Rebel Poets of Wine and Love from Iberia, Persia and Iraq

I wrote about Abu Nawas within the context of his philosophy of cure from alcoholism and a parallel to modern medical applications to behaviour prevention (https://vahezen.blogspot.com/2020/01/and-cure-me-with-that-which-is-my.html). Since Abu Nawas was born in Persia (today’s Iran) to a Persian mother but lived in Iraq as an Arab, a reader of my blog suggested that Abu Nawas’ love for wine may have roots in his Persian origin which until the 650s A.D was a culture of wine and music, rather than only a revolt against the rules of Islam Abu Nawas adopted in his lifestyle and poems.

Interesting comment, especially since I was not well versed in the “love and wine" poetry during the 10th century.

So, I read poetry by and analysis of Judeo-Spanish poets who were influenced by Arab poets such as Abu Nawas .  These Jewish poets in Al-Andalus discovered the Arabic meter and the qasida (ode) form often used by Arab poets before 1000 A.D. My exploration took me to choose three love and wine poets – one Jewish from Spain (Moses ibn Ezra, 1055 Granada, Spain), and two Muslim poets one from Iraq (Abu Nawas 756, Ahvaz, Persia) and one from Persia (Hafez 1320 Shiraz, Persia).

In chronological order of these poets’  birth, Abu Nawas paved the way to a poetry genre and a philosophy of existence.  Born in Persia, he spent his life in Iraq celebrating love as intoxicating and liberating as wine. He was the rebel against the rules of Islam.

Among his most known quotes translated in the West is from Diwan 164:

I bought abandon dear and sold all piety for pleasure. My own free spirit I have followed, and never will I give up lust

And perhaps the summary of his behaviour vis à vis the rules of Islam is:

My religion is my affair and other people’s religion is theirs

… Al-Andalus in Hispania (Spain) became the new center of Jewish thought and philosophy after Babylon (Iraq). Moses ibn Ezra was a Jewish Rabbi, a Spanish philosopher and a poet born in Granada and lived in Castile after the Jewish community of Granada was destroyed by Almoravids, a Berber Muslim dynasty originated in Morocco. Ibn Ezra’s philosophical work is most remembered for his treatise of the concept of a metaphor, while his poems are about love and wine (yayin) reminiscent of Abu Nawas’ work.

Ibn Azra’s most popular statement about wine has been translated as:

Bitter is wine, but it sweetens all bitterness 

… Hafez, the equally celebrated Persian poet as Rumi, was born in Shiraz.  While Persia became Muslim in 651 A.D after the Arab conquest of Persia/Iran, for centuries before that date Persia followed the Zoroastrian religion/doctrine. It was somewhere around 1500BC that Zaratustra introduced the tenet of worshiping only Ahura Mazda or Lord of Wisdom, perhaps introducing the first context for a monotheistic faith. The Zoroatrian religion was also in support of the arts and it is believed that wine was made in Persia, in Shiraz near Persepolis 7000 years ago.

Hafez, while a Sufi Muslim, seems to embody many of the historical Persian and Zoroastrian attitudes to love, wine, and spirituality. His rebellious attitude has influenced Goethe, Emerson, Nietzsche and even Queen Victoria! In fact, one finds Sherlock Holmes quoting Hafez through Arthur Conan Doyle’s writing.

Today, February 3, 2020, as I write these lines, Harper’s Magazine published an article on Hafez titled “The River of Wine” (https://harpers.org/blog/2010/09/hafiz-the-river-of-wine/) where a 2001 translation by Thomas R. Crowe of Ghazal No. 377 is reprinted and includes:

Bring me a cup of wine that is dark red and smells like musk.
Don’t bring me that expensive brand that tastes like money
and smells like lust

And

If I die, don’t let them bury me in a dusty grave;
Take my corpse to the Winehouse and throw me into a cask of wine!

… As in all research, it is unavoidable that one would discover ideas or events that the initial search was not intended to discover. Indeed, as I continued to read and establish cross links between historical periods, geography and poetry, I discovered another Jewish poet from Castile in the 1500s. Shem Tov (or Santob), who wrote in Castilian rather than in Hebrew, had a few lines translated in English that caught my attention. These are not about wine or love, but somehow they evoked a philosophy that has affected my existence in the past 50 years.

Indeed the lines are:

I find in this world two kinds of men and no more, and I can never find the third:
A seeker who seeks and never finds, and another who is never content with whatever he finds

(Translation by Translations by T.A. Perry, from The Moral Proverbs of Santob de Carrion: Jewish Wisdom in Christian Spain, Princeton Univ Pr November 1987, Ewing, New Jersey, U.S.A)

These lines reminded me of a poster I had on the wall of my dormitory room where three kittens, with various facial expressions were looking out of a wicker basket. The legend read:

There are three types of people – those who make things happen; those who watch things happen; and those who wonder why things happen

Over the past 50 years I have often thought about this simple paradigm, and asked myself which kitten I was in various situations.

And today, after thinking about three love and wine poets, a fourth Iberian Jewish poet made me realise that, contrary to Shem Tov, I have found the third type of men and tried to stay away from them!

February 3, 2020
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2020

And Cure Me With That Which Is My Ailment (Abu Nawas)

I received a text message from a friend with a picture of him on a motorcycle. The message read “My present to myself for 2020.” I replied reminding him about the dangers of trying to behave like a 20 year old again. He wrote back “YOLO!”

YOLO? First I thought it was the make of the motorcycle, but a quick search confirmed that I belong to the generation who knows “Carpe Diem” but not “You Only Live Once”…

It made me think about an old question, however.

The YOLO mantra was what Abu Nawas, perhaps the most controversial epicurean-poet followed in his attitude and writings. Born in Persia in the 786 AD, he challenged the rules of Islam regarding alcohol and sex. Interestingly today there are beverage companies in his name, countless restaurants around the world, an Algerian LGBT  group, and even a street still popular in Baghdad.

… I was teaching a class in medical school years ago about the epidemiology of addictive behaviors. I always mixed anthropology and poetry in my lectures when demonstrating that many of what public health and medicine incorporate today were often recognized as part of human posture in various ancient societies. It was then that a student unexpectedly asked:

“Nikos Kazantsakis, in Zorba the Greek, said that to stop eating cherry pie you should eat them till you get sick. And Abu Nawas famously proposed that to get cured from wine drinking one should be given wine till so sick that could not think about alcohol again. Are these similar to preventing disease through vaccination? After all you prevent by injecting the disease causing organism in an attenuated form to build immunity.”

Ha! This was one of the moments that made me anxious to enter the classroom and hope that a curious mind would go beyond traditional course materials.

The word vaccine comes from vaccinia, the cow pox virus. In 1799 Dr. Edward Jenner observed that milkmaids in Gloucestershire, England who had cow pox pustules on their hands and forearms were immune to small pox epidemics. He took pus from these pustules and “vaccinated” otherwise healthy people in the parish and these did not contract small pox.  The concept of a vaccine thus was developed and later perfected by Louis Pasteur in 1885 for treating (not preventing) rabies in human who were bitten by rabid dogs.

Vaccines are among the best successes of medicine.

So, treating the illness with the agent that caused the illness is a concept that may run counter-intuitive at first glance but has implications beyond medicine and pathology itself. It is a philosophical proposition. If killed or attenuated bacteria and viruses can be protective of diseases caused by the normal or high virulence of these bacteria or viruses, can there be a parallel in philosophy or attitude?

Perhaps one can find many such attempts throughout human history, all being evaluated according to ambient ethical and spiritual values.

… And I recall my answer to that student:
             “All wars eventually end in peace, but can we call peace preventive of or a cure for war? “

January 11, 2020

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2020

Correction About a Statement I Made in a Recent Essay

I received a comment about one of my recent posting https://vahezen.blogspot.com/2019/12/simple-thoughts-to-end-2019.html where I mentioned Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago and said that the name meant “life” in Russian.  The comment I got (the complete message can be seen at the bottom of the above essay) includes:

"Zhivago, a name that means life in Russian" - this is what wikipedia climes with reference to Mary and Paul Rowland (Rowland, Mary F. and Paul Rowland. Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. Southern Illinois University Press: 1967.) By Russians it is not so simple and the name Живаго comes from a prayer that impressed Pasternak in his childhood "Ты есть воистину Христос, сын Бога живаго" , https://goldlit.ru/pasternak/428-juri-jivago-obraz.

I did visit the suggested site which is in Russian, and if the translation is correct, then Pasternak’s character of Yuri has a name that goes beyond a boy’s name (ie. Zhivago or Jivago) but represents the character itself. As such, and based on reported influence on Pasternak a line from a prayer has had, the better interpretation of Dr. Zhivago may be “a doctor for all living”.

I appreciate the comment I received as it got me researching and learning more about the history of the name and why Pasternak may have used it in his novel. While I understand that it is correct that outside the novel itself, Jivago is the name of a boy and means life, it is equally correct that Pasternak may have used the name to define a character and the socio-political context of the times.

So, Omar Sharif impersonated a character that mixed the goodness of a healer to the analysis of politics. Here is an example of what he said:

“Ah, but cutting out the tumors of injustice, that’s a deep operation. Someone must keep life alive while you do it, by living. Isn’t that right?”

After receiving the comment about my incomplete statement now I know more about Pasternak’s creativity in choosing a name that meant more than a name. It was a symbolic encapsulation of the times.

December 28, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Matryoshka

We are all Russian dolls. We either spend our lives ignoring the layers of us that are in that doll, or we just hide them from others. Going in is never pleasant, even for a doll.

And then, something happens. Either we find the moment and person to allow us to peel off, or we see the sunset of days and want to know before the long sleep.

We are all Russian dolls. Intuitively we know that if we get to the smallest doll, the one that does not open to show yet another smaller doll, we have reached the a-tome of ourselves. And it is inside that unopenable diminutive doll, we know is the lotus of what we had hidden, ignored, covered, and kept for ourselves.

And that lotus can be radiant and delightfully teasing its fluid surroundings, or it can be riddled with scars, wrinkles and blemishes. In the first case it is indeed a matryosha, a matron in Russian, that we have been hiding and cherishing. In the second case it is a babushka, an older woman that has seen it all and that we have been hiding away or away from.

We are all Russian dolls, nesting inside our own layers. Yet, it is not the number of layers or inner dolls that makes us interesting, but the way our first layer is painted. That is what we exhibit, we propose, we bargain through. It is all in the lines, colours and shapes that we put in front of eyes, ours and those of others. Few see deeper than the paint, and even fewer through to the next nested doll. Often we ourselves stay at the surface of the first doll. All our lives.

But, when something happens, something that makes us openable, and  ignore the lines and colours of our surface paint, then we become comfortable.

Because it does not matter anymore. Because the fluid surroundings of our inner lotus have spilled over the many nested layers of us and we now enjoy bathing in that surrounding. In public.

And then, to matryosha or for babushka, we read a poem we wrote many nested dolls ago. A poem that we never forgot. Because it was not written in words.

December 27, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Simple Thoughts to End 2019

I woke up early thinking that there is no more graceful way of wearing a scarf than did Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago. Or Young Cassidy.

Then I made coffee as my dog does not like to go out when it is cold and snowing.  The coffee tasted very good.

… As the year is ending, I closed my eyes and remembered the lady who sold corn husk dolls in Bratislava. It was a stone throw from Vienna where I spent many moons in the past decade or so. “Much more forgiving than all the kouklas you may have seen in Kalithea” that lady told me.

Vienna. The coachmen cigars that the Emperor smoked dreaming of Sissi. And the small Prosecco bars in Old Town.

Yet, the Green Fairy was queen in the catacombs of Prague or even on the square of Brno. Wormwood and detachment. Taking portrait photos with a 1950s Soviet Zaria 35mm camera that had a cracked lens. I even took one photo of the orloj in Olomouc that when printed seemed to defy the principles of architecture. As if the Green Fairy had dripped into the Zaria.

… Filled another cup of coffee. Still dark and cold outside. I could hear my dog snoring in the next room.

Pierożki  reminds me of Krakow. So does a bottle of Spanish cava while listening to the street traffic at midnight. I wished I had hot coffee then as my hotel bed had a cold pillow.

But Oslo had its museum with slanted ceilings. In memory of the Vikings and their ships. That architecture cut my horizon short.

.. As the year is ending, I thought of Dr. Zhivago, a name that means life in Russian. And could not shake away the blue of Julie Christie’s eyes from my mind. Nor her grace of wearing a scarf in the snow.

And as my dog kept on snoring, I went back to bed.

December 26, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Last Flight

It was in black and white

Like the lament of an oak tree

Standing cold

In a field covered in snow

A crow upon its top

On a foggy day

A lonesome earring

Hanging on a deaf ear

Shivers in the wind

As the silence of the field

Wraps around the lament

Of the oak tree

Days are long

When sunshine and sunset

Are one

When the crack in the green bottle

Lets the fairy out

A drop

At a time

And in the catacombs

Where names echo in sound

There are no doors, no windows

To open upon

The black and white field

Where the oak tree hears the crow

Upon its top

And hopes

That the green fairy

Would tell a story

One drop at a time

About the bottle

That cracked

Under

Its

Own

Emptiness

December 24, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

PS/The day before Christmas, a dove smashed against my window in high winds. It left a print on the glass that is amazing in detail.  The rain has already effaced most of it, but the photo I took has an eerie beauty of a flight stopped in mid-air. Gracefully.

Where There is Ruin, There is Hope for a Treasure -- Rumi

I have been a fervent fan of the late Canadian poet-troubadour Leonard Cohen since the 1970s. I first saw him in Vancouver in 1975 and went to one of his last concerts in Maryland a decade or so ago. Now, three years after his death, his son Adam Cohen, songwriter and singer himself, has put a collection of his father’s songs in an album titled “Thanks for the dance”

So, I went back to listen to the songs that had influenced more than one generation of wandering-eye youth. Also re-reread some of the lyrics from his later-in-life songs, like Anthem.

There, a few lines suddenly made me stop and think. Here they are:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

I had not thought about the imagery as intensely before, but after this reading I could not get the famous line from Rumi out of my mind:

                    The wound is the place where the Light enters you

The crack, the torn, the broken part of us, of our soul is the door to letting the light in. And a wound can happen uninvited, or it can be self inflicted. And that took me to another line from Rumi:

                     Keep breaking your heart till it opens

L. Cohen was nicknamed “the godfather of gloom” as his poetry and songs dealt with the darker side of us. The side that hurts, inflicts wounds, breaks hearts. In retrospect, did Cohen knowingly or purposefully kept breaking his heart till it opens and lets the light in?

… As a kid, when I cried I was told that the tears are the means to clear the way. I never understood it of course, but with life passing me by, I wonder if the tears, the wounds and the broken hearts were not what made us unique in our response to the pan-human experience of gloom.

And when we have no more tears to shed, is the way clear? To where? To what?

L. Cohen has always reminded me of the Austrian poet Rainer M. Rilke. And as I spent time re-listening to L. Cohen’s songs, I wondered if the common line of inquiry between these two poets, and what appeals to my own attitude as well, could be the fascination with the question, rather the answer. I know I am a “question man”—perhaps that is why the academic and research worlds filled my life for four decades.  The answer is often the death of the question’s beauty; it may also be the most anti-climactic moment we regret we have reached.

Rilke puts it most eloquently:

Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

The purist cognoscenti does not need to know. He just needs to be involved in the process of learning and sharing his experiences along the way. I believe the title of L. Cohen’s posthumous album hints to that – the “dance” is rarely carried out alone (perhaps other than the Sufi Darwishes and Zorba the Greek!) and needs the participation of one or more other dancers.

So is the journey of “living the questions” and the joy and gratitude of sharing it with others.

December 2, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019