Sufi Poems- A Mediaeval Anthology

About the Book Though in recent years much attention has been lavished on Persian Sufi Poetry, the vast treasure of Arabic Sufi Poetry has been left virtually untouched. In Sufi Poems: A Mediaeval Anthology we have for the first time a compilation and translation of some of the great masterpieces of Arabic Sufi poetry with the original Arabic on facing pages.

Beginning with the poetry of the renowned female saint, Rabi 'ah al- Adawivvah (d. 185 AH/801 AD), and including poems by Hallaj, Ghazali, Ibn 'Arabi, 'Ibn al- Farid and many others Martin Lings offers us a taste of the inner life of Sufism at its most intoxicating. As he explains in the Preface, at the heart of the poems is the Oneness of Union and the paradox of absences within Presence " ... despite the certitude of the Saint that the state of Union cannot be lost and that every apparent absence is within the framework of Presence ....

The soul spontaneously seeks a means of relief and the chief means is prayer. Another means of relief is to give birth to a poem." Preceding the selection from each of the poets is an introduction to the life of the poet placing him or her in the context of Arabic Sufi poetry. The Arabic poems have been included on facing pages for all those wishing to study the poems in the original.

Sufi Poems: A Mediaeval Anthology not only offers the reader translations of some of the most beautiful passages of poetry ever written, but it also gives an insight into the inner experience of the great Saints of Sufism.

About the Author Dr. Martin Lings IS a published poet and the author of the best- selling Muhammad: His Life based on the Earliest Sources, What Is Sufism? A Sufi Saints Of the Twentieth Century and The Book of Certainty.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages