The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi: A Lay of the Higher Law

About this book

A wandering pilgrim speaks about life's uncertainty, the limits of reason and the hope that wisdom might be found beyond inherited beliefs. The poem appears to have come from an Eastern sage.

In fact Richard Burton wrote The Kasidah himself, presenting it under the invented name Haji Abdu El-Yezdi and disguising his authorship as translation. Its verses mix philosophical doubt with ideas drawn from his wide reading and travels. Knowing the deception gives the work a second dimension: the voice of the supposed sage becomes a mask through which Burton tested his own convictions.