Responding to the Call of God: The Motif of Devotional Love in the Poetry of Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam

Abstract

Abstract: This article explores several thematic synergies across Hindu and Muslim devotional sensibilities through an analysis of selected songs from two influential Bengali poet-thinkers: Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) and Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899–1976). This study offers an exploratory engagement with these songs in the form of new translations from the original Bengali and reflections that suggest fertile theological parallels between their verses. Through a close reading of these selected songs, certain common themes are discernible, such as the paradoxes of intimacy and painful distance as constitutive of the divine-human relation, the world as suffused with the creative word(s) of God, and the illumination of the heart as key to the spiritual life. These themes can be organized under the broader relational rubric of "call-and-response:" God's call to humanity is voiced in various ways in the world, eliciting a reciprocal response that is both devotional and loving. While these songs are marked by distinctive scriptural imageries, including references to both the Upanishads and the Qur'ān, their mutual resonances speak to shared sensibilities that are modulated by characteristically Bengali idioms and symbolisms.