The Ismaili-Sufi Sage of Pamir: Mubarak-i Wakhani and the Esoteri ...

Thirdly, there are some verses in Mubārak’s works that do not exactly follow the metric prosody (vazn) and rhyme pattern (qāfiya) of the classic Persian poetry. Yet the conveyed messages in his poetry does not suffer in any way, whether he deliberately neglects the general poetic rule (as in the case of the latter poets of the ‘white poetry’, shir-i safīd) or lacks its deployment. Mubārak makes a professional use of the Arabic language. He wrote several commentaries on the Qurān and the Prophet Muhammad’s aādīth and translated them (in a form of prose) into Tajik. His Tafsīr-i Āyāt-i Kalām, Tarjamat al-Bayān, Mujādila-yi Iblīs va Ādam and Pand-Nāma-yi Risālat are the best examples of this. Similarly, several Qurānic and adīth expressions are used in his poetry to create a balance between the applied meaning and the conveyed message.

Translating Mubārak-i Wakhānī’s poetry from Persian into English was probably one of the hardest parts of my research work. To reflect the intensely mystical dimension of his poetry, in which the Sufi and Ismāīlī vocabulary and technical terminology are jointly involved, one needs to go far beyond a simple literal translation. Likewise, Persian poetics, which is briefly discussed in chapter 2, has its peculiarities which are delicate to transpose into other languages. For instance, in Mubārak’s poetry, synonyms are frequently repeated. And these repetitions may significantly contribute to the metric prosody (vazn) and rhyme (qāfiya) of the Persian poetry, but do not always make sense in English translation. In some cases, therefore, my personal interpretations are provided. These interpretations are based on my knowledge of the content (including language) and the context (historical, social and cultural) of the Persian-Tajik poetic tradition. Although the translation of Mubarak’s poetry tends to be a challenge and only possible with partial semantic and stylistic loss, this study tries to provide as accurate and meaningful an English translation of his poetry as is possible using both (where it is appropriate and necessary) the literal and literary methods of poetic interpretations. This study seeks to suspend any kind of value judgement, either apologetic or polemic, based on one’s personal ambition regarding the subject of study.