| For Westerners
intelligence is the stuff of life, |
| for Easterners love is
the mystery of all being. |
| Only through love
intelligence gets to know God, |
| love’s labours
find firm grounding in intelligence; |
| when love is
companioned by intelligence |
1105 |
| it has the power to
design another world. |
| Then rise and draw the
design of a new world, |
| mingle together love
with intelligence. |
| The flame of the
Europeans is damped down, |
| their eyes are
perceptive, but their hearts are dead; |
1110 |
| they have been sore
smitten by their own swords, |
| hunted down and
slaughtered, themselves the hunters. |
| Look not for fire and
intoxication in their vine; |
| not into their heavens
shall rise a new age. |
| It is from your fire
that the glow of life comes, |
1115 |
| and it is your task to
create the new world. |
|
|
| Mustafa Kemal, who sang
of a great renewal, |
| said the old image must
be cleansed and polished; |
| yet the vitality of the
Kaaba cannot be made new |
| if a new Lat and Manat
from Europe enter its shrine. |
1120 |
| No, the Turks have no
new melody in their lute, |
| what they call new is
only the old tune of Europe; |
| no fresh breath has
entered into their breast, |
| no design of a new
world is in their mind. |
| Turkey perforce goes
along with the existing world, |
1125 |
| melted like wax in the
flame of the world we know. |
| Originality is at the
roots of all creation, |
| never by imitation
shall life be reformed; |
| The living heart,
creator of ages and epochs, |
| that soul is little
enamoured of imitation: |
1130 |
| if you possess the
spirit of a true Mussulman |
| examine your own
conscience, and the Koran— |
| a hundred new worlds he
within its verses, |
| whole centuries are
involved in its moments; |
| one world of it
suffices for the present age— |
1135 |
| seize it, if the heart
in your breast grasps truth.. |
| A believing servant
himself is a sign of God, |
| every world to his
breast is as a garment; |
| and when one world
grows old upon his bosom, |
| The Koran gives him
another world! |
1140 |
| It is a world lost now
in our breast, |
| a world awaiting yet
the command ‘Arise!’ |
| A world without
distinction of race and colour, |
1145 |
| its evening is brighter
than Europe’s dawn; |
| a world cleansed of
monarchs and of slaves, |
| a world unbounded, like
the believer’s heart, |
| a world so fair, that
the effluence of one glance |
| planted the seed of it
in Omar’s soul. |
1150 |
| Eternal it is, the
impact of it ever new, |
| ever new the leaf and
fruit of its sure foundations; |
| inwardly it is anxious
not of change, |
| outwardly, every moment
is revolution. |
| Behold, that world lies
within your own heart; |
1155 |
| now I will tell you of
its firm foundations. |