Selections from Fakhruddin Iraqi – Abdur Rahman’s Corner
Peace, one and all…
After this evening’s prayers, it came to this one’s heart to read the poetry of beloved Fahkruddin Iraqi, a contemporary of Mevlana and Ibn Arabi. The following poems are all drawn from Reza Saberi’s wonderful anthology A Thousand Years of Persian Rubaiyat.
There is no pleasure like that of a mendicant
Who has cast his hat off his head and shoes off his feet,
Who has stepped on his life and sacrificed his heart, and
Who has given up both worlds for the sake of the One.
The first step in love is casting one’s head.
It is risking one’s life and putting up with calamity.
This is the first, and do you know what the last is?
To rid oneself from the selfness of the self.
Pain circles around the hearts of the meritorious.
Pleasure circles around the unaware.
Beware! For the axis of the spherical heaven
Pivots in the eye of the man of perception.