Poetry of the Taliban is the first-ever English-language collection of verse from the Afghan militant group. Edited by Kandahar-based researchers and journalists Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, the book is an attempt to broaden international understanding of what historian Faisal Devji refers to in the introduction as the Taliban movement's "aesthetic dimension."
Afghanistan, like other Muslim countries in the region, has a long tradition of popular verse, and the Taliban -- both its official leadership and individual fighters -- have embraced the form. Despite the group's austere interpretation of Islam, which extends to a complete ban on instrumental music, recordings of poetry recitations are frequently traded between fighters on CDs and MP3s and often serve as soundtracks for the movement's propaganda videos.
Shakespearean love sonnets they are not. But those expecting doctrinaire propaganda might be surprised by the range of the verse in the book. "The Taliban are known not only in the West, but in much of the Muslim world, too for their strict conservatism rather than for any delicate feelings of humanity, yet the poetry associated with them is replete with such emotions," Devji writes.
Yes, there are paeans to the glory of the battlefield and vicious parodies of enemy leaders, but also a surprising emphasis on comradeship and some chaste and ambiguous references to romantic love. In its ideology, the poetry tends more toward Afghan nationalism than global jihad, with frequent reference to past invaders, from the British in the 19th century to the Soviets in the 20th.
Poetry of the Taliban is currently on sale in Britain and will be published in the United States on July 17. Here are six examples from the collection:
May I be sacrificed for you, my homeland
May I be sacrificed, sacrificed for your high, high mountains,
For your flowerlike chest and pines
May I be sacrificed for you, my homeland, each region of yours is beauty,
Each of your stones are rubies, each bush of yours is medicine.
Each village of yours is a trench, and every youth of yours is sacrificing for you,
Each mountain and hill of yours is a calamity for your enemies.
May I be sacrificed for your dusty deserts and green valleys,
For your flowerlike chest and pines.
May I be sacrificed, sacrificed for you; I will sacrifice my head and property for you,
I will give you my body's blood in order to make you fresh and thriving.
I will murder all the enemies of your religion and prosperity,
I will gradually make you the holy necklace of Asia.
May I be sacrificed, sacrificed, for your hot trenches,
For your flowerlike chest and pines.
May I be sacrificed, sacrificed for your Helmand, your chest,
For your mountains, Uruzgan, your Kandahar-like trenches,
For Zabul's trenches and Ghazni's honorable battlefields,
For Gurbat, Gurbat Wardak, Maidan and Lowgar.
May I be sacrificed, sacrificed for your great youths,
For your flowerlike chest and pines.
May I be sacrificed, sacrificed for you while my homeland, Kunar is alive,
Your youths from Paktika and Farah are heroes.
Your people from Nangarhar and Laghman are successful,
You have trained famous sons.
May I be sacrificed, sacrificed for your dry ruins,
For your flowerlike chest and pines.
May I be sacrificed, sacrificed for your Hindu Kush and Mahipar,
For your Shamshad, Shah-I Kot, Spin Ghar and Tur Ghar.
My ditch-filled country! You have trenches all over.
Your body is Maiwand, Maiwand, you are Habibi's beloved.
May I be sacrificed for your burnt wounds,
For your flower-like chest and black pines.
'Habibi
Transcribed from a recording made during the 1990s
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