Call for Submission: 3rd Edition of Sufi Poetry Carnival

3rd Sufi Poetry Carnival at Mystic Saint (Technology of the Heart) Sufi site

The Prophet said that Truth has declared:

"I am not hidden in what is high or low,
nor in the earth,
nor the skies,
nor throne.

This is certainty O beloved.

I am hidden in the Heart of the faithful.

If you seek Me, seek in these Hearts."

Greetings of Peace every one!

Irving Karchmar at Darvish and Sadiq Alam at Technology of the Heart are happy to invite you all to participate in the 3rd Edition of Sufi Poetry Carnival on the theme of "The Mystic Heart." You are welcome to participate with a poetry of yours.

Classically Sufi poets are inspired by the sacred tradition of Islam that speaks of Heart as the Divine Throne and the only place in the universe which can contain the Divine Love or Divine Consciousness.

Declares God, the Incomparable Beauty: "Neither My heavens nor My earth contains Me, but the Mystic Heart of My faithful beloved alone contains Me." - Sufi saying based on the tradition of the Messenger

What qualifies a poem as Sufi poem? Perhaps the best indicating keywords are "Love for the Divine". From classical examples it can be safely said that Sufi Poetry has always been expressions of Divine love and longing of the human Heart. Some even call the Sufi Path as path of Heart Ache. Sufi poetry has it's origin in that heart-ache or heart's longing for God. To describe the alchemy briefly: poetry in the Sufic realm happens when out of loving self-surrender eyes of the heart starts to realize and envision the Divine as Beloved and from that vision - the longing Heart gives birth to ecstatic expressions. According to modern Sufi poet Daniel Abdal Hayy Moore, "Province of poetry is a private ecstasy made public."

The most common thread that is found to run along Sufi poetry is divine love and longing of the Heart. It is that longing of Heart for the Divine Beloved which unveils the Mystic nature of Heart because of the mystical nature of union it sets as it's goal. Hence our theme in this edition is The Mystic Heart. In eastern tradition this yearning for union (yoga) is sometime spoken as union through knowledge (gnosis, jnana), devotion (bhakti), practice (raja) or service (action, karma yoga). Indeed for each human being there are infinite pathways from the Heart to taste the Divine experience.

We hope that through your gifting participation, this edition of Sufi Poetry Carnival will become a reflection of contemporary sufi poetry carrying forward this rich tradition with its perennial appeal to us all.

All May Enter: We are all spiritual beings having a human experience, so may submit their poetry, whether a Sufi or not, as long as the poetry is in English and the Mystic Heart theme is followed. We will then each post a selection of the poems chosen.

How to participate? If you do have a blog or website, we recommend that you publish the poem (you may even publish as a Note on Facebook) and let us know by sending us your link (via Email or Facebook Message) to be included in the Sufi Poetry Carnival. Please mention in the email / message subject line: Sufi Poetry Carnival.

In case you don't have a blog or website but would like to be included, you can either email me (Sadiq) your submission at this email: <[email protected]> with copy to Irving at <[email protected]>. Post selection, we will publish it in our sites to include in the carnival.

On Facebook we can be found here, Sadiq Alam and Irving Karchmar (author of International Sufi Novel, Master of the Jinn).

Important Dates:

Please submit your poem by April 30th 2011. God willing, the publication of the Carnival will be up on ~~May 7th 2011~~. Date updated: May 11th, 2011.

From the beginning of my life,
I have been looking for Your Face,
but today I have seen it

Today I have seen the charm,
the beauty, the unfathomable grace
of the Face that I was looking for.

I am bewildered by the magnificence
of Your beauty and wish to see You
with a hundred eyes.

I am ashamed to call this love human
and afraid of God to call it divine

Your effulgence has lit a fire in my heart.
My arrow of love has arrived at the target.

I am in the house of mercy
and my heart is a place of prayer.

- Jalaluddin RUMI
edited by Deepak Chopra, translation by Fereydoun Kia