Born December 11, 1906
Jeyhounabad,Kermanshah
Died July 15, 1993 (aged 86),Paris
Other names Sheikh Jâni, Saint Jani
Occupation Author, Poet
Malak Jân Nemati (or Malek Jân Nemati) was born in 1906 in Jeyhounabad, a village in Iranian Kurdistan. Also known as Sheikh Jâni and Saint Jani, she was a charismatic figure and a mystical writer and poet in Kurdish and Persian language. She was the daughter of Hajj Nematollah and the sister of Ostad Elahi. There are few written sources about her life. Some elements can be found in the words of her brother Ostad Elahi[1] whom she was very close to. A biography in French was published on the occasion of the centennial of her birth, including the translation of some of her poems and sayings.[2]
Biography
Malak Jan was born into a family belonging to the mystical order the Ahl-e Haqq (literally “Friends of the Truth”). Her father Hajj Nematollah was an outstanding spiritual personality who gave up a comfortable life a few years before she was born to devote himself to finding the Truth. So from a very early age, Malak Jan was initiated with the rest of her family to asceticism and prayer, but also and above all to ethical and spiritual reflection.
While in those days and in those remote regions of Kurdistan, new-born girls were greeted with condolences, it is noteworthy that Malak Jan received the same comprehensive education as her elder brother.[3] With Kurdish as her mother tongue, she learned Persian and Arabic and set about studying the revealed books and the extremely rich Iranian poetry from which she would later draw her inspiration when writing her own poems.[4] She was also given a musical education as she learned to play the tanbur (Kurdish lute accompanying Ahl-e Haqq sacred chants) and the setar (classical Persian lute). Hajj Nematollah was particularly fond of her. In keeping with his wish, she wore a white habit and bonnet “so that people could not tell whether it was a boy or a girl”.[5] She actually wore that outfit throughout her life.
When she was fourteen, she had to suffer the grief of losing her father. Shortly afterwards, she experienced a painful ocular condition and by the age of twenty, she was completely and permanently blinded.[5] The loss of her eyesight, though, seems to have coincided with the awakening of a form of mystical passion[6] that led her to progressively draw closer to her brother Ostad Elahi and she became one of his most accomplished followers. When Ostad Elahi died, she quite naturally took up the torch of his spiritual teaching.[7]
Progressively, Malak Jan's personality, her meaningful spiritual reflection and constant practice of charity[8] earned her a reputation for saintliness in her deeply religious milieu. People around her wrote down what she said and the advice she gave, and a certain number of their notes have been translated into French.[9]
Despite her handicap, Malak Jan spent her whole life studying anatomy, science, history, geography, using, for instance, audiotaped courses. This passion for knowledge amounted to a spiritual as well as an intellectual approach. Malak Jan was opposed to what she called “superstitious spirit”[10] and attempted to tackle spirituality with reflection and knowledge. She refused to blindly accept principles turned into dogmas: "In the beginning, I would say to myself: 'I have to understand by myself'. I would not believe what other people said. For instance, I had to understand by myself that there is a world beyond, that there is a God, that there are spiritual laws, that the soul is eternal… I first resolved the question of the existence of God, then I understood that there is an Account and that no being will be wronged…"[11]
Malak Jan first endeavored to progressively develop this way of dealing with spirituality among the peasants of Jeyhounabad, known in the country since then as "the village of philosophers".[12] In the same spirit, she contributed to improving to living conditions of the villagers by having electricity brought or by inventing an interest-free microcredit system.[13] Although living in a deeply patriarchal society, she used her spiritual authority to defend more specifically women's rights, by gradually teaching mothers to look after their daughters as much as their sons, by getting fathers to leave them a share of inheritance equal to that of their brothers.[14] Towards the end of her life, Malak Jan brought a certain number of reforms to the Ahl-e Haqq form of worship that contributed to attributing women the same level of dignity as men on the ritual plane. To Ahl-e Haqq devotees these reforms amounted to a doctrinal revolution and the most traditionalist branches of the order expressed their hostility.
Malak Jan Nemati died in 1993 in France after having open-heart surgery. She was buried in the Perche region of France, in a small village called Baillou. A stone and glass shrine has been erected on her grave in her memory: the Saint Jani Memorial.[15]
Composed in her native Kurdish, the following selection of poems by Malak Jan had originally remained in manuscript form. She never considered herself a poet, and as the following poems attest these verses naturally emanated from her love for the Beloved, revealing an intimate knowledge of the various stages and levels in the process of spiritual perfection.
Exalted
Without scent
Without color
My Beloved is One
Without scent or color
Without color
My Beloved is One
Without scent or color
No wrath or affection
No temperament or mood
No time or place
Neither ancient nor new
No temperament or mood
No time or place
Neither ancient nor new
Ascribing any quality to the Beloved
Is blasphemy through and through
Rendering me blasphemous
And ignorant, too
Is blasphemy through and through
Rendering me blasphemous
And ignorant, too
O heart, won’t you stir yourself to join the Beloved
Cease your diversions with these scents and colors!
Scents, colors, lights—the whole of creation
Your path to salvation it cannot deliver
Cease your diversions with these scents and colors!
Scents, colors, lights—the whole of creation
Your path to salvation it cannot deliver
Unless and only if
With the help of Ostad
The Beloved were to be pleased with me
Perhaps then might He grant my liberty
With the help of Ostad
The Beloved were to be pleased with me
Perhaps then might He grant my liberty
On this path that we travel
Ostad Nour Ali is my guide
Draped in sin from head to toe
He is the sanctuary in whom I confide
Ostad Nour Ali is my guide
Draped in sin from head to toe
He is the sanctuary in whom I confide
Jani was a lifeless corpse
A corpse among the dead
Ostad resurrected me
And by His grace exalted me
A corpse among the dead
Ostad resurrected me
And by His grace exalted me
16 July 1941
-----------------
Intoxication
O heart, be a nightingale
O heart, be intoxicated like a nightingale
May your bird alight on a flower’s stem and sing
May its fragrant core your heart’s desire bring
O heart, be intoxicated like a nightingale
May your bird alight on a flower’s stem and sing
May its fragrant core your heart’s desire bring
Behold the flower’s core, so fragrant and sweet
From dawn till dusk, sacred chants gently repeat
This fragrant core to the nightingale’s intoxication leads
From intoxication the process of perfection proceeds
From dawn till dusk, sacred chants gently repeat
This fragrant core to the nightingale’s intoxication leads
From intoxication the process of perfection proceeds
Until one is intoxicated and the ego cast aside
This treacherous path is impossible to stride
O hypocrite, don’t be like those who hibernate
Dead in the winter, come summer they resuscitate
This treacherous path is impossible to stride
O hypocrite, don’t be like those who hibernate
Dead in the winter, come summer they resuscitate
April 1953
--------------
You
Wherever I look, there is no one but You
O Unique, Peerless, Savior, You!
O Unique, Peerless, Savior, You!
The door, the ceiling, the veranda, all You
No one is there other than You!
No one is there other than You!
Every manifestation past, and those that come anew
When are you apart from You, O You who are You!
When are you apart from You, O You who are You!
You are the one who rid these eyes of their duplicity
You are the one who revealed the station of Unicity
You are the one who revealed the station of Unicity
This world and next, the earth and heavens too
O peerless Unique, they are all but You!
O peerless Unique, they are all but You!
The seeker and the sought, the lover and the beloved
O Necessary Being, are they all not You?
O Necessary Being, are they all not You?
Praise to Your glory, and glory to Your power
For master and disciple at once are You!
For master and disciple at once are You!
A veiled secret how is it You remain?
That my reason is not illumined by knowing You?
That my reason is not illumined by knowing You?
1 December 1953
-----------------
Mirror of Wonders
You are the match
and the lamp
The gardener
and the garden
and the lamp
The gardener
and the garden
You are the nightingale
and the song
The flower
and the fragrance
and the song
The flower
and the fragrance
You are hundreds of colors
every hour
You are war and peace
both at once
every hour
You are war and peace
both at once
You are the mirror
of wonders
Present and absent
together at once
of wonders
Present and absent
together at once
3 December 1953
--------------------
Eternal Spring
O nightingale, how long in this garden will you stay
On this barren branch passing your life away?
On this barren branch passing your life away?
All paths have been blocked by the ice and the snow
You’re dying from the cold, to your homeland go!
You’re dying from the cold, to your homeland go!
O nightingale, this frosty garden don’t you perceive?
For the love of which flower do you refuse to leave?
For the love of which flower do you refuse to leave?
Return to your homeland, where spring is eternal and green
Where flowers and rosebuds by the thousands teem
Where flowers and rosebuds by the thousands teem
December 1955
References
Nur Ali Elahi, Asar-ol Haqq (Words of Truth), Volume 1, Tehran, 3rd edition (1987) and Volume 2, Tehran (1991). Each volume is divided into numbered sayings. References to these volumes appear hereinafter as AH1 and AH2 followed by the number of the saying.
Leili Anvar, Malek Jân Ne'mati - La vie n'est pas courte mais le temps est compté, Diane de Selliers, Paris (2007).
Anvar, supra note 2, p. 35.
A number of her poems have been translated from Kurdish to French in Leili Anvar's book (cited above note 2), pp. 69-103.
AH2, 91.
AH2, 94.
Anvar, supra note 2, pp. 30 and 45 to 49.
Anvar, supra note 2, pp. 51-53
Anvar (2007), pp. 105-132
See, Anvar, supra note 2, p. 42
See, Anvar, supra note 2, pp. 44-45.
Anvar, supra note 2, p. 30.
Anvar, supra note 2, p. 56
Anvar, supra note 2, p. 55
Multibeton: Mausoleum Ste. Janie, Baillou, Frankreich
wikipedia
