Quatrains (robaiyat) of the 12th and 13th century Iranian philosopher, poet and author Baba Afzal Kashani is translated into Turkic and released in Turkey.
“Baba Afzal Kashani Rubaileri,” in 127 pages, has been released by Okumushlar publishing house in Istanbul, Mehr News Agency reported on its Persian website.
Iranian poet and translator Behruz Dijurian, who lives in Turkey, has translated a selection of 111 quatrains from the oeuvre of the philosopher. “The newly released collection (of the quatrains) is the outcome of two years of work on the writings of Baba Afzal, during which I referred to both Persian and Turkic resources,” Dijurian said.
The book is bilingual. The original Persian verses are included “with a guide to how one can read (pronounce) them (Persian verses) correctly,” he added. Other than Persian and Turkic, Dijurian, 57, has good command of English, German, French and Italian.
Little if anything is known about the life of Baba Afzal. His works suggest a disdain for officialdom, so it is small wonder that he is said to have once been imprisoned by a local governor on trumped-up charges of practicing sorcery, according to Encyclopedia Iranica.
Though Baba Afzal avoids terminology connected specifically with Sufism in his major prose works, much of his poetry and some of his letters are explicitly mystical in tone, while various passages in his prose point to the spiritual benefits a traveler (sālek) - a favorite Sufi term - will gain by studying.
Baba Afzal often also alludes to the knowledge he has acquired through purifying his own soul. In a letter, he refers to his age and mentions spending 60 years in the wilderness searching for the water of life, which is intellect (aql, kherad).
Around 500 quatrains are attributed to Baba Afzal. The themes of the quatrains include warnings about the futility of preoccupation with the corporeal world, connection between microcosm and macrocosm, and autology (self-knowledge) as the goal of human existence.
Arz-Nama is considered his magnum opus. It is the longest and most complete exposition of his philosophy that brings together subjects related to the perfection of the soul. His tomb in Maraq, a village 42km northwest of Kashan, Isfahan Province, is a place of pilgrimage.
