POETRY, HEALING, THE LATIHAN AND THE ISLAMIC TRADITION

By Iljas Baker

There is a beautiful Persian saying: “The word which arises from the heart settles in the heart.” This encapsulates what many poets, especially poets who have received the Latihan, aspire to at times, namely to write from the soul (jiwa) so as to touch the soul of their readers and affect or contribute towards healing.

As I understand it, writing from the soul is something we have no control over, it is unexpected. Essentially it requires inner quiet during the process of writing. But I suspect that in most, if not all cases, it requires that the writer’s soul has reached the level of being able to participate actively in the life of the world and influence it. There is no objective proof of someone’s writing having come from the soul or touching someone’s soul (inferring the spiritual content of a text is certainly not proof of any kind). Thus it is a personal inner matter that cannot be seen by others and there’s little can be achieved by discussing or debating it.

If we aspire to the kind of writing that comes from the soul, especially if we want to touch the soul of a reader and help them heal in some way, we (those of us who have received the Latihan) have above all else to develop the soul through the practice of the Latihan and that is also something that we cannot influence. I make no claim that my soul has reached that level of being able to produce writing that might touch a reader’s soul. The only claim I am comfortable making is that I write reminders to myself and others to turn to the Divine within ourselves if we aspire to healing.  Although we cannot influence our soul’s development through the Latihan we can influence our writing  in the usual way and that should be our focus: paying attention to clarity and unity of expression, imagery, appropriate use of figures of speech, syllable and line count, sound, etc. I suggest that although outwardly we are appealing to the thoughts and emotions of our readers we have to be careful not to stimulate them in a wrong way as that is likely to close down the opportunity of a deeper reception of any true spiritual content in the poem, if in fact such a content is present.

The first poem presented here (How to Think of Cancer) is my response to a specific illness, cancer, but it equally applies to other illnesses. The other  two poems (Refuges and Haiku) were written in response to Covid 19. Whatever I write is informed in some way, imperceptibly, by my practice of the Latihan and perceptibly by my knowledge and love of the Islamic tradition. Here I want to offer a few thoughts on the three poems mentioned. I take it as axiomatic that any deep contribution poetry may make to healing requires the participation of the soul in the creative process because it is through the soul we are connected to the Creator who is the true healer, Allāh al-Shāfi in the Islamic tradition. I believe that this is why Bapak stated, “the jiwa [soul] is the thing that can give us confidence or stability, can give us faith in facing something, faith in facing difficulty, in facing whatever befalls us in our life. It is this jiwa which can give us a feeling of confidence and faith especially if we happen to be ill. If we are ill, the jiwa can give us a feeling of peace within ourselves” (80 CDK 14). This is an important consideration because our spiritual development should not be compromised by the experience of illness or by becoming depressed or excessively anxious because of illness.

Allāh al-Shāfi

The first poem was written to remind myself and any readers of some of these realities when confronting serious illness. I wrote it some time after being diagnosed with neuro-endocrine cancer seven years ago.

The Abrahamic  religions, certainly Islam, teach us that an illness is a means of purification and is a gift from God designed to test and strengthen our faith and I certainly see these two aspects with respect to my own illness. I believe if we see cancer (or any illness for that matter) as a battle there is more chance, perhaps an inevitability, that we will fail to achieve the necessary deep acceptance of the illness and may neglect the kinds of things I mention in the poem: surrender characterised by patience or sabr, trust in God or tawakkul and sincerity or ichlas) that allow the purification to take place as smoothly as possible as well as the strengthening of one’s faith through being tested.

In the Islamic tradition the use of the Qur’an in healing often revolves around reciting what are referred to as the four quls, that is four short Qur’anic surahs or chapters (Surah Ichlas or Sincerity, Surah  Al Falaq or Daybreak, Surah Al Kafirun or Disbelievers and Surah An Nās or Mankind each of which begins with the command qul or “Say”. The first, Surah Ichlas, is a statement of God’s unicity and incomparablity and always begins any healing ceremony. The other three, or sometimes just two of them, usually follow and are believed to offer protection.

Surah Ichlas

Thus it was quite natural for me to use qul in my poem about healing. In my own reading of the poem there is a reminder of this idea of illness being seen as a test from God and a means of strengthening faith  and therefore there is something good to be found in it even if we can’t initially perceive it. In the Qur’an God says “… it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you and you like a thing which is bad for you. Allāh knows but you do not know.” (Surah al-Baqarah: 216). The imperative then is to surrender to God.

 

How to Think of Cancer

not as a battle but

as something coming

from the distant past

telling of the future

a lesson in threefold surrender.

say:

this is the forge

of the faith maker

 

This doesn’t mean we should not seek medical intervention. One recorded saying (hadith) of the Prophet Muhammad is: “O people! Be treated! There is no disease that Allah has created, except that He also has created its treatment.” And the Qur’anic statement, “If Allah touch thee with affliction, none can remove it but He.” (6:17) is generally interpreted to mean that even when you receive treatment to achieve healing, ultimately it is God that does the healing. If we are aware of these considerations our use of medical intervention can have a different quality. I believe we can become less obsessed with the outcome, less anxious about our condition now and in the future.

In the next poem I’ve adopted and adapted the Japanese form of a haibum, which combines prose and a haiku. This was written during the first surge of Covid 19. Here I am reminding myself and anyone who reads it that everything has its origin in God, here identified by one of His Names, the Real (Al-Haq), and it is to the Real we should turn first and foremost. Nature too provides some relief and we should take advantage of it while remaining conscious of its impermanence.

Refuges

I open the curtains and then roll up the blind. It is still dark. I listen to the birds singing and calling. They are not out in the numbers they will soon reach and the sounds have more silences between them. I listen for the virus then I quietly recite an ancient prayer: “I take refuge in the Real from the Real.” There is a world of wisdom and healing in that prayer, but modern humankind is resistant to it. Later I walk my usual route around the community where I live. There’s a slight breeze that cools me. I turn into a narrow road that leads to the lanes where the houses are. Suddenly I stop. In front of me is a golden shower tree, with a profusion of intensely yellow blossoms. I’m filled with wonder and gratitude. This particular tree is in a garden at the mouth of a lane and adjacent to the road. Its branches hang over onto the road and many of the trumpet-shaped flowers will eventually fall there. Soon they’ll fade before or after the road sweepers do their work.

a golden shower tree

flowers effulgent –

its secret fully revealed

 

The haiku that ends this poem does not follow the traditional syllabic count of 5-7-5, which at times I abandon. The same is true of the final poem which is a haiku. Again it is a reminder.

Haiku

Indian cork trees

perfume my late evening walk –

vast sky, no thought

 

Flower of the Indian cork tree

I believe one of the best things we can do, especially when we are ill or facing something like Covid 19, is to stay close to the soul and this involves giving up unnecessary thinking. It is good to do this, perhaps even easier, while out walking in peaceful, natural surroundings.

I would like to think that these poems might inspire readers or give them pleasure in confirming what they already know and practice. I want to emphasise that I am not saying that writing poetry without the participation of the soul is in any way valueless, I don’t believe that. Nor am I saying that writing without the participation of the soul cannot contribute to healing. I do not believe that either. Healing is a very wide field, has many possibilities and occurs on many different levels. I do believe however that when the  soul has participated in writing there is a greater possibility of healing and a spiritual opening that might benefit us in this life and the next.

I started these reflections with a saying from the Islamic tradition and I will end with one, this time a saying of the bedouin (Arab nomadic tribes) of the Arabian Peninsula. It is, “All is from Allah … and a little from Abdullah.” It can be interpreted in a number of ways but I like to think it encapsulates what I have written in these reflections.

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About Iljas Baker

How to Think of Cancer was published in A Kaleidoscope of Stories: Muslim Voices in Contemporary Poetry, Lote Tree Press, Cambridge, UK, 2020. A slightly different version of Refuges appeared in the Patheos blog Mostly Muslim, 28 March 2020 and a very slightly different version of Haiku appeared in Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing (Fall, 2020).

A volume of Iljas’s poetry On Big Heart Mountain and Other Poems is scheduled for publication by Lote Tree Press, Cambridge in January 2022.