun!
! عيد فطر سعيد
Glückwünsche zum Eid al Fitr!
Ευχές για ένα Χαρούμενο Μπαϋράμι!
Meilleurs vœux pour Eid-Al-Fitr!
Auguri per Eid al-Fitr, fine del Ramadan!
Best wishes for a happy Eid ul Fitr!




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It is difficult to present one of Islam's greatest Uwaysi, the ascetics who attained spiritual completion without any master or teacher but with their souls as the sole guide.

Suffice it to say that Timur Leng (Tamerlane) lived at the times of Kemal Khujandi (who passed away in the year 1400). Born in Khujand (today's Northern Tajikistan – Ancient Sogdiana), he traveled a lot and he lived mainly in Tabriz; he was invited and spent four years at Saray, the capital of Tatarstan, the Golden Horde state. At those days, Saray was the world's wealthiest and most brilliant city (near today's Samara in Russia).  

Kemal Khujandi is said to have composed 14000 poetic entities (بيت) of which ca. 8000 have been saved – of course in Farsi, the Islamic World foremost language of culture.

Only small part of his poetry was translated to Russian. It is mainly available in Farsi. I translated few excerpts to English for you



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This is what Kemal Khujandi said about Jelaleddin Rumi and Shams-e Tabrizi:

"Do not think that the lovers of God, the saints have all gone and the city of love has become empty! The world is filled with people like Shams-e Tabrizi, but where are the men like Rumi to see the truth in them?"



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And the following is what Kemal Khujandi said about the key to achieving absolute transcendence and body-soul unity in action. I consider it as sheer indication that he achieved total transformation of his material body to ethereal body. Why? Because what he calls "pearls" are in fact condensed drops of pure ether.

The goal is what the pearls have locked up.
And you need to make an effort.
Taking pearls means finding the key;
And the key is zeal, time and knowledge.



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His perfection in olfactory spirituality is evidently attested here:

سنبل نتوان گفت
Lavender cannot be said

هرگز نکند هیچ کسی مشک ختا را
Never let anyone get rid of musk

نسبت به گیاهی
The criterion is the plant

بشکست همی لشگر سلطان کواکب
The army of Sultan Kawakab was defeated
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/moskk/



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His universal tolerance eliminates the evil darkness of fake theologians:

با آنکه ترا سر مسلمانی نیست
Although you are not a Muslim

یاد بود و کنون نیست همان محبوبی
It was and still is not the same favorite.
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/mokk/sh6/




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His irony is explicit here:

عیدی دیدم سر علم افتاد
I saw Eid falling on the flag

فی الحال بجایش سر سنج بستم
Instead, I closed my head
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/mokk/sh4/




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The Man is a Mirror – and all the rest comes after.
Kemal Khujandi reveals this truth in few words – explicitly:

انسان بمثل آینه باشد بالذات
Man is like a mirror in essence
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/robkk/sh10/




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Only idiots think that "the Lord of the Rings" is a genuine novel written by a 20th c. English trash. The Lord of the Rings is a Babylonian, Aramaean, Manichaean and Islamic concept, and Kemal Khujandi proves it very well here:

الا ای صوفی مکشوف باطن
Otherwise, O Sufi, discover the inside

بباطن صورت فقر دعا گوی
Pray in the face of poverty

که بنمایی ره ارباب ورع را
That you show the Lord of the Rings

چو بینی قطع کن از من طمع را
Cut off my nose from greed
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/moghattatkk/sh1/




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This is a clear indication that Kemal Khujandi attained the spiritual level of emitting light from his body, which involves total mastership of the middle spiritual body. "Our Aladdin" is the energized within the body soul; "fibers" are currents of electricity; and the "gray pot" is the body. "From the heat of the finger": you start emitting light either from the eye (as Jesus hinted once in the Gospels) or from the right index.

چون علاالدین ما بوقوت سماع
Because our Aladdin is eavesdropping

گوییا از حرارت انگشت
As if from the heat of the finger

در فغان و خروش میآید
It comes in fibers

دیگ طوسی بجوش می آید
The gray pot boils
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/moghattatkk/sh32/




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These verses suggest that Kemal Khujandi's background in Cosmogony and Cosmology were very solid. The first verse can be syntactically interpreted in two different manners; ambivalence seems to have always pleased Kemal Khujandi!

The second verse is the most abridged narrative of the Creation that I know in World Literature. The famous Black Holy Book (Mashaf-e Ras) of the Yazidis offers a very brief narrative of the Creation, but this verse says it all in even fewer words. The emanation of 'salt water' and a 'weal' from the 'dew' reminds me the first verses of Enuma Elish, the Assyrian-Babylonian Epic of the Creation (the separation of Apsu from Tiamat): 

ای بر کمال قدرت تو عقل کل گواه
O perfection of power in the intellect of the whole witness

از شبنم عطای تو یک قطره بحر و کان
From the dew I give you a drop of the sea and the weal

وز پرتوی جمال تو یک ذره مهر و ماه
And the radiance of your beauty is a particle of love and moon
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/ghasidekk/sh2/





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These verses also reflect Assyrian-Babylonian Spiritual Ontology; "instead of selling wind"! Incredible! I think that I hear a high priest of Ea preaching Ea Moral Wisdom to eliminate Enlil Theology. Really! How useless it is to "sell wind"! Kemal Khujandi represents a continuity of moral and spiritual approach textually attested for at least 4300 years (2700 BCE – 1400 CE).

شمارهٔ ۴۱: طریق عشق میورزی رها کن دین و دنیا را
You fall in love, give up religion and the world!

بجای باده بفروشد صلاح و زهد و تقوا را
Instead of selling wind, sell goodness, asceticism and piety
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/ghazalkk/sh41/




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This is one of my favorites; it shows that Kemal Khujandi knew very well that the believers are in reality hypocrites and liars, and that the unfaithful will obtain the grace of God. How? This is very clear as per below: the unfaithful will finally manage to "take all the sorrows apart". Faith is not a silly recipe, neither humans were created as robots.

Strange? Not at all! The end is explicit:
We cried for piety
He said, "Leave me alone".
So, the unfaithful finally understood that asceticism leads to piety, which is the precondition of faith, whereas theological rhetoric is useless.

شمارهٔ ۵۰: یار بگزید بی وفایی را

یار بگزید بی وفایی را
همه غمها جدا جدا بکشم
شنی لله مرا ز روی نکوست
خانه را گر نبات از نو چراغ
زاهد از شهر عشق رخ کشید
بر تو از دست نارسانی ماست
گفتمش خاک راه تست کمال

رفت و ببرید آشنانی را
جز غم و غصه جدانی را
من نکو می کنم گدایی را
چکند دیده روشنائی را
عقل بینید روستانی را
که گریدیم پارسانی را
 گفت بگذارخودستائی را

Help the unfaithful!

Help the unfaithful
Take all the sorrows apart
The sand of God did not touch me
Turn the house on again
The ascetic emerged from the city of love
We miss you
I told him the dirt of the test path

Go and get acquainted
Except for the sadness of separation
I do not beg
He saw the light
See the wisdom of the villagers
We cried for piety
He said, "Leave me alone".



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For those among you who read Farsi, here you will find the online publication of Kemal Khujandi's works:

List of 1079 poems (ghazal)
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/ghazalkk/

List of 4 long poems (قصاید)
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/ghasidekk/

List of 104 stations (مقطعات)
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/moghattatkk/

List of 44 rubayat
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/robkk/

List of 9 Mafradat
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/mofkk/

List of 9 Maamiat
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/mokk/

Masnavi (مثنوی)
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/maskk/

مستزاد 
https://ganjoor.net/khojandi/moskk/


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In English, the best introductory reading is here:

Wikipedia entries are very poor:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Камол_Худжанди
https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/کمال_خجندی

In Russian:
Камол Худжанди. Газели Posted by nimatullahi на 20 января, 2004
https://oldsufiwebzine.wordpress.com/2004/01/20/камол-худжанди-газели/

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Literary research on Kemal Khujandi (in Farsi and Tajik) – Abstracts in English:

The Life and times of Kamal Khojandi
There is a quixotic brilliance to the stardom of the major Persian Sufi poets of the medieval period. Given all the intricacies, niceties. and subtleties of Sufi symbolism, plus the abstruseness of their theosophical theories, it is hardly a marvel that the paradoxical nature of their personalities-reflected through the peculiar lens, analyzed by means of the biased views of the hagiographical canons of classical histories-remains obscure to us today. The biographies of many of the Sufi poets of the period, such as Hafiz, Humam Tabrizi, Salman Savaji, Shabestari, Maghribi and Kamal Khojandi are replete with puzzling anecdotes, enigmatic incidents and finely-spun witticisms, so it seems that literary history is itself but one of the many levels of Sufi symbolic poetry. Such a haze of hagiographical legend and pious mythology also beclouds the personality of Kamal Khojandi (d. 803/1400). one of the brightest stars in the galaxy of me Timurid Persian poets, whose poetry deeply influenced those poets who followed the Indian style (sabk-e hendi) as well as the later Timurid and Mogul Sufi poets. This article is a biographical study of his life and times. Because the socio-economic and politico-cultural background of Kamal Khojandj's life has been insufficiently explored by literary historians such as E.G. Browne and Zabihollah Safa, particular attention is given to the cultural milieu and political climate of his day, and, as far as the references in his Divan can be deciphered, to his relationship with royalty. Besides the notices provided by Dowlatshahi Samarqandi, Ibn Karbala'i, and Jami, biographical data on Kamal Khojandi is quite meager; this article attempts to sort out some of the discrepancies in the various extant accounts of his life, and to resolve certain problems regarding his travels and locations where he resided. Critical attention is also given to the references provided in the poet's Divan to Teymur-e lang and to the latter's son, Miranshah, who governed Tabriz in the last decade of the fifteenth century.
https://www.irannameh.org/index.php/journal/article/view/1180

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Analysis of Sensible/Stative system in Ghazals of Kamal Khojandi: A Semiotics Approach
By Ebrahim Kanani
Abstract
Kamal Khojandi is a celebrated poet of the eighth and early ninth century. Love, rendi and malamati are topics that abound in his poetry. Praising love and rendi and presenting love-making scenes rare the most outstanding features of Kamal's poetry. This paper studies the stative system of ghazal number 19 of Kamal's divan in order to discuss the discourse system of his poetry, which has captivated hearts of many readers and has made him one of the most successful followers of Sa'di's school of ghazal. It is argued that there are many different stative, sensory-perceptual, and emotional layers in his poetry affecting the process of meaning -making  and presenting his poem's disputatious system.
http://jba.shirazu.ac.ir/article_4509_en.html

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ГЛУБОКИЙ СМЫСЛ И ЭСТЕТИКА В СТИХАХ КАМАЛЯ ХОДЖАНДИ
THE DEEP MEANING AND AESTHETICS IN KAMAL KHOJANDI’S POEMS
By Mustafo Khudoyori (in Tajik)
The second half of eighth century or Teymouri era is considered as the time of Persian literature and art and especially mystical literature blossom. During this period of climax and elevation, we come to prominent writers and poets such as Sheikh Kamal ALdin Mohammad Abo Ahmad Khajandi, whose fame has been overshadowed by great and famous poets of eighth century such as Shams Aldin Mohammad Hafez Shirazi. Kamol Khojandi should be considered a mystic artist who wrote about theosophy in his own piety and chaste style. He is trained under the supervision of Shekh Zein Aldin Khafi. The result of this eloquent poet of the Eragi school is a complete poetic work, including eight thousand lines, as well as odes and his sonnets. Kamal Khojandi has used odes in his acclamation and has used sonnet for expressing concepts such as love, theosophy, sermon and peremptory- educational issues. Simplicity and fluency in expression considering strong literary styles in Kamal’s poems has enabled the readers of his works to understand easily his poems and comprehends the deep eagerness and mystical talent of the Sheikh. To make his language better and poetic for the ears of his works readers, this meticulous and tactful poet has used beautifully the elements of imagination and the beauties of language for illuminating some profound concepts. So, in the present article, the meaning, the expressive aspects and also the aesthetics of Kamal Khojandi’s poems will be considered and studies.
https://elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=36868584

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Thanks to Kemal Khojandi, the two cities where he was born and where he died are now in sisterhood relationship:
https://en-2018.tabriz.ir/News/235/Sisterhood-contract-between-Tabriz-and-khujand,-one-of-the-best-exles-of-intimacy-between-two-cities.html

Also:
https://en.trend.az/iran/1850589.html

About Khujand city in Northern Tajikistan:
https://www.backpackadventures.org/khujand-tajikistan/

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More in attachment (in Farsi and Tajik):








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