TIJANI 171Tijani never takes for granted the physical beauty of the world, he never
ceases to be surprised that so much beauty has been created for the enjoyment
of man; it is an attitude one finds in mystics whose sense of beauty is un-
usually acute, such as G. M. Hopkins. 'Dawn in the Desert', virtually a hymn
to 'sacred light', ends with these lines:
O the wonder of this glorious beauty in its different forms, both violent
and calm,
Weaving of this dawn a sublime garment of love for a poet sublime,
Who from the profound depths of his being praises the Lord, from his
soul cries, shouting like a boy:
'Lord, is it possible that all that beauty, splendour and magic are for
the sake of this one mortal?' (p. 85)
Tijani's mysticism is therefore the mysticism of a poet: his awareness of
beauty leads him to God, just as his profound and intense experience of God
sharpens in him his sense of beauty. This two-way movement is expressed
in his poem 'Hope' (p. 42), where the poet asks beauty to "bestow the spirit
and mystery of the Lord upon the world', to 'unlock his soul and uncover its
hidden dawn', and at the same time he relates an experience on a glorious
night when surrounded by beauty he found himself walking to the place
where the veil was lifted from the world, and where he says lie burned his
soul in the perfumed censer of the Lord'. Although the meeting of the aesthetic
and religious or mystical is obvious in much of Tijani's poetry, it is especially
so in a poem of remarkable complexity entitled Fi'lMauha (pp. 83—4), which
must be translated as 'At the Site of Inspiration and Revelation' (the Arabic
root why can mean both terms, and is used here in such a way that poetic
inspiration becomes equated with divine revelation or taml, a word used
in the poem). The poet, described as the 'prophet of feelings', is urged to go
to the site of revelation; the right atmosphere is set for the creative moment:
nature at night, bathed in moonlight, completely still and silent, exuding
rich perfumes. The senses are aglow and the poet is in a state of complete
receptivity. In the moment of poetic creation the world is transfigured and
indeed miracles occur, for, as the poet says, solid stone ceases to be solid;
things go beyond the limits assigned to them by the natural order of things:
God will open to your awakened feelings a sublime world of splendid
images.
Release for you the springs of the unknown, reveal before your eyes a
world of treasures
To choose, describe and paint the revealed visions, to forge and make
a new world.Clearly here the poetic and mystical experiences became one and the same
thing.