prose translations | Baharak Beizaei

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Hakim Abu Ali Sina and his Getting Slapped by a Dead Man

One might have to say by way of a preface that about him, his influence on the soul of beings, and his image, much has been said by others, and books have been written. And that in their power[1] and sovereignty,[2] his image and fantasy have not yet sufficiently been debunked since fear, imagination, and likeness[3] have held sway over the thought of beings[4] to the extent that one might even admit that it is their rule that governs humankind.[5] READ MORE

[1] قدرت

[2] سلطه

[3] وهم خیال و تصور

[4] فکر بشر

[5] بر نو انسان حکمرانی میکرده است

Nasser al-Din Shah and the Anonymous Poet, from Legends about the Lives of Persian Poets by Zokai Beyzai

The sultans and the princes of the Qajar dynasty were for the most part gifted with literary talent and zeal of a poetic nature. And some of them were authors of numerous writings of a literary and historical kind. Even the women of the family were not wanting in such qualities.[1] Some of them were even reciters and poets in their own right. The two lines here were written by the King‘s mother:

>The cleverer of the two sexes, male and female, / Rises above in any circumstance / Without skill man and women / Alike resemble a thorn without a flower

The poem below is by Fath-Ali Shah Qajar and is the first line of an auspicious song:

>Night-candle on one side and the beloved‘s fate on the other / I and the butterfly burn on each side. READ MORE

[1] عطیه

Sheikh Attar and the Story of his Martyrdom

Sheikh Farid ud-Din Attar was one of the most renowned mystics and poets of Iran. He was born in the year 513 Hijri Qamari in the small village of Kugen in the suburbs of Nishapur, and in the year 627 when he was 114 years old, with Genghis Khan’s attack on Nishapur and the overthrow of the city, he was murdered by a Turk. His name was Mohammad, and his family name Abutalib, and his title/eponym was Farid-ud-Din. His father was named Ibrahim, the son of Izhagh, and was an affluent man, the possessor of many riches. His occupation in Nishapur was that of a herbalist. The venerable Sheikh, Majid-ud-Din from Baghdad, supplemented his craft of botanic medicine with writings, according to some, and all the pharmacies of the city of Nishapur were his. Thus as is reported in his work, roughly around 500 clients would visit him daily at his Dar-ol-Tababe, in hopes of being cured and healed by him. In his book, Khosrow Nameh, he says: At the pharmacy were 500 individuals each day / who offered their pulse to me every day.”

Thus it is obvious that he was a greatly preoccupied man, and the majority of his time was devoted to being patients, and making remedies for them. Nonetheless, as is described by his biographers, the number of treatises penned by him approximate 114 volumes, and from his own work one can deduce that he only ever wrote poetry as an occasional respite from the labour of curing and healing the sick. READ MORE

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