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On Translation, Transliteration, Pronunciation, and Time Most of the Arabic poems cited in this study have been regarded as classical works for centuries, and so they deserve a reasonable poetic counterpart in English. When translating this verse, I have been concerned not only with form and content, but also with a poem’s tones, moods, and deeper meanings. Toward this end, my own method of translation generally follows that laid out by Robert Bly in The Eight Stages of Translation.3 The final stages of a translation are particularly crucial, and here I have been greatly helped by my previous study of English poetry and its composition with two fine poets, Barbara Jordan and Jerry Ramsey. Michael Sells of the University of Chicago and Ruth Ost of Temple University also have read drafts of many of my translations over the years, and both have offered valuable suggestions in light of their deep knowledge and appreciation of poetry and mysticism. Certain key Arabic terms and verses are cited in transliteration along with their translations in order to alert the reader to multiple meanings, word plays, and subtle relationships among important word clusters. The transliteration of these words follows the system used for Arabic by the Library of Congress. Well-known words and names, however, are generally cited in their common English forms (e.g., Sufi, not Ṣūfī; Cairo for al-Qāhirah; Moses, not Mūsā). When pronouncing these transliterations, the reader should be aware that Arabic vowels and consonants approximate those of English. There are three short Arabic vowels: (1) a as in “bat,” (2) i as in “bit,” (3) u as in “put,” whereas long vowels are usually lengthened short vowels . There are two Arabic diphthongs: (1) ay as in the “i” of “bite,” xv xvi TRANSLATION, TRANSLITERATION, PRONUNCIATON, TIME and (2) aw as in “cow.” The majority of Arabic consonants sound like their English equivalents with the following additions: the hamzah (‘) is a glottal stop; the ˜ayn (˜) is produced by “swallowing” the vowel immediately preceding or following it (e.g., ˜Umar); kh approximates the “ch” of “loch” or “Bach; “ḥ” resembles a breathy, whispered “ha!” Furthermore, there are four velarized or “emphatic” consonants: ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ, which give a “darker” quality to the surrounding vowels (e.g., Arabic s is pronounced like the English “sad,” while ṣ approximates “sod.” The emphatics are of special importance to this work since the poet’s name is Ibn al-Fāriḍ; the emphatic ḍ gives the ā the sound of a prolonged “a” as in “father.” All dates are cited in their Islamic/Ḥijrī year followed by their Common Era equivalent: for example, 632/1235. ...

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