توبة.. وابتهال

أشواق وأذواق
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
رَبِّي أَتَيْتُكَ مُثْقَلَ الْخُطُوَاتِمُتَرَنِّحًا فِي الْوَحْلِ وَالْعَثَرَاتِ
لَقَدِ اقْتَرَفْتُ مِنَ الذُّنُوبِ كَأَنَّمَالَا رَبَّ يَعْلَمُ أَوْ يَرَى هَفَوَاتِي
وَسَبَحْتُ فِي بَحْرِ الْغَوَايَةِ لَاهِيًامَا صُنْتُ نَفْسِي عَنْ حِمَى الْحُرُمَاتِ
وَحَسَوْتُ مِنْ كَأْسِ الْمَرَارَةِ وَالضَّنَىحَتَّى ارْتَوَتْ نَفْسِي مِنَ الْحَسَوَاتِ
أَقْضِي اللَّيَالِيَ تَائِهًا مُتَحَسِّرًاحَيْرَانَ أَبْغِي أَنْ أُلِمَّ شَتَاتِي
أَغْفُو وَأَصْحُو لَا أَرَى غَيْرَ الْأَسَىيُدْمِي جِرَاحِي أَوْ يُحَطِّمُ ذَاتِي
وَأَرَى الْأَطَايِبَ لَا تَرُوقُ لِذِي ضَنًىمِثْلِي فَأَشْكُو مُرْسِلًا زَفَرَاتِي
تَعْبَانُ مِنْ بُعْدِ الطَّرِيقِ مِنَ الْأَسَىأَمْشِي وَقَدْ هَدَّ الزَّمَانُ قَنَاتِي
كَمْ ذَا عَصَيْتُكَ أَوْ شَطَطْتُ عَنِ الْهُدَىوَنَسِيتُ أَنَّ الْخَيْرَ فِي الصَّلَوَاتِ
كَمْ ذَا تَجَاهَلْتُ الْمَنَاهِلَ كُلَّهَاوَغَرِقْتُ فِي حَمَإٍ مِنَ الشَّهَوَاتِ
وَالْآنَ إِنِّي قَدْ أَتَيْتُكَ تَائِبًاعَنْ كُلِّ مَا قَدَّمْتُ مِنْ نَزَوَاتِ
أَشْكُو إِلَيْكَ وَلَا أَعِي مَا أَشْتَكِيلَكِنَّنِي أَبْغِي الْهُدَى لِحَيَاتِي
قِيثَارَتِي عَزَفَتْ بِأَنَّاتِ الْجَوَىتَرْجُوكَ أَنْ تَعْفُو عَنِ الشَّطَحَاتِ
الْعَبْدُ يَهْفُو يَا إِلَهِي دَائِمًاوَالرَّبُّ يَعْفُو.. يَجْبُرُ الْعَثَرَاتِ
يَا رَبِّ يَا سِرَّ الْحَيَاةِ وَنُورَهَايَا مَأْمَلَ الْأَحْيَاءِ وَالْأَمْوَاتِ
أَنْتَ الَّذِي تَدْرِي بِمَا فِي الْقَلْبِ مِنْحُبٍّ لِذَاتِكَ يَسْتَبِدُّ بِذَاتِي
يَا خَالِقِي يَا بَارِئِي وَمُصَوِّرِيمَنْ لِي سِوَاكَ مُفَرِّجًا كُرُبَاتِي
أَنَا مَا جَحَدْتُكَ بَلْ حَمِدْتُكَ صَاغِرًابِسُكُونِ لَيْلِي أَوْ خُشُوعِ صَلَاتِي
فَأَنِرْ فُؤَادِي بِالْهِدَايَةِ وَالتُّقَىوَاكْتُبْ لِيَ الْفِرْدَوْسَ بَعْدَ مَمَاتِي

نُشرت في مجلة «المجتمع»، العدد 1362
10 أغسطس 1999م

Repentance… and Supplication1

  1. My Lord, I come to You with heavy tread,
    reeling through the mire, and stumbling on my way.
  2. Such sins I have committed, as though no Lord
    could know my lapses, or could see me stray.
  3. Heedless, I swam the sea of wayward error,
    and never kept my soul from the fenced pasture2 where the forbidden lay.
  4. I sipped the cup of bitterness and wasting pain,
    until my soul had drunk its fill, sip after sip.
  5. I pass the nights in wandering and regret,
    bewildered, longing to gather up my self from its disarray.
  6. I doze, I wake, and see but grief alone,
    that sets my wounds to bleeding, or shatters my very self.
  7. I find the choicest pleasures give no joy
    to one as wasted as I am; so I complain, and heave my sighs.
  8. Worn out by the long road, and by grief,
    I still walk on, though time has broken my spear-shaft3.
  9. How often I have disobeyed You, or strayed from guidance,
    and forgotten that the good lies in the prayers we pray!
  10. How often I have ignored the springs, every one,
    and drowned in my desires, a black and fetid clay4!
  11. And now I come to You in penitence
    for every wayward whim I would obey.
  12. I plead with You, not knowing what I plead;
    and yet it is guidance for my life I seek.
  13. My lyre5 has played the moans of burning longing,
    imploring You to pardon my wild excesses.
  14. The servant, O my God, is ever slipping,
    the Lord is ever pardoning… He mends what stumbles break6.
  15. O Lord, O secret of life, and its light,
    O hope of the living and the dead!
  16. You are the One who knows what fills the heart:
    a love for Your Self that rules my self with absolute sway7.
  17. O my Creator, my Maker and my Fashioner8,
    whom have I but You to lift my griefs away?
  18. I never once denied You; rather, lowly, I have praised You
    in the stillness of my night, or in the humble awe of prayer.
  19. So light my heart with guidance and with piety,
    and write Paradise9 down for me, after my dying day.

Published in al-Mujtamaʿ magazine, issue 1362, 10 August 1999

Notes

  1. Tawba is repentance, literally 'turning back' to God. Ibtihāl is humble, earnest entreaty, the prayer of one who pleads with nothing to offer but his need. The title names the poem's two movements: the confession of the first half, and the prayer that follows it. ↩
  2. Ḥimā is a fenced pasture reserved for a king or a tribe, where others may not graze. The image recalls a well-known saying of the Prophet: whoever falls into doubtful things is like a shepherd grazing his flock around a ḥimā, who is about to stray into it; and God's ḥimā is the things He has forbidden. The speaker confesses that he did not merely graze near the fence but let his soul wander inside it. ↩
  3. Qanāt is the shaft of a spear. 'Time broke his qanāt' is a classical Arabic metonymy (kināya) for the loss of strength and resolve: the upright man, straight as a spear, is bent and broken by the years and their hardships. ↩
  4. Manāhil are watering-places, springs where travellers drink; here, the sources of guidance and goodness. Ḥamaʾ is black, foul-smelling mud, the word the Qur'an uses of the clay from which man was made (15:26). The verse sets pure water against fetid slime: he passed by every spring and chose to drown in mud. ↩
  5. Qīthāra, the lyre, stands for the speaker's own song, which is here turned into a prayer. Shaṭaḥāt are wild, reckless outbursts and departures from the right path; in Sufi usage the word also names the extravagant utterances of ecstatics. ↩
  6. Yahfū ('slips, is drawn towards a lapse') and yaʿfū ('forgives') differ by a single letter, a jinās that binds man's weakness to God's pardon in one line. Yajburu is the verb for setting a broken bone, and one of God's names, al-Jabbār, is understood by many to include this sense: the One who mends what is broken. ↩
  7. The line plays on dhāt, 'self, essence', used twice: dhātika, God's own Self, and dhātī, the poet's self. The love for God's Self 'rules despotically' (yastabiddu) over the poet's self, so that the lover is possessed by the Beloved. The repeated word, in two different relations, is a kind of jinās that English can echo only with 'Self' and 'self'. ↩
  8. Al-Khāliq, al-Bāriʾ, al-Muṣawwir: three of God's names, which the Qur'an brings together in this order (59:24). In the usual explanation, the Creator determines what shall be, the Maker brings it forth into existence, and the Fashioner gives each creature its form. ↩
  9. The Arabic has al-Firdaws, the highest garden of Paradise, which the Prophet told believers to ask for when they pray for Paradise. ↩

English translation prepared by artificial intelligence and reviewed against the Arabic for accuracy of meaning and rhetoric.