'ARIFI: LIFE & POEMS Translation & Introduction by Paul Smith Written by Maulana Mahmud 'Arifi (1389 - 1449) one of the last great Sufi poets of the Classical Period of Persian Poetry the Hal-nama or 'Book of Ecstasy' often referred to as 'The Ball & Polo-stick' an allegory in which the ball and the polo-stick are personified as types of Sufi mystical love and all the images are from the game of polo or as it was known at the time in Persia as chaugan. 'Arifi composed it, as he states in the epilogue of the 513 couplets masnavi... in two weeks in 1439 when he was fifty. In their introduction to their excellent literal translation of this poem Wheeler M. Thackston, Jr. and Hossein Ziai state: 'The underlying theme of 'Arifi's work is self-sacrificing love, a conceptualization that was derived from the Sufi ideal of love, this love not only by definition is unrequited but also demands the ultimate death of the lover. In terms of mystical speculative philosophy, the "death" of the lover is the annihilation of selfhood and self-awareness, or ego-consciousness, or, in other terms, the total absorption of the lover's own consciousness of self into that of the beloved. On the purely mystical level, this represents the annihilation of the individual soul, the lover, into the godhead, the beloved.' This is the first complete translation in the poetic form of the masnavi. The Introduction contains chapters on The Life & Times of 'Arifi, The Masnavi in Persian Poetry and a Selected Bibliography. Pages 103 Paul Smith (b. 1945) is a poet, author and translator of many books of Sufi poets from the Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, Pashtu and other languages including Hafiz, Sadi, Nizami, Rumi, 'Attar, Sana'i, Jahan Khatun, Obeyd Zakani, Mu'in, Amir Khusrau, Nesimi, Kabir, Anvari, Ansari, Jami, Khayyam, Rudaki, Yunus Emre and others, and his own poetry, fiction, plays, biographies, children's books & screenplays. amazon.com/author/smithpa Introduction to Sufi Poets Series Life & Poems of the following Sufi poets, Translations & Introductions: Paul Smith AATISH, ALISHER NAVOI, ASHGAR, AHMED YESEVI, 'AISHAH Al-BA'UNIYAH, AMIR KHUSRAU, ANSARI, ANVARI, AL-MA'ARRI, 'ARIFI, 'ATTAR, ABU SA'ID, AUHAD UD-DIN, BABA FARID, BABA AZFAL, BABA TAHIR, BEDAR, BEDIL, BULLEH SHAH, DARA SHIKOH, DARD, FAIZI, GHALIB, GHANI KASHMIRI, HAFIZ, HALI, HASAN DEHLAVI, HATEF, HUMA, IBN 'ARABI, IBN YAMIN, IBN AL-FARID, IQBAL, INAYAT KHAN, 'IRAQI, JAHAN KHATUN, JAMI, JIGAR, KAMAL AD-DIN, KABIR, KHAQANI, KHAYYAM, LALLA DED, MAHSATI, MAKHFI, MANSUR HALLAJ, MIR, MOMIN, MU'IN UD-DIN CHISHTI, NAZIR, NESIMI, NIZAMI, NUND RISHI, OBEYD ZAKANI, PAUL, QUTUB SHAH, RABI'A, RAHIM, RAHMAN BABA, RUMI, SADI, SA'IB, SANA'I, SARMAD, SAUDA, SEEMAB, SHABISTARI, SHAH LATIF, SHAH NI'MAT'ULLAH, SHEFTA, SULTAN BAHU, URFI, WALI, YUNUS EMRE, ZAFAR, ZAUQ, EARLY ARABIC, PERSIAN, URDU, TURKISH, AFGHAN SUFI POETS. 90-120 pages