·
YE SARAY DEEN KE TAJIR,
PIYALAY HAEN JO KHALI HAEN
·
by Nayyar Hashmey
·
On June 4, 2012, I inserted a poem by Nizar Qabbani, the great Syrian poet and diplomat. The poem was titled ‘A Lesson in Drawing’. Believe me, dear readers, I was so moved by the poem that, I, at once decided to put this up here on these pages, so as to share with you the intensity of love, the passion and pain – Nizar the poet felt – while encapsulating the harsh realities of life — through words in his poetry.
Here now is another one, again from NQ. particularly noticeable in this poem are Nizar’s thoughtss about religion and the mullahs. Thoughts on how a beautiful religion is relegated to a set of rituals by a semi-literate clergy who have turned a beautiful religion into a bigoted set of soulless practice, a narrow minded interpretation.
While writing this preamble to Nizar’s work what struck me most was:
In a country where thinkers are assassinated,
And writers are considered infidels
And books are burnt,
In societies that refuse the other,
And force silence on mouths and thoughts forbidden,
And to question is a sin,
I must beg your pardon,
Would you permit me?
Would you permit me?
To bring up my children as I want,
And not to dictate on me your whims and orders?
·
Would you permit me?
To teach my children that the religion is first to God,
And not for religious leaders or scholars or people?
Would you permit me to say,
That God has forbidden killing the human spirit, And who kills wrongly a human being
Is as if he killed all human kind,
And no Moslem has the right
To frighten another Moslem?
·
Would you permit me
To teach my children that God is greater,
More just, and more merciful
Than all the (religious) scholars on earth combined?
And that his standards are different
From the standards of those trading the religion,
And that his accountability is kinder
And more merciful?
Would you permit me?
—
Ijazat ho agar mujhko
Tau maen bhi parwarish apnay bachon ki
Iss tarah kr loon
Ke inki zindagi pur noor ho
Aisay hawalon se
Ke jinn se hai meri tehzeeb ka
Har aaeena roshan
Maen batlaon bachon ko
Ke mazhab ka ta’alluq bass Khuda-e-Lam Yazal se hae
Nahin uss ka koi rishta kissi be-ilm alam se
Ke inssano ko dukh daina
Innhain takleef main rakhna
Ye aese jurm haen, jinki muafi
Ho nahin sakti
Maen apnay bachon ko
Azab-e-qabr ki tafseel se mahfooz hi rakhoon
Maen apnay bachon ko Rabb-e-Do-Jahan
Ki Azmat-e-bemisl samjhaoon
Kahoon unn se
Ke uss ke Rehmat-o-Insaf ke aagay
Ye sab ke sab mazhabi alim
Ik naqsh-e-khiyali haen
Ye saray deen Ke Tajir
Piyalay haen jo khali haen
(Urdu translation: Amjad Islam Amjad)
Contd…
Next: Would you permit me – by Nizar Kabbani [2 of 2[
—
You might also like:
Source Title image
YOUR COMMENT IS IMPORTANT
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF YOUR COMMENT
Excellent Site. Keep up the good work – IS
Reblogged this on CARPE DIEM and commented:
Powerful