{"id":52,"date":"2014-05-08T20:35:58","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T00:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/?p=52"},"modified":"2014-05-08T22:45:48","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T02:45:48","slug":"poetry-week-9-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/2014\/05\/08\/poetry-week-9-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry (Week 9)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this week, week 9, we discussed the representation of Islamic themes in poetry.\u00a0 In the readings, we focused on <em>ghazals<\/em>, a poetic style popular in the Islamic context.\u00a0 <em>Ghazals <\/em>consist of rhymed couplets with a refrain, known as the <em>radif<\/em>, each set to the same meter. \u00a0Also common is the <em>qafiyah<\/em>, where the last syllable before the <em>radif<\/em> also rhymes, and the <em>takhallus<\/em>, where the poet in the last couplet inserts his own name.\u00a0 The content of these poems is always love, and in general the love for the lover, or the beloved, can be interpreted as the love for God.<\/p>\n<p>The poem that I chose to recite is the first verse of Saadi\u2019s <em>Golestan<\/em>.<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-52-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/files\/2014\/05\/Saadi-Recitation.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/files\/2014\/05\/Saadi-Recitation.mp3\">http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/files\/2014\/05\/Saadi-Recitation.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>The translation by M. Aryanpoor is below:<\/p>\n<p><em>Human beings are members of a whole,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>In creation of one essence and soul.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>If one member is afflicted with pain,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Other members uneasy will remain.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>If you&#8217;ve no sympathy for human pain,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>The name of human you cannot retain!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Notice that this poem is neither a <em>ghazal<\/em>, nor a love poem for God.\u00a0 However, it is about love for humans.\u00a0 We are humans, connected together by our humanity.\u00a0 This sense of unity, and sameness, is reflected in another major theme of the course: Islam vs. islam.\u00a0 The difference is that islam means \u201csubmission to God\u201d, while Islam is the name of the religion practiced by Muslims.\u00a0 Islam with a lowercase \u201ci\u201d is not limited to just Muslims; it is also applied to and extends to Jews, Christians, etc.\u00a0 The point is that in the eye of God, as long as we believe in Him, then it is irrelevant what we call ourselves. \u00a0Similarly, although there might be distinct differences between us, such as ethnicity, gender, age, etc., the important fact is that we are really the same, and thus we should help each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this week, week 9, we discussed the representation of Islamic themes in poetry.\u00a0 In the readings, we focused on ghazals, a poetic style popular in the Islamic context.\u00a0 Ghazals consist of rhymed couplets with a refrain, known as the radif, each set to the same meter. \u00a0Also common is the qafiyah, where the last [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6337,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6337"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/62"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}