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Inshallah Gurbah Ast: “God Willing, It's A Cat”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Ali Akbar Dihkhuda
Translated by
Paul Losensky
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Extract

When Dihkhuda published his poem Inshallah gurbah ast (“God willing, it's a cat”) in 1933, he created quite a stir in Iranian literary circles. The great scholar Muhammad Qazvini, for example, was inspired to call the poem “without a doubt one of the masterpieces of modern literature.” Even a poem of lesser quality, however, would have been the cause of some wonderment, for Dihkhuda's pen had been silent for nearly fifteen years. After transforming Persian prose during the Constitutional Revolution of 1905 with his column Charand parand (Chit-Chat), Dihkhuda gave up writing satirical social commentary in the tumult and disillusionment of the First World War. While sitting out the war in the mountains southwest of Isfahan, Dihkhuda occupied himself with the only book he had available—a Larousse French Dictionary.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , Winter 1986 , pp. 31 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1986

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References

Notes

1. Mihr, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Khurdad 1312/May 1933), pp. 30-35.

2. Mihr, Vol. 1, No. 5, p. 396. His letter to the journal is also printed following the text of the poem in Majmu'ah-'i Ash'ar-i Dihkhuda, ed. with an introduction by Muhammad Mu'in (Kitabfurushi-yi Zavvar, 1334/1955-56), p. 20.

3. For a discussion of the column Charand parand and further biographical information, see Gholam Hoseyn Yousofi, "Dehkhoda's Place in the Iranian Constitutional Movement," Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Vol. 125 (1975), pp. 117-132. Two examples of Charand parand are translated into English in E. G. Browne's A Literary History of Persia, Vol. 4 (Cambridge, 1924), pp. 469-482. Browne has also translated two of Dihkhuda's poems from the Constitutional Period in The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia (Cambridge, 1914), pp. 190-191 and 200-205.

4. Adarakhshi, Ghulam'ali Ra'di, "Shi'r-i Dihkhuda," Majallah-'i Ayandah, Vol. 5, Nos. 7-9 (Autumn 1358/1979), p. 438.Google Scholar

5. Majmu'ah-'i Ash'ar, p. 20; translation from Yousofi, "Dehkhoda's Place," p. 117.

6. Ra'di Adarakhshi, "Shi'r-i Dihkhuda," p. 445. Sur-i Israfil is the newspaper in which Charand parand appeared.

7. Ibid. Bayhaqi is an eleventh-century historian known for his laconic style. Sana'i (d. 1130) was the first great Persian mystical poet whose Hadiqat al-Haqiqat established a precedent for long didactic, ethical poems.

8. Ibid., p. 443.

9. 'Ali Akbar Dihkhuda, Amsal va Hikam (4th ed.; Tehran: Chapkhanah-'i Sepehr, 1352/1973-74), Vol. 1, pp. 300-304.

10. Majmu'ah-'i Ash'ar, pp. 5-20.

11. In Amsal va Hikam (4th ed.; 1973/74, Vol. 2, p. 1168), Dihkhuda defines Quz bala quz ("Hump upon hump") as "toil and trouble upon toil and trouble" and gives the Arabic idiom dighthun 'ala ibbala, "to make matters worse" (literally, "to add a bundle to the bale") as an equivalent. Here Dihkhuda uses this proverb to convey the image of the mulla's naturally stooped walk exaggerated by his posture of feigned humility.

12. These callouses come from repeatedly touching the head to the ground in prayer.

13. The taht-i hanak (neckerchief) is part of the mulla's and faqih's rather elaborate turban. It hangs down along both sides of the neck and forms a loose sort of chin strap.

14. In the vuzu, or lesser ablutions, the beard is cleansed by combing it out with wet fingers; see Williams, John A., Islam (New York: G. Braziller, 1961), p. 97Google Scholar.

15. Kuh-ha dar miyan va dur az ru: Dihkhuda here shortens and combines two common formulas for warding off the influence of an evil-minded person—kuh-ha dar miyan-i u va shuma bad ("May mountains stand between him and you") and tu dur az ru-yi u bashi ("May you be far from his face").

16. Soqsin, according to Mo'in's dictionary, is a city in Turkestan on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea. The China Gate is probably a mountain pass into China far to the east. An English equivalent of this expression might be "from here to Timbuktu."

17. This phrase sounds like a common aphorism, but seems to be original with Dihkhuda. In English we might say, "I call a spade a spade," i.e., I haven't minced my words.

18. "To pierce pearls" is a commonplace metaphor in Persian for composing poetry. The distinction between "royal pearl" and "coral" suggests a difference between writing elevated, traditional poetry and composing verse on more popular themes.

19. The rhyme word in this half-verse, samih ("benevolent"), is an unusual word in Persian, but the root SMH is commonly used in Arabic to describe Islam. Hans Wehr's A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic lists the collocation al-hanifa al-samha, "the true and tolerant (religion, i.e., Islam)" (ed. by J. M. Cowan; 3rd ed., p. 328). Lane refers to the expression millatun samhatun [ma fi-ha diqqun]: "a [liberal] religion in which is no straitness" (Arabic-English Lexicon, p. 1423). The associations of this adjective and its emphatic position at the end of the line support Dihkhuda's bitter sarcasm.

20. Dihkhuda's note to this line reads: "Among theology students, it is an old custom that whenever one of them starts to quarrel and fight with a nonstudent, the other students, before they have determined who is right and who is wrong, support their fellow fanatically, to the extent that in the time of Nasir al-Din Shah's reign they killed an innocent man this way in Tabriz."

21. Shaft is a village to the northeast of Fawman, between Fawman and Rasht. The connotations of the name in English are accidental, but apt.

22. Dihkhuda's note: "In a hadith, it is related that every time a man lays with his spouse, he is given a palace in Paradise."

23. Translated more literally, this line would read, "this one washing his nocturnal moisture in the kur." The kur is that quantity of water which remains ritually pure after contact with impure substances. Ibn Qudama writes, "Water to the quantity of two large jars and running water becomes [sic] impure only after an alteration of color, taste or odor" (John A. Williams, Islam, p. 96). The exact quantity varies between different theological schools, but is approximately 300 liters. The superficial purity of the kur and that of the Imam of Shaft are similar.

24. This is part of a popular prayer.

25. "Like a jumping bean" is a translation of isfand-san, "like a rue seed." When the rue seed is burned to ward off the evil eye, it pops and jumps off the fire.

26. The "Wolf's tail" (dum-i gurg, in Arabic dhanab al-sarhan) refers to the first light of dawn before the true dawn.

27. In his note, Dihkhuda quotes this verse from Sana'i (see n. 7): "The commoners believe in the cow as a god;/they do not belived in Noah as a prophet."

28. Nat' ("chessboard") is also used to refer to the leather apron spread under the executioner's block to catch the head of the beheaded, here the head of reason.

29. The previous line involved a pun between sadd, "obstruction," and sadad, "righteous," which I have tried to capture by using a common Christian metaphor for the path of righteousness. To clarify this line, Dihkhuda quotes these lines from the Masnavi:

A cow came to Baghdad unexpectedly

and passed through it from one end to another.

Of all its joys, pleasures and relishes,

it saw nothing but the melon rind.

30. In his footnote, Dihkhuda cites the Arabic proverb, "The most contemptible person is an Umayyad in Kufa on 'Ashura." 'Ashura marks the anniversary of Husayn's martyrdom at the hands of the Umayyads. Kufa is a traditional Shi'ite stronghold where an Umayyad would be unwelcome at any time.

31. This line alludes to a story in the fifth book of the Masnavi of Jalal al-Din Rumi (Nicholson's ed., E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series, new series No. 4, Vol. 5, pp. 55-58 and Vol. 6, pp. 53-56), When Muhammad Khwarazmshah conquered the city of Sabzavar, he offered to spare its Shi'ite population only if they could produce a man named after the first caliph Abu Bakr. Since he is regularly cursed as a usurper by the Shi'ites, the only man the townsfolk could find by this name was a Sunni traveler waylaid in their city by illness.

32. Oxen are used to drive horizontal stone mills. These oxen wear blinders and are driven continuously around the mill.

33. This is an image of baptism.

34. This saying, listed in Amsal va Hikam under khar biyar ya baqili bar kun (Vol. 1, p. 725), expresses impatience—"Stop messing around, and let's get down to business."

35. See "al-Damiri," Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 107-108. The Animals is his book Hayat al-Hayawan (composed 1371-72), a standard compendium of medieval animal lore.

36. See "Balinus," EI 2, Vol. 1, pp. 994-995. The mulla is doing little more than dropping names here.

37. Abu 'Ali Ibn Sina, Avicenna (980-1037).

38. More literally this line would read, "time for reading a two-parter" (duganah khvandan). The morning prayer, the shortest of the day, consists of two rak'ats or divisions.

39. Dihkhuda here introduces a new character, an anonymous mulla of his acquaintance.

40. Pulling on someone's beard is a sign of contempt. "The idiot's is long" is a shortened version of the saying "A long beard and a small head are the signs of an idiot" (Amsal va Hikam, Vol. 2, p. 885, rish-i daraz...).

41. Bektash is the title of a Turkish tribal, military leader.

42. Dihkhuda now returns to the imam of the mosque at Shaft.

43. This is a proverbial Persian expression meaning "to be very dexterous or extremely sly" (Amsal va Hikam, Vol. 1, p. 166).

44. Za'farani ("saffron") and arghavani ("magenta") are grandiloquent synonyms for yellow and red in classical Persian verse. "A color blacker than black" alludes to the proverb "No color covers black" (Amsal va Hikam, Vol. 1, p. 368), that is, you cannot hide the basic reality of something.

45. In his note, Dihkhuda quotes the hadith "God, may He be glorified, created man (Adam) in his own image."

46. "The lascivious soul" (nafs-i ammarah) alludes to the Qur'an, sura 12, verse 53, where Joseph explains to 'Aziz the limits of his innocence: "Not that I am free from sin: man's soul is prone to evil (inna al-nafsa la-'ammaratun bi'l-su'i), except his to whom Allah has shown mercy" (The Koran, trans. by N. J. Dawood, 4th ed. [London: Penguin Books, 1974]).

47. Ihe bishak (which I have translated "tacklebox") is a sort of vanity case for travelers. It is divided horizontally by a tray, and both the tray and the case are divided into numerous compartments.