Two Poems by Rehman Baba

Posted on January 24, 2008
Filed Under >Aadil Shah, People, Poetry
23 Comments
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Aadil Shah

Abdur-Rehman (1650 – 1715 A.D) widely known as Rehman Baba was a great Pushtu Sufi poet who is regarded as the most read and quoted Pushtu poet of the larger belt of Afghanistan and the North Western Frontier Province of Pakistan. There isn’t much known about his life due to the lack of eyewitness accounts yet a few legends portray him to be a reclusive poet, singing his poems near the Bara River while strumming a Rubab.

His poetry shows him to be a poet who had full command on fiqah (jurisprudence) and tasawwuf (Sufism). A powerful Sufi touch in his poetry notwithstanding, he was not inclined to a particular order of Sufism and it is more likely that Rehman Baba was a free soul, with an individualistic practice of Sufism similar to that of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai in Sindh. Thus he says:

“On the path which I travel to see my love, make holy Khizer and Ilyas my guides”

His tomb is at Hazarkhwani, in the suburbs of Peshawar.

Why I’m not dying
Why I’m not dying,
Of the sorrow of separation,
Why I’m not dying,
Of this mourning intense.
Why I’m not dying,
Of the cruelty of this age,
Which snatches a lover from the lover.
Why I’m not dying
Of witnessing these mornings,
Which laugh at my sobs every rising day.
Why I’m not dying
Without my lover,
For it is a death, not to stare in the lover’s eyes.
Why I’m not dying,
To see these unfaithful drops of dew,
That leave the flower upon seeing a slight warmth.
Why I’m not dying,
Of this deadly miserable life,
That I’m carrying with myself,
O’Rehman from so long.

II

Such have your sorrows overpowered me,
That I’ve lost every place in and out.My sobs have rendered people restless,
Like fire of a burning dry wood engulfing the moistured.In your pain, I’m weeping like a candle,
But you are smiling at me like a bright morn.

My heart’s hanging in your path,
Like your black hair dangling in front of your face.

Tis’ a norm for all the sorrows to be crushed under your feet,
When you are burdened with that single grief.

They come towards you, leaving me behind,
All those who advisingly forbade me from your path.

Such is the effect of yours over the face of Rehman,
Like a flame of fire over a thinly dry stalk.

Credits: This article was earlier posted at Pak Tea House.

23 responses to “Two Poems by Rehman Baba”

  1. a great poem by a great sufi poet. I wish you youngsters in pakistan do not allow these greats die due to negligence and anonymity.

  2. MQ says:

    Recently I had written a post on Heer Warsh Shah in which I mentioned how eloquently Waris Shah describes Heer

  3. Daktar says:

    Thank you for a wonderful topic and post. Your older post on Bulleh Shah at ATP is still one of my favorites.

    I think you see more comments on some other posts not because there is more interest on those issues but because those issues are political and controversial opinions are thrown around. Also, having been here a very long time, I know that usually a few people start spamming posts with one message after the other saying the same thing again and again and then those responding reply with same thing again and again. That is how the numbers pile up but more comments does not mean more interest.

  4. Anwar says:

    First of all I want to commend ATP for the attention given to Rahman Baba – it was very common to hear his poetry recited and danced with by professional male dancers who resided in Debgari area of the old city. These professionals during the current MMA lead government, by the way, have attracted the wrath of local Talibans and are likely to become history. And most probably they have.

    I am recalling the times when we were growing up in Peshawar and Hazarkhawani during the night time was considered a very dangerous place – more like the wild wild West. I do not know how much it has changed but the names of places and the poet brought some very good memories.

    As to why there were so few comments on this post (Ahsan), there is an additional reason and that is how many of our fellow citizen (outside NWFP) even consider Rahman Baba as a credible sufi poet? Had it not been for Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Mohsin Ahsan, and Ahmed Faraz, to name a few, to express their talents in Urdu – they too would have been licking the dust of obscurity. So there are some intrinsic problems as well.

    Nevertheless – it was good to read this post. Pushto Academy at Peshawar University has great archives that need to be translated and presented to the nation.

    I hope Khushal Khan Khattak’s work is also available – he was more than a poet. He was a nationalist as well.
    Regards,

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