...Raqs-e-Bismil...

… Can simply be translated from Urdu (perhaps even Persian, too) as Dance of the Wounded (or Dying). It can be left at that. It can be left at the good humor of the reader to interpret this further. If that can be the case, there is nothing better, really, than that.


If not, the unassuming attempt below can be considered, to see one possible vignette of what this wound and what this dance can possibly mean.


The relationship between Love and Pain has been an important theme for thinkers of all times but too many words have been written about it, leaving one pondering excessively into these details at the cost of feeling them. One research I read once, suggested that even the neural and hormonal mappings of the sensation of pain and emotion of love are similar. In other words, our physiological response to Love and Pain is somehow related too. Instead of getting carried away into these details, it is just imperative to see that Nature deliberately associated these opposing feelings together.

The price of Love is Pain… and it’s a price we pay unconsciously, sometimes begrudgingly, sometimes passionately. The simplistic and holistic example would be childbirth and I see no point of going into detailed particulars of that event, we all know what Love and Pain have to do there.


Metaphors are Nature’s way of driving points home; metaphors are Allah’s favorite games of language in the Quran.

Raqs-e-Bismil is a metaphor.

I will accept I don’t know who juxtaposed this phrase… the meaning, however, has been a common premise (in want of a better word) for Sufis.

To Dance with (the Pain of) Wounds of Divine Love.

Inappropriate.
Inadequate, rather.
It requires much more.

I am not qualified to explain the more-s of it, no fake humility about it, I just know it’s beyond the scope of language and little minds, and minds ours… are little. Still…



Dance.

Literalistic usage of this word is looked down upon, in Islam. Sufis deliberately used Dance, and words like Wine and Chalice… words that would literally hold negative connotations with reference to Islamic theology, because they were critical of literalistic translations and emergence of ritual theology, as opposed to the spiritual content of Quran. Dance probably has no place in Islamic Shariah, but it has been used as a metaphor here to denote something… very powerful.

One of the faithful companions of Prophet SAW, with an arrow in his back, stood up to pray, asked a companion to draw the arrow out and felt no pain.

Is this Fiction?
Perhaps, yes, for the skeptic.

But not for the Lover.

The Lover knows Divine wound in the heart of that companion was so deep and open, that in his Dance of Praise, or Salat, the physical weakness of blood and skin melted away.

It may still be disturbing for some to see Salat being equated with Dance, but this is not the dance where one limb forgets the other limb. It is too transcendental to have anything to do with the physical.

Another Wounded Dancer, one of my favorites, is Salah-ud-Din Ayubi.

I refer to a biography written by a Crusader about this great man, who was a terror in the battlefield. But his terror was less Genghis Khan-like, it was too awe-inspiring to be malevolent. The biographer remained stunned to see this man of absolute grace and pride weep like a lost man on a prayer mat, as if faced with a power not known in the battlefield. Salah-ud-Din would never twist any muscle on the face if it was about a physical pain, but the mystery of Divine wounds… and the mystery of the those tears on the prayer mat.

The examples of these Dancers are tremendous, in spite of my limited knowledge.



Rumi’s poetry is his Dance, Ghazali’s philosophy is his.

Attar’s metaphor of Simurgh is his Dance, Hajwairi’s treatise is his.



And Rabiya Basri.

You have to silence thought when you think about her because her Dance cannot be pointed at, she whirls too much in spacelessness. It is said that someone went to the Holy House once and said they couldn’t see the spirit of Ka’aba inside the physical Ka’aba. And another remarked, the Ka’aba has gone to see the old woman of Basra.

That’s her Dance.

I know of some people who are my contemporaries and are also involved in this Dance. They will never make it to books and that is, perhaps, better for them and for the vignette of their Dance.


We are all dancers, too… and wounded.

But the tunes we dance to, are all earthly. Too earthly and base.
And hah, we are not even apologetic about it.

Little gods and demigods, ordering us what to wear, who to talk to, how to talk, and we dance to that tune. Sometimes when there is a deep emotional trauma, or even a physical wound, we seek something of the Divine attribute, and we make a little effort in His direction. Reminds one of Hallaj’s instruction for that moment,

Wander as though mad in Love,
Amongst those distracted by love.

Love requires madness, it requires absolute surrender and sincerity; deep wounds and perpetually felt pain; and not a hiccoughing distraction for a short span.


It annoys me, in a sad way, to see these words I have written about Divine Love and Pain and Wounds and Dance … when above everything, what is required is experience.


In the words of the poet of Abida Parveen’s Raqs-e-Bismil:

Aqal kay madrassay say uth,
Ishq kay mehkaday mai aa…



Ishq mai teray koh-e-ghum,
Sur pay liya, jo ho… so ho

(I cannot translate that, I am sorry. And something I just noticed, as I plan to sign-out. “Bismil” is really, just the beginning of “Bismillah”, even if they have different meanings in Persian and Arabic).

And Allah knows best.