About this text: The Interpreter of Desires

ترجمان الأشواق

Ibn ʿArabī (560–638/1165–1240)

His love poems I–X, with Nicholson's translation and the poet's own commentary.

On the Platonic Current: Ibn ʿArabī

Synthesis of the readings

The arc

The chapter opens with the lover asking whether those who have taken his heart know what they possess, and where and how the departed ones have gone (1–4). It then moves through the parting scene with its camels and peacocks into a sequence of female figures: Bilqīs on her throne, a sun in the lap of Idrīs, a Christ-like reviver, a Torah of shining shins, a Byzantine bishopess and a secluded anchoress who baffles the scholars of every scripture (5–13). Separation returns with the marshalling of patience, the plea for relief at the point of death and the calls to the camel-driver (14–17). A long pilgrimage sequence follows, in which Minā, al-Muḥaṣṣab, al-Manḥar, Zamzam, ʿArafāt and the Kaʿba are mapped onto the lover's heart, soul and blood, and interwoven with greetings sent toward the tents, the beloved's names and the stations of the journey (18–29, 44–50). The middle and later poems dwell on the lover divided between Najd and Tihāma, on opposites that cannot be joined, on fanāʾ and on the beloved who has departed yet dwells in the heart's core (30–43, 51–58). The chapter closes with a rain of revival over the beloved's land, the red tents among the streams, and the beloved marvelling at a proud lover, until she is told that what she sees is her own self in the mirror of a human being (59–64). Throughout, Ibn ʿArabī's own commentary turns the stock images of Arabic love poetry into Divine Ideas, stations, Names and manifestations. The translations mostly keep to the literal scene and its idiom.

Key moves

The chapter frames the beloveds as possessors of an unrestricted heart who have departed along an unknown way, and the commentary identifies them as the Divine Ideas whose existence depends on the seer.¶ 1, 2, 3, 40
A series of female figures (Bilqīs, the sun of Idrīs, the Jesus-like reviver, the Torah of the shins, the bishopess) is read as divine wisdom in its various prophetic lineages.¶ 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13
The beloved exceeds every scripture and every scholar, because the Books reach only the Divine Names and she stands for the Essence, which cannot be held in familiar relation.¶ 11, 12
The rites of the pilgrimage are relocated into the lover's person and inner life, so that stoning, sacrifice, Zamzam, circumambulation and the festival become spiritual stations or events.¶ 19, 20, 21, 44, 46, 47, 49
Greetings sent toward protected tents and names meet silence or refusal, and the commentary explains the withheld answer as divine favour, the unity of the beloved's essence, or the closed station of prophecy.¶ 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29
The lover is divided between contrary motions and states, and the union he seeks is declared impossible while the spirit remains tied to a body, so longing never ends.¶ 34, 35, 37, 39
Outward departure is set against inward presence: the beloved is already in the heart, and remembrance keeps love new even as the abodes are effaced.¶ 33, 40, 52, 53
The chapter ends in revival and reflection: rain and flowing channels bring divine sciences to the soul, and the beloved learns that the proud lover is the mirror in which she sees herself.¶ 59, 60, 63, 64

Where the sources agree

The beloveds, camels, places and natural images of the poems carry a spiritual sense beyond the literal desert and pilgrimage scene, pointing to divine realities, stations or manifestations.
AI translationIbn ʿArabī's commentary
On the literal level the couplets follow the conventions of the Arabic love prelude (nasīb): departing caravans, ruined campsites, messages carried by the wind, a blamer and stock beloveds' names.
AI translationNicholson
The heart is the place where the beloved truly dwells and is beheld, even while she has outwardly departed.
AI translationNicholsonIbn ʿArabī's commentary
The lover cannot compel the beloved or master his own condition; any response, relief or disclosure comes to him as a gift.
AI translationNicholsonIbn ʿArabī's commentary
Encounter with the beloved's beauty overwhelms the self, so that killing glances, fatal looking and fanāʾ belong to the same field of meaning.
AI translationIbn ʿArabī's commentary

Live divergences

How specific the spiritual reading of an image should be.
- AI translation Its notes usually give broad readings, such as divine realities, self-disclosures or stages of the seeker's path, often tied to the general allusion to Niẓām.¶ 2, 14, 18, 28, 41
- Ibn ʿArabī's commentary It assigns precise referents: a pass is a fixed station, the road is the spiritual ascension, Laʿlaʿ is bewilderment, Salmā is a Solomonic state, shīḥ and bān are inclination and distance.¶ 2, 14, 18, 28, 41
Whether the lover's inner states are read as stages of his own path or as cosmological and doctrinal facts.
- AI translation It tends to read revival, the middle dome and the peacocks' withdrawal as moments in the individual lover's journey, such as a return to subsistence (baqāʾ) or the balanced centre of the heart.¶ 5, 8, 49
- Ibn ʿArabī's commentary It refers the same images to the creation of man by the divine breath, to actions ascending to God, and to the barzakh as the world between spirit and body.¶ 5, 8, 49
Why the beloved's presence is withheld, veiled or dangerous.
- AI translation Veiling and withholding protect the beloved's realities from the unfit, keep the initiative of disclosure with her, and fatal splendour consumes the lower self.¶ 29, 45, 51
- Ibn ʿArabī's commentary Silence marks the unity of her essence, looking is forbidden lest the lover love the spirits and be veiled from God, and the maidens veil themselves to escape limitation by forms.¶ 29, 45, 51
How the key words of love and self are to be rendered.
- AI translation It keeps senses of servitude and exile, such as 'love-enslaved' for mutayyam and 'stranger' for gharīb, and reads ʿafāf as chastity.¶ 23, 30, 48
- Nicholson He stresses inner turmoil and rejection, with 'distraught', 'outcast' and 'modesty'.¶ 23, 30, 48
Whether the lover's bewilderment and pride are the fruit of endless self-disclosure or of a doctrinal position of the servant.
- AI translation Bewilderment comes from the beloved never appearing in the same form twice, and the lover's proud gait reflects the beloved's own image in him.¶ 4, 63
- Ibn ʿArabī's commentary Bewilderment comes from the clash between wishing to conform to the Beloved's will and wishing for union, and the proud gait is justified by the servant's realization of 'I am His hearing and His sight'.¶ 4, 63

Left open

How the commentary's claim that the Divine Ideas both possess the heart and belong to its essence fits with the repeated imagery of their departure and the lover's loss.
Whether the literal level of the poems, with human beloveds and real pilgrimage places, keeps its own force once the commentary's symbolic readings are adopted.
Whether the impossibility of union and the perpetual longing described in the middle poems are finally reconciled with the closing image of the beloved seeing herself in the lover's mirror.
Whether the collection-wide allusion to Niẓām, which only the AI translation invokes, is warranted by the commentary for these particular poems.

AI synthesis (Claude), built from the syntheses of each passage and the commentators' introductions to the chapter; every point names its sources. Public sources only. Each passage's own synthesis is under its translation in the reader.

In the reader

64 verses · ~10 min · audio · published translation

619 words

Audio: Arabic and English
Published translation: Nicholson (1911)

Not yet: commentaries.

Read it →Grammar practice Study sheet (print)

Difficulty

much rare vocabulary

Lexical difficulty, from the words themselves: how many roots fall outside the 1,000 most frequent in the Quran, how long the words are, and how much of the vowelling had to be supplied by AI. It says how unfamiliar the vocabulary is, not how deep the ideas are.

Rare roots 26% · mean word length 4.2 letters · AI vowelling on 54% of words

Themes & resonances AI

What the text is about, and what it connects to across the history of thought. Every connection says what kind of claim it is: a documented lineage, a shared source, a resonance with no influence claimed, or a contrast. Mapped by AI; references are shown only once checked. Across the library

Themes

Love-desire that bewilders its mastersهوىhawāroot هوي
The departing caravan and the effaced abodesرحيلraḥīlroot رحل
The heart as the place where the departed beloved dwellsقلبqalbroot قلب
The rites of the pilgrimage moved into the lover's personجمراتjamarātroot جمر
The glance that kills and the speech that revivesلحظlaḥẓroot لحظ
Lightning out of the darknessبرقbarqroot برق
Between Najd and Tihāma: opposites that never meetنجدNajdroot نجد
Life after parting as passing awayفناءfanāʾroot فني
The beloved sees herself in the lover's eyeإنسان العينinsān al-ʿaynroot أنس

What each theme is here

Love-desire that bewilders its masters. Even the masters of love-desire (hawā) are bewildered and thrown into confusion by it (4), and the whole sequence records a yearning that does not end while the spirit is tied to a body.
The departing caravan and the effaced abodes. The stock scenes of the Arabic love prelude recur throughout: saddled camels, a driver urged to slow down, greetings sent to tents and ruined traces (5, 17, 22-29, 52-53). The commentary reads them as Divine Ideas and stations.
The heart as the place where the departed beloved dwells. The beloveds have left, yet they 'dwell within the heart's innermost core' (40), and the beloved asks whether it is not enough that she is witnessed in his heart at every moment (33).
The rites of the pilgrimage moved into the lover's person. Minā, the pillars for stoning, the place of sacrifice and Zamzam are mapped onto the lover's heart, soul and blood (20-21), and the circuit of the Kaʿba becomes the scene of fatal glances (44-49).
The glance that kills and the speech that revives. Beauty overwhelms the self: her glance slays and her word restores life as Jesus did (8), and the veiled maidens warn that 'the death of the soul lies in glances' (45).
Lightning out of the darkness. Her smile and a lightning-flash split the darkness together (32), and later lightning and rain revive the land until a bare branch breaks into leaf (58-60). The commentary reads these as disclosures and the descent of divine sciences.
Between Najd and Tihāma: opposites that never meet. Yearning climbs to the highland and passion descends to the lowland, and the lover's state 'has no order for all time' (34-35). Beside this stands the bishopess who baffles the scholars of every scripture (10-12), read as the Essence beyond the Names.
Life after parting as passing away. 'My life, now that they are gone, is nothing but passing away' (39). The commentary gives the word its technical Sufi sense, and the killing glances belong to the same field.
The beloved sees herself in the lover's eye. The closing verse turns the beloved's wonder at the proud lover back on herself: she has seen her own form in the mirror of a man, a phrase that also means 'the pupil of an eye' (63-64).

Connections

Lineage 4

Documented transmission: a chain of reading, teaching, translation or citation, grounded in a verified reference or in the later text itself.

The pre-Islamic and early Arabic nasīb (the love prelude of the ode), e.g. Imruʾ al-Qays's MuʿallaqaArabic poetry · firm
The Tarjumān takes its imagery and forms from the nasīb: the ruined campsite, the departing litters, the camel-driver, the named beloveds (Hind, Salmā, Lubnā) and the longing for Najd. It inherits these through the continuous reading and imitation of this poetry.
Carried byنسيبnasībroot نسب“the love prelude”
- Jaroslav Stetkevych, The Zephyrs of Najd: The Poetics of Nostalgia in the Classical Arabic Nasīb (1993): The conventions of the nasīb, including the ruins, the departure and the nostalgia for Najd, and their persistence in later Arabic poetry.
- Michael A. Sells, Stations of Desire: Love Elegies from Ibn ʿArabi and New Poems (2000): Ibn ʿArabī's reworking of the classical nasīb in the Tarjumān, with translations.
Ibn ʿArabī, Dhakhāʾir al-aʿlāq (his own commentary on the Tarjumān), and the Meccan circle of NiẓāmSufism · firm
The poems were composed after Ibn ʿArabī met Niẓām, the learned daughter of his host in Mecca. He later wrote his commentary to answer critics who took the verses as merely erotic, and the spiritual readings in our apparatus come from that commentary.
Carried by“Niẓām; the self-commentary”
- Reynold A. Nicholson, The Tarjumán al-Ashwáq: A Collection of Mystical Odes by Muḥyiʾddín ibn al-ʿArabí (1911): Edition and translation of the poems with an abridgement of the author's commentary, and the preface on Niẓām and the occasion of the commentary.
- Claude Addas, Ibn ʿArabî ou la quête du Soufre Rouge (1989): The biographical setting in Mecca, the meeting with Niẓām, and the circumstances of the commentary.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, introduction: the youth met circling the KaʿbaSufism · probable
Both texts come from Ibn ʿArabī's years in Mecca, and in both the Kaʿba and its rites are carried into the heart. The Futūḥāt calls the heart 'the goal intended, deposited within your visible body', and the Tarjumān makes the heart the valley of stoning and the soul the place of sacrifice.
Carried byطوافṭawāfroot طوف“circumambulation”
In the library:al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya ¶96 al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya ¶103 Path: The Beloved's face at the House
- Claude Addas, Ibn ʿArabî ou la quête du Soufre Rouge (1989): That the Tarjumān and the opening of the Futūḥāt belong to the same Meccan period of his life.
Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam: the Real and the servant as each other's mirrorSufism · probable
The last verse gives in a love scene the doctrine the Fuṣūṣ states outright: the one to whom the Real discloses Himself sees only his own form, and the human being is the polished mirror in which the Real sees Its names. The poem reverses the roles, so that the beloved sees herself in the lover.
Carried byمرآةmirʾātroot رأي“mirror”
In the library:Faṣṣ Shīth ¶11 Faṣṣ Shīth ¶13 Faṣṣ Ādam ¶3 Path: The mirror
- William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-ʿArabi's Metaphysics of Imagination (1989): Ibn ʿArabī's teaching on self-disclosure and the mirror across his works.

Shared source 2

Both draw on a common ancestor by different routes; grounded like a lineage.

Ibn Sīnā, the Ode on the Soul (al-ʿAyniyya): the dove weeping over effaced encampmentsFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · probable
Ibn Sīnā's soul, a dove cooing over traces effaced by the winds, and Ibn ʿArabī's ruined abodes and ring-dove both draw on the ruins and bird imagery of the classical nasīb. Each bends it to a different end: the philosopher to the soul's exile, the Sufi to the beloved's presence in the heart.
Common ancestor: The classical Arabic nasīb of the ruined encampment
Carried byأطلالaṭlālroot طلل“ruined traces”
In the library:al-ʿAyniyya ¶9 al-ʿAyniyya ¶8 Path: The fall and the return of the soul
- Jaroslav Stetkevych, The Zephyrs of Najd: The Poetics of Nostalgia in the Classical Arabic Nasīb (1993): The ruined encampment and its nostalgia as a shared stock of later Arabic poetry.
Ibn al-Fāriḍ, the Wine Ode (al-Khamriyya)Arabic poetry · probable
Ibn al-Fāriḍ, writing in Cairo in the same decades, also sets divine love in the forms of classical Arabic poetry, in his case the wine song. Both take up the inherited love and wine lyric and fill it with Sufi meaning. No contact between the two men is documented.
Common ancestor: Classical Arabic love poetry (ghazal and nasīb) and wine poetry
Carried by“the beloved's remembrance (dhikr)”
In the library:al-Khamriyya ¶1 al-Khamriyya ¶32 Path: Love: the soul's longing back
- Th. Emil Homerin, From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint: Ibn al-Fāriḍ, His Verse, and His Shrine (1994): Ibn al-Fāriḍ's roots in classical Arabic love and wine poetry, and the mystical readings of his verse.

Resonance, not influence 7

Resonance, not influence: a structural or thematic likeness. No influence is claimed.

Plato, Alcibiades I 132d-133c: the eye that sees itself in the pupil of another eyePlatonism · probable
Socrates argues that an eye sees itself when it looks into the pupil (korē) of another eye, and a soul knows itself by looking into the best part of another soul. Ibn ʿArabī's closing verse uses the same optics, since the Arabic for pupil is 'the little human'. No reading of this dialogue by him is claimed.
Carried byإنسان العينinsān al-ʿaynκόρηkorē“the pupil of the eye”
al-Ghazālī, The Niche of Lights: the lover's words of union and the passing away from passing awaySufism · probable
al-Ghazālī compares the gnostics' utterances of union to 'the words of the lover in a state of excessive passion' and speaks of passing away from oneself. The Tarjumān gives the lover's side of the same experience in verse, and calls life after parting a passing away.
Carried byفناءfanāʾroot فني“passing away”
In the library:Mishkāt al-anwār ¶53 Mishkāt al-anwār ¶54 Path: Unification: the soul at peace
Ibn ʿArabī, The Ringstone of Noah: joining tanzīh and tashbīhAkbarian tradition (after Ibn Arabi) · probable
The lover torn between Najd and Tihāma, highland and lowland, 'opposites that will never come together', has the same shape as the Fuṣūṣ teaching that declaring God only incomparable, or only similar, falls short. The poem voices as an ache what the treatise states as a rule. We do not claim that the commentary itself makes this link.
Carried by“the joining of opposites”
In the library:Faṣṣ Nūḥ ¶4 Faṣṣ Nūḥ ¶7
Dante Alighieri, Vita Nuova (c. 1293)Troubadours and courtly love · probable
Dante, like Ibn ʿArabī, gathered love poems written for a real woman and added his own prose explaining them, and in both the beloved leads toward the divine. Arguments for Islamic influence on Dante concern other works and are contested, so this is resemblance only.
Carried by“self-commentary on love poems”
John of the Cross, Cántico espiritual with his commentaryChristian mysticism (Latin West) · probable
The Spanish Carmelite wrote a love poem of seeking and absence in the idiom of the Song of Songs, and then a prose commentary reading each stanza as a stage of the soul's way to God. The form closely matches the Tarjumān and its commentary, with no link between them claimed.
Carried by“the absent beloved”
Jayadeva, Gītagovinda: Rādhā's longing for Kṛṣṇa in separationVedanta and Hindu thought · probable
This twelfth-century Sanskrit poem, near in date to the Tarjumān, sings erotic love in separation (viraha) amid lush scenery, and devotional readers take it as the soul's love for God. It shows the same move of reading desire as devotion, reached independently.
Carried by“viraha, love in separation”
The troubadours' 'love from afar' (amor de lonh), e.g. Jaufre RudelTroubadours and courtly love · suggestive
The distant lady who does not answer ('over marble statues there is no commanding') and the lover's self-abasement ('here am I, a pauper') resemble the Occitan lyric of love from afar. Whether Arabic poetry shaped the troubadours is debated, and nothing ties them to Ibn ʿArabī.
Carried by“the unanswering lady”
- María Rosa Menocal, The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage (1987): The debated question of Arabic influence on troubadour lyric in general, not any link to Ibn ʿArabī.

Contrast 2

An instructive opposite: the difference teaches something about both.

Plato, Symposium: Diotima's ladder from one beautiful body to the beautiful itselfPlatonism · probable
Diotima's lover climbs away from the beauty of one body toward a beauty 'not infected with human flesh and colours'. The Tarjumān stays with particular maidens, names and places, and the commentary finds divine realities in them as they stand, without leaving them behind.
Carried byτὸ καλόνto kalon“the beautiful”
In the library:Symposium 210b Symposium 211e
Plotinus, Ennead VI.9: the One that is loved and does not loveNeoplatonism · probable
For Plotinus the soul loves and dances around the One, which turns toward nothing below it. In the Tarjumān the beloved speaks, marvels at the lover, and asks whether it is not enough that she is witnessed in his heart, so the longing runs in both directions.
Carried byἔρωςerōs“love”
In the library:Ennead VI.9, ch. 9 Path: Love: the soul's longing back

Claude (opus) via Claude Code, headless, no web access, 2026-09-28. A reference with a check was found and checked with a web search.

Versions

16 layers, each with its licence

The original

Nicholson's edition (London 1911)R. A. Nicholson · 1911Public domain

By: R. A. Nicholson (editor) · 1911
Source:: R. A. Nicholson (ed. & tr.), The Tarjumán al-Ashwáq: a collection of mystical odes by Muhyi'ddín Ibn al-'Arabí (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1911; Oriental Translation Fund, New Series XX), Arabic text pp. 10–47 (poems I–X pp. 15–18). University of California copy, 400 ppi; leaf = printed page + 11 · link ↗
In the reader:: Poems I–X in full (64 abyāt), one passage per bayt; the print reproduced without change
Licence:: Public domain (1911; Nicholson d. 1945; archive.org NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT)
Notes: From Nicholson's own MS N (dated 1029 AH, poems and commentary, twice collated), with the variants of Leiden L (Cod. 875(2) Warner, 992 AH, poems only, first recension) and M (Cod. 641 Warner, 984 AH, poems and commentary). None of the manuscripts is vowelled: the vowels are the editor's. His apparatus is recorded verse by verse (32 entries). Its conventions kept (undotted final yāʾ, waṣla, madda before hamza, ي for hamza in plurals, sukūn on the rhyme in V). Not consulted (to do): the Beirut Dār Ṣādir edition (1961) and al-Kurdī's Cairo edition of the Dhakhāʾir (1968).

Our edition

Our transcription of Nicholson's ArabicClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (transcribed bayt by bayt from the 400-ppi images, each line in enlarged thirds; two further readings) · 2026-09-28
Source:: data/sources/tarjuman-base.json (proofreading, apparatus, uncertain); text record docs/texts/ibn-arabi-tarjuman.md
In the reader:: In full
Licence:: Ours
Made by:: UNVERIFIED (the text record says "Claude" without naming the model), 2026-09-28 (AI transcription of the page images, three readings)
Notes: Pass 2: 8 corrections; pass 3 (a full second reading of all ten poems): 31 corrections to our transcription, none to the print. 10 doubtful readings (print clear, sense or grammar odd) listed; seven remain undecided. The djvu text layer is useless for the Arabic. Human review pending.
UNVERIFIED:: The model that transcribed Nicholson's Arabic is not named in the text record.

Published translations

Nicholson's English translation (1911)R. A. Nicholson · 1911Public domain

By: R. A. Nicholson (translator) · 1911
Source:: R. A. Nicholson, The Tarjumán al-Ashwáq (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1911), "Translation and Commentary" pp. 48–155 (poems I–X pp. 48–66); transcribed from the page images, re-read, and collated word by word with the archive.org OCR · link ↗
In the reader:: Per verse (64), with page references
Licence:: Public domain (1911; Nicholson d. 1945)
Notes: A published layer beside our AI English.

Michael Sells, Stations of DesireMichael A. Sells · 2000Copyrighted: cited only

By: Michael A. Sells (translator) · 2000
Source:: Michael A. Sells, Stations of Desire: Love Elegies from Ibn ʿArabi and New Poems (Ibis Editions, 2000); citation as verified in app/src/content/resonances/_refs.json
In the reader:: Not consulted
Licence:: In copyright: private comparison only

AI layers

Vowels supplied by AIClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (vowelling) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Underlined in amber in the reader (436 marks)
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (scripts/recitals/prepare.py tarjuman (headless, model opus); date = first commit of app/src/data/tarjuman.json)
Notes: The print is fully vowelled by the editor; the AI supplied marks only where the print leaves a letter bare. Two AI interventions against the print (VI.1 madda of ٱلْعَزَآءُ; V.1 ḍamma of ٱلْغُرامْ) were found and reverted by hand: every printed mark is preserved. Every letter checked unchanged; the AI's marks are kept apart from the source's (vowelMask a / t).

English translationClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (translator) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Under each passage
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (scripts/recitals/translate.py tarjuman opus; date = first commit of app/src/content/ai/tarjuman.json (the file has no generatedOn))
Notes: Translated from the Arabic with the glossary in data/sources/tarjuman-meta.json; 64/64 passages. Not a published translation; not scholar-reviewed.

Word glossesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (glosses) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Every word glossed, in the word card
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (made with the translation, same file and call (app/src/content/ai/tarjuman.json); date = its first commit)

Term notesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (term notes) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: In the word card (286 notes)
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (made with the translation (app/src/content/ai/tarjuman.json); date = its first commit)

Synthesis of the interpretationsClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (synthesis) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Per verse, and for poems I–X
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn of app/src/content/synthesis/tarjuman.json (scripts/synthesis.py))
Notes: From public sources only: our AI translation, Ibn ʿArabī's commentary (Nicholson's abridgement) and Nicholson's translation. No copyrighted translation was given to the model.

Themes and resonancesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (map of themes and connections) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: On the About page (whole-text level)
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn of app/src/content/resonances/tarjuman.json (scripts/resonances.py))
Notes: Made by the method in docs/RESONANCES-METHOD.md, without web access. Every connection states its kind; parallels are resonances, not claims of influence. External references are shown only after an agent verified them with a web search.

Automatic analysis

Word analysis: CAMeL ToolsCAMeL Tools 1.6 (CAMeL Lab, NYU Abu Dhabi), scripts/fusus/analyze.py · 2026-09-28Open licence

By: CAMeL Tools 1.6 (CAMeL Lab, NYU Abu Dhabi) (morphological analyser (calima-msa-r13 + MLE)); scripts/fusus/analyze.py (our pipeline) · 2026-09-28
Source:: CAMeL Tools 1.6, calima-msa-r13 database with the MLE disambiguator, constrained by the text's vowelling (scripts/fusus/analyze.py tarjuman.json tarjuman-analysis.json j1) · link ↗
In the reader:: Lemma, root, part of speech and clitics in the word card, with a grey "Automatic" badge
Licence:: Code MIT; calima-msa-r13 database GPL v2 (used offline to produce our analysis layer, not redistributed)
Notes: Automatic, not generative AI. 619 words, 384 with a root, 246 distinct roots, 45 vowel conflicts. Date: first commit of data/sources/tarjuman-analysis.json.

The metre of each verse (rule-based scanner)scripts/metre/arud.py, build.py · 2026-10-03Our work

By: scripts/metre/arud.py, build.py (rule-based ʿarūḍ scanner (al-Khalīl's metres as set out by Ibn Jinnī)) · 2026-10-03
Source:: Our scanner of the classical metres, reading the vowelled hemistich as pronounced and fitting it to the feet with the common licences; metre definitions quoted from Ibn Jinnī, Kitāb al-ʿArūḍ (ed. Aḥmad Fawzī al-Hayb, Kuwait: Dār al-Qalam, 1407/1987), OpenITI 0392IbnJinniMawsili.Carud.JK000956-ara1
In the reader:: The metre line under each verse: metre, scansion of each half, feet; "not scanned" when a verse does not fit its poem's metre
Licence:: Ours (Ibn Jinnī's lines: OpenITI, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Notes: Automatic, not generative AI; it never guesses. A poem's metre is the one that fits most of its verses. One hand note (verse 51: fits al-ṭawīl if read al-shuʿūra; likely a slip in our transcription). Date: first commit of app/src/content/metre/tarjuman.json.

Quran quotations (Tanzil)Tanzil Project, scripts/quran_refs.py · 2026-09-28Open licence

By: Tanzil Project (Uthmani Quran text); scripts/quran_refs.py (automatic skeleton match) · 2026-09-28
Source:: Tanzil Uthmani text; quotations verified when the text was established, plus an automatic skeleton match against the Tanzil Quran (runs with at least two distinctive words); no AI · link ↗
In the reader:: Quran quotations marked in the text, with their verse
Licence:: Tanzil: free to use with attribution and a link to tanzil.net; the text may not be modified
Notes: No verbatim quotation: 8 allusions (27:23, 27:44, 19:57, 3:49, 7:145, 75:26, 3:185, 22:18) recorded and the text left as printed. Automatic, not generative AI. Date: first commit of app/src/data/quran-refs/tarjuman.json.

Commentaries

Ibn ʿArabī's own commentary (Dhakhāʾir al-aʿlāq), in Nicholson's abridged EnglishIbn ʿArabī, R. A. Nicholson · 1911Public domain

By: Ibn ʿArabī (commentator); R. A. Nicholson (abridged translation) · 1911
Source:: R. A. Nicholson, The Tarjumán al-Ashwáq (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1911), "Translation and Commentary": the commentary abridged from his MSS (data/sources/tarjuman-nicholson.json) · link ↗
In the reader:: Per verse (59 of 64 verses), in English only
Licence:: Public domain (1911)
Notes: The Arabic of the Dhakhāʾir is not yet on disk (a public-domain print is to be found and aligned with Nicholson's abridgement).

Audio

Machine voice: Arabicar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech) (text-to-speech) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Each passage can be heard, each word highlighted as it is read
Licence:: Ours; generated on Azure's paid tier, whose terms allow the audio output to be published
Made by:: ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/tarjuman-audio.json)
Notes: Machine voice reading the vowelled Arabic; a reading aid, not a recitation.

Machine voice: Englishen-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech) (text-to-speech) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Each passage can be heard, each word highlighted as it is read
Licence:: Ours; generated on Azure's paid tier, whose terms allow the audio output to be published
Made by:: en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/tarjuman-audio-en.json)
Notes: Machine voice reading the AI English translation; a reading aid, not a recitation.

✦ marks AI that no person has reviewed yet; ✧ marks AI reviewed by a named person. Copyrighted works are cited, never shown. All sources · How texts are established

The text record

Our working notes on this edition: status, witnesses, the decisions taken and why, and what AI supplied. This is a working edition, not an authority.Show the notes

Work / author / dates	Tarjumān al-ashwāq (ترجمان الأشواق, "The Interpreter of Desires"), a dīwān of 61 love poems · Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (560–638 AH / 1165–1240 CE)
Part added	Poems I–X (64 abyāt), one library text id `tarjuman`; later poems to be appended as further sections
Reader route	`/read/tarjuman` (not yet created: needs a page under `app/`)
Status	working edition, transcribed and proofread twice (28 Sept 2026) · reviewed by: —

1. Witnesses

Siglum	Witness	Kind	Vowelled?	Licence	Location
Nich	R. A. Nicholson (ed. & tr.), The Tarjumán al-Ashwáq: a collection of mystical odes by Muhyi'ddín Ibn al-'Arabí, London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1911 (Oriental Translation Fund, NS XX). Arabic text pp. 10–47 (preface pp. 10–14; poems I–X pp. 15–18); "Translation and Commentary" pp. 48–155 (I–X pp. 48–66).	standard ed.	yes: fully vowelled by the editor (the MSS are not vocalized, Nicholson p. 9)	public domain	archive.org `tarjumanalashwaq00ibnaiala` (University of California copy, 400 ppi, NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT). Downloaded locally (PDF, jp2 page images, djvu text). Scan leaf = printed page + 11 (`.../page/n{leaf}`); jp2/png file number = printed page + 12.
N	Nicholson's own MS, dated 1029 AH, poems (in red) + commentary; twice collated. Base of his text.	MS	no	—	via Nich
L	Leiden, Cod. 875(2) Warner, 992 AH: poems only, with the preface of the first recension.	MS	no	—	variants in Nich's apparatus
M	Leiden, Cod. 641 Warner, 984 AH: poems + commentary (fuller than N's, with excerpts from the Futūḥāt).	MS	no	—	variants in Nich's apparatus
—	Other copies of the scan: archive.org `tarjumnalashwqco0000ibna`, `tarjumanalashwaq029354mbp`, DLI `in.ernet.dli.2015.213238` (same edition).				not used

Not consulted (to do): the Beirut Dār Ṣādir edition of the Tarjumān (1961 and reprints) and of the Dhakhāʾir al-aʿlāq; M. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kurdī's Cairo edition of the Dhakhāʾir (1968); modern translations (Sells, Stations of Desire, 2000; Ruiz/Álvarez, etc.) are copyrighted: private comparison only.

2. Base and why

Nicholson 1911 is the only critical edition that is openly usable, it is based on a good twice-collated MS with the variants of two Leiden MSS, and it is fully vowelled. Its Arabic text is our base, transcribed from the page images; its English is published alongside as a public-domain layer.

3. Transcription and proofreading

Transcribed bayt by bayt from the 400-ppi images: each line cut into enlarged right/middle/left thirds (scripts in the session scratchpad: lines.py, stack.py, zoom.py), close-ups for doubtful marks. The djvu text layer is useless for the Arabic.
Pass 2: every line re-read against fresh crops (full re-read of I, II, VIII; targeted close-ups for the rest). 8 transcription corrections (listed in tarjuman-base.json → proofreading), none to the print. An independent vowel-mark proofread is still recommended before review.
The print's conventions kept: final yāʾ undotted (ى), waṣla (ٱ), madda over alif before hamza (ٱلْعَزَآءُ), ي for hamza in plurals (سحايب, غداير, عقايل), sukūn on the rhyme letter in V, tanwīn on diptotes metri causa.
Changes to the print: none. Doubtful readings (print clear, sense or grammar odd) are listed in uncertain (10): II.10 عبّيت, II.12 شرّتها, V.1 ٱلغُرام (ḍamma in print; gharām expected), V rhyme sukūn, VII.1/IX.5 tanwīn on diptotes, VII.2 عَنَ ٱنوار, VII.8 ٱلشُّعْور, VIII.6 ٱلرُّوَيْدا, IX.2 hamza spellings, VII footnote 8 keying.
Nicholson's apparatus (variants of L and M against N) is recorded verse by verse: 32 entries in apparatus.

4. Decisions (substantive)

None: we reproduce Nicholson's text. His own decisions (N preferred to LM) are visible in apparatus.

5. Quotations and allusions

Verified against the Tanzil Uthmani text (matched on the consonantal skeleton, verse words quoted in quotes[].verseText): 27:23 (Bilqīs's throne, II.2), 27:44 (the glass palace II.3; sāqayhā II.5; aslamat II.12), 19:57 (Idrīs, II.3), 3:49 (Jesus quickening the dead, II.4), 7:145 (the tablets of Moses, II.5), 75:26 (the soul at the collar-bones, II.11), 3:185 (zuḥziḥa, II.12, verbal echo), 22:18 (stock formula a-lam tara anna, VII.5). None is a verbatim quotation: all are allusions, so the text is left as printed. Poetry: IV.3 echoes Imruʾ al-Qays's Muʿallaqa ("the night let down its curtains"); hadith: X.2 perhaps "the believer is the mirror of the believer": both noted from knowledge, not yet linked to editions. scripts/quran_refs.py has not been run for this text (its TEXTS table would need a tarjuman entry; shared script, not edited).

6. Vowelling

Source: the print (Nicholson). scripts/recitals/prepare.py tarjuman (Claude opus, 3 workers) supplied marks only where the print leaves a letter bare: 436 AI marks (mask 'a'), letters verified unchanged in all 64 passages.
Two AI interventions against the print were found by checking every printed mark and reverted by hand in tarjuman.json: VI.1 madda of ٱلْعَزَآءُ turned into plain alif by prepare.py's Mehren rule; V.1 ḍamma of ٱلْغُرامْ changed to fatḥa. After the fix, every printed mark is preserved.

7. Segmentation and word IDs

One passage per bayt, hemistichs separated by "\n" (the reader shows two-line verse). Passage n = 1…64 running through the poems; each passage carries poem, line (Nicholson's numbering) and label ("II.5"). sections in the base lists the poems. Word IDs j1:<passage>:<token>.

8. Analysis layer

scripts/fusus/analyze.py tarjuman.json tarjuman-analysis.json j1 (CAMeL Tools): 619 words, 384 with root, 246 distinct roots, 45 vowel conflicts.

9. Commentaries

Ibn ʿArabī's own commentary, Dhakhāʾir al-aʿlāq, is available here only in Nicholson's abridged English (data/sources/tarjuman-nicholson.json, per passage). The Arabic of the Dhakhāʾir is not yet on disk (a public-domain print: Beirut 1312 AH lithograph? to check on archive.org/HathiTrust).

10. Translation

Published (public domain): Nicholson 1911, verse translation + abridged commentary, per passage with page references: data/sources/tarjuman-nicholson.json (64 verses, 59 with commentary). Transcribed from the page images, re-read, and collated word by word with the archive.org OCR as an independent reading (residual differences: OCR noise only).
AI: scripts/recitals/translate.py tarjuman opus → app/src/content/ai/tarjuman.json (64/64 passages, glosses and term notes), glossary in tarjuman-meta.json (nasīb, aṭlāl, Niẓām, rīḥ al-ṣabā, place-names, pilgrimage rites, Christian vocabulary of II).

Context

Niẓām. In the preface to the first recension Ibn ʿArabī tells that on arriving in Mecca in 598/1202 he met the Persian scholar Makīn al-Dīn Abū Shujāʿ Zāhir b. Rustam al-Iṣfahānī and his aged sister Fakhr al-Nisāʾ, and Makīn al-Dīn's young daughter Niẓām, called ʿAyn al-Shams wa-l-Bahāʾ, famed for beauty, learning, asceticism and eloquence. He celebrated her in these poems in the language of love, and says that every name he mentions alludes to her, every abode he mourns is hers, and all of it signifies divine influences and spiritual realities (Nicholson pp. 3–4). The Dhakhāʾir. At Aleppo a theologian doubted that claim, suggesting the mystical preface was cover for erotic verse. At the request of Badr al-Ḥabashī and Ismāʿīl b. Sawdakīn, Ibn ʿArabī wrote the commentary, Dhakhāʾir al-aʿlāq, reading every image as a figure of divine knowledge; after hearing it the critic withdrew his doubt (Nicholson pp. 4–5). The second recension dates the poems to Rajab–Ramaḍān 611/1214; Dozy thought the author post-dated them; Nicholson rejects the charge (pp. 5–8).

12. Open questions

Independent proofread of the vowel marks of III–VII and IX–X (pass 2 was partly targeted).
Obtain a public-domain Arabic text of the Dhakhāʾir al-aʿlāq; align it with Nicholson's abridgement.
Compare with the Dār Ṣādir text (private) and record differences.
Link the Imruʾ al-Qays echo and the mirror hadith to editions; run quran_refs.py once the text is registered.
Poems XI–LXI (Arabic pp. 18–47; English pp. 66–155) remain.
translate.py wrote an empty app/public/data/commentaries/tarjuman.json (no commentators); the Nicholson commentary is a separate public layer, not in that file.

13. Change log

2026-09-28: poems I–X established from Nicholson 1911 (64 abyāt); Nicholson's English layer; prepare, analysis (j1), AI translation.

Proofreading status (2026-09-28)

All ten poems have now had a full second reading against the page images (third pass): 31 corrections to our transcription (19 marks the print has that had been left out, 12 marks the print does not have), each logged in tarjuman-base.json → proofreading.correctionsInPass3. Seven readings remain undecided (see uncertain), notably VI.1 ٱلْعَزآءُ, VII.4 أَعْلام, VII.8 ٱلظُّلُماتِ and the fatḥa with the shadda in تَحِيّة (III.6, IV.2).