Half-inebriation in Iraqi’s Anacreontic verses

Fakhr-ud-Din Iraqi is a 7^th century gnostic poet who was interested in Mohy-ed-Din’s theosophical ideas. He uses a symbolic language and wine-idioms in order to describe his ideas about pantheism in his poetry. This language provides him with a great capacity interpreting the allegorical concepts which seems impossible to be expressed in a direct language. Decoding these idioms to recognize gnostic poets needs more comprehensive surveys. In this study, it has been attempted to consider the “half-inebriation” term, using the descriptive-analytical method, emphasizing the meaning parameters which are related to pantheism, focused on the words and sentences by which the poet has described himself as a vintner who needs more wine of union to complete his inebriation and so complains about being half-inebriated. This survey reveals what ‘half-inebriation’ means in Iraqi’s poems, what its causes are, what problems it makes on his way toward unity and what the remedy is. To obtain the answers, we have analyzed Iraqi’s poems on the basis of Mohy-ed-Din’s ideas, especially on pantheism. In Iraqi’s poetry, this idiom is interpreted as a "description of his own mood", a "description of the Saki’s eyes" or the "similarity of his own mood and the Saki's eyes".
    Keywords: Fakhruddin Iraqi, complain, wine poems, Half-inebriation, pantheism
 

1.     Introduction

Fakhr-ud-Din Iraqi is the theosophical poet of the seventh century who in his poems, like many of his fellow poets, uses Anacreontic expressions in the virtual sense to represent theosophical issues. This is because there is a need to a vessel that can bear the specific and delicate theosophical meanings meant by mystics. Iraqi in his refrains and odes, has a “personal”, “serious” and “theological” complain of his own situation. By Assimilating God to Saki, he introduces himself as an inebriated who has fallen in trouble because of a hangover and who needs wine. In the meantime, Saki is so much attractive for him that out of severing love, every time, he asks Saki for union instead of wine. In other words, in Iraqi’s view, his inebriation will be removed by a reunion with Saki; and as it is competent for Islamic theosophists, this simile has always been used with purification. Also, the poet mentions that these expressions are virtual and his purpose is the report his theosophical attitude towards reunion of entity, not reduction of God’s position. Fakhr-ud-Din Iraqi mingles theosophical ideas attributed to Ibn Arabi, who is also more compassionate than philosophical, with his own poetic temperament so that from the tongue of this art, he could express his discoveries and illuminations in the world of theosophical progress.
1.1.Statement of the problem and research questions
One of the subjects expressed in the theosophical Anacreontic verse is a complaint. Study of the contents of complaints which is itself part of a greater collection of Bath-ush-Shakwa, is the subject of greater research that cannot be placed in this article. However, complaining about one’s own situation as a half-inebriated is an interesting and considerable issue, and by analyzing the hidden concepts in it, un-interpreted delicacies of Sufi and theosophical perspectives can be discovered. In this survey, it is tried to answer this question: from the Theosophical reading perspective, what is the meaning of “half-inebriation” in the poems of Iraqi (especially in the refrains of his Divan)?
1.2.Research Methodology
In this survey which is carried out through library studies by the use of descriptive and analytical methods, Bath-ush-Shakwa of Iraqi is studied in his refrains and in one of his odes from his Divan. He has directly used the compound term “half-inebriated” and other lexical forms of it; the study tries to show what Iraqi meant by “half-inebriated”. What are its reasons? what are the problems that cause the poet’s complaint of half-inebriation? and what is the treatment for all this? In order to reach all these objectives, this survey analyzes these poems by focusing on the intellectual infrastructures of Ibn Arabi and the principle of union of the entity.
1.3.Literature
The most important surveys carried out about Iraqi, his poems and his ideas are Generalities of Iraqi edited by Saeed Nafisi (1956); Treatise of Lam’at and Treatise of Expressions by Javad Nourbakhsh (1974); and Collection of Fakhre-ud-Din Iraqi’s Works edited by Nasriin Mohtasham Khazaee (2013). Also, several researchers have studied his theosophical attitude. For example, Ali Safaee in his article titled ‘Explainers of Ibn Arabi’s school’, believes that Fakhr-ud-Din Iraqi was influenced by the ideas of Mohy-ed-Din Arabi. Safaee, according to Sadr-ed-Din Ghonavi (one of Iraqi professors) writes about Iraqi’s book Lam’at (which contains his theosophical ideas) that: “oh Fakhr-ud-Din, you revealed the secrets of the words of men and Lam’at is in fact the lips of truths” (Safaee, 1990: 147). Hussein Razmju (1995) in an article titled ‘After the bright sign of love’, has tried to study the effects of Fakhr-ud-Din Iraqi’s compassionate love and its various appearances in his poetry. Also, an article by William Chittick (2010) titled ‘Ibn Arabi, Rumi and the doctrine of unity with God’ and another article by Zahra Gharib Husseini and Muhammad Reza Sarfi (2011) titled ‘Ontology from Ibn Arabi and Fakhr-ud-Din Iraqi's perspectives’ have both studied theosophical ideas of Fakhr-ud-Din Iraqi.
On the other hand, although there is no independent survey carried out about Bath-ush-Shakwa in Iraqi’s poetry, about this subject, an unfinished article can be mentioned by an anonymous author titled ‘A word with God and about God (Bath-ush-Shakwa)’ (1973). Also, Seyed Muhammad Javad Sahlani (2003) in his survey titled ‘Bath-ush-Shakwa in Persian poetry’ and Ali Asghar Halabi (1977) in an article titled ‘Bath-ush-Shakwa or discourses of a physician’, have studied this subject.
1.4.Conclusion
 Iraqi has dealt with half-inebriation directly in eight places, in an ode and in three refrains. In his poems, this compound noun is “an adjective for the quality of self”, “an adjective for eyes of Saki” or “a means of similarity between the conditions of self and Saki’s eyes”. In the first sense, the result is that as a disciple poet, Iraqi complains about falling apart from the beloved and inability to unite (even contemporarily), and asks for hearing the words of the beloved within his self. This falling apart is the result of remaining a component of the denied self-awareness. In the meantime, this would not be possible unless through understanding the nature of the words of God, and this nature, despite its attraction, is hard to achieve. Also, so far as the heart is not cleansed, these concepts will not enter it. Cleansing, too, means emptying heart from all others especially the poet’s own ‘self’. Another point is that the poet asks for a time i.e. happy moments so that he can succeed to talk to God at dawns. Iraqi wants to talk about the oath of Alast and the secrets of the unseen which itself adds up to the importance of the subject. Consequently, greatness and the long-time spent on getting this leads to complaints. In the second sense, the result is that Iraqi’s indirect complaint about the challenge of his own mind and soul is in the realm of the imperfect sciences which leads to nothing but tension. However, the disciple wants to pass these useless mental businesses which are like looking through a small window and reach unawareness, in turn, he wants to be driven by the perspective of the Holy Prophet (SAW) i.e. the first mind where God (considering the limitedness of man’s capacity) has appeared in a perfect form; and in the last part, the result is that the poet links his own condition and the quality of divine seeing from a specific perspective. God has informed him that he has not still perfectly ignored himself, and he admits it and complains about it. On the other hand, the influence of love in the spiritual overcome of the beginner disciples and also in the states of perfect disciples is the main principle; and these overcome override the spirit of every disciple; its reason is the perfectness of love of advent in God and then pure advent of this love in the spirit of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). The divine concepts of understanding are in the heart of a disciple who is in the state of half-awareness. This is the similarity to a disciple whose part of self-consciousness has not left him and still sees himself and complains about it to his Creator.