Chapter 4 - Ayatollah Khomeini as an Antinomian Poet: Lyrical Poems (ghazals)

Summary

In this chapter I shall examine some of the lyrical poems (ghazals) Ayatollah Khomeini wrote during the 1980s. After a general introduction on the genre of ghazal, I focus on the mystical aspects of Ayatollah Khomeini's ghazals. His imitation of one of Hâfez‘(d. 1389) ghazals shows the influence of this famous Persian poet on his poetry. I shall demonstrate how Ayatollah Khomeini places himself in the antinomian poetical tradition by adopting in his ghazals unorthodox qalandari motifs such as homoeroticism, wine and the rejection of the Kaʿba in Mecca. How do we interpret these unorthodox poems by the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Should they be interpreted literally? And what does piety have to do with antinomian poetry?

Keywords: lyrical poetry, Hâfez, antinomianism, homoeroticism, piety, unorthodoxy

Ayatollah Khomeini composed 296 poems in different poetic forms. Of these, 149 are ghazals, or love lyrics. By composing ghazals and applying the form, themes and motifs of this well-known genre in his poems, Ayatollah Khomeini places himself in the millennium-old tradition of Persian literature. He is imitating great masters such as Hâfez, and elaborating on mystical themes used by poets such as Sanâʾi. Before starting an analysis of Ayatollah Khomeini's ghazals, I will give a brief history of the Persian ghazal, its usage, form and contents and of the contexts in which the ghazal has been used.

Structure of the Ghazal

Ghazals are poems of between five and fifteen couplets with a single rhyme. The same rhyme appears internally within the first couplet. The last couplet often contains the poet's pen-name, or, takhallos.1 A ghazal sometimes contains a radif, which means that each rhyme word is followed by a recurring personal suffix, word, or phrase.2 All metric forms can be used for the ghazal except for the metre that is used for the robâʿi form. Each line of the ghazal is formed from two half-lines or hemistiches (mesrâ`s) and constitutes an independent poetic ‘statement,’ with its own specific theme, which is often expressed in the first half-line and emphasised or exemplified in the second hemistich