No one speaks (from The Poem of the Sufi Way)
by Umar Ibn al-FaridEnglish version by Th. Emil Homerin
Original Language Arabic
No one speaks
unless his speech is from mine;
no one sees
but by the gaze of my eye.
No one listens
unless listening by my ear;
no one grasps
but by my might and strength.
No one
is speaking, seeing, hearing
in all of creation
but me!
In the composite world,
I appeared deep within
every shape and form
adorning them with beauty.
While in every subtle sense
not revealed by my visible guise,
I was conceived and formed
but without a body's shape.
Yet in what the spirit sees
clairvoyantly,
I was rarified,
concealed from this subtle sense confined.
In the mercy of expansion,
all of me is a wish
expanding wide
the hopes of humanity,
While in the dread of contraction
all of me is awe;
wherever I cast my eye,
I am honored.
In joining both attributes
all of me is proximity;
come, draw near
my inner beauty.
For in the end-place of "in,"
I still found with me
my majesty of witness
arising from my perfect nature,
And where there is no "in,"
I still witnessed within me
the beauty of my existence
without an eye to see.
 | -- from Umar Ibn al-Farid: Sufi Verses, Saintly Life, Translated by Th. Emil Homerin |
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In the composite world,
I appeared deep within
every shape and form
adorning them with beauty.
These lines can be compared with Platonic forms or the Jungian idea of archetypes. The world of outer appearances is built on a spiritual or energetic template. When we see beauty in the world, it is because we recognize something about that outer form that approaches the symmetry of the archetypal or divine template it embodies.
In the mercy of expansion,
all of me is a wish
expanding wide
the hopes of humanity,
While in the dread of contraction
all of me is awe;
wherever I cast my eye,
I am honored.
Here the poet gives us a vision of God as a cosmic pulse, expanding and contracting. In expansion, we feel hope, possibility, life. In contraction, we feel fear and awe. We might imagine this contraction as a gathering in, a sense of restriction and death that forces us to let go of the outer world and turn inward.
In joining both attributes
all of me is proximity;
come, draw near
my inner beauty.
In God, both expansion and contraction are joined, the universal rhythm in harmony. The inbreath and outbreath balanced. A Sufi vision of yin and yang. A vision of unity.
God is the form within all forms, the outward and inward movement of all things, and One. Through this unity the Eternal is in proximity to all things. Perhaps the poet is thinking of the line in the Quran in which God declares that He is closer than our jugular vein. We might read this as God is closer to us than our own heartbeat.
We imagine that God or the Eternal or heaven are somehow far away, in the future or the past, or only sensed through crushing spiritual efforts. But nearness is the nature of God. We just need to heed the invitation, to settle until we can sense the presence underlying everything. We just need to feel the Self that is closer than our own self. Such inner beauty!
And where there is no "in,"
I still witnessed within me
the beauty of my existence
without an eye to see.
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