SUFI IDEAS IN BOSNIAK’S POETRY IN PERSIAN

Sufi literature in Persian had a far-reaching and multiple effect on many literatures of Muslim nations, including Arabs and Turks, which reflected Sufi ideas and motifs. However, there have been reverse influences, particularly of the Arabic on Persian poetry. Some authors are prone even to attributing to it the importance in the expansion of Islam. “Indeed, Persian Sufi poetry has played an important, direct role in Islamization of a great part of Asia and has had a profound effect far beyond the borders of Persian-speaking region, directly affecting Sufi poetry in Turkish, Sindhi Bengali, Urdu and many other languages of Islamic peoples” (Nasr, 264).

It is beyond doubt that Bosniaks in public service, military or civil administration, religious and court officers (ulama) – since these occupations mostly engender persons involved in academic or literary work – typically gained their education in educational institutions in Istanbul or other bigger educational and cultural centers of the Ottoman Empire. It is there where they studied and adopted literary values and forms created under the influence of Persian literature, and returned to their homeland with this knowledge. “We would add here that it is thanks to Sufi poetry that Sufi doctrines reached our regions and have survived until this day” (Džaka, 217).

Having been educated in Turkish and Arabic, and having then returned to their homeland with adopted knowledge and skills, bringing the relevant literature with themselves, Bosniaks transferred the knowledge to new generations, in local schools (madrasas), tekkes and other places. Although tasawwuf was inexhaustible inspiration – and it is the most frequent topic in Bosniaks' literature in Persian – it cannot be viewed as isolated and separated from literature in the two other Oriental languages, Turkish and Arabic, either in terms of ideas or in terms of topics and motifs. They frequently included Bosniak poets who wrote in two languages, Turkish and Persian, and what a poet writes in Persian comes from the same mind, intellectual background and imagination which produces poetry in Turkish.

There is no doubt that, in terms of ideas and genres, Bosniaks' literary production nourished the norm of classical Ottoman literature inspired by Persian literary classics, as well as the accepted literary standard and fashion. There was a generally accepted literary norm, since “divan poets used distinctive terminology, where almost every word, as a mystic symbol, as a term of the divan poetry, had a meaning different from its basic one” (Nametak, Divanska književnost..., 95). Bosniak poets in Persian adopted Sufi terms and language, motifs and ideas, metaphors and symbols from the literature that preceded them. An example of the use of the same motif in different literary traditions and over a longer time period is the motif of handing a glass around. The motif originated in Arabic literature and was taken over by Persian authors, then by Ottoman and finally by Bosniak writers. The motif of handing a glass around is associated with Walīd ibn Yazīd, who was killed in 743, and it was later used by several Arabic poets, many Persian poets including Hafiz Shirazi The same motif was used by Bosniak Hasan Zijaija Mostarac. As a matter of fact, Zijaija Mostarac fully reproduced the motif in his ghazal by citing Hafiz's semi-verse. Hafiz Shirazi sang as follows:

الا یا ایها الساقی ادر کاسا و ناولها

که عشق آسان نمود اول ولی افتاد مشکلها

Oh, inn-keeper, hand a glass around, and toast to everybody;

At first, love seemed to be easy, but it got crowned with difficulties.

Centuries later, Hasan Zijaji Mostarac, in his ghazal in Persian, pointed out:

ضیایی مست جام بزم عشاقست می گوید

الا یا ایها الساقی ادر کاسا و ناولها

Zijaija, intoxicated from a jug at a party of two people in love, says:

“Oh, inn-keeper, hand a glass around, and toast a drink to everybody.”

One of the cliched motifs in literatures in Oriental languages is the motif of Layla and Majnun. Sufi literature adorned this couple with the halo of true lovers, and as such they are not only two characters and two motifs but have grown into a symbol of eternal faithfulness and love. Ahmed Talib Bošnjak speaks of watching Layla's face, which is in the Sufi context associated with the achievement of the ultimate goal of a Sufi in love, i.e. of watching God's face. In another couplet, the poet seeks to be like Majnun, which in the metaphoric-metonymic context alludes to the eternal and “crazy” love, search for a beloved person, accepting humiliations and difficulties on the road of love.

با قید تعلق رخ لیلی نتوان دید

مجنون صفت نعره زن و جامه در آن باش

You cannot see Layla's face with chains of addiction

Rather, like Majnun, cry out and remain in these clothes.

Ahmed Rushdi also demonstrates extraordinary knowledge of Sufi poetic tradition and Persian stylistics. He groups Sufi terms into strings and uses figures of simile to establish distinctive relations and obtain new meanings. Indeed, he uses two Sufi terms and constructs the phrase hangover of separation (xomār-e heğr). He compares separation from a beloved person with hangover, since hangover produces headache, inertia, same as separation from a beloved person causes similar effects. A similar case can be found in the phrase wine of encounter (bāde-ye wasl), where an encounter with the beloved person is compared to wine, since wine inebriates like love.

خمار هجر ترا تا بکی کشد رشدی

تشد ز باده وصل تو نشویاب دریغ

For how long will Rushdi bear the hangover of separation,

He hasn't got drunk with the wine of encounter, alas.

Sufi ideas and terminology in the literature of Bosniaks can be found at different levels. In some poets, it is a reflection of true beliefs, a result of virtuous life in line with principles of Sufism and therefore the terminology has more than merely literary, aesthetic and style function. Such examples include Bulbulistan by Fevzi Mostarac, ghazal by Ahmed Talib Bošnjak, Hasan Zijaija Mostarac, Sakinama by Zekerija Sukeri. Some authors used the atmosphere and context established by Sufi worldview and selectively used Sufi terminology aimed at achieving higher literary-aesthetic effects. Such an approach to Sufi terminology is also characteristic of the classical Persian literature, where some authors used words, terms and images from Sufi register to create Sufi atmosphere, but do not belong to promoters or practitioners of Sufi doctrines, either by content or by basic ideas.

Central topics of Sufi literature: love, Divine unity, contempt of matter, cleaning of the soul, expression of pain, suffering and grief due to separation from the beloved, are present in Bosniaks' literature in Persian in different ways. Besides, the terminology clearly urges the reader of these texts to classify authors and their works in the context of Sufi literature. The technical Sufi language in a literary work encourages and requires the Sufi interpretation of the text. Terms characteristic of Sufi poetry: love (‘ešq, mahabbat), drink, wine (šarāb, bāde, mey), glass, goblet (ğām, sāġer, ka’s), separation (heğr), encounter, joining (wasl, wesāl), lips (lab), whisker (zolf), Magus, spiritual teacher (moġ, moġān, moġbaċegān), inn (meikade, meixāne), spiritual state (hāl), innkeeper, cupbearer (sāqī), seducer (delbar), statue (bot), monk's belt (zonnār), ruin (xarābāt) and many others prevail in texts written by Bosniaks in Persian. Besides having the prominent mystic reference and, certainly, reflecting the actual practice, the listed terms are often metaphors and symbols of certain Sufi states, which gives them a form of metaphorized terms. Poets occasionally use pairs of symbols and sets of synonyms which include these terms individually or in pairs to express their spiritual experiences and transcendental sensations.

References:

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