The great Persian poet Nezami (1141-1209) was from the city of Ganja in northwestern Iran when it was ruled by the Seljuk Empire. That was the era of the Crusades and Richard Lionheart, though the Crusader kingdoms were far from Iran and Nezami only once left home, to see the king. In his Treasury of Mysteries, this Muslim poet refers to Christian themes several times.

The most famous reference is an anecdote clearly rooted in folk culture, though it captures something of Jesus’ love for the despised humble folk (courtesans and tax-collectors). Here is my hurried, loose rendering:

The feet of Christ, which traced the world,
passed by a small market one day.
A dog big as a wolf lay fallen.
Like Joseph, the coat of its beauty was bloodied.

A crowd of spectators gathered at the scene,
like vultures circling the carcass.
One said, “This gruesome sight poisons
the mind, the way a breath blows out a lamp.”

Another said, “It is a pure blight —
It is blindness for the eye, a plague on the heart.
All expressed their own opinion,
heaping scorn each in turn.

When came the turn of Jesus to speak,
he eschewed blame and went straight to the truth of the matter.
He said, “How fine was its bodily form,
and no white pearl can compare to its teeth.”

Unlike the others around him, Jesus is here depicted as finding something to admire even in the disgusting, putrid carcass of a dead dog, according to this mystical teaching story. Nezami goes on to advise people not to focus on the faults of others and preen about their own virtues. He warns against being too full of admiration for yourself when you look in a mirror. He says that decking yourself out in finery fresh as the spring is dangerous. Fate is out there, looking for prey to devour, and you don’t want to attract attention to yourself.

Here is an Iranian artist’s rendering of the scene from the Safavid period, early 1600s:

“Folio from a Makhzan al-asrar (Treasury of secrets) by Nizami (d.1209); verso: Jesus and the dead dog; recto: text: The tenth article.” National Museum of Asian Art . Creative Commons 0.

Nezami adds in Sufi fashion,

The entirety of this world, old or new,
is fleeting, and not worth two barley grains.
Do not grieve for this world, but rise, sir,
and if you do grieve, pour out some wine for Nezami.

Nezami’s story is an illustration of Matthew 7:3-5

3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition).

The Gospels also show Jesus as reminding people that they are in no position most of the time to judge others for their flaws, as when he defended the woman accused of adultery from being stoned in John 8:7

7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

Muslim poets and story-tellers told lots of anecdotes about Jesus that are not in the Gospels. He was a figure of wisdom and self-denial, and the Persian mystics used him to symbolize the potential of the soul for spiritual growth.

This essay is part of my project on Islamic Peace Studies, an extremely neglected but very important field. Peace practices and movements have been very important in history, but they have been very little written about, as I pointed out recently in The Oxford Handbook of Peace History .

One of the morally more complex passages in the Qur’ān is Distinguished 41:33-35. It advocates responding to harmful actions with virtuous ones, suggesting that this approach can turn adversaries into allies or supporters. This passage echoes themes found in the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament. Despite its significance, this and other verses promoting peace in the Qur’ān have not been critically examined by scholars, and little focus has been given to their reception in later Muslim commentaries. In this context, I investigate the commentaries on this passage by a renowned medieval Sufi scholar, who devoted particular attention to Qur’anic ethics and the spiritual growth these verses inspire.

I translate the passage as follows: “Whose discourse is more beautiful than one who calls others to God and performs good works and proclaims, ‘I am among those who have submitted to God’’ The good deed and the evil deed are not equal. Repel the latter with what is best, and behold, it will be as though your enemy is a devoted patron. Yet to none is this granted save the patient, and to none is it granted save the supremely fortunate.” The moral agent capable of carrying out this exceptional act toward harmful adversaries acquires the power to transform them into allies and supporters. This transformation is attainable only by those who possess boundless patience and are endowed with great good fortune. Responding to wrongdoing with acts of kindness is emphasized here as an extraordinary accomplishment for the faithful. The Qur’ān presents the idea that responding to hostility with kindness has a transformative effect. Some commentators have pointed out that the Christian teaching of “love your enemies” is less reciprocal, addressing only one side of the relationship.

The mystic Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Karīm Qushayrī (d. 1072) of Nishapur was a leading Sufi authority of his time. Britannica defines Sufi Islam this way: “Sufism, mystical Islamic belief and practice in which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God.” His family, originating from Khorasan, claimed Arab lineage and provided him with an education in literature and martial arts. At the age of 15, he moved to Nishapur to study practical matters in hopes of reducing taxes in his village. However, he instead became a disciple of the spiritual teacher Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq. Alongside conventional Islamic studies, such as law, Qushayrī ultimately dedicated himself to the Sufi path. He later succeeded Daqqāq as the head of his seminary.

Qushayrī became entangled in the conflicts between the Ḥanafī and Shāfiʿī legal schools in Seljuk-era Nishapur around 1038. These disputes led to his exile, possibly to avoid imprisonment by Ḥanafīs, as Nishapur faced violent clashes between supporters of the two schools. He returned only after stability was restored. Some mystics envisioned Sufism as a spiritual movement that could transcend the divisions of legal schools, offering a unifying Muslim identity to end the sectarian strife. Qushayrī gained renown as the author of a significant Qur’ān commentary, The Subtleties of the Allusions.

He addresses Q. 41:34, “The good deed and the evil deed are not equal. Repel the latter with what is best . . .” He asserts that the verse counsels repelling the evil deed by the traits of character that are best, that is, by giving up on revenge and overlooking the past moral mistakes of others. Regarding “and behold, it will be as though your enemy is a devoted patron,” Qushayrī explains that this practice exemplifies proper spiritual conduct. It involves demonstrating patience and forbearance toward His creation out of devotion to God. Additionally, he highlights that in your interactions with others, it reflects a noble character to refrain from seeking personal revenge and instead to choose to forgive your adversary.

From the early eleventh century, Sufi lodges began to appear in Khorasan, initially funded by affluent Sufis or private patrons. Figures such as Sulamī, Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq, and Qushayrī were closely connected to these establishments, which served as spaces for spiritual retreats and accommodations for visitors. By the mid-eleventh century, Seljuk officials began extending state support to these centers.

“Dancing Dervishes”, Folio from a Divan of the poet Hafiz (1325–1390), attributed to Bihzad (Iranian, Herat ca. 1450–1535/36 Herat) ca. 1480. Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art . Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

Lloyd Ridgeon argues that the emergence of the Sufi center created a social venue for Sufis to engage in their rituals while also welcoming “lay affiliates” who sought to interact with more dedicated practitioners. These institutions often served charitable purposes, providing meals for the needy and lodging for travelers. Lay affiliates included a broad range of people, from peasants to urban laborers. According to Ridgeon, this environment fostered an expanded understanding of Sufi ethical conduct, aimed not only at training initiates but also at shaping the behavior of the general populace. Among those drawn to Sufism were urban trades guilds and groups adhering to a code of chivalry.

Qushayrī turns to Q. 41:35, “Yet to none is this granted save the patient, and to none is it granted save the supremely fortunate.” He emphasizes that these qualities of character can only truly be attained by those who are strengthened by patience and capable of transcending trivialities to embrace lofty moral virtues. Only those who endure hardships and challenges with perseverance can ascend to the highest levels of excellence.

These sentiments also resemble the medieval Muslim conception of chivalry. One principle of chivalry that Qushayrī mentions is “It means that you do not care whether the guest that you entertain at your table is a friend of God or an unbeliever.” A passage by this author in another work exemplifies the principle:

“I heard one learned man say: ‘A Magian [Zoroastrian] asked hospitality from Abraham, the Friend of God – peace be upon him. Abraham told him: “Only if you embrace Islam!” The Magian walked away. At that moment, God Most High revealed to him the following: “For fifty years I have fed him despite his unbelief. Couldn’t you have offered him a morsel without asking him to change his religion?” On hearing this, Abraham – peace be upon him – rushed after the Magian until he caught up with him. He then apologized before him. When the Magian asked him about the cause [of his change of heart], he explained what had happened to him, whereupon the Magian embraced Islam.’”

From childhood, we are told that patience is a virtue and that good things will come to those who wait. And, so, many of us work on cultivating patience.

This often starts by learning to wait for a turn with a coveted toy. As adults, it becomes trying to remain patient with long lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles, misbehaving kids or the slow pace of political change. This hard work can have mental health benefits. It is even correlated with per capita income and productivity.

But it is also about trying to become a good person.

It’s clear to me, as a scholar of religious ethics, that patience is a term many of us use, but we all could benefit from understanding its meaning a little better.

In religious traditions, patience is more than waiting, or even more than enduring a hardship. But what is that “more,” and how does being patient make us better people?

The writings of medieval Islamic thinker Abu Hamid al-Ghazali can give us insights or help us understand why we need to practice patience – and also when not to be patient.

Who was al-Ghazali?

Born in Iran in 1058, al-Ghazali was widely respected as a jurist, philosopher and theologian. He traveled to places as far as Baghdad and Jerusalem to defend Islam and argued there was no contradiction between reason and revelation. More specifically, he was well known for reconciling Aristotle’s philosophy, which he likely read in Arabic translation, with Islamic theology.

Al-Ghazali was a prolific writer, and one of his most important works – “Revival of the Religious Sciences,” or the “Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn” – provides a practical guide for living an ethical Muslim life.

This work is composed of 40 volumes in total, divided into four parts of 10 books each. Part 1 deals with Islamic rituals; Part 2, local customs; Part 3, vices to be avoided; and Part 4, virtues one should strive for. Al-Ghazali’s discussion of patience comes in Volume 32 of Part 4, “On Patience and Thankfulness,” or the “Kitāb al-sabr waʾl-shukr.”

He describes patience as a fundamental human characteristic that is crucial to achieving value-driven goals, and he provides a caveat for when impatience is called for.

1. What is patience?

Humans, according to al-Ghazali, have competing impulses: the impulse of religion, or “bāʿith al-dīn,” and the impulse of desire, or “bāʿith al-hawā.”

Life is a struggle between these two impulses, which he describes with the metaphor of a battle: “Support for the religious impulse comes from the angels reinforcing the troops of God, while support for the impulse of desire comes from the devils reinforcing the enemies of God.”

The amount of patience we have is what decides who wins the battle. As al-Ghazali puts it, “If a man remains steadfast until the religious impulse conquers … then the troops of God are victorious and he joins the troops of the patient. But if he slackens and weakens until appetite overcomes him … he joins the followers of the devils.” In other words, for al-Ghazali, patience is the deciding factor of whether we are living up to our full human potential to live ethically.

2. Patience, values and goals

Patience is also necessary for being a good Muslim, in al-Ghazali’s view. But his understanding of how patience works rests on a theory of ethics and can be applied outside of his explicitly Islamic worldview.

It all starts with commitments to core values. For a Muslim like al-Ghazali, those values are informed by the Islamic tradition and community, or “umma,” and include things like justice and mercy. These specific values might be universally applicable. Or you might also have another set of values that are important to you. Perhaps a commitment to social justice, or being a good friend, or not lying.

“Nizamiyyah University Nishapur,” Digital imagining, Dall-E, 2024.

Living in a way that is consistent with these core values is what the moral life is all about. And patience, according to al-Ghazali, is how we consistently make sure our actions serve this purpose.

That means patience is not just enduring the pain of a toddler’s temper tantrum. It is enduring that pain with a goal in mind. The successful application of patience is measured not by how much pain we endure but by our progress toward a specific goal, such as raising a healthy and happy child who can eventually regulate their emotions.

In al-Ghazali’s understanding of patience, we all need it in order to remain committed to our core principles and ideas when things aren’t going our way.

3. When impatience is called for

One critique of the idea of patience is that it can lead to inaction or be used to silence justified complaints. For instance, scholar of Africana studies Julius Fleming argues in his book “Black Patience” for the importance of a “radical refusal to wait” under conditions of systemic racism. Certainly, there are forms of injustice and suffering in the world that we should not calmly endure.

Despite his commitment to the importance of patience to a moral life, al-Ghazali makes room for impatience as well. He writes, “One is forbidden to be patient with harm (that is) forbidden; for example, to have one’s hand cut off or to witness the cutting off of the hand of a son and to remain silent.”

These are examples of harms to oneself or to loved ones. But could the necessity for impatience be extended to social harms, such as systemic racism or poverty? And as Quranic studies scholars Ahmad Ismail and Ahmad Solahuddin have argued, true patience sometimes necessitates action.

As al-Ghazali writes, “Just because patience is half of faith, do not imagine that it is all commendable; what is intended are specific kinds of patience.”

To sum up, not all patience is good; only patience that is in service of righteous goals is key to the ethical life. The question of which goals are righteous is one we must all answer for ourselves.

Liz Bucar, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Northeastern University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The other bombing hit a mosque in Hangu in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa Province. The mosque was known to be frequented by members of the local police. The suicide bombers had tried to hit the police station first and been repulsed, so they turned to a soft target. There have been 300 attacks in this province this year.

The insurgent movement in the tribal areas of northern Pakistan, the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP), denied involvement. The TTP is closely allied with the Taliban who now again rule Afghanistan, and there are frictions between the Taliban and the current Pakistani government.

That the attack in Mastung targeted worshipers commemorating the birthday of the Prophet suggests that the perpetrators were members of ISIL, the so-called “Islamic State” group. When ISIL was ruling northern Iraq and eastern Syria, they banned celebrating Muhammad’s birthday as a sinful “innovation.” Their views on the matter are in accord with the fundamentalist Wahhabi branch of Islam in Saudi Arabia, where jurists such as Abdel Aziz Bin Baz (d. 1999) also forbade honoring the Prophet’s birthday. Small ISIL cells have carried out terrorist attacks on the Taliban in Afghanistan, and have occasionally hit targets in Pakistan itself. In Baluchistan, the so-called Islamic State- Pakistan Province is active, whereas in Khyber Pushtunkhwa the rival Islamic State – Khurasan carries out attacks. The latter was likely the perpetrator at Hangu.

Pakistan’s own security has declined because of infighting among the country’s political elite since Prime Minister Imran Khan was unseated in a vote of no confidence on April 10, 2022, in which 20 former supporters in the parliament defected. Khan has castigated the parliamentary maneuver as an illegitimate plot, and is now in jail on corruption charges that his followers say are trumped up.

I’d say 98% of the Muslims in the world approve of commemorating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, which is usually given as the twelfth day of the third month of the Islamic calendar, Rabi’ al-Awwal in 570 CE, nearly six centuries after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

I wrote a book about the Prophet Muhammad, in which I discuss the likely circumstances of his birth, but more importantly his teachings on peace and reconciliation.

Purchase

It is a great shame that some do things in his name at which he clearly would horrified.

Admittedly, historians do not think large public celebrations of this day began until about the 1100s CE, some 500 years after the Prophet. Since that time, poetry and hymns have been composed for the occasion, and people have developed customs like giving children toy horses or staging parades in the streets and putting up illuminated chandeliers and lanterns over city streets. That is why some scholars consider it an innovation. But most of those see it as a good innovation. The fundamentalist Wahhabi and Salafi tendencies, in contrast, tend to see all later innovations not present at the beginnings of Islam as illegitimate.

In Pakistan, most people celebrate the entire Muslim month of Rabi` al-Awwal as the birth month of the Prophet. Marching bands, rides on caparisoned camels, and other activities of public “fun” are popular.

It is widely celebrated among American Muslims.

The major Sunni religious authority, the al-Azhar seminary in Cairo, Egypt, has repeatedly upheld the legitimacy of such celebrations. The considered legal ruling or fatwa says, “It is not permissible according to Islamic law to challenge the legitimacy of celebrating the anniversary of the Prophet’s birthday due to the forbidden things that may occur during it. Rather, we denounce the evils that may surround it, and we warn those who commit it – with wisdom and leniency – that these evils contradict the basic purpose for which these honorable occasions were held.”

Sufis, Muslim mystics, have sometimes engaged in ecstatic rituals on this anniversary of which the more sober clerics disapprove. You could compare this difference to one between, say, mainstream Presbyterian clerics and Pentecostalists.

Still, there is a broad consensus in both Sunni and Shiite Islam that commemorating the birth of the Prophet is a good thing, a moment of joy and celebration.

The ISIL terrorist group, which has wrought a vast swathe of destruction through Muslim societies and has also committed terrorism in Europe and the US, has a policy of acting harshly, “like wild beasts” (tawahhush). By attempting to outlaw perfectly innocent and uplifting religious practices like the birth of the Prophet, they set themselves up as superior to other Muslims and can use such prohibitions as a means of asserting power over others. Hence the bombing of the procession outside a mosque in Mastung. The good news is that the Muslims themselves have waged a concerted and brave campaign to root out this wicked heresy that has created so many orphans.

This year I want to point to some verses of Farid al-Din Attar of Nishapur (1145-1221). Attar was what we would now call a pharmacist, but also a perfume maker. So he was the one you would go to for the equivalent of Pepto Bismol to settle your tummy, but also for this season’s Chanel N°5. He was a highly successful pharmacist, said to have been besieged by customers. In his spare time he wrote spiritual poetry. He does not appear to have traveled much, but the city of Nishapur in eastern Iran under the Saljuq Empire saw a lot of dramatic events, including nomadic conquests– as Richard Bulliet explains. In 1221 when Attar Was 76, the Mongols invaded Nishapur from Central Asia, and he was killed.

In the collection of Attar’s work, “50 Poems” can be found a depiction of the infant Jesus as a symbol of innocence, the sort of innocence that is the secret infancy of which adults have lost sight. In the Qur’an it is alleged, as in the pseudepigraphic infancy gospels of late antiquity, that Jesus spoke from the cradle. Attar uses this image to make Jesus the essence of innocent infancy:

The secret infancy has all the traits of Jesus;
like Jesus it speaks with sweetness from the cradle.
As the rose sweated from my Beloved’s face
a pure moistener like rosewater entered my mouth.

In the same volume, we find:

Firstly they became dust beneath the feet of dogs,
lastly like the wind they bowed their head to their Lord.
Attar whose words gave life to the soul,
found that Jesus became their companion.

Here Jesus is a symbol of humility and the putting aside of ego so as to become as dust before God. When they reach that estate of self-effacement, they discover that Jesus has become their companion.

Attar’s great classic was The Conference of the Birds, of which the best translation is that of Dick Davis and Afkham Darbandi. He also wrote the “Divine Book,” translated by J. A. Boyle, and lyric poetry as well.

In the Ilahi-Nama (Boyle translation), Attar says:

“Like the Prophet David play this melody; like Jesus breathe the love of thy friend.”
“And had not Jesus been the Word of God, how should he in his glory have been the Pure Spirit?”

David was famed for his melodic Psalms, and Jesus for exemplifying God’s love (God is called “the Friend” or the “Beloved” by Sufis).

Jesus is also a symbol of self-denial. Attar depicts him in “The Conference of the Birds” as riding on a donkey and deploys this image as a symbol of the higher self mastering the carnal self, and purifying the soul with love:

The Self, that whirlpool where our lives are wrecked;
As Jesus rode his donkey, ride on it;
Your stubborn Self must bear you and submit –
Then burn this Self and purify your soul;
Let Jesus’ spotless spirit be your goal.
Destroy this burden, and before your eyes
The Holy Ghost in glory will arise.
Welcome, dear nightingale – from your sweet throat
Pour out the pain of lovers note by note.

An anecdote about Jesus is also attributed to Attar, saying that once Jesus was passing through a small town and some of his coreligionists taunted and reviled him. He replied by praying for them. An observer was astonished and asked him why he had not lashed out against them. Jesus replied, “I can only spend what I have in my purse.”

That is, he had no rancor in him, only love and forgiveness.

(The Conversation) – Most Muslims celebrate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad on the 12th day of the third month of the Islamic calendar, Rabi’ al-awaal – which starts on the evening of Oct. 7 in 2022. Muslims view the celebration, called Mawlid al-Nabi or simply the Mawlid, like many other Islamic celebrations: as a sign of respect and adoration of Muhammad, whom they believe to be God’s messenger.

According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad was a righteous man born around A.D. 570, whom God designated as his final prophet. He learned God’s message by heart and recited it. Later on, the verses were written down to preserve the text – what is now the Quran.

Most countries with majority Muslim populations, from Pakistan to Malaysia to Sudan, commemorate the prophet’s birthday each year. The most colorful celebrations are carried out in Egypt, with Sufi dhikr poetry commemorating the prophet, and games, toys and colorful sweets given to kids.

Yet not all Muslims will mark the holiday. In a few countries, like Saudi Arabia, it’s just like any other day. The focus of my research is how Muslim societies relate to their faith, including their sense of social justice and their expectations of governments. While most Muslim countries encourage commemorating the Mawlid, the opposite is true in communities shaped by the ultra-conservative Wahhabi school of Islam, whose global influence has rapidly expanded in recent decades.

Wahhabi disapproval

The Wahhabi movement was started in 1744 by Muhamed Ibn Abdel Wahab, a religious scholar and reformer in what is today Saudi Arabia. Muhamed Ibn Saud, a political leader considered the founder of the Saud dynasty, legitimized his authority by seeking Ibn Abdel Wahab’s religious opinions. Ibn Saud was eager to wrest more power from the Ottoman Empire, which controlled much of the peninsula at the time.

Since then, Wahhabism has spread across the Muslim world in countries such as Yemen, the post-Soviet states, Tunisia and Egypt – especially after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which spurred Iran’s rise as a regional power and prompted Saudi Arabia to try and compete.

An austere school of Islam, Wahhabism often encourages the literal interpretation of the Quran and is especially suspicious of any practices they see as idolatry. For example, Saudi authorities have clamped down on worship at saints’ tombs and razed some holy sites entirely. In extreme cases, Salafis – a related school of Islam – have claimed that the relics and statues of ancient Egypt should be destroyed. In Saudi Arabia, the religious police, called mutaween, guard the prophet’s burial grounds in Medina during pilgrimage seasons to prevent visitors from touching it or praying close to it.

Conservatives frown upon adoration of the prophet. Wahhabi puritans consider the Mawlid heretical, citing a saying of the prophet, called a hadith: Every heresy is a misguidance, and every misguidance will end in hell. The word for “heresy” here, “bid’ah,” is often used to condemn Muslim practices seen as innovations, like celebrating the prophet’s birthday.

Celebrating with awe

Critics of Wahhabism argue that it compromises people’s relationship with God by cutting off instinctual human behavior, like wanting to honor a prophet.

As opposed to the literal and conservative focus on the oneness of God, which Wahabis emphasize, most Muslims observe the prophet’s birthday as a sign of love, respect and awe.

The Mawlid is celebrated in many ways and forms in the Muslim world, whether it is quietly observed by fasting and reading the Quran, or by kids dressing up in bright colors and getting a tiny horse or a doll made out of sugar. The practices vary, but the one thing they articulate are the admirable qualities of the prophet and how dear he is to his followers.

Deina Abdelkader, Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass Lowell

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Protesters gathered outside Kesra Hospital in Tehran where Ms. Amini was taken (though we now know she was pronounced dead on arrival). They chanted anti-government slogans, such as “From Kordestan to Tehran, women are oppressed” and some women unveiled.

These scenes were repeated at Ms. Amini’s funeral itself, where hundreds of mourners gathered and some shouted slogans such as “Death to the dictatorship!” against the Islamic Republic and its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Women tore off their headscarves and held them up to the sky while chanting, according to Firaz Dağ at the Germany-based Kurdish web site, Nûçe Ciwan .

The controversy is multi-faceted, since it concerns women’s rights but also the rights of the Kurdish minority of mountainous western Iran. There are about 6,730,000 Kurds in Iran, about 8% of the population. Kurds are majority Sunni and many are Sufis, and they have often chafed under Shiite Iranian rule. At some points in recent years police in the province have detained dozens of Sunni religious activists in Kurdistan.

At Ms. Amini’s funeral, her grandfather read from the Kurdish poet Shirku Bikas a poem entitled “Tehran does not laugh for Anyone.” He concluded, “We will not fall short, we will not kowtow.”

Although protesters insisted that Ms. Amini had been beaten or tortured, Tehran police said she died of a heart attack while in a waiting area and showed video of Ms. Amini speaking to a police official and then returning to her chair, when she collapsed. Iran’s hard line president, Ebrahim Raisi, has called for an inquiry into her death.

As a social historian, I would just observe that women in their twenties are the healthiest group in any human population, so that they are far more likely to die of accidents, homicide or suicide than from any medical condition. The Tehran medical examiner has said that he should have autopsy results in three weeks. My guess is that Ms. Amini was beaten on the head, which caused a traumatic brain injury and bleeding in the brain or caused a brain aneurysm. That would explain her abrupt collapse. The likelihood that she had a heart attack is virtually nil unless she had a congenital condition from birth, which her parents deny.

Al Jazeera English reports that “the reformist Etemad Melli political party urged Iran’s parliament to cancel the law on the mandatory hijab and suggested President Ebrahim Raisi do away with the morality police.”

Al Jazeera also said that famed Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi issued a rare rebuke, calling Amini’s death while detained by police “a crime.”

It remains to be seen whether the incident has a long-term effect on Iran’s often vital women’s movement, which constantly struggles against religiously-backed male chauvinism and misogyny.

In keeping with this Easter theme of joy, today I am sharing my translation of Poem 4 in the Persian Divan of Hafez of Shiraz (d. 1390 A.D.), who invokes the image of a Christ ascended into the heavens who breaks into an ecstatic dance. The amazing and cryptic verse goes this way

It’s no surprise that in the sky Hafez’s verse
set Venus singing, at which Christ broke into dance.

There are other Easter-like themes in Persian poetry. Muslims believe in Jesus and his miracles, such as raising Lazarus from the dead. In a celebration of the coming of spring, a poem attributed to the astronomer Omar Khayyam says,

Now that the world verges on being happy,
the high-spirited plan to make merry outside.
Each branch is putting out shoots as white as the hand of Moses,
and every breeze wafts the life-giving breath of Jesus.

Rising from the dead is obviously relevant to the holy day.

(For my book of translated poems from the Rubaiyat, see this link.)

But let us turn to Hafez.

Hafez lived in turbulent times, with the gradual fall of the Mongol dynasty and the rise of regional rulers. He sometimes had a high position at court, but for most of the last twenty years of his life he had fallen out of favor. His forte was the lyric poem (ghazal). Some of his verse is touched by mystical Sufi themes, but much of it is secular love poetry or explores themes in what Hamid Dabashi has called Persian humanism. He is a severe critic of the hypocrisy of the Establishment, including the Muslim clerics. To tweak the latter, he praises wine-drinking (frowned on by puritan Muslims) and rascals, as well as wandering Sufi holy men (qalandars).

The poem I’m presenting today is a love poem. It has some stock images. In Persian poetry, the nightingale is the lover of the rose and sings its song for its benefit. Parrots love lumps of sugar (qand) and so are beloved by sugar merchants. Beautiful lovers are graceful and compared to gazelles, so the lover is on a sort of desert hunt. This kind of poetry also has some stock themes, such as the cruel indifference of the beloved to the lover’s advances.

This ghazal ends, however, with an original image, of a Jesus who dances across the heavens.

Soft morning breeze, please tell that elegant gazelle
that she has led us through your deserts and high hills

It is not strange that the poor sugar merchant would
be full of yearning for the parrot who loves sweets.

My rose, did beauty’s vanity prohibit you
from seeking out this love-enraptured nightingale?

You hunt the wise with virtue and benevolence;
you cannot snare the canny bird with nets and traps.

I don’t know why she gives no sign of knowing me–
that tall moon-faced girl with the smoldering black eyes.

When you are seated with your darling sipping wine
Recall to mind the lovers braving stormy gales.

Your beauty is quite flawless save that there is no
fidelity or kindness in your lovely face.

It’s no surprise that in the sky Hafez’s verse
set Venus singing, at which Christ broke into dance.

در آسمان نه عجب گر به گفتهٔ حافظ

سرود زُهره به رقص آورد مسیحا را

The poem is about a cruel beloved, who is cold and heartless and rejects the advances of Hafez. The poet, instead of being broken by this rejection, insists on the cosmic power of his heart’s poetry, which inspires the music of the planet Venus, which in turn sets Jesus to dancing.

Jesus dancing is a symbol of the unity of the lover with the divine beloved, and of the victory of true, spiritual love. With this symbol, Hafez celebrates love beyond love.

In his own wonderful translation of Hafez’s poetry, the great Persian scholar Dick Davis made a stab at explaining these last two lines. He wrote,

” The planet/deity Venus is associated with music (her attribute is a harp or lute) and sensuality, Jesus with asceticism and spirituality; Venus is feminine, Jesus masculine; Venus as a deity belongs to the pre-Islamic, pagan world, Jesus represents a religion recognized by Islam as legitimate. Their dance, which Hafez implies his poetry brings about, is a uniting of the physical and the spiritual, the feminine and the masculine, the pagan and the religiously legitimate; it also represents the cosmic “dance” of the turning of the heavens. Presenting the “lesser” of two figures (here the pagan, the feminine, the sensual) as the guide of the one who is apparently the “superior” is common in Sufi anecdotes. Together with the association of Jesus with Venus, which would be somewhat shocking to the religiously orthodox, this gives a Sufi feeling to the end of the poem.”

Davis has forgotten more about Persian poetry than I will ever know, and I think these insights are very valuable.

I wonder, though, whether Hafez would have associated Venus (here called Zohreh) with paganism. I think the reference is just to the planet. Venus was also a level of heaven, the third, which Muslim spirituality associated with Jesus. This music could be the music of the spheres, the Pythagorean idea that the movement of the celestial bodies creates a heavenly symphony.

In the hyperbole of this poem, Hafez’s poetry inspires the music that the planet Venus makes, setting Christ to dancing. The Mevlevi Sufi order of Jalal al-Din Rumi, who lived a century before Hafez, used a whirling dance to achieve ecstasy, and Hafez may well have imagined Jesus as a whirling dervish here, the ultimate symbol of spiritual ecstasy that contrasts with the petty games human lovers play here below.

Muslims believe in Jesus, but see him as a prophet rather than as the son of God, and many do not believe he died on the cross. They do accept that God took him up to Himself, however, so that is one overlap between Christian and Muslim belief. (I think the Qur’an accepts the crucifixion, but that is a story for another day.)

So in Hafez the ascended Christ becomes a symbol of the bliss of unity with the beloved. The joyous dancing Christ in heaven, for all its strangeness from a Christian point of view, is nevertheless a powerful Easter image.

As for the very different poetry of the Rubaiyat, which nevertheless shares some Persian poetic concerns, see

See my just-published The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation from the Persian

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– Porochista Khakpour, novelist, essayist and author of Brown Album (2020)

( Middle East Monitor ) – Before discussing two great Sufis, Abd Al-Ghani Nabulusi and Ibrahim ibn Adham, it is essential to note that Sufis from across the globe are passionate about Masjid Al-Aqsa. In the 17th century, there were over 70 zawiyas (Sufi spiritual centres) in Jerusalem.

Both Masjid Al-Aqsa and the city of Jerusalem have been central in the imaginations and daily lives of Sufis. Many Sufis have invested their thoughts and some of their lives in extolling the virtues of Masjid Al-Aqsa. Many Sufis travelled over long distances from as far as Indonesia, Southern Africa and Bosnia to visit Al-Aqsa. Some made Jerusalem their home. Sufis have also been at the forefront of strengthening Muslim faith through the love of Al-Aqsa.

In the late 17th century, Al-Nabulusi of Damascus set out on a spiritual journey to Al-Aqsa. His memoirs of the road to Al-Aqsa reveal the honour bestowed on his group by those they passed. All along the route, people thronged to meet him, not only because of his scholarly credentials, but also because he was heading to Al-Aqsa and the holy city of Jerusalem. It was a reminder of tracing the footsteps of pious predecessors like the companion of the Prophet, Abu Dhar Gaffari. It was also to reignite the connection made by the Prophet on the night journey of Al-Isra when he travelled from Mecca to Jerusalem.

Al-Nabulusi’s journey, which took nearly ten days, was finally rewarded with the sight of glorious Al-Aqsa. Al-Nabulusi writes how he dismounted his ride on seeing the walls of Jerusalem and walked the last few miles. Every step reminded him of the companions of the Prophet and pious predecessors, who trod the ground and the great prophets like Ibrahim, Suleyman, Daud and Isa, who resided in Jerusalem. These, and many other prophets, received revelation from the Creator here, and some are buried in the holy grounds.

The spiritual ecstasy he experienced when, finally, Al-Nabulusi entered the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa is detailed in his diary. He connects the Dome of Rock to the believer, not only through its physical beauty, but also its sanctity.

He wrote: “How beautiful is the frequented mosque wherein I attended the five daily prayers. My eyes were dazzled by the subtlety of its pleasure and my heart to its doors used to race. One feels the reverence of the prophets and saints in it, and whoever reaches it loses his way out.”

Earlier, in the 8th century, a spiritual awakening for Prince of the Kingdom of Balkh Ibrahim ibn Adham occurred – similar to the attraction to Al-Aqsa that Al-Nabulusi experienced.

[Jalalu’d-Din] Rumi writes that ibn Adham was awakened one night by a voice that changed his heedlessness. He abandoned his palace and privileged life devoted to worldly pleasures. After wandering for a while, he finally came to Jerusalem. He used the walls of Al-Aqsa as his pillow for the night. Here, in the sanctuary of Al-Aqsa Mosque, he attained peace that the dinars of the princely estate and the luxury of palaces could not provide.

In sacrificing a kingdom to obtain the love of the Creator, ibn Adham is reported to have achieved a very high spiritual status. Many miracles are recorded to have taken place through him.

Regarding ibn Adham, Sheikh Akhtar writes: “The royal person robed in a beggar’s gown. The royal honour clothed in poverty. When the soul of the king of Balkh became pure and clean, when it became afflicted with the pain of divine love, it became acquainted with the treasures of poverty. The soul of the king once freed from the world became a recognised soul in the court of the Creator.”

The sacrifices of the great Sufis and their devotion to Al-Aqsa remind us of the need to (re)connect with Al-Aqsa Sanctuary to strengthen our spirituality. Aqsa Week should be used to revive our love for the glorious Al-Aqsa Sanctuary.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Ismail Patel is the author of The Muslim Problem: From the British Empire to Islamophobia. He is also Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leeds and the Chair of the UK based NGO Friends of Al-Aqsa.

Via Middle East Monitor

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