Observations placeholder

Ibn El-Arabi - The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, tr. Reynold A. Nicholson, [1911]

1. Greeting to Salmá and to those who dwell in the preserve, for it behoves one who loves tenderly like me to give greeting.
2. And what harm to her if she gave me a greeting in return? But fair women are subject to no authority.
3. They journeyed when the darkness of night had let down its curtains, and I said to her, 'Pity a passionate lover, outcast and distraught,
4. Whom desires eagerly encompass and at whom speeding arrows are aimed wheresoever he bends his course.'
5. She displayed her front-teeth and a levin flashed, and I knew not which of the twain rent the gloom,
6. And she said, 'Is it not enough for him that I am in his heart and that he beholds me at every moment? Is it not enough?'

COMMENTARY

1. 'Salmá': he alludes to a Solomonic ecstasy (###)

3. 'They journeyed,' etc.: the ascension of the prophets always took place during the night, because night is the time of mystery and concealment.

4. 'Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah' (Kor. ii, 109).