Poems
poema
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Leavetaking
On the morning they left
we said goodbye
filled with sadness
for the absence to come.
Inside the palanquins
on the camels' backs
I saw their faces beautiful as moons
behind veils of gold cloth.
Beneath the veils
tears crept like scorpions
over the fragant roses
of their cheeks.
These scorpions do not harm
the cheek they mark.
They save their sting
for the heart of the sorrowful lover.
Ibn Jakh
From Poems of Arab Andalusia,
translated by Cola Franzen.
City Lights Books,
San Francisco,
United States
Absence
Every night I scan
the heavens with my eyes
seeking the star
that you are contemplating.
I question travellers
from the four corners of the earth
hoping to meet one
who has breathed your fragrance.
When the wind blows
I make sure it blows in my face:
the breeze might bring me
news of you.
I wander over roads
without aim, without purpose.
Perhaps a song
will sound your name.
Secretly I study
every face I see
hoping against hope
to glimpse a trace of your beauty.
Abu Bakr al-Turtushi
From Poems of Arab Andalusia,
translated by Cola Franzen.
City Lights Books,
San Francisco,
United States
Grainfield
Look at the ripe wheat
bending before the wind
like squadrons of horsemen
fleeing in defeat, bleeding
from the wounds of the poppies.
Ibn Iyad
From Poems of Arab Andalusia,
translated by Cola Franzen.
City Lights Books,
San Francisco.
Pool with turtles
This beautiful pool,
a brimming eye,
has thick eyelashes of flowers.
Turtles cavort
in their capes of green algae.
Now they squabble on the bank
but when winter comes
they'll dive below and hide.
At play they resemble
Christian soldiers
wearing on their backs
their leather shields.
Ibn Sarah
From Poems of Arab Andalusia,
translated by Cola Franzen.
City Lights Books,
San Francisco
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Granada: A vision of magnificence
OPPOSITE to the hill on which stood the Alham-
bra was its rival hill, on the summit of which was
a spacious plain, covered with houses, and crowd-
ed with inhabitants. It was commanded by a fort-
ress called the Alcazaba. The declivities and skirts
of these hills were covered with houses to the
number of seventy thousand, separated by narrow
streets and small squares, according to the custom
of the Moorish cities. The houses had interior
courts and gardens, refreshed by fountains and
running streams, and set out with oranges, citrons,
and pomegranates; so that, as the edifices of the
city rose above each other on the sides of the hill,
they presented a mingled appearance of city and
grove, delightful to the eye. The whole was sur-
rounded by high walls, three leagues in circuit,
with twelve gates, and fortified by a thousand and
thirty towers. The elevation of the city, and the
neighbourhood of the Sierra Nevada, crowned with
perpetual snows, tempered the fervid rays of sum-
mer; and thus, while other cities were panting with
the sultry and stifling heat of the dog-days, the
most salubrious breezes played through the marble
halls of Granada.
Flamenco Store
The glory of the city, however, was its vega, or
plain, which spread out to a circumference of thir-
ty-seven leagues, surrounded by lofty mountains.
It was a vast garden of delight, refreshed by nu-
merous fountains, and by the silver windings of the
Xenil. The labour and ingenuity of the Moors had
diverted the waters of this river into thousands of
rills and streams, and diffused them over the whole
surface of the plain. Indeed they had wrought up
this happy region to a degree of wonderful prosper-
ity, and took a pride in decorating it, as if it had
been a favourite mistress. The hills were clothed
with orchards and vineyards, the valleys embroid-
ered with gardens, and the wide plains covered with
waving grain. Here were seen in profusion the
orange, the citron, the fig and pomegranate, with
large plantations of mulberry trees, from which
were produced the finest of silk. The vine clamb-
ered from tree to tree, the grapes hung in rich clus-
ters about the peasant's cottage, and the groves
were rejoiced by the perpetual song of the nightin-
gale. In a word, so beautiful was the earth, so pure
the air, and so serene the sky of this delicious re-
gion, that the Moors imagined the paradise of their
Prophet to be situate in that part of the heaven
which overhung the kingdom of Granada.
The Conquest of Granada, Washington Irving
El ultimo suspiro del moro
Rills that darted tree to tree,
From high sierras to the sea,
Now run at random on the plain,
Their ruin wrought to entertain
The drunken soldiers of Castile,
Who came to fight and stayed to steal.
As lombards boom from battlements,
The fabric of an age is rent:
The flagrant crucifix is set
On fretted dome and minaret,
While in the alcazar there stands
The throne of crafty Ferdinand.
Too late, the fallen sultan sees
The cost of his inconstancy;
Too late, a fixity is forced
Upon his fugitive remorse.
Two leagues away, but still pursued
By strains of shawm and cornemuse,
He pauses on a rise to gaze
At symbols of his yesterdays:
Granada still beyond compare,
But now abandoned to despair;
The groves of palms that link this land
With visions of Levantine sands;
The broken fronds that once were spliced
With trailing vines of paradise.
On the road to the Alpuxarras, 1492
Alan Ireland
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Al-ajamiyyah / English
Al-masihiyyah
O ley llena de mentiras
gente de verdad desiertos
que el laberinto de Creta
no tuvo tanto enredos
Establecida por onbres
diziendo el mismo maestro
que el que la ley de onbre siguiere
seran en vano sus hechos.
Juan Alfonso
Persecuciones
Allah dio lugar
Que los Moros deste reyno,
Con tantas persecuciones,
Sean pugnidos y presos;
Perdiento los alquitebes,
No quedado rastro dellos;
Los alimes acabados,
Quales muertos, quales presos,
La Inquisicion desplegada
Con grandes fuerzas y apremios,
Haciendo con gran rigor
Cruezas y desafueros,
Que casi por todas partes
Hacia temblar el suelo:
Aqui prenden y alli prenden
A los baptizados nuevos,
Cargandoles cada dia
Galeras, tormento y fuego
Con otras adversaciones
Que a solo Allah es el secreto.
Muhammad Rabadan
El alcoran
Y no ay alarbo ni turko
ansi sabio como necio
que ose anadir sobre el
una silaba ni un verso
Y buestra fe se sabe
dos mil enbustes y enredos,
Y si alguno lo descrube
lo labrays luego con fuego.
Juan Alfonso
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Christianity
O religion full of lies,
People sterile of truth
Not even the labyrinth of Crete
Had so much ensnaring.
Established by men
When the Lord himself says
That the one who follows the law of man
Will have his deeds end in vain.
Juan Alfonso
Persecutions
God made possible
That the Moors of this kingdom
With so many persecutions
Would be punished and enslaved.
Having lost the books,
Without leaving a trace;
Scholars are gone
Some dead, others jailed,
The Inquisition rampant
With great force and pressures,
Implementing with rigor
Cruelty and excesses;
Almost everywhere
The earth is made to tremble:
They apprehend here and there
The newly baptized,
Imposing on them every day
Galleys, torment, and fire
Along with other calamities
For which God alone knows the secret.
Muhammad Rabadan
The Qur'an
There is neither Arab nor Turk,
Be he wise or stupid,
Who ever dared to add to it
A single syllable or a verse.
And in your faith are known
A thousand lies and mischiefs,
And if someone discover them
You will relegate him to the fire.
Juan Alfonso
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SHORTLY after the conquest of Granada in 1492 by the Catholic monarchs, Muslim subjects in
Spain
became known derogatorily as Moriscos, Moros, Muhammadans, Hagarans, and Saracens,
despite the
fact that they were forced to accept the sacrament of baptism. They were
relegated to the margin of
Christian society, considered aliens in their own land (like
the Palestinians today), and subjected to stric-
tures, persecution and eventual expulsion.
In turn, the Moriscos developed their own attitude, which they
expressed in an extensive literature in Al-ajamiyyah or Aljamiado – their Spanish dialect written in Arabic
script. This literature was for the most part inspired by Arabic models reiterating Islamic values through the
vehicles of history, legends, epic tales, stories, sayings and sorcery. The above poems are from Islam and
the West: The Moriscos – A Cultural and Social History, by Anwar G. Chejne.
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