THE BOOK OF BULLEH SHAH Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Bulleh Shah (1680-1758) was a Sufi poet who composed in Punjabi and settled in Kasur, now in Pakistan. His Spiritual Master was Shah Inayat. The poetic form Bulleh Shah is called the Kafi, a style of Punjabi poetry used not only by the Sufis of Sindh and Punjab, but also by Sikh gurus. His poetry and philosophy strongly criticizes the Islamic religious orthodoxy of his day. His time was marked with communal strife between Muslims and Sikhs. But in that age Bulleh Shah was a beacon of hope and peace for the citizens of the Punjab....

THE BOOK OF IBN YAMIN Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Amir Fakhr al-Din Mahmud, or Ibn Yamin (1286-1367), was born in Turkistan. His father was a poet who taught him the craft and left his son wealthy and the role of the court-poet in Khurasan. Ibn Yamin was taken captive when war broke out in 1342 and his complete Divan of poems was destroyed. He was a master of the form of the qit'a but he also wrote ruba'is and ghazals... often with a Sufi point of view. All are here represented. He is now as he was then, famous for his down-to-earth commonsense. Hafiz was influenced by his poems. He...

THE BOOK OF MAHSATI GANJAVI Translation & Introduction Paul Smith We know little of Mahsati Ganjavi's life (1098-1185) except that she lived in Ganjeh when Sultan Sanjar reigned and as she was a poet at his court she would have known Anvari. She was a court, dervish and ribald poet. She knew Nizami (she is said to have been buried in his mausoleum) and Omar Khayyam... and like Omar composed only in the ruba'i form and must be considered not only a master of that form but also to have helped to revolutionize it. She was an influence on perhaps Iran's greatest female poet Jahan Khatun of Shiraz...

THE BOOK OF HUMA Poems of Meher Baba Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Merwan S. Irani (1894-1969), known world-wide as Meher Baba, took Huma (Phoenix) as his takhallus or pen-name when he composed enlightened ghazals in a mixture of Persian, Urdu, Hindi & Gujarati in his twenties as a realized disciple of the Qutub or Perfect Master Upasni Maharaj, and also later on. He knew the ghazals of Hafiz by heart as did his father the dervish Sheriar Irani, who had originally walked to Pune in India from Khooramshah in Iran. Merwan went on to reveal himself as Qutub and later also declared...

THE BOOK OF LALLA DED (LALLESHWARI) Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Lalla Ded or Lalleshwari is the famous female poet/saint from Kashmir who lived at exactly the same time as Hafiz of Shiraz (1320-1392). Her vakhs (poems/sayings) are sung even today in Kashmir. She was married at a young age but the marriage was a failure and she walked out at the age of twenty-four. She became a disciple of Siddha Srikanth. It must have taken a lot of courage on her part to walk out of a marriage and to walk around unclothed as she did. She was treated with contempt by some and much reverence by...

THE BOOK OF SUFI RIBALDRY Sana'i, Anvari, Mahsati, Rumi, Sadi & Obeyd Zakani Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Some of the greatest of the Persian Sufi poets composed ribald and at times 'obscene' poems and prose for satirical and often (as in the case of Rumi and Sadi) for teaching some spiritual truth or moral. Here is a wide-ranging selection of the greatest of them to the fourteenth century. Here are at times hilarious, witty, weird and erotic and often obscene poems and prose in most of the various forms of classical Persian poetry ... the ghazal, the ruba'i, the masnavi, the qit'a,...

THE BOOK OF SHAH LATIF BHITAI Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Shah Abdul Latif (1689-1752) was a Sufi Master and is considered by many to be the greatest poet of the Sindhi language. His book of poetry is called the Risalo. His shrine is located in Bhit and attracts hundreds of pilgrims every day. He is the most famous Sindhi poet and Sufi. He was not just adored for poetry, people from far and near respected and loved him as a Spiritual Master. He composed dohas (self-contained strict-rhyming couplets popular with poet-saints of India like Kabir, Surdas, Tukaram) and freed it from the...

THE BOOK OF SADI (Saadi or Sa'di) Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Sadi (Saadi or Sa'di) of Shiraz (1210-1291), a contemporary of Rumi who influenced him, was another Perfect Master Poet who expressed himself in the ruba'i form as well as hundreds of ghazals in his beautiful Divan that often also contained images from dervish dancing. Sadi was a great traveller who spent forty years on the road throughout the Middle-East, North Africa and India and many of the incidents he experienced he wrote down in his two most famous works when he finally returned to his beloved birth-place... The...

Ghazals Inspired by Hafiz's Ghazals Paul Smith There is really no equivalent to the ghazal (pronounced guz'el) in English poetry. As a matter of fact, the ghazal is a unique form and its origin has been argued about for many centuries. Some say that the first was composed by Adam, the first poet and Perfect Master. Many ghazals Paul Smith composed while translating the Divan of Hafiz he incorporated into his 3 volume novel/biography Hafiz of Shiraz... as those of Muhammad Gulandam. Recently he published a book of ghazals 'Beloved & Lover' inspired by couplets and first lines given by his...

THE BOOK OF MAS'UD SA'D SALMAN Poet & Prisoner Translation & Introduction Paul Smith Mas'ud-i-Sa'd-i-Salman (1048-1122) was born in Lahore to wealthy parents who originally came from Hamadan. In the beginning he was at the court of the prince of Ghazneh and governor of India Sayfu'-daula Mahmud and quickly progressed in wealth and honour. When he was forty he was thrown into prison after being wrongfully accused along with his patron of treachery by Sultan Ibrahim. He was in the fortress of Dahak for seven years despite his protests in the form of qasidas and then was imprisoned for another...