Poetry Chaikhana Sacred Poetry from Around the World

Search the Poetry Chaikhana site:

<<Previous Poem | View All Poems by Fakhruddin Iraqi | Next Poem >>
Whether they know Thee or not by Fakhruddin Iraqi (? - 1289) Timeline English version by William Chittick and Peter Lamborn Wilson Original Language Persian/Farsi Muslim / Sufi 13th Century Whether they know Thee or not      all creatures of the world now and forever-without-end      bend but toward Thee. All love for someone else      is but a whiff of Thy perfume:      none else can be loved.     -- from Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes (Classics of Western Spirituality) , by William Chittick / Nasr Seyyed Hossein Amazon.com   / Photo by lepiaf.geo /	Themes   Lover and Beloved   Perfume       Recommended Books The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry, Translated by Peter Lamborn Wilson / Translated by Nasrollah Pourjavady Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes (Classics of Western Spirituality) , by William Chittick / Nasr Seyyed Hossein Love's Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition, Translated by David Fideler / Translated by Sabrineh Fideler Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty, Edited by Alan Jacobs
<<Previous Poem | More Poems by Fakhruddin Iraqi | Next Poem >>

Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

all creatures of the world
now and forever-without-end
bend but toward Thee.

Love those lines. And we forget that this is true. Not just all people, but all beings, consciously or unconsciously constantly turn toward the Eternal. Everything desired, everything loved, every hope, every goal, everything we seek we seek because on some level it reflects back to us an image of the Divine.

All love for someone else
     is but a whiff
of Thy perfume

When something catches our eye or our heart, beneath the love or the lust, when we really look, we find we have witnessed a glimpse the transcendent light. That light, that entrancing luster, is what we seek so passionately.

Understanding this leads to the deeper question: Why seek the countless objects of desire that only reflect the glistening light of the Beloved? Why grasp at glinting shards of a mirror when we can bathe in full sunlight?

In every love, we love the Beloved.

none else can be loved.

Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2011 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.