Maaz Bin Bilal, "Temple Lamp: Verses on Banaras by Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan" (India Penguin Classics, 2022)
New Books in Poetry
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When There Was Nothing Was God
The original has a lot of different meanings here. I'll try to explicate a few of those and maybe then explain them through my translation. So, he says Nata Kudstofu Data and there was nothing was God. But when you read this in conjunction with the second line, my being defeated me. Had I not been, what would have been? That's at one level is a very blasphemous thought. At another Sufi level it says that all being is part of God. And rather is also saying that.
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