| Tianfangshifing, a Chinese name for the Egyptian poet Busyir's Gasuid-Burda, a long classical Islamic poem of eulogizing the Prophet Muhammad, was translated into Chinese by Ma Dexin and his disciple Ma Anli in the Qing dynasty. Islam holds the view of human being's three phases of life, i.e. previous life, this life, and afterlife. The fact that Muhammad was eulogized based on these very three phases of life is an underlying thread of the poem, and it is also on which that my paper has been divided into five parts.The first part deals with the eulogizing character of the poem. Next three parts analyze the poem from the perspective of previous life, this life, and afterlife respectively. The paper suggest that the poem's seeing Muhammad's nature in previous life as the symbol of "holy light" and the origin of the Creature, regarding Muhammad himself in this life as the paragon of all the people, and describing Muhammad as an intermediary between God and man by rescuing them at the Judgement Day highly reflects the poet and the translator's extremely eulogizing the noble position of Muhammad in Islam. Last part, a summary, touches the forms and ways of eulogizing, as well as religious affiliation of the poem. |
