I have seen these verses in the handwriting of Ibrahim ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Su’alati, who acknowledged them as his (meter: kāmil):
Lithe as a shoot, my tormentor in blue
passes by, exulting in his pride.
Tobacco smoke envelops his face, going up
from inside him like mist on a winter's day,
as if screening his beauty—like the full moon's
when it rises, and dazzles in the paleness of its sky—
as if screening it from people's eyes
lest they fall slain by him [as have I!]
These anonymous verses are quite similar (meter: ṭawīl):
When he comes into view, in his caftan of blue,
swaggering with pride in outrageous beauty,
I cannot suppress my cry of "Stop!" at all who blame me,
"And behold my full moon in his dark sky!"
Poets and writers choose from a range of hues to describe the sky, which changes under different conditions and forms of expression. Some describe it in terms of zurqa "blueness," as in the verses above, whose authors follow this description of a girl in blue by Abu ‘Uthman al-Najim (meter: khafīf):
Qabul surpasses the occasion when she arrays
herself in raiment as brilliant as herself,
dressed in blue and topped with a face
like the full moon in the paleness of the sky.
Thus did the ancients describe it. When the sun is shining, the sky's blueness is an azure hue produced by the mixture of blue and white, the color of blood flowing in a vein.
The sky is called akhdar "blue-green" in hadith: "No one more truthful than Abu Dharr ever went beneath the blue-green [sky] or trod the dust-brown [earth]."
And it is called lazawardi "azure," as where Abu Hafs ibn Burd described a boy dressed in that color (meter: majzū’ al-kāmil):
In azure silk, the sight of him
blotted out everything else.
"What mortal is this?" I exclaimed
at his exorbitant beauty.
"Let no one deny the moon," he answered
the right to go robed in the sky!"
Some call the sky banafsaji "violet," as where Ibn al-Mu‘tazz described a boy in opulent brocade (meter: majzū’ al-kāmil):
I marvel at a violet robe.
To see it is to die a lover's death.
Dressed in it now, you are become
a full moon in the hue of its sky.
From The Fragrance of Green Herbs and Dewy Coating on Wine-Vessels of the Tavern by Muhammad Amin al-Muhibbi
