Emanations of Grace: Mystical Poems by 'A'ishah al-Ba'uniyah (d. 92311517).

• Author: Qian, Ailn
• Position: Book review

Emanations of Grace: Mystical Poems by 'A'ishah al-Ba'uniyah (d. 92311517). Edited and translated by TH. EMIL HOMERIN. Louisville, KY: FONS VITAE, 2011. Pp. 151. $18.95 (paper).

Faya al-fadl wa-jam' al-shaml is an anthology of 374 poems by the Mamluk Sufi poet 'A'isha al-Ba'uniyya, who, with the distinguished Ba'uni family, has been the object of several recent studies in both Arabic and English. While the book under review was in press in 2010, the anthology was edited and published in Beirut for the first time. Emanations of Grace is a selection of fifty-nine poems representative of ('A'isha's mystical themes and poetic style. For these Homerin relied on four manuscripts dating from 1622 to 1922 and his readings "frequently differ from" the Beirut edition (he will send an electronic copy of the Arabic text of the poems upon request).

The volume's seventeen-page introduction provides a detailed survey of 'A'isha's life and work, her mystical thought, and the religious themes and poetic forms encountered in Emanations of Grace. Homerin also chooses two poems in order to show his "eight stages of translation."The translation itself covers about one hundred pages. At the end of the book is a useful glossary of Sufi technical terms and concepts.

Homerin suggests that the anthology spans much of 'A'isha's mystical life and may have ended when she left Damascus for Egypt in 919/1513. He has left the poems in their chronological order except for the 252-line qasida al-Ta'iyya al-ba'uniyya, which is placed last and accompanied by a brief commentary in which Homerin frequently refers to the Sufi poet Ibn (d. 632/1235) al-Ta'iyya al-kubra. An expert on Ibn Homerin has categorized 'A'isha al-Ba'uniyya as one of the "Ibn al-Farid school" of poets (Mamluk Studies Review 1 [1997]); indeed, Ibn al-Farid's poetic themes of "love, the mystic quest, and spiritual intoxication,"as well as his badi'style, have found their way into Emanations of Grace.

The fifty-nine poems--in Homerin's Arabic text--adopt both classical (e.g., basil, tawil) and post-classical (kan wa-kan, dubayt) verse forms. The first few pieces are relatively short, often containing two to three lines. Their devotional tone is indubitable. A distinct feature is the short introduction ('A'isha often added--for instance, that a poem was "a secret prayer" (munajat) or was composed when "rapture was intense" (wa-jadda wajd). She had a vision of Muhammad during the hajj around 880/1475, and one...