An evening with the Persian poetry
A soulful experience in a New York City theatre
It was a summer afternoon of July 2022 when I got an email from Beacon Theatre with subject — Performance by Iranian singer Dariush.
I looked him up and found that before Khomeini heralded the revolution in 1977, Dariush Eghbali was named as the most popular singer/songwriter in the country. He also performed in several movies back then, which made him a popular figure amongst the youth. Life in New York is all about novel experiences and this opportunity to explore Iranian music live, by a famous artist, was not something to let go off. So I decided to sign up.
Fast forward two months, I almost forgot about it but thanks to the reminder from Ticketmaster, I made it to Beacon Theatre that Saturday evening. Located on the Broadway on Upper West Side, this theatre itself is a piece of art. It was opened in 1929 as a movie palace with ~3000 seats and the interior influenced by Renaissance, Rocco and Hellenistic style.
As I entered this palace like theatre, I found a different demographic than usual. Walking upstairs to my allocated seat in mezzanine, I heard Persian at every step, thus inferring that almost all the spectators today are Iranian. How was I able to identify Persian? I grew up in a Muslim family in India. Our mother tongue is Urdu, a language that was born out of the union of Persian and Hindi during the Islamic rule. Though it sounds more like Hindi, it is written in Arabic script and shares an extensive vocabulary with Persian.
After getting seated, I looked around and found myself amongst the most beautiful set of people I have ever seen, none of them veiled in a hijab “by choice”. They all seemed very excited. Excited enough to even cheer for the stage manager, who made a brief appearance before the show.
After a few minutes wait, the music started, Dariush made a grand entrance with a melodious song and the audience burst out with enthusiasm — cheering, whistling and applauding. Urdu in India is revered as the language of the poets. Persian to me has the same romantic connotation to it and in a voice like this and retro music, I was mesmerized. The show progressed and a smoky scent filled the theatre taking the audience on a musical journey to Iran. Gradually, my focus started shifting from the performer to the spectators and I saw tears. They were crying, they were making video calls to friends and family and the entire time, they were singing along, like a trained chorus.
They were crying, they were making video calls to friends and family and the entire time, they were singing along, like a trained chorus.
Me and the white guy on the next seat who was probably there with his Iranian partner were the only odd ones out, quietly enjoying the show. I spent three hours listening to the exquisite music, around people who were deeply connected to every word of those songs, words I could only partially understand. Words like sarzameen(motherland) and vatan(nation). As the air around me kept getting charged with energy and emotions, it dawned upon me how the story of every immigrant in this room is very different from mine. I moved here young on a skilled-worker visa, with a job, means of sustenance and a choice. Choice to stay or go back to the country I call home — India.
But most important of all, I had a choice. Choice to stay or go back
Life is convenient in a first-world country but every time I am back, that traffic, dust, auto-rickshaws, street food, and random people invading your privacy with personal questions, everything becomes endearing. The air wraps around me with a comforting warmth and the food tastes better as well. Those expressive, beautiful faces, despite the heat and economic hardships, emanate a will to live and fight, those colorful street markets are no less capturing than northern lights.
But today in this arena, I am surrounded by people who do not have this choice. I couldn’t even imagine the pain of not being able to go back to the soil, water and air your essence is made up of. But for Iranians in the west, this choice comes with a risk of getting detained for years like the British-Iranian journalist Nazanin Zaghari who was detained in Iran for 4 years on the false charges of plotting against the Iranian government.
Dariush Eghbali is so loved by these people because he represents the nostalgia of the liberal period in Iran before the Revolutionary Guard took over and turned it into an orthodox Islamic Republic. During his youth, he was arrested in Iran because of the political nature of his songs. Eventually in 1978, after the revolution, he moved to Los Angeles and supported several other Iranians who sought asylum.
Dariush is not the first Iranian who is using poetry to reinforce the Iranian identity and consciousness. And from what I gathered through the books later, he certainly won’t be the last. In the history of this land, before kings appear in the records, a poet does — Zoroaster. A philosopher from the second millennium BCE who would sing hymns called Gathas, in the honor of Ahura Mazda, the lord of Wisdom. Blurring the lines between devotion and love and expressing them via verses, will be a legacy continued throughout the ages.
Around 1000 BC, a race migrated from Russian Steppes who called themselves Aryan. They settled in the region called Pars and the language they brought along eventually came to be known as Persian after the region itself. But the race kept its identity intact and named their land the Persian word for Aryan — Iran.
This language became the foundation on which the tower of Iranian identity stands strong for 3000 years. Unlike other regions conquered by Arabs in 7th century BC like Egypt and Mali, Iran never gave up its language. Persian assimilated some words from Arabic, used the script to express itself in writing, and survived. Iranian history is marred with violence due to tribal invasions, religious extremism and colonial interference but it also owns a fascinating history of the survival of a tongue despite all odds. The warriors of this battle were poets and their quill proved to be truly mightier that the invader’s sword.
The first one to reckon is Ferdowsi (935–1020 CE) who lived under the Sunni Turkish reign of Ghaznavids. His Shahnameh cleverly avoids Arabic words, eulogizes the pre-Islamic Persian kings and goes beyond a pro-Islamic position to a pro-Mazdean one (Mazdean was one of the ancient religions of Iran). There are heroes on horsebacks with lance and bow, in love with feisty women, radiant as moon. There is a battle between conscious and loyalty to the kings. Shahnameh has a significance in Persian culture comparable to Shakespeare in English. It helped to unify the language and uphold a sense of Iranian identity — reaching back beyond Islamic conquest — that might have otherwise faded with the Sassanid Empire. It is still one of the central texts in education and many homes in Iran.
But a poet doesn’t write for himself, he writes for the future generations. It is said that Shahnameh initially got a lukewarm response from the orthodox prince but stumbling across a particularly brilliant passage later, the prince sent a generous gift to Ferdowsi. Tragically, as the pack animals bearing Ferdowsi’s treasure entered the town through one gate, his body was carried out for burial through another.
Historians were not the only ones composing verses. Mathematicians and astronomer were not left behind. Omar Khayyam (1048–1124) was a renowned astronomer who was the first to prove that nightly progression of the constellations through the sky was due to Earth spinning around its axis, rather than the movement of the skies around a fixed Earth. But it was this very knowledge that gave his poetry a sense of skepticism — a recognition of complexity of existence, the intractability of its problems and a principled acceptance.
Good and evil, which are in the nature of mankind
Joy and sadness, which are in chance and fate
Do not attribute them to the machinery of heavens because in reason
That machine is a thousand times more helpless than you
Existentialism was core to his works, emphasizing the free will and essence.
If I am drunk on forbidden wine, I am.
And if a worshipper of love, and roguery, and false gods, then I am.
Everyone has doubts to their own mind
I know myself, whatever I am, I am
The torch of Persian poetry was then relayed to the mystics called Sufis. The revolutionary devotees of Mohammad challenged the orthodox and political establishment of Islam. The ultimate purpose of their worship was abandonment of self and worldly egotism in the presence of the divine. The revelation of Quran to Mohammad in the wilderness of Mount Hira is precisely the kind of personal spiritual encounter they were seeking for themselves.
The recognition of the cultural influence of Sufism is often limited to its effect on Persian literature. But all over Iran, there were Sufi Khanaqas — lodging houses for wandering Sufis that were also used for religious gatherings. Given the low level of literacy at the time and the fact that the population lived overwhelmingly in the countryside, it is obvious that the Sufis were the ones who spread Islam outside the cities.
This is a poem by Sanai, the first great poet with Sufi allegiance.
Since my heart was caught in the snare of love,
Since my soul became wine in the cup of love
Ah, the pain I have known through love
Since like a hawk I fell in the snare of love
Trapped in time, I am turned to a drunken sot
By the exciting, dreg-draining cup of love.
Dreading the fierce affliction of loverhood
I dare not utter the very name of love
And the more amazing is this, since I see
Every creature on earth is at peace with love
While an orthodox Muslim would advocate abstinence in accordance with the religious law, Sanai emphasized that in going beyond the law into infidelity — leaving behind the venal, carnal soul, the Sufi can find another way of God.
Love became the central theme of Persian poets since the advent of Sufism. Love for wine, love for women or simply love for divine, all a means to attain the state of oneness with the Creator.
Nizami Ganjavi was one such romantic poet who composed the narrative poem of Layla va Majnoun in 1188. Layla and Majnoun fall in love but are separated by the family rivalries. Without hope, Majnoun spiritualizes his love. He wanders in the wilderness of the desert losing his self in madness. He steps outside the conventions, writes poetry and becomes a Sufi. This story of unrequited, spiritual love has been told time and again over the ages all over the world in Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Indian languages.
And then came the Mongol invasion in 1221 causing widespread massacre and destruction in the region and culminated in the horrific sack of Baghdad in 1258 CE. Baghdad was the focal point of Golden Age of Islam under Abbasid dynasty. Every building of note in Baghdad — including mosques, palaces, and markets — was destroyed, among them the world-famous House of Wisdom. Hundreds of thousands of priceless manuscripts and books were tossed into the river Tigris turning its water black with ink.
But even this level of cruelty could not subdue the spirit of Persian poetry and the three greatest Persian poets flourished in the grim, blackened aftermath of Mongol conquest. One of them was Jalal al-Din Molavi Rumi.
Rumi was born in Balkh in 1207 to an Ulema father who left for Mecca during the Mongol invasion and then settled in Anatolia where Rumi spent most of his life. In 1244, he met a Sufi mystic named Shams-e Tabrizi and developed an intense friendship with him. Tabrizi disappeared or died a couple of years later turning Rumi into a Sufi himself. Rumi wrote about 65000 lines of poetry until his death in 1273, expressing the longing for the union with the Beloved.
Do not despair
if the Beloved pushes you away.
If He pushes you away today
it’s only so He can draw you back tomorrow.
If He closes the door on your face,
don’t leave, wait -
you’ll soon be by His side.
If He bars every passage,
don’t lose hope -
He’s about to show you
a secret way that nobody knows.
The Beloved was a common Sufi term signifying God, but it seems even Rumi wasn’t sure what he was implying.
I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine
The intensity of Rumi’s poems touched many and influenced thousands of poets in the later generations. He is still quoted in Indian movies and few years ago, sold millions of copies in the United States making him the most popular poet in the country in 2014.
Hafiz, Iraqi, Saed, the list of Persian poets can go on. But the power of Persian poetry was not limited to Iran. When Persian made it to India via Delhi Sultanate, it mingled with its sister language Hindi (common Aryan roots) resulting in Urdu. Urdu was developed as the “language of the camp” to facilitate the communication between Indian and Persian soldiers. But the mysticism of Persian is such that it soon evolved into the poet’s tongue. The works of the greatest Urdu poet, Mirza Ghalib are still extensively used in Indian music, literature and cinema.
It is this mysticism, intellect and passion core to a common Iranian that despite being ruled by orthodox Islamist, they are very different from their religious cousins across the world. It is probably the influence of Sufism that only 1.4% of them attend Friday prayers. Women are veiled but value literacy. They constitute 60% of the university strength and participate in the professional workforce. No wonder Anthony Bourdain was taken aback when he visited Iran for an episode of Parts Unknown “It was all new and fresh to me, and a huge surprise when I got there,” Bourdain presented a rich portrait of Iran, one that encompassed the amiability of its people, the beauty of their country, and the pride they take in the age-old culture.
Iranian romanticism has survived the centuries long rule of foreign super-powers -Macedonians, Arabs, Mongols and Turks. A few narrow-minded clerics will not be its undoing.
After finishing my research on Persian poetry, I was reminiscing that evening at the concert again. There I was. A guest amongst strangers, listening to the music I am unfamiliar with, and lyrics in a language I don’t fully understand. But that’s the beauty of Persian poetry. It truly breaches the worldly barriers and touches what is beyond — the soul. You don’t decipher it, you experience it. Fortunately, what I got to experience was not only the mysticism of the poetry but also its impact on 3000 homesick people in this theatre. An experience I can only have in the city that has provided home away from home for millions of us — New York.
PS: I published this piece on September 16th on my SubStack. The same day a 22 year old girl Mahsa Amini was killed for not wearing the hijab ‘right’. But what it brought out in Iranians is exactly what I wished for in this article. The revolt against those who despise love and poetry.
https://zibaldone9.substack.com/p/an-evening-with-the-persian-poetry
