N. TENIGINA: "Whether You Are a Muslem..."

"Whether You Are a Muslem..."

(From Omar Khayyam)
Whether you are a Muslem, a Jew or a Heathen – 
Try to bear unblemished your soul to Heaven.
In your faith, always be, like an arrow, strait!
Or to lie in a quiver – you will be ‘enlivened’.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, February, 2003