The tanbur is back… A few months ago, in 2018, a couple of steps away from the oldest piano in the world, a showcase was inaugurated in the department of musical instruments at the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York). Dedicated to a few “famous musicians” of the 20th century, it featured a Benny Goodman clarinet next to a guitar that belonged to Andrés Segovia as well as one of Ostad Elahi’s tanburs, crafted by the lute maker Nariman, along with a video including explanations and archived images that harked back to the 2014-2015 Sacred Lute exhibit, that we covered here.

This third article of reflection on the “Quintessence of Religions” is the last in a series dedicated to Ostad Elahi’s poem. After the question of “God” and that of “evil”, Leili Anvar’s commentary now invites us to reflect on the notion of the “good”. To give a “quintessential idea” of what the good is, Ostad Elahi reformulates here the two phases of the Golden Rule that determine what the theologian and philosopher Olivier du Roy defines as the “ethics of the reciprocity and fundamental intersubjectivity of man”.

After reflecting on the question of God and what “putting one’s faith in that One” truly means, we continue here our series on Ostad Elahi’s poem “The Quintessence of Religions” with a second excerpt from Leili Anvar’s commentary of this text, which was originally published (in French) in the proceedings of the symposium “Quelle sagesse pour notre temps ?”. This second excerpt examines the question of “evil”.

In his poem entitled “The Quintessence of Religions”, Ostad Elahi lays out in a few verses what he considers to be the result of a lifetime of experience. This “(quint)essential” summary brings to light, among other things, the relationship between ethical and divine principles. Leili Anvar made it the subject of a conference she gave in 2011 on the occasion of the “Day of human solidarity”, the video of which was posted on this very site. The text published in the proceedings of the symposium (Quelle sagesse pour notre temps ?) is a revised and more detailed version of her oral contribution.

“A snake-catcher went to the mountains to catch a snake by his incantations…”. Using this tale recounted by the Persian mystical poet Rumi as a starting point, Leili Anvar introduces here the notion of imperious self.

The imperious self is a central concept in Ostad Elahi’s philosophy. It is this product of the human psyche against which we must relentlessly struggle in order to make spiritual progress, for it is the origin of those of our impulses that systematically and insidiously arise to contradict correct ethical thoughts.

A lecture and a series of concerts presented on 16 November 2014 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with the exhibition The Sacred Lute: The Art of Ostad Elahi are now available in video on the website of the museum. This “Sunday at the Met” features an introduction by Ken Moore, Curator in Charge of the Department of Musical Instruments, a lecture by Jean During, Director of Research at the Centre de Recherche en Ethnomusicologie and performances by the Garcia-Fons Quartet and Parissa and Ensemble.

The musician, composer and writer Clive Bell dedicates his November column in the British music magazine The Wire to Ostad Elahi’s music and the current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Sacred Lute: The Art of Ostad Elahi”.

Ken Moore, Curator in charge of the Department of Musical Instruments at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gives a tour of the exhibition “The Sacred Lute: The Art of Ostad Elahi” on NYC-ARTS’s latest episode.

In the execution of my duties as a judge, Ostad Elahi said, I would do things that no one else dared to do, for I was answerable to God, not to the Ministry, and was not afraid of anyone. The following anecdote—a translated excerpt from the collection of Ostad Elahi’s sayings (Words of Truth), who departed from this world just forty years ago on 19 October 1974—provides a concrete example of the above. It shows how sincere faith is also a source of boldness and unshakable trust.

John Schaefer showcases an excerpt of the special commemorative CD-book issued by the Metropolitan Museum and Harmonia Mundi for the exhibit, “The Sacred Lute: The Art of Ostad Elahi”, on the New Sounds programme of 30 September 2014 (Episode #3643), on WNYC.