{"collection":"Texts of Islam","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_spa_spa05_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_spa_spa05_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_isl_spa_spa05_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/spa/spa05.htm","summary":"This is a collection of translated Pashto devotional and lyric poems by the poet Ra\u1e25m\u0101n (almost certainly Rahman Baba, the revered 17th-century Pashtun Sufi), presented in H.G. Raverty's 1868 English translation with its characteristically formal, Latinate register. The poems work in the classical Sufi mode where romantic love and divine love are deliberately ambiguous \u2014 the \"beloved\" addressed with longing may be a human figure or God \u2014 while several poems are explicitly theological, cataloguing God's omnipotence and absolute self-sufficiency in a litany-like structure. A strong thread of memento mori runs throughout: multiple poems insist on time's irreversibility (the stream never flows back, the set sun never rises again) to urge immediate spiritual action, with the recurring argument that bodily pleasures leave no trace while even a grain given to the hungry becomes eternal provision. A distinctive feature is the poet's habit of self-address \u2014 \"these precepts I urge upon myself\" \u2014 framing moral exhortation as personal confession rather than instruction, undercutting any preacherly stance. The final sections turn practical and social, valuing peace over prosperity, condemning gossip and ill-gotten wealth, and ranking the company of the wise above all worldly advantage. Readers drawn to classical Islamic devotional verse, Sufi metaphysics in accessible form, or 19th-century orientalist translation practice will find this substantive; those wanting biographical or historical context will need to supply it themselves.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans: \u00c6abd-ur-...","tradition":"Texts of Islam","translated_text":null,"word_count":11196}