Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA)

The Secret of Secrets, (Golden Palm Series) by Hadrat 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani; Shaykh Tosun
Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti; Syed Ali Ashraf
Review by: Bruce B. Lawrence
Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Vol. 29, No. 1 (July 1995), pp. 121-122
Published by: Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA)
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MESA Bulletin 29 1995 121

together an elusive simplicity and intractable subtleties. The moods range from

doxological to passionately mystical, from satiric to rhapsodical. Often, Yunus

Emre gives eloquent expression to universalist, humanistic and ecumenical visions
that strike a vital chord in his modern readers.
Dr. Grace Martin Smith's prose versions of 80-odd poems are a welcome
addition to the growing corpus in English. Curiously, she mentions nothing about
earlier translations, notably by Professor John R. Walsh, and several books

(Yunus Emre: The Wandering Fool by Edouard Roditi/Giizin Dino, 1987; The
Drop that Became the Sea: Lyric Poems of Yunus Emre by Kabir Helminski/Refik
Algan, 1989; The City of the Heart: Yunus Emre's Verses of Wisdom and Love by
Suha Faiz, 1992). Reading Dr. Smith's book, which she hopes "will acquaint the
non-Turkish reader with the art and thinking of one of Turkey's best loved and
most significant poets," (p. xi) one might get the impression that there have been
no previous translations. Also, the bibliography excludes many volumes of
scholarship published in the past few years, especially those that came out in the
"International Yunus Emre Year, 1991" proclaimed by UNESCO (another fairly
significant fact ignored in the present volume).
Dr. Smith's literal renditions are authentic, fastidious, accurate and deserve
congratulations for precision. Pity, even the most exquisite verses are made
deadly prosaic. Is it justifiable to take all life out of poetry for fidelity's sake?
Take the scholar's word that the originals are/were poems. Strangely, the book
includes no discussion of stanzaic forms, rhyme-patternsand other formal devic
es. Everything is presented as couplets without indicating that many of the
originals are in quatrains and the forms range from the ghazal to abab/cccb/dddb,
etc.
Yunus Emre's prosody has unresolved problems. He used both syllabic verse
and "aruz" (arud), sometimes possibly interfusing different meters. Errors
committed by transcribers compound the difficulties. At any rate, scanning is a

major dilemma. Even prominent scholars are baffled at times, not excluding
Abdiilbaki Golpinarh whose prosodic analyses Dr. Smith uses in most cases. She
introduces every translation with its meter and there are many embarrassing
errors. Often, where Golpinarh errs (as in Poems CXVI and CLV), she repeats
the error. In some cases her scanning differs and is wrong. She should have
consulted an aruz expert.
A valiant effort. Remarkable for clarity of interpretation. A good introduc
tion. Lucid annotations. Too bad there are far too many flaws. These literal
versions, however, will be extremely useful for translators who may do poetic
versions. In fact, I hope Dr. Smith will collaborate with an accomplished poet
who might do justice to Yunus Emre the poet. Talat Sait Halman
New York University

The Secret of Secrets, by Hadrat 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, Interpreted by

Shaykh Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti. (Golden Palm Series) Fore
word by Syed Ali Ashraf. 122 pages, illustrations. Cambridge, England: Islamic

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 MESA Bulletin 29 1995

Texts Society, 1992. $9.95 (Paper) isbn 0-946621-29-2

Just as many devout Muslims believe that the Qur'an can never be translated, but

only interpreted, so Shaykh Tosun projects himself as the "mere" interpreter of

a Sufi manual from the Sufi master of the Path, Hadrat 'Abd al-Qadir Jilani
(470/1077-561/1166).
This handsome book consists of two parts. The introduction retells the life
of the great shaykh as an endless series of fanciful miracles. While no sources
are quoted, we may presume that it is the credulous al-Shattanawfi who, living
over a century after 'Abd al-Qadir, crafted the most widely disseminated biogra
phy of him, Bahjat al-asrar (The Splendor of Secrets). There follows a transla
tion from a presumed Arabic original, though neither the author of a brief
foreword who lauds the treatise not the translator/interpreter himself ever cites
a specific text. Since endnotes also are omitted, one is left to conjecture what the
provenance of this work might have been. We are simply told, by the author of
the foreword, that this tiny manifesto for the Sufi Way "forms a bridge" between
two of 'Abd al-Qadir's more famous works, Ghunyat al-Talibin (Wealth for the
Seekers) and Futuh al-Ghayb (Disclosures from the Unseen). No mention is
made of another highly regarded collection of sixty-two sermons by the saint, al
Fath al-rabbani (The Divine Victory).
While the book is rendered into smooth English and printed with exceptional
care, its content is unremarkable. In many of the very brief chapters, twenty-four
in all, categories of sentient experience are divided into two. Chapter One
addresses man from two perspectives, as material being and as spiritual being,
while Chapter Nine examines two visions of Allah: His attributeof Perfect Beauty
in the Hereafter, and the manifestation of His attributes "reflected upon the clear
mirror of the heart, in this life, in this world." In Chapter Eleven we are told
that "All people are divided into two classes: those who obey Allah and are at

peace, content and happy versus those who rebel against Allah and are marked

by insecurity, doubt and misery." Other chapters comment on two kinds of

cleanliness (13), two kinds of worship (14), two kinds of purification (15), and
two kinds of charity (16).
Not all of these short chapters imparting well known Sufi directives are
predictable, but neither are they quirky or jarring, as with the discourses of
Mawlana Jalal al-din Rumi of Konya or Shaykh Nizam ad-din of Delhi, two later
saints who are roughly contemporaneous with al-Shattanawfi. While The Secret
of Secrets will give a taste of Sufism for some novices, there may be others for
whom a stronger fare, with more rhetorical subtlety, and also poetry and music,
will be welcome. Bruce B. Lawrence
Duke University

Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes by 'Alqama, Shanfara, Labi'd,

'Antara, Al-A'sha and Dhu al-Rumma, translated by Michael A. Sells. 78

pages, glossary. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989. $18.50

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