Question 1- First I am in awe of my own thinking: what is it that you call “Thought”?
in the name of the name of the name of he who birthed Fikra(t)*: the thought the nil to nought to ought the mighty right path of the whole: right hand made of gold: the human hidden in names in his many many many-fested and festive 99 and that ONE that if counted can go up to one HUNDRED and numbers numerous only in their one-ness and the Sifr to Cipher or Zero or zither: in the name of the name of the Right hand the right light and the bright, broad and righteous see sight mid-sight and serenade sight out of kind flight: the prophet and prophet and prophets in their astral float their words pearled in the diver’s boat their journeys to deserts far in the wide maw of the cave in the see/saw second coming of second coming of second coming of the Messiah: the first human: the luminous child: in the blink of an “I” and the Tarfa(t)-ul-‘Ayn that flicks the switch (the light to “I”) and the vocative Kُn vocalizes Kُn-ayn and so it shall be: and the two words spread in the name of the name of the name of recognition: of: standing in line for a stamp
in the name of the name of the name of:
Hu* the kindled who: he who with soul
with thought in the name of*. say: Noor.
we start with history
with the Qadeem*old might* (H)eld in necessary Being
pen on the LOAH*: say: Tabula.
my sentences go uphill. I suffer from a purely psychological blindness, so I watch that “WE” strip naked and wait: for the bed\ for the grave\ and that “we” speak of moments but moments expire: the light ferments on the mantle and even the bus stop makes upstairs-neighbor noises. who the-knock-are you-knock:
and switch on the light: that fragrant Chimera to form you: to inform you: to rise into that bedevilled Chemis/Chemia: that purely recreational madness
This piece was written around the seminal text “Gulshan-i-Raz” (گلشن راز), also translated to English somewhat poorly as “the Mystic Rose Garden”.
Gulshan-i-Raz by Sheikh Mahmoud Shabistari (شیخ محمود شبستری) is about the general questions around personal Identity and the situation of oneself in the cosmos. This absolute masterpiece is under 90 pages but utterly brimming with profound thought.
My pieces explore personal relationships to the text, to the language of the text, and to my discussions of the text with fellow Diaspora Iranians centered around a very simple analysis of Gulshan-i-Raz by Muhammad Lahiji Gilani; where he calls Gulshan-i-Raz one of the greatest “Shinaas-naamehs” of Iranian culture: the word Shinaas naameh (شناسنامه) which in contemporary Persian languages means “Identity card” or in short “ID.”
ID is used in this context in its purely literal form: a document to know oneself by, and hence a document through which others can also Recognize: one.
This piece would not have been possible without the scholarship of philosophers Muhammad Lahiji Gilani and Hossein Elahi Ghomshei on Gulshan-i-Raz. Dr. Elahi Ghomshei has more than 24 lectures on Mahmoud Shabistari and Muhammad Lahiji Gilani has written the book “Mafaatih al I’jaaz” on Shabistari’s “Gulshan-i-Raz”. The reference sources were accessed in the original Persian.
