The title I selected, Flowers In A Mirror, is drawn from Ghalib’s hamdiya ghazal (poem in praise of God). This ghazal was my first introduction to Ghalib’s mustarad kalam.
Chaman chaman gul-i-ainah dar kinar-i-havas
Umeed-i-mahv-i-tamasha-i-gulsitan tujh se
The gul-i-ainah is the flower of the mirror which becomes gardens upon gardens if desire is embraced. However, whereas such mirror flowers have 'color' they lack 'scent'- i.e. they have form but lack essence or being. Thus, the first line is saying that 'speculation' (which in European languages also has the meaning of a type of mystical meditation done in front of a mirror- a practice which came from the East) can show you the different 'colors' which represent the hierarchy of mystical states but can't endow or incarnate Love itself which is a fragrance. This is the 'claim' ( دَعْوَى) or 'dava' while the next line supplies the 'dalil' (proof). It is 'The hope of enchantment (but also 'erasure', i.e. the gaining of 'fana' or Sufi obliteration/enlightenment) in the grand spectacle of the flower garden is from Thou. In other words, Ghalib is confirming the orthodox Sufi position that the Rose from whose fragrance all other roses smile and laugh is indeed the Holy Prophet. Though we remain caught in a world of illusions- being fallible creatures- yet the existence of the impeccable One communicates itself to us as Hope.
I offer this translation-
In this verse, Ġhālib has crafted a unique image of illusions.
No. He has represented the orthodox, simple and decent, message of the Sufis who have helped countless sinful or, deeply distressed, or very simple people to traverse the path of piety and self-lessness which alone makes one worthy of giving and receiving Love.
Gardens with mirror-flowers means an illusory garden,
No. A garden may have some mirrors so as to artfully increase the number of flowers. But there must be a real flower somewhere near by for there to be the image of a flower in a mirror.
signifying that there are illusions within illusions.
A flower is not an illusion.
A subtle irony is at play here.
Stupidity is not subtle. That is what is at play in this Professor's translation.
‘Mirror-flower’ may mean ‘the mirror which is like a flower’,
I suppose a craftsman could take a ductile reflecting surface and shape it like a flower. But that is not what Ghalib is referring to.
or it may mean ‘a mirror in which a flower is reflected.’
In the context of an artfully constructed garden- sure. But that is not the present context. Instead we have the notion of something blossoming within the depths of the mirror. Since this is ghazal is in a devotional, Sufi, register, the context is mystical meditative practices like 'mirror gazing'. I should mention Islamic 'color and scent' is different from Hindu 'name and form'. However, Hindus too have a notion of 'gandh' and the Hindu barzakh- which is the antarabhava or Tibetan bardo- is ruled by the Gandharvas and has to do with rebirth.
In both cases, there is a profusion of illusions: mirrors in which flowers are reflected,
flowers are not illusions.
or mirrors which are beautiful like flowers.
Flowers have a fragrance.
Both ways, the havas or intense passionate desire (not necessarily lust or carnal desire, as is generally assumed) keeps itself happy by having in its embrace the illusion of flowers.
I suppose one could 'keep oneself happy' by masturbating. If you think Ghalib was an atheist satirizing Islamic devotional practices, then you will be happy with this interpretation. But pious Muslim savants and spiritual preceptors quote Ghalib because they KNOW he was, as he himself says, a devout man. True, he had some of the blameworthy (malamati) aristocratic traits of his times, but plenty of great saints, who lived austere lives, wrote in the 'malamati' Sufi vein. But the 'wine' and the 'Tavern' they refer to are merely metaphors. They were meditating in the khanqah, not carousing in the brothel.
The flowers now become the pleasures of union, with God or with a human beloved.
This is horrible. The 'pleasures of union' with the beloved have to do with having children and thus fulfilling God's plan. We seek to return to our Creator in the same way that a small child, who is lost, craves to be reunited with her parents. There is nothing 'sexual' about this though, no doubt, when two people unite to fulfill God's plan, they come closer to Him.
Hope is never stilled.
Yes it is. I no longer hope to be crowned Miss Teen Tamil Nadu. This is because evil Iyengars have poisoned the minds of the pageant judges against me.
It enjoys the spectacle of a colourful garden, even though there is nothing but illusions in front of it.
In which case it will be happy enough imagining itself to be God- the creator and sustainer of the Universe. If illusions are so great, everybody should take drugs and live in their own make believe universe.
Maulana Abdul Bari, an early commentator on Ghalib’s mustarad kalam,
which means 'rejected verses'- i.e. ones excluded from the published 'Divan'.
and Wajahat Ali Sandilvi, who comes much later and has commented on a very limited number of verses, have taken havas to mean ‘lust or carnal desire.’ According to them, there is satire here on the divine scheme of things: the lustful have all the colourful things at their command, but the hopeful one gets nothing but illusions.
Perhaps this was because the new Imperial masters, confounded by Charles Darwin, had lost their own pious religious faith. To be 'modern' meant scoffing at Religion and pretending that all the Mullahs were pederasts- more particularly if they were known to be poor, pious, and more concerned with charity than sucking up to the Brits or the Bolsheviks or some 'Secular Socialist' Dynasty.
The true lover watches this spectacle but does not give up hope.
True lover keeps masturbating but does not give up hope that suddenly a whole bunch of Super-Models will form an orderly queue outside his bedroom door.
Gyan Chand Jain, in his remarkable commentary, Tafsir-i-Ghalib, seems to concur, more or less.
Some Hindus or Jains may be too ignorant of Islam to make a sensible comment. But Prof. Farooqi is from a learned, pious, highly educated and intelligent, Muslim family. I suppose, being an academic, she has to pretend to be a stupid Islamophobic bigot. After all, she teaches in a country which has just spent a lot of money killing 1.3 million Muslims and displacing tens of millions more.
But all these commentators ignore the possible meanings of havas.
Why? That is the question. The answer is that, in England, Fitzgerald's translation of Khayyam had become popular at just the time when faith in Scripture had received a tremendous shock from new scientific discoveries. Islam, however, had a workaround for this. There is a distinction between the 'realm of command' and the 'realm of creation'. Since Scripture is wholly imperative (insha) rather than alethic (khabar) Faith, being founded upon the mystery that is the 'realm of command', stood in no danger from Scientific or Socio-political advances- or pseudo-advances.
One can push the interpretation towards the principle of maya, which signifies the world as an illusion, with God as the only reality.
This is the Majazi/Haqiqi distinction. In reality, God is the only efficient cause though things appear otherwise. Nothing wrong with being an Occasionalist like Ghazalli, Leibniz, etc.
Thus, the desirer and the spectator both are under their own illusions.
In this verse, the spectator is the desirer. We are not speaking of a voyeur jerking off while some other dude ploughs his wife.
The mirror in Persian and Urdu poetry is a symbol or image (paikaar)
she means 'paikar'. Paikaar (پیکار ) means war. A mirror, in the poetry of any nation, can be either just a mirror or symbolize something else.
loaded with multitudes of meaning.
But the context ensures only one predominates though it may be arrived at through another which is 'sublated'. Ghalib's poetry relies heavily on meta-metaphors. But when we keep in mind that he was a pious and quite erudite Muslim who has written beautiful theistic verses, then we can easily find the right meaning- provided we consult the local kasai or cobbler rather than some Professor at a fancy-schmancy American University.
A common meaning is that the heart is a mirror in which the beauty of God, or the beloved, is reflected. Conversely, a mirror is like the heart. It reflects whoever cares to come in front of it. Since the mirror remains silent, it means that it is wonderstruck. The cleaner the surface of the mirror, the sharper the image. The sharper the image, the greater the wonder of the mirror.
Professor Faruqi knows well the connection between Bedil and Ghalib and should have taken advantage of that knowledge to give a better, more Islamic, account of such verses. Sadly, like her late father, she feels obliged to genuflect to 'Secular, Socialist' ideology and pretend Ghalib was an antinomian who hated and derided his own ancestral religion. Also, because he was a fucking towel-head, sand-nigger, he was even stupider than the sort of cretins who get MFAs at pricey Liberal Arts Colleges.
Again, when we look in the mirror, we can see ourselves as we are. The mirror doesn’t lie.
Unless it is misshapen.
Then, the mirror produces illusions which can be magical even. What one sees in the mirror is intangible and, yet, it looks indistinguishable from the reality that it reflects.
At this point, Professor Sahiba should explain to her students that they should not start fighting with the person they see in the mirror because it has obviously stolen their clothes and is looking at them in a menacing manner. Also, she should issue 'trigger warnings'. White peeps may sometimes see White peeps in mirrors. This is not due to the University's failure to promote Diversity and Inclusivity. All is the fault of Neo-Liberalism. Also dicks cause rape and must be banned immediately.
Another way of looking at the ‘mirror’ trope is that, since pre-modern mirrors were made of steel or bronze or similar metal, they could be affected by scratches, or rusting, or dust and so on.
Modern mirrors can get scratched or become dusty. Also if you punch the evil dude in the mirror who has stolen your clothes, the mirror may shatter and you may cut your hand.
Thus, the mirrors always needed to be polished.
They still need to be cleaned- even in Amrika.
This symbolism of the dust or blemish in the mirror is that the heart too can become diseased or corrupt and may need purification.
Why stop there? Why not say 'the symbolism of the heart is that our impulses too may require purification. Don't keep stabbing teechur just because teechur may have a dick even though dicks cause rape. The true fault lies with Neo-Liberalism. '
Ghalib always had a penchant for the mirror as a trope, or a symbol, or a metaphor.
Why? Part of the answer has to do with the Islam has a notion that God ordained that Alexander invent the mirror so he could see the one realm he could not conquer. Ghalib prided himself on being descended from Turks who had conquered vast territories though some now preferred to get a pension from the Brits who, not content to rule the waves, had created a larger Empire in India than even the Moghuls. There was some comfort in knowing that al-Khidr got the better of Alexander when it came to gaining the elixir of life.
His early poetry especially abounds with the mirror in one or more of its many meanings. It has to do with his perception of the nature of things.
That perception was perfectly Islamic. That's why in explaining Ghalib, you need to quote relevant passages from Scripture, Hadith, etc.
Individual perception of objects can be different. The objects themselves can be illusory. The reflection, the ‘aks’ in the mirror, is open to transformation or interpretation. We cannot see God,
if there is perfect agreement among us, He will be seen like the full moon in the night sky. Such is the hadith.
but we can see his reflection in objects around us.
only by His Grace because whatever be His Will it must, most indefeasibly, come to pass. However, Ghalib may have subscribed, at one time, to a 'possible worlds' ontology and thus his 'claims' may be supported by proofs from modal logic. There is nothing wrong with offering this alternative reading before giving the orthodox interpretation which, so far as I can see, is always superior. In other words, why not read 'malamati' verse in the manner intended? The aim, after all, was to bring people to the the true path by means of something entertaining or even risque.
I hope this book which I have expressly written in English so that it can reach a wider audience, will bring into prominence some of Ghalib’s neglected poetry. It would have been easier to write such a book in Urdu, but it would have deprived many readers who are drawn to Ghalib’s poetry.
The problem here is that Urdu speakers generally have very good access to Sacred Scripture and commentary. However, English speakers are often wholly ignorant of the glories of Islamic thought and spiritual practice. By kowtowing to 'Secular, Socialist' ideology, people like Prof. Faruqi are doing ignorant kaffirs like me a great disservice.
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