The Walled Garden of Enchantment - Prologue. Author's Note

.

Author’s Note

Siraj Aurangabadi was an early 18th century Sufi poet. As a lay clergyman in this branch of Islam, he explored the human-condition in relationship to an all-loving, all-forgiving God. In this, he followed the same writing traditions as Hafiz and Rumi before him. Siraj’s many ghazals praising the beauty and transformative power of same-sex love are still sung in India and Pakistan today. [i]

What follows is not a “translation” in the proper sense, as the Urdu original of Bustan-e-Khayal is inaccessible to me, and even when poets’ work in this language are obtainable, the broadness of the poetry – and references to Persian and Arabic predecessors – leaves non-speakers like me at a disadvantage. [ii]

That being said, I am still able to recapture the plot, the couplet formatting, the personal relationships, and the beauty of Siraj’s transcendental message about the meaning of earthy love. I have done this by using a detailed summary of the 1738 original. [iii]

Yet above all else, The Walled Garden of Enchantment is an exaltation of the love between men which can rise above adversity, such as contrived reasons concerning religious differences, with their ingrained senses of superiority, as well as other societal pressures, like those forcing young men to marry women as part of an expected sacrifice for the good of the family, no matter their orientation. In Aurangabadi’s work, this compromise is not allowed to happen; the male couples are accommodated – sans proselytization or conversion – and accepted in ways that let their unions stand independently and as equals to cross-sex marriages. In fact, they are celebrated as more important than ordinary, arranged male-female contractual obligations.

Any person who attempts to misrepresent Siraj, and his impressive oeuvre of ghazel lyrics and narrative poetry, as anything but Gay, is willfully trying to perpetrate a hoax. This poet belongs fully to LGBTI2S+ studies and its rich, historic and artistic culture.

And lastly, for those already familiar with the Bustan-e-Khayal, or its detailed summary, I must acknowledge adjusting the ending of the original in my version. But must I justify my “recapturing,” following an arc of development hinted at in The Walled Garden of Enchantment, but remaining unstated?

I feel I have carried the poem out to its logical conclusion, but freely accept that others – presumably those previously captured by the enchantment of Siraj’s narrative poetry – will have a bone to pick with me. So be it. [iv]