223.IThe Main Characteristics of the Imagery
It seems certain that the poets and poetesses who
compose Sufi poems in Somali aim at making the greatest
possible impact on the minds and souls of the.ordinary people.
To achieve this they draw their images from what is well
known and familiar to their audiences who are mainly com-
posed of people who are either pastoralists or who have still
very close links with rural areas. In this respect, as in
its scansion, this type of poetry closely resembles secular
poetry in Somali and is striklngly different from Arabic
poetry composed by Somalis where the imagery is obviously
inspired by Arabic model~.
Images taken from the Quran or Arabic literary sources
are not common in the Sufi poetry in Somali and it is
difficult to trace them. In most cases it seems certain
that the simultaneous occurrence of certain images in the
Quran and literary Arabic sources and in Somali poetry should
be regarded not as a result of influence but as a matter of
coincidence within ordinary human experience under similar
ecological conditions. It is a well known fact that some
motifs and poetic images occur in otherwise totally un--
related literatures. Most probably some poetic images are
universal to all mankind, such as the heavenly bodies, light
and darkness, the wind and the rain.In the Sufi poetry in Somali some images have a par-
ticularly strong emotional appeal, since they are concerned