Stanford Scholar Looks at 'Poetic Identity' of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

Stanford religious studies scholar Ahoo Najafian looks at poetry in Iran, writing for Stanford Report about the complex revolutionary themes in poems by the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who wrote over 300 poems in his lifetime. "'I am not trying to lionize Khomeini or criticize him, I just want to show another aspect of him that has been ignored,' Najafian said." Also here is a look at the politically encoded ghazal. More:

During the Iranian Revolution, Persian literature, including ghazal, became politically encoded and was used as political agenda, she said.

“So the beloved, for instance, which in the classical ghazal could be read as a man, a woman or the divine, in modern times becomes Iran, the nation,” said Najafian.

“If we are looking at modernity in Iran, we should look at these marginalized genres, and how and why poets are using them,” she said.

Najafian argues that Khomeini’s poetic identity helps create a more complex idea of Islam. Instead of reinstating the stark binary between good Islam (mysticism) and bad Islam (political Islam), Khomeini was a figure who had both elements.

“He was a ghazal writer,” she said.

For example, she pointed to a 1984 poem by Khomeini that combines these seemingly diametric elements:

Oh Saqi! Fill my cup with wine,
So that it purges my soul from longing after fame.
Pour me the wine that annihilates me,
Destroys my chains, my lies.
Give me the wine that frees me from myself,
Loosens my reins, ruins my fame.
Give me the wine that in the haven of the libertines,
Wrecks my prostration, ravages my standing.
In the pure sanctuary of the Tavern’s flower-faced,
From every corner a flower comes to hold my rein.
I go among the bewildered elders, so that,
Their wine frees me of my crude thoughts.
Oh messenger of the light-burdened of the annihilation Sea,
Deliver my praise to the seafarer of that land:
“I ended my nonsensical letter with the ink of wine.”
Tell the Magian Elder to see my happy ending.

Najafian said, “Why would we believe his political writings and juristic writings, but not his poems? There is something going on with literature, truth and language.”

In addition to Khomeini, she considers contemporary ghazal poets who are communists and feminists.

Find the full piece at Stanford Report.