Book Review: The Storm's Call for Prayers: Selections from Shaikh Ayaz by Shaikh Ayaz, Asif Farrukhi (Translator) and Shah Mohammed Pirzada (Translator)

 

This book presents an English translation of some of the selected works of Shaikh Ayaz, the renowned poet from Sind. Ayaz was born in 1923 in Shikarpur. Throughout his life Ayaz was faced numerous challenges. He was banned by the government, imprisoned and declared a traitor. Later, he was also given Sitara-i-Imtiaz (an award by the government in recognition to his services). Initially, Shaikh Ayaz was a lawyer based in Sukkur. Later, during Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s government Shaikh Ayaz was appointed as the Vice Chancellor of Sind University.

According to the author Ayaz moved from his left-of-the-center leanings and later began taking interest in religion and metaphysics. Ayaz was also a translator and had translated Shah Jo Risalo in Urdu. From this translated work I wish I could quote all of my favorite ones, but below I do quote some of the short ones.

 

Posthumous Reputation

“I know a time will come

When suddenly my poetry will be washed by the moon in the rivers of the sky

I know that time will also come when there will be no prejudice against my language

Everybody will be enveloped in my fragrance

When the town and the path will become one

When my ideal will come to claim me

I know that time will also come

When you will cry over my buried dust hearing some traveler sing my song.”

 

Next Crop

“You must remember this

When I am dead and gone

And there appears a new poet,

Then it will be like

The sugarcane field

When after one crop

The new one sprouts by itself

From the roots of the old.”

 

Bird

A poet is a bird from the myths of old

 All wings and no feet.

It keeps on flying

 Till it drops dead.”

 

Some of the others from Shaikh Ayaz’s work which I like include Home, Rain and Thunder, Write, The Other Woman, Footsteps to the Sea, A Loss of Hair, Chameleon in the Fort and Farewell to the Earth. Anyone who wants to explore the works of a poet writing on different themes, Shaikh Ayaz should definitely be on your list.

 

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Book Review: The Procession By Kahlil Gibran

 

This unique work of Gibran is unique in the sense that it is his first major work in verse. It was originally written in Arabic and translated into English by Dr. George Kheirallah. A biographical introduction has also been added by Kheirallah. This introduction puts light on the poet’s life and his perception in his native land. His mystical drawings have also been added in the book.

Gibran arrived in the United states with his mother and siblings. They went to Boston where other people of their town had settled. Gibran’s father was a shepherd. After some education in the U.S Gibran’s half-brother Peter now wanted Gibran to go back to Beyrut and learn his native language Arabic. He also wanted him to learn French. Gibran returned to America after four years of study. Upon his return to Boston he discovered that Sultana had died on April 4, 1902. Peter and Gibran’s mother passed away. Gibran and his sister Mariana left the plague-ridden house. Mariana sewed and Gibran wrote. By early 1904 Gibran had twenty drawings to offer. No gallery would receive his imaginative and mystical drawings. Mary Haskell became a close friend of Gibran who assisted him in writing English. She also prevailed upon him to accept her aid and to go abroad for study.

From 1908 to 1910 Gibran worked at his art in Paris under the guidance of older artists. After that he returned to Boston, but in 1912 he moved to New York where he lived for the rest of his life. A fatal ailment was gnawing in his body, but he kept his work going. On April 9, 1931, a friend came to see him and found him in pain and illness. He did not wish to be removed to a hospital. Next morning, he was taken to the hospital where he died on 10 April 1931, at the age of forty-eight. Mariana brought back her brother body to his native land. People flocked in large numbers to pay their respect to Gibran.

In this book Gibran addresses the themes of religion, justice, science, knowledge, freedom, happiness, hope, love youth, death, will and capitulation of the sage. I quote Gibran below:

• Life is but a sleep disturbed.
• As though religion were a phase of commerce in their daily trade; should they neglect it they would lose- or preserving would be paid.
• Yea, death and prison we mete out to small offenders of the laws, while honor, wealth, and full respect on greater pirates we bestow.
• To steal a flower, we call mean, to rob a field is chivalry; who kills the body he must die, who kills the spirit he goes free.
• For man is happy only in his aspiration to the heights; when he attains his goal, he calls and longs for other distant flights.
• For in nature we the children hold the sane as strange.
• Have you taken to the forest, shunned the palace for adobe?
• Have you ever bathed in fragrance, dried yourself in sheets of light? Ever quaff the wine of dawning, From ethereal goblets bright?
• Ever bedded in the herbage, quilted by a heavenly vast, unconcerned about the future, and forgetful of your past?

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Book Review: Between Morn and Night By Kahlil Gibran

 

The magnetism of Kahlil Gibran is seen in this work where he brings different themes under his microscope. The Tempest, slavery, satan, the mermaids, the poet, and we and you are some of the chapters in the book. Gibran shifts between poetry and prose bringing out the deep meanings of topics which remain close to his heart. I personally found his writings on slavery very amazing. His definition of blind, mute, deaf, lame, ugly, subtle, twisted, bent and black slavery are really worth reading for anyone. 

Under the chapter We and you he says:

When you ridicule us your taunts mingle

With the crushing of the skulls and the

Rattling of the shackles and the wailing of the

Abyss. When we cry, our tears fall into the

Heart of life, as we dew drops fall from the

Eyes of Night into the heart of Dawn; and

When you laugh, your mocking laughter pours

Down like the viper’s venom into the wound.

We cry, and sympathize with the miserable

Wanderer and distressed widow; but you rejoice

And smile at the sight of resplendent gold.

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