Publisher's Synopsis
SELECTED POEMS OF HUMA (MEHER BABA) & Ghazals by his translator & devotee inspired by them... Paul Smith(Large Print & Large Format Edition) Merwan S. Irani, known world-wide as Meher Baba, took Huma (Phoenix) as his takhallus or pen-name when he composed enlightened ghazals in a mixture of Persian, Urdu, Hindi & Gujarati in his twenties as a realized disciple of the Qutub or Perfect Master Upasni Maharaj, and also later on until the sixties. He knew the ghazals of Hafiz by heart as did his father the dervish Sheriar Irani, who had originally walked to Pune in India from Khooramshah in Iran. Merwan went on to reveal himself as Perfect Master (Qutub) and later also declared himself as the Rasool or Messiah (Avatar). The correct rhyme-structure has been kept as well as the beauty and meaning of these important beautiful, inspiring, mystical poems. Now, after 40 years his devotee, translator & poet from the mid-sixties, Paul Smith, carries on the tradition and completes the task of ghazals inspired by couplets given by Huma with love and dedication and the experience of writing hundreds of his own (the first in English) and in translating for over forty years those of Huma, Hafiz, Sadi, Nesimi, 'Attar, Nizami and many others. CONTENTS: The Life & Times & Work of Meher Baba, The Ghazal and other forms he used, Selected Bibliography, A Large Selection of Ghazals, Qasidas, Qit'as. Paul Smith's over 150 ghazals inspired by couplets given by Huma. Large Print (16pt) & Large Format (7" x 10") Edition. 434 pages. Paul Smith (b. 1945) is a poet, author and translator of many books of Sufi poets of the Persian, Arabic, Urdu, and other languages including Hafiz, Sadi, Nizami, Rumi, 'Attar, Sana'i, Jahan Khatun, Obeyd Zakani, Mu'in, Amir Khusrau, Nesimi, Kabir, Anvari, Ansari, Jami, Khayyam, Bedil, Rudaki, Yunus Emre, Shah Latif, Bulleh Shah, Iqbal, Ghalib, Jigar, Seemab, Baba Farid, Abu Nuwas, Ibn 'Arabi and many others, as well as his own poetry, fiction, plays, biographies, children's books and screenplays.
