The Fragrant Secret: Language and Universalism in Muusaa Ka’s The Wolofal Takhmīs

Are all languages equal? Does the revelation of the Qur’an in Arabic elevate that language above all others? What is the goal of using language, and particularly of using it Islamically? The early twentieth-century Wolof-language poem The Wolofal Takhmīs takes on these questions in verse. In arguing that Wolof and Arabic are equally viable languages for Islamic poetry, the Senegalese Sufi poet Sëriñ Muusaa Ka intervenes into longstanding theological debates about the provenance and purpose of language. The primary goal of this article is to illuminate Ka’s theory of language through analysis and translation of Takhmīs. Ka implies that the root of all languages is the Ḥaqīqa Muḥammadiyya, the nonphysical reality of the Prophet Muḥammad, and thus he claims that all languages share an equal potential and an ultimate purpose: to regain the “fragrant secret” of their Muḥammadan essence. The Wolofal Takhmīs offers a universalist theory of language that avoids the pitfalls of provincialism and chauvinism. I consider the potential impact of this theory on both intra-Islamic theological debates about language and contemporary academic conversations about the viability of “universalism” after European colonialism.

Universalism is out of fashion in the Euro-American academy. This is not new: twenty-five years ago, the Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu was already writing that “there is…increasingly skepticism regarding… the possibility of universal canons of thought and action.” 1 This skepticism is historically well-founded, as “more often than not, the alleged universals have been home-grown particulars. Not unnaturally, the practice has earned universals a bad name.” 2 Wiredu is referring to the longstanding (and still ongoing) tendency amongst Euro-American thinkers to treat Western cultures as universal reference points to which all others ought to aspire – a stance summarized by Hegel’s famous claim that Western Europe is “the land of the elevation of the particular to the universal.” 3 This chauvinistic faux-universalism was (and is) frequently tethered to assumptions about the superiority of European languages. Per Souleymane Bachir Diagne, the line of thinking goes as follows: “we can stipulate that a given language is universal and thereby overarches all the others. This stipulation involves declaring that the Greek language [and its supposed European descen- dants] is the Logos (simultaneously the Word, Reason and Being)

Was That Layla’s Fire?: Metonymy, Metaphor, and Mannerism in the Poetry of Ibn al-Fāriḍ

Regarded as one of the greatest poets of the Arabic language, and the greatest and most influential Arabic Sufi poet, ‘Umar ibn ‘Alī ibn al-Fāriḍ, set the standard for Arabic Sufi poetry after him. Known as the “Sultan of the Lovers” (Sulṭān al-‘Āshiqīn), ibn al-Fāriḍ’s works inspired numerous commentaries, especially amongst the school of Ibn al-ʿArabī, many of which are considered masterpieces of Islamic metaphysics. Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s poetry continues to be sung, taught, and commented upon down to the present day and is considered one of the greatest expositions of spiritual realization, Sufi metaphysics, and psychology. This article will consider the role of the figure of Layla in some of Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s poetry, exploring the relationship between the exquisite form of his poetic language and the meanings to which they allude in an attempt to understand an aspect of how the “licit magic” of his poetry works to express and inspire realization. That is, of all the various genres and modes of expression, why did so many Sufi figures find the genre of the romantic or even erotic Arabic ghazal, especially the exquisite verses of Ibn al-Fāriḍ, to be so felicitous for expressing the deepest truths they had realized.

Regarded as one of the greatest poets of the Arabic language, and the greatest and most influential Arabic Sufi poet, ʿUmar ibn ‘Alī ibn al-Fāriḍ, set the standard for Arabic Sufi poetry after him. His poetry was famous and commented upon even in his own lifetime, and several commentators even claimed that while non-poetic language was perfected in the inimitable Qur’an, six centuries later, Arabic poetry was perfected in the inimitable verse of Ibn al-Fāriḍ. 1 Known as the “Sultan of the Lovers” (Sulṭān al-‘Āshiqīn), Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s works inspired numerous commentaries, especially amongst the school of Ibn al-ʿArabī, many of which are consid- ered masterpieces of Islamic metaphysics. Saḍr al-dīn al-Qūnāwī (d. 673/1274), Ibn al-ʿArabī’s stepson and successor taught Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s magnum opus, the 760-verse qaṣīda, Naẓm al-Sulūk (“The Poem of the Sufi Way”) to his circle of students, two of whom, Sa‘īd al-dīn al-Farghānī (d. 699/1300) and ‘Afīf al-dīn al-Tilimsānī (d. 690/1291) published commentaries upon the work

Foreword to Oludamini Ogunnaike, The Book of Clouds (Fons Vitae, 2024) – Mohammed Rustom

“As the blessed Prophet’s words indicate, the cloud is connected to the “space” wherein God resides, and which transforms into the rain of mercy (raḥma) that pervades all things. As a metaphysical reality, Ibn ʿArabī explains that the primordial Cloud (ʿamāʾ) is the ontological, basis of the Muhammadan Reality (ḥaqīqa Muḥammadiyya) and directly corresponds to the Breath of the All-Merciful (nafas al-Raḥmān) within and through which all of God’s words—the stuff of the cosmos are articulated and formed. In its vapor-like state, a cloud is both here and not here, and hence denotes the principle and substance of manifestation which is simultaneously absent and present throughout the created order”

Rumi: Swallowing the Sun – Poems Translated from Persian

Abstract:

“The extraordinary success and influence of certain translations and adap- tations of Persian poetry into western languages – those by Sir William Jones, Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Rückert, August von Platen, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward FitzGerald, Basil Bunting, Robert Bly, Coleman Barks and Dick Davis – makes the burden of the translation past and present especially weighty. A meta-translation question must therefore be resolved in the mind of any would-be Persian translator before they begin: who is the intended audience of this translation, and”