Liquor: the Poetic Truth (What's Behind the the Sacred) [a translation from an Arabic article]

Liquor is abundant in Arabic culture, its role a liquid of material and spiritual pleasure; considering that the Arab heritage is poetic as well as literary, liquor and other spirits abound in these works, their presence being felt in many types of poetic works. This makes liquor an element in reading material, a depiction meant to show splendor and fame, or a catchall term for drinks similar to it. So that one may attempt to approach the poetic truth, characteristics are attributed to liquor, like being a drink with the ability to transcend that which is sensual or habitual (any natural attributes), or as an alternative to human or divine influence for the drinker or the affected. It's as if it incites one to the Universe, transcending sacred authority, even seeming to outlast the act of considering liquor itself as haram. The understandings connected to these revamped truths of liquor are related to poetry and some of what follows in this article.

Islamic heritage deals with Abi Muhajen al-Thaqafi (a Persian Muslim), who abdicated from liquor and participated in jihad, in the battle of al-Qadasiyyah (the battle where the Persian Empire was defeated by the Arabs). His account is seen as a lesson for whoever drinks liquor, that he will become heedless of his shahada (declaration of faith). However, al-Thaqafi's "canonization" and inconsistencies surrounding his history are both created by novels inconsistent with each other about his account. What is solidly known is that Omar bin Khatab was addicted to alcohol, but Aba Muhajen lays out a new approach to liquor in his poetry, so before the famous Battle of al-Qadasiyyah happened, he says that Omar's demise was related to liquor, not as merely a drink but rather as being completely identified with him, that he be re-described contrary to the demise that the current canon imposes on him (The Afterworld, Jannah or Fire) so Omar says:

"If I die, then bury me next to the vineyard... my bones will see its veins after my death;

Next to al-Thaqafi we see Aba al-Hindi, who lived through the Ummayad and the Abbasid Empires; some saw him as the first to recite poetry about alcohol in an Islamic nation, by describing liquor as his only aim in life. Like Abi Muhajen, Abu Hindi saw his own demise and his subsequent tradition tied to liquor, such as when youths would go to his tomb to drink alcohol for good luck, due to what is written on his tomb:

I look forward to being with Allah tomorrow... after a swig of wine from the goodness of His forgiveness"

However, the discrepancy between the poetic and religious understanding of alcohol conceals the fact that Aba al-Hindi still aims for the Afterworld, for the ending promised in the sacred texts.

The story of al-Jin al-Homsy, an Abbasid poet, is considered a tragedy that cannot be ignored in Islamic history. Deek al-Jin was a poet and a lover afflicted with raging jealousy; a spat led to the killing of his wife Warid and his servant Bakr due to his suspicion of a secret relationship between them. Liquor is only mentioned here for its trait of bringing back memories, like when Deek al-Jin retreated to their tomb after they were buried; he took a pinch of earth from Warid's tomb and one from Bakr's tomb, and made up two glasses for them to associate liquor with the catastrophe it carried in its spell, in an attempt to revel in its association with the torture of himself and of his memories; it was in those sessions that he recited these verses improvised atop their tombs:

"O sword, if time's treachery metastasizes... then change its arrival into its leaving;

I extracted a Moon from the darkness... to afflict me, and I delivered it from its numbness;

So I killed it, though it had honor... sound in its insides, along with a complete heart;

My covenant with it was death as the most beautiful of sleepers... yet sadness slaughtered my eyes as I slaughtered it;

If the dead knew what was in store for them... they would be free to weep for life in their tombs;

Its soul was crammed in its tomb, almost to overflowing... its heart nearly left its chest"

This trinity (of liquor, catastrophe, and memory) was made by Deek al-Jin to transform liquor from a material and spiritual pleasure into tragedy, then into a stimulus that activates catastrophe through its characteristic of storing the subsequent tragedy; this stimulus then celebrates its result in the broodings of humanity and in poetry.

The story of Abu Nuwas is impossible to avoid; this poet is considered among the innovators of poetry, especially in his relationship with liquor. Let's see the intrinsic nature of liquor, through its character as an expander of the Universe and as a reveler in the composition of its relationships; the wine acquires a new power corresponding to the power of creation; it sanctifies things, and celebrates the existence of a new connection between the sensual and the intangible, between the visible and the invisible; thus, intoxication is a stopping-place between the world, the Universe, and the Unseen, not merely a superficial state. Let's also keep in mind that it challenges the sacred and the texts considered sacred; it is possible that we gloss over this fact in much of his poetry, like in this excerpt:

"Liquor does not denigrate me, tell me: 'this is liquor'... don't serve it to me in secret if it's possible to do so in the open;

For what is life but inebriation after inebriation... even if it lengthens, it has the flaw of age;

What is deceit but what you see me as, awake... what are life's gleanings but how wine stirs me;

So make all this known to whomever longs, to whom calls me by my surname... for unconcealed pleasure is no good;

Annihilation (of the self) without humor is no good... there is nothing in jesting that brings people to rejection of belief"

It can be said that this inversion of meaning, which poetry testifies despite its banishment from the essence of Islamic sanctity (due to its characteristic of inner truth and reacquainting different visions to the Universe), is related to the era of the Umayyads then the Abbasids. The Arabs learned about new cultures, and they transferred from a hard desert life to an amiable and relaxed life; they did not consider poetry as merely homage or satire; as their poetry's intentions changed, the presence of both liquor and respected poets deemed trustworthy became the fare of the caliphs. As for the presence of liquor in poetic texts, it was put in for two new reasons: a poetic reason on one hand, and as a universal truth on the other, such as when the concept of "sacred wine" as an earthly pleasure became prevalent, as if it composed the rivers that Allah promised Muslims in Jinnah (Heaven); the Arabs saw all this during their arrival into the Levant and Egypt, because liquor is present here and now in the area. Abu Nuwas speaks thus:

So we pace around a woman's veil that it might bid us drink (that the veil might lift to show the woman's unconcealed features);

Your Lord did not say 'woe to those who are intoxicated'... he said: 'Woe to my places of prayer.'"

An old article, but I think it's interesting because it shows the general attitude Arabs have toward alcohol. Many Arabs drink though it's considered haram by most to do so, and it is indeed an integral part of their culture. It leads many to question how they approach religion.

The quoted verses with ellipses halving them are two-part lines; the ending of each line rhymes in Arabic.

I have found a Maronite book of masses and hymns that I am planning to translate occasionally on the appropriate liturgical day. Stay tuned!

If you subtract the murder, raping and mutilation aspects of Islam, and translate Allah as the One God, and interpret jihad as the inner spiritual struggle against temptation, it is a beautiful and profound philosophy.

I’m not joking. Some small number of imams have tried to do just that. Unfortunately, they are outvoted by the rest of the majority of imams, who are also better funded.

And of course, Muslims themselves vote by which imam they pay attention to. By turning Islam into a reward for demonism, Muslims have destroyed their own souls, voluntarily, by the millions.

But, for an example of the spiritual beauty of what Islam could be, read some Rumi.

I only wish I could translate Syriac, but I am working on that. Most of the book is in Arabic, with a few pages in Syriac. I’ll be translating the Arabic. I don’t know where to find the music though; I think it’s called the west Syrian rite, separate from the Latin Rite.

Arabs were drinking long before Islam, and that wasn’t going to stop them. Caliphs used to go to Christian monasteries so they could get drunk in private.

If the Caliph himself was getting drunk, then that just about makes the case.

“A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!”

It leads many to question how they approach religion.

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A couple of years ago, while visiting family in Jerusalem, we did the Bethlehem excursion to see the Church of the Nativity among the other sites to see there, and after that we took a walk across the square to the market that starts at the edge of the square.

While walking across the square, the call to prayer happened. Loudest I heard the entire time I was in Israel, much louder than any I heard in the Old City of Jerusalem.

No one stopped what they were doing, everyone (mostly Arab) just continued to do what they were doing. The level of devotion was a bit below what I had come to expect.

It’s a wonderful language to learn, Claude.

Though I don’t drink, I find myself very at ease with others that are drinking around me. It seems like a great equalizer among men of all walks of life to drink a pint together (which shows their mortality to each other) and shoot the crap (which eventually leads to the meaning of life and other weighty topics).

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