SIWAN
is the result of a long line of research , also into the reverberations of this epoque in the writings of philosophers and religious thinkers elsewhere in Europe after the end of the muslim era in 1492.
One will find a striking similarity in the writings of the sufi poets and the catholic and sephardic ”mystics”. The term ”mystic” is itself a reference to the audacity to formulate ideas about abstraction that were extremely controversial at the time. San Juan de la Cruz for instance speaks in ”Toda sciencia transcendiendo” about a personal, pure experience of an understanding beyond understanding, a revelation beyond scientific knowledge.He is speaking the unspeakable.
The relation between rational thought and religious faith is also the subject of deep investigation, also in the thinking of Averroes and other philosophers.
There are striking resemblances to later philosophy and contemporary poetry in surprisingly many of these poems, and as such, the matereal speaks of a period with a fresh creative climate that later was suppressed and its daring thinkers persecuted and eliminated.
Poems used in Siwan:
A la Dina Lope de Vega. 1562 –1635
Ondas do mar de Vigo Martin Codax 13th century
Vivir de mi patria ausiente Al Homaidi, Cordoba 11th century
No lloras al muerto Ibn Hazm Cordoba ,994-1063
Ya safwati Al Mutamid Ibn Abbad 11th century
Ashiyyin ráïqin Al Rusafi de Valencia
Aun Bebiendo Faridu din Attar 12th century sufi poet
Thulathyat Al Hallaj 857-922
Toda sciencia transcendiendo San Juan de La Cruz 15th
Nada mas bello Ibn Khafaja 1058-1139
Translations from arabic to spanish or english is delicate, and much of the beauty in the poetic craft is lost . In Siwan a lot of the music was composed to a spanish translation and later re-shaped around the original arabic version.