Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the ...

25. See Ra±¥mzådah Malik, op. cit., pp. 411ff.
26. The translation is ours.
Notes to Chapter 9 317
27. Modified translation of the Rubå‘iyåt of Omar Khayyåm, trans. and
annotated by Ahmad Saidi (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1991), no. 59,
p. 116.
28. Saidi, op. cit., no. 60, p. 117. Such verses must be read in conjunction
with those that affirm in no uncertain terms Khayyåm’s certitude concerning
the knowledge of God and that He is ultimately the only Reality. For example,
His is, and not but Him exists, I know,
This truth is what creation’s book will show,
When heart acquired perception with His Light,
Atheistic darkness changed to faithly glow.
Swami Govinda Tirtha, The Nectar of Grace, p. 1
Khayyåm also speaks of the divine grace that makes such a knowledge
possible. In one of his rare Arabic poems, quoted by Shams al-D¥n Shahraz¨r¥
in his Nuzhat al-arwå÷, Khayyåm sings,
I soar above both Worlds to Highest Realm
With lofty courage and with sober thoughts.
The Guiding Light of Wisdom dawns in me
In the Darkness, and Delusion is dispelled.
The foe may try to extinguish the Light,
But God maintains it by his Grace Divine.
Swami Govinda Tirtha, op. cit., p. 131,
with some modification
29. This theme of the relativity of all human knowledge when measured
with the yardstick of Divine Knowledge is a recurrent theme in many
of these quatrains, for example,
Of science naught remained I did not know,
Of secrets, scarcely any, high or low,
All day and night for three scores and twelve years,
I pondered just to learn that naught I know.
Saidi, op. cit., no. 68, p. 125
30. The translation is our own highly modified version of Saidi, op. cit.,
no. 63, p. 120.
31. Modified translation of Saidi, op. cit., no. 64, p. 121.
32. See Henry Corbin, Alone with the Alone—Creative Imagination in the
Sufism of Ibn ‘Arab¥; and E. Zolla, The Uses of Imagination and the Decline of
the West (Ipswich: Golgonooza, 1978).