Discourse of the father with his son about the water of life in the masnavi “Ilahi-Nameh” by (Farid ad-Din)
Abstract
This is the line-by-line commented translation into Russian of the chapter (maqaleh) 14 from the masnavi “Ilāhī-nāme” by Abū Ḥamīd bin Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm (Farīd ad- Dīn, ʿAṭṭār), the Persian Sufi poet (1145–1220 AD). The chapters in the Ilahi-name are in fact answers given by the King to his six sons. Chapter 14 deals with the water of life, which, according to the legend, Alexander the Great once unsuccessfully tried to find. The answer to the King’s son includes 24 stories about historical and legendary characters, such as Iskandar (Alexander the Great), Namrud (the Biblical Nimrod), the righteous caliph ‘Umar, Majnun (in love with Layli), Sultan Mahmud and his beloved slave Ayaz, as well as nameless ones, including a collector of the poll tax from the Jews, a beautiful youth and an old man in love with him, a fox caught in a trap, a rogue salesman and a thief at the foot of the gallows. These stories are used to discuss and illustrate the key issues of Sufism. Among them: the desires of the nafs (“lower self” or “animal soul”), material and spiritual immortality, independence of divine actions from material causes, love, which requires the renunciation of one’s “self”, and knowledge as the true water of life. The stories are not related to each other, however, the set of Sufi ideas illustrated forms a conceptual unity.
About the Author
Leyli G. Lahuti
Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Leyli G. Lahuti ‒ Senior Research Fellow
Moscow
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For citation:
Lahuti L.G. Discourse of the father with his son about the water of life in the masnavi “Ilahi-Nameh” by (Farid ad-Din). Orientalistica. 2020;3(5):1397-1436. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31696/2618-7043-2020-3-5-1397-1436
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