The Luzumiyat

their fate.

But aside from his prose writings, in which, do what we may, we can not explain away his supposed heresies, we find in the Luzumiyat themselves his dominant ideas on religion, for instance, being a superstition; wine, an unmitigated evil; virtue, its own reward; the cremation of the dead, a virtue; the slaughter or even the torture of animals a crime;21 doubt, a way to truth; reason, the only prophet and guide;⁠—we find these ideas clothed in various images and expressed in varied forms, but unmistakable in whatever guise we find them. Here, for instance, is Professor Nicholson’s almost literal translation of a quatrain from the Luzumiyat:

Hanifs22 are stumbling, Christians gone astray,
Jews wildered, Magians far on error’s way:⁠—
We mortals are composed of two great schools,
Enlightened knaves or else religious fools.

And here is the same idea, done in a large picture. The translation, literal too, is mine:

’Tis strange that Kusrah and his people wash
Their faces in the staling of the kine;
And that the Christians say, Almighty God
Was tortured, mocked, and crucified in fine:
And that the Jews should picture Him as one
Who loves the odor of a roasting chine;
And stranger still that Muslims travel far
To kiss a black stone said to be divine:⁠—
Almighty God! will all the human race
Stray blindly from the Truth’s most sacred shrine?23

The East still remains the battleground of the creeds. And the Europeans, though they shook off their fetters of moral and spiritual slavery, would keep us in ours to facilitate the conquests of European commence. Thus the terrible Dragon, which is fed by the foreign missionary and the native priest, by the theologians and the ulama, and which still preys upon the heart and mind of Orient nations, is as active today as it was ten centuries ago. Let those consider this, who think Von Kremer exaggerated when he said, “Abu al-ʻAlaʼ is a poet many centuries ahead of his time.”

Before closing, I wish to call attention to a question which, though unimportant in itself, is nevertheless worthy of the consideration of all admirers of Arabic and Persian literature. I refer to the similarity of thought which exists between Omar Khayyam and Abu al-ʻAlaʼ. The former, I have reason to believe, was an imitator or a disciple of the latter. The birth of the first poet and the death of the second are not very far apart: they both occurred about the middle of the eleventh century. The English reading public here and abroad has already formed its opinion of Khayyam. Let it not, therefore, be supposed that in making this claim I aim to shake or undermine its great faith. My desire is to confirm, not to weaken⁠—to expand, not contract⁠—the Oriental influence on the Occidental mind.

Whoever will take the trouble, however, to read Omar Khayyam in conjunction with what is here translated of Abu al-ʻAlaʼ, can not fail to see the striking similarity in thought and image of certain phases of the creed or the lack of creed of both poets.24 To be sure, the skepticism and pessimism of Omar are to a great extent imported from Maʻarra. But the Arab philosopher in his religious opinions is far more outspoken than the Persian tentmaker. I do not say that Omar was a plagiarist; but I say this: just as Voltaire, for instance, acquired most of his liberal and skeptical views from Hobbes, Locke and Bayle, so did Omar acquire his from Abu al-ʻAlaʼ. In my notes to these quatrains I have quoted in comparison from both the Fitzgerald and the Herron-Allen versions of the Persian poet; and with so much or so little said, I leave the matter in the hands of the reader, who, upon a careful examination, will doubtless bear me out as to this point.

The Luzumiyat

I25

The sable wings of Night pursuing day
Across the opalescent hills, display
The wondrous star-gems which the fiery suns
Are scattering upon their fiery way.

II

O my Companion, Night is passing fair,
Fairer than aught the dawn and sundown wear;
And fairer, too, than all the gilded days
Of blond Illusion and its golden snare.

III26

Hark, in the minarets muazzens call
The evening hour that in the interval
Of darkness Ahmad might remembered be⁠—
Remembered of the Darkness be they all.

IV27

And hear the others who with cymbals try
To stay the feet of every passer-by:
The market-men along the darkling lane
Are crying up their wares.⁠—Oh! let them cry.

V

Mohammed or Messiah! Hear thou me,
The truth entire nor here nor there can be;
How should our God who made the sun and moon
Give all his light to One, I cannot see.

VI

Come, let us with the naked Night now rest
And read in Allah’s Book the sonnet best:
The Pleiads⁠—ah, the Moon from them departs⁠—
She draws her veil and hastens toward the west.

VII28

The Pleiads follow; and our Ethiop Queen,
Emerging from behind her starry screen,
Will steep her tresses in the saffron dye
Of dawn, and vanish in the morning sheen.

VIII

The secret of the day and night is in
The constellations, which forever spin
Around each other in the comet-dust;⁠—
The comet-dust and humankind are kin.

IX

But whether of dust or fire or foam, the glaive
Of Allah cleaves the planet and the wave
Of this mysterious Heaven-Sea of life,
And lo! we have the Cradle of the Grave.

X

The Grave and Cradle, the untiring twain,
Who in the markets of this narrow lane
Bordered of darkness, ever give and take
In equal measure⁠—what’s the loss or gain?

XI

Ay, like the circles which the sun doth spin
Of gossamer, we end as we