Certainly didn’t mean to offend you (or anyone else for that matter).

you’ve misunderstood what i was referring to when i said that i like things based on my “religious bias”. it simply meant that i can appreciate more things when putting them into the perspective of what’s important to me; its to look at something even non-”religious” or non-literary and take out of it a lesson of some sort i can apply to my “belief system”. i don’t know why u’re hung up on this poem, when i’ve already clarified that i didn’t think was a piece of art, yet that’s not the only reason for liking something.

you are quick to judge, and if you still think there’s something wrong with what i am saying, than there’s nothing i can do about that, and it’s not my education you should be worried about. anyways, i don’t really care to discuss my personal literary likings, something of which has no benefit to anyone, on a public blog, and this constant clarifying is getting tedious.

after reading your first paragraph, you might consider the art of persuasion (as in trying to get someone to actually change their supposedly defective mentality), as it is an art i can appreciate.

That’s why, that era had a significant deterioration in artistic output. It’s that very same mentality shared by an obviously educated person like yourself. What a shame.

Let me make it clear though, I have no qualms with anyone writing about the “Truth”, whatever it may be. Not all religious poetry is bad. And when I say without religious bias, I meant, imagine all poetry in the world were about the same subject — would this piece still be worth looking at? I think not.

clarification:

i think you’ve misinterpreted what i wrote on a few accounts: one, when i said truth, i meant the Truth, as in the Quran, not as he saw it; two, i never called this a work of art, though i liked it and yes, i thought the meaning was worth discussing.

explanation:

i like my religious bias. i like the poem because of my religious bias. most things i like are because of my religious bias, because again, i like my religious bias.

that’s really all there is to it. we judge things on criteria that is important to us, with or without a declaration of a bias. when you say look at something objectively, in essence you are saying judge it by the rules of the game in the arena it is played. we’re talking about art and literature. i agree that art as well as literature may very well have its rules (though some acclaimed artists i think break many of them), but much of accrediting is subjective.

faulkner wrote sentences that were pages long, picasso drew unreal depictions of people, yet both are considered artists. i don’t care for picasso, and yes it could be said that its because i don’t understand the game, but for me the most important thing is the game played in MY arena.

so, in my arena is Islam. though i care for eloquence in speech in presenting an Islamic topic (mainly because i believe you can’t yell hedayath into someone), i care for what depth a person addresses. a person could very articulately state something wrong, or someone else can say something beautiful but in very simple terms, not-so-coherent terms. so what if this poem was a concatenation of hadiths. i like hadiths.

in conclusion, though yes, its nice to have things put beautifully that weed they’re way to ur heart making u realize things u didn’t before, or to give an aura of grace and magnificence to something that wasn’t quite so in your head, my idea of looking things truly objectively (with my Islamic bias), is to look at it for what it addressed (because, again, i’m judging it with the rules in my arena). since the topic that was addressed in the poem was beautiful, the poem was beautiful to me.

“No, the poet is not dictating the truth, he is telling it as he sees it, as given in the Quran.”

It’s like the guy simply took a few hadiths and put it together in verse and rhyme. Nothing exciting, nothing moving.. at all! Why do you insist that it is a work of art worthy of even discussing?

to the comment about the poem: how does one appreciate the poem by taking out any religious inclinations? i suppose that’s the whole point of disagreement. the poet’s not talking about some fleeting emotion, some escaping nostalgia, or some other artsy thing poems are usually about. he’s dictating a truth, pointing out a reality that evades our hearts, our minds, though the reality is quite simple.

you embellish that with is abstract by imagery, play on words, metaphors, diction, syntax, etc., but sometimes simplicity is really the best conveyor of a message.

in the literature class, even with the poet spelling it out, i wonder how many students could really get the meaning.