Chehel Asrar - Attributed Short Poems

Attributed short poem 1

2 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 481

عَیْب اَسْت بُلَنْد بَرْکَشِیدَن خُود رَا

ʿayb ast boland bar-kashīdan khod rā

1a  It is a fault to raise yourself above others,

وُ زِ جُمْلِهٔ خَلْق بَرْگُزِیدَن خُود رَا

o ze jomle-ye khalq bar-gozīdan khod rā

1b  and single yourself out from all creation.

Commentary on couplet 1

The speaker calls it a fault to elevate oneself and select oneself from among all creation. The two infinitives describe connected actions: self-exaltation becomes a claim to stand apart from everyone else. The repeated khod rā, “yourself,” places the self at the receiving end of its own promotion. Bar-gozīdan, choosing or singling out, makes the criticism especially pointed, since the person confers the distinction upon themselves. The verse concerns the posture through which one claims superiority. Its ethical force lies in questioning self-appointed precedence and preparing the following couplet’s alternative: an attention directed toward other people. Hamadani connects recognizing one’s faults and God’s greatness with humility and kindness. [1]

اَز مَرْدُمَکِ دِیدِه بِبَایَد آمُوخْت

az mardomak-e dīde bebāyad āmūkht

2a  Learn from the pupil of the eye:

دِیدَن هَمِه کَس رَا وُ نَدِیدَن خُود رَا

dīdan hame kas rā o na-dīdan khod rā

2b  it sees everyone, yet never sees itself.

Commentary on couplet 2

The pupil of the eye becomes a teacher because it sees others without making itself the object of its gaze. The second half gives the lesson its balanced form: seeing everyone corresponds to not seeing oneself. As a poetic analogy, the eye models attention that serves without continually displaying its own importance. The claim concerns the direction of ordinary looking, rather than a technical account of vision. Read with the preceding criticism, self-forgetting means release from the demand to be foremost. The image presents humility as an active capacity to notice others, giving the poem a positive task beyond restraining pride.

Understanding this poem

This short poem asks how a person can participate among others without constantly placing the self above them. Its first couplet names the error directly; its second makes an everyday organ into an ethical teacher. The movement from judgment to example keeps the instruction concrete. Anyone who sees already carries the proposed model within their own body. Yet the poem does not celebrate the body in general or construct a detailed psychology. It selects one relation: the eye directs attention outward while its own activity remains unobtrusive.

Repetition gives the argument its shape. Khod rā, “yourself,” closes the first, second, and fourth hemistichs, but changes its relation to the verb. The self is first raised, then chosen, and finally left unseen. These endings turn grammar into an account of attention: the question is what one does with the self as an object of concern. The inclusive phrases concerning creation and everyone broaden the setting beyond a private contest for status. Humility becomes a way of remaining available to those whom self-importance would otherwise push into the background.

The final image also distinguishes this counsel from a demand to despise oneself. The pupil is useful precisely through what it can do; its value does not depend upon looking at its own value. On a spiritual reading, this offers a modest account of self-effacement grounded in conduct, without asserting the disappearance of a person’s existence. No separate metaphysical doctrine is needed to explain the verse. Its particular insight is that a capacity may become more generous when it ceases to make its own distinction the center of attention.

Sources and textual notes

1. Hamadani, Dhakhīrat al-mulūk, in Mohammad Umar Farooq, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani’s Dhakiratul Muluk: An Annotation and Translation (PhD thesis, University of Kashmir, 2009), printed p. 454. The English translation was checked; the Persian was not independently collated.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991 reference and attribution remain unverified; the reading text is preserved unchanged.

Attributed short poem 2

2 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 481

نَه دِیدِه بُوَد کِه جُسْتُجُویَش نَکُنَد

na dīde bovad ke jostojūy-ash na-konad

1a  There is no eye that does not seek him,

نَه کَام وُ زَبَان کِه گُفْتُگُویَش نَکُنَد

na kām o zabān ke goftogūy-ash na-konad

1b  no mouth or tongue that does not speak of him.

Commentary on couplet 1

The opening declares that every eye seeks “him” and every mouth or tongue speaks of him. The beloved remains unnamed here, while the next couplet’s explicit love for God supplies a devotional context. The repeated negatives make the claim universal, joining sight and speech as movements of desire and expression. Its force is poetic: the speaker perceives seeking and speaking as oriented toward one supreme object. Whether this orientation is consciously recognized remains unstated. That openness matters when the poem next imagines a heart without divine love, introducing a difficulty that the opening’s sweep has not resolved.

هَر دِل کِه دَرُو مِهْرِ اِلٰهِی نَبُوَد

har del ke dar-ū mehr-e elāhī na-bovad

2a  Any heart that holds no love for God—

گَر پِیشِ سَگ اَفْکَنَنْد بُویَش نَکُنَد

gar pīsh-e sag afkanand būy-ash na-konad

2b  throw it before a dog, and it would not even sniff it.

Commentary on couplet 2

A heart without love for God is imagined as something even a dog would refuse to sniff. The conditional scene turns an inward absence into a stark judgment of worth: what should animate the person has lost its attraction. The dog’s refusal intensifies the insult by denying the heart even an animal’s passing interest. This is the poem’s severe devotional valuation, expressed through hyperbole; it gives no instruction about how to treat another person. Read after the universal opening, the verse distinguishes the claim that all faculties seek God from the love whose presence makes the heart spiritually meaningful.

Understanding this poem

This poem places an expansive affirmation beside a severe exclusion. Every eye seeks the unnamed “him,” and every tongue speaks of him; nevertheless, a heart without love for God is imagined as worthless. The explicit reference to divine love in the third hemistich encourages a devotional reading of the opening pronoun. The contrast should retain its difficulty. The poem does not explain whether universal seeking describes a hidden orientation of all beings, an ideal of devotion, or the lover’s heightened perception of the world around them.

The bodily imagery gives that tension an immediate form. Eye, mouth, and tongue conduct relations with what is outside, while the heart supplies an inward measure. Looking and speaking may therefore be read as incomplete without an affection that makes their object matter personally. This reading follows the arrangement of the images rather than attributing a formal doctrine to the author. The closing dog introduces another perceiving creature, whose refusal to smell the heart overturns the opening abundance of perception. What everyone ostensibly seeks must also become something the person inwardly loves.

The final image deliberately wounds complacency. Its rhetorical target is the imagined loveless heart, and its violence of judgment belongs to devotional poetry’s effort to make an inward lack palpable. Turning that image into a social verdict about particular people would add a claim the poem does not establish. Its ethical demand can instead be heard by the reader as a question about the quality of their own seeking and speech. The poem gives love decisive weight: an apparently universal orientation becomes spiritually searching when the heart must answer for its participation.

Sources and textual notes

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991 reference and attribution remain unverified; the reading text is preserved unchanged.

Attributed short poem 3

2 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 481

گَر مِهْرِ عَلِی وُ آلِ بَتُولَت نَبُوَد

gar mehr-e ʿAlī o āl-e Batūl-at na-bovad

1a  If you have no love for ʿAlī and Batūl’s family, [1]

اُمِیدِ شَفَاعَت زِ رَسُولَت نَبُوَد

omīd-e shafāʿat ze Rasūl-at na-bovad

1b  you have no hope of the Messenger’s intercession.

Commentary on couplet 1

The speaker makes love for ʿAlī and Batūl’s family a condition of hope in the Messenger’s intercession. Batūl identifies Fāṭima in the supplied note, so the address joins affection for ʿAlī with attachment to the Prophet’s household. Muslim 2408a records the Prophet’s repeated reminder concerning his family. [2] Shafāʿat means intercession, pleading on another’s behalf; Qurʾan 20:109 places its efficacy under divine permission and approval. [3] Within that context, the poem connects hoped-for aid with present love. Its uncompromising conditional gives the relationship urgency: someone seeking the Messenger’s concern must examine their own concern for those named here. Hamadani’s preface honors the Prophet’s family for their guiding role. [4]

گَر طَاعَتِ حَقّ جُمْلِه بَرْآوَرْدِی تُو

gar tāʿat-e Haqq jomle bar-āvardī to

2a  Even if you have fulfilled every act of obedience to God,

بِی‌مِهْرِ عَلِی هِیچ قَبُولَت نَبُوَد

bī-mehr-e ʿAlī hīch qabūl-at na-bovad

2b  without love for ʿAlī, none of it is accepted from you.

Commentary on couplet 2

The second couplet grants the addressee every imaginable act of obedience, then declares all unacceptable without love for ʿAlī. Jomle, all, faces hīch, none, making a complete inventory of deeds collapse before one missing affection. Qabūl concerns acceptance, shifting attention from what a person performs to how that offering is received. Muslim 78 associates love for ʿAlī with faith. [2] This provides a pertinent devotional context while leaving the poem responsible for its stronger formulation about every deed. The verse presses its claim through exaggeration of the obedient person’s achievement, giving love a constitutive place in the worship it values.

Understanding this poem

This short poem addresses an unnamed worshipper whose hopes and accomplishments are tested by love for ʿAlī and Fāṭima’s family. It does not tell a story or describe a private mystical experience. Its force comes from two parallel conditions: without that love, hope of the Messenger’s intercession fails; even universal obedience gains no acceptance. The repeated second-person endings direct each consequence toward the hearer. Affection is therefore presented as integral to religious commitment, carrying a weight that no accumulation of acts can replace within the poem’s devotional vision. The family named in the opening remains personally specific throughout this demand.

The movement from intercession to acceptance links two different relations. In the first, the worshipper hopes for assistance from the Messenger; in the second, the worshipper offers acts of obedience to God. Love joins the reception of aid with the giving of service. The cited hadith contexts concern regard for the Prophet’s household and love for ʿAlī as a mark of faith. [2] They illuminate the language without supplying the poem’s exact totalizing conclusion. Likewise, the Qurʾanic context locates intercession within divine permission, so the hope expressed here belongs within dependence upon God. [3]

The supplied attribution remains a reservation: these lines alone cannot establish Hamadani’s authorship or assign their author to a particular sectarian identity. Their clear subject is the relation between devotional allegiance and worship. The final couplet brings the warning to its sharpest point by imagining obedience already complete. A person might count everything done and still overlook the affection on which the poem insists. Its closing therefore asks what gives an offering its inward character when the outward inventory appears beyond reproach.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes

[1] 1a: Batūl is a title of Fāṭima, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad and wife of ʿAlī. The lines express the poem’s devotional claim.

Editorial references

2. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 78 and 2408a, on love for ʿAlī and regard for the Prophet’s household. These contexts do not reproduce the poem’s complete claim about acceptance.
3. Qurʾan 20:109, on intercession under divine permission and approval.
4. Hamadani, Dhakhīrat al-mulūk, Farooq translation, printed p. 53; edition details in poem 1, reference 1.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991 reference and attribution remain unverified; the reading text is preserved unchanged.

Attributed short poem 4

2 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 481

پُرْسِید عَزِیزِی کِه عَلِی اَهْلِ کُجَائِی

porsīd ʿazīzī ke ʿAlī ahl-e kojāʾī

1a  A dear friend asked, “ʿAlī, where are you from?”

گُفْتَم بِوِلَایَتِ عَلِی، کَز هَمَدَانَم

goftam be-velāyat-e ʿAlī, k-az Hamadān-am

1b  I said, “By my allegiance to ʿAlī, I am from Hamadan. [1]

Commentary on couplet 1

A friend asks the speaker, addressed as ʿAlī, where he belongs; the reply joins Hamadan with allegiance to ʿAlī. The repeated name makes the personal address resonate with the figure to whom the speaker declares attachment. As the supplied note explains, velāyat can refer to territory, authority, or spiritual allegiance, allowing geographical origin and devotion to inhabit the same answer. The conversation thus turns an ordinary question of provenance into a statement of affiliation. Its first-person voice is part of the poem’s dramatic situation; neither the name nor the place by itself verifies the identity of its historical author.

نِی زَان هَمَدَانَم کِه نَدَانَنْد عَلِی رَا

nī z-ān Hamadān-am ke na-dānand ʿAlī rā

2a  I am not from a Hamadan where they do not know ʿAlī;

مَن زَان هَمَدَانَم کِه عَلِی رَا هَمِه دَانَم

man z-ān Hamadān-am ke ʿAlī rā hame dānam

2b  I am from that Hamadan where I regard ʿAlī as everything.” [2]

Commentary on couplet 2

The speaker distinguishes two Hamadans through their relation to knowing ʿAlī. The first is rejected for its ignorance; the second is embraced through the difficult closing preserved in the supplied reading. On that provisional interpretation, hame supplies what the speaker regards ʿAlī as: “everything.” The clause therefore remains a personal declaration, rather than being silently changed into “everyone knows ʿAlī.” Hamadān and dān-, “know,” bind place and recognition through sound. The devotion is emphatic, but the compressed wording leaves its exact force uncertain. The poem’s contrast concerns the meaning of belonging, without establishing facts about the city’s inhabitants.

Understanding this poem

This short poem makes a question about origin into an occasion for declaring allegiance. A friend addresses someone named ʿAlī and asks where he comes from. The speaker answers through Hamadan, but immediately qualifies what that place means to him. Place of origin becomes inseparable from the figure he honors. The conversational form gives the profession a personal immediacy: devotion emerges in an answer to another person, rather than as an abstract proposition announced without a setting. The historical identity of this speaking “I” remains unverified.

The reply develops through overlapping words. Velāyat brings territory, authority, and spiritual allegiance into contact, while Hamadān echoes the verbal stem dān-, knowing. The result is a geography organized by recognition. One Hamadan is refused because ʿAlī is not known there; another becomes the place to which the speaker can belong. These are the poem’s contrasting constructions of a name, not evidence that two actual cities or communities are being documented. The verbal play allows an inherited location to be redefined through an attachment that the speaker actively professes.

The difficult final clause must keep the provisional status stated in the reading note. If “I regard ʿAlī as everything” is accepted, the closing changes the emphasis from others’ lack of knowledge to the speaker’s own encompassing esteem. “Everything” then carries devotional intensity without supplying a worked metaphysical account of ʿAlī’s being. The grammar should not be replaced merely to produce a smoother communal declaration. What remains clear across the uncertainty is the poem’s transformation of provenance into a chosen relation: the speaker answers where he belongs by revealing whom he recognizes and loves.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes

[1] 1b: Velāyat can mean a province, authority, or spiritual allegiance. The reply plays on place of origin and allegiance to ʿAlī.

[2] 2b: The difficult printed closing is provisionally read as “I regard ʿAlī as everything,” with همه as the object complement of دانم. It also plays on Hamadān and dān- (“know”).

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991 reference and attribution remain unverified; the reading text is preserved unchanged.

Attributed short poem 5

2 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 481

غَمْنَاکَم وُ اَز دَرِ تُو بَا غَم نَرَوَم

ghamnāk-am o az dar-e to bā gham na-ravam

1a  I am sorrowful, but I will not leave your door in sorrow;

جُز شَاد وُ اُمِیدْوَار وُ خُرَّم نَرَوَم

joz shād o omīdvār o khorram na-ravam

1b  I will leave only joyful, hopeful, and glad.

Commentary on couplet 1

The sorrowful speaker refuses to imagine leaving the addressee’s door with sorrow unchanged. Three near-synonyms—joyful, hopeful, and glad—expand the desired transformation, while the repeated na-ravam, “I will not go,” makes perseverance audible. The door places the speaker at the point of access, where need can be acknowledged before someone capable of answering it. No particular request or promised gift is named. The declaration belongs to the supplicant’s voice: it expresses determined confidence in the encounter rather than reporting that relief has already arrived. Hope becomes something the speaker practices while still standing in grief.

اَز دَرْگَهِ هَمْچُو تُو کَرِیمِی هَرْگِز

az dargah-e hamcho to karīmī hargez

2a  From the threshold of one as generous as you,

نَوْمِید کَسِی نَرَفْت مَن هَم نَرَوَم

nowmīd kasī na-raft man ham na-ravam

2b  no one has ever left in despair; nor will I.

Commentary on couplet 2

The speaker grounds personal hope in the addressee’s generosity, claiming that no previous visitor has left this threshold despairing. Karīm describes a generous person and also supports devotional address to God; the verse leaves the identity unstated. The movement from “no one” to “nor will I” places the speaker within an imagined community of recipients. Qurʾan 39:53 provides a relevant devotional context by calling those who have wronged themselves away from despair of God’s mercy. [1] The poem’s sweeping assurance remains its own formulation. Its confidence concerns the giver’s generosity without specifying how, or when, the present grief will change.

Understanding this poem

This short poem gives sorrow a voice of resolute expectation. Its speaker stands at a door, describes present distress, and insists upon leaving with a changed disposition. The situation is deliberately spare: the source of grief, the identity of the addressee, and the gift sought all remain unstated. That openness accommodates a human beloved or generous patron as well as devotional supplication. What the poem makes definite is the relation between need and generosity. The speaker approaches someone whose character can sustain hope even before a response has been received.

Repetition supplies the poem’s emotional structure. The refusal to depart returns at the ends of three half-lines, but its significance changes through the surrounding language: sorrow is resisted, joy is anticipated, and despair is finally excluded from the imagined departure. The second couplet supplies the reason for that confidence by describing the threshold’s history as universally generous. This is the supplicant’s avowal, whose persuasive force depends upon praising the person addressed. The speaker neither presents a transaction nor names a service that could purchase relief. Generosity itself becomes the ground upon which the request is made.

A devotional reading therefore centers on trust expressed from within distress. Hamadani places spiritual gifts beyond personal control while encouraging purification and hopeful readiness. [2] The Qurʾanic context cited above supports turning toward mercy, while the poem’s language keeps the anticipated outcome in the speaker’s hopeful voice. Its certainty is emotionally forceful without supplying a timetable or an account of how another person’s suffering must end. The threshold remains the governing image: it holds together present need, patient approach, and openness to reception. Sorrow begins the poem, but the repeated refusal to leave gives hope the last word.

Sources and textual notes

1. Qurʾan 39:53, the call to turn away from despair of God’s mercy.
2. Hamadani, Dhakhīrat al-mulūk, Farooq translation, printed p. 414; edition details in poem 1, reference 1.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991 reference and attribution remain unverified; the reading text is preserved unchanged.

Attributed short poem 6

2 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 481

حَاشَا کِه زِ زَخْمِ تِیغ وُ خَنْجَر تَرْسِیم

hāshā ke ze zakhm-e tīgh o khanjar tarsīm

1a  Never would we fear the wound of sword or dagger,

وَز بَسْتَنِ پَای وُ رَفْتَنِ سَر تَرْسِیم

v-az bastan-e pāy o raftan-e sar tarsīm

1b  or fear our feet being bound and our heads cut off.

Commentary on couplet 1

A collective “we” rejects fear of wounds, captivity, and execution. The opening hāshā gives the declaration an emphatic, almost indignant force, while the two halves move from threatened injury to the loss of freedom and life. No event, enemy, or historical speaker is identified. The violence belongs to the dangers the speakers claim they could endure, establishing the scale against which the next couplet will measure public opinion. This is a poetic profession of steadfastness under threat. Its rhetoric describes the speakers’ asserted courage without prescribing injury, retaliation, or a practical course of action.

مَا گَرْم‌رَوَان، دُوزَخ‌آشَامَانِیم

mā garm-ravān, dūzakh-āshāmān-īm

2a  Fiery of soul, we drink down hell; [1]

اَز گُفْت وُ شَنِیدِ خَلْق کَمْتَر تَرْسِیم

az goft o shenīd-e khalq kamtar tarsīm

2b  still less do we fear people’s talk and gossip.

Commentary on couplet 2

The speakers call themselves fiery of soul and imagine drinking down hell before dismissing people’s talk as a lesser fear. The supplied note provisionally treats garm-ravān as a compound, without an ezafe after ravān; the commentary follows that reading. Dūzakh-āshāmān turns an overwhelming threat into something swallowed, intensifying the collective boast through deliberate impossibility. The final kamtar, “still less,” reveals its argumentative purpose: voices that claim to withstand such extremity will scarcely be ruled by gossip. Hell-drinking functions as rhetorical magnification here. The verse does not explain an afterlife doctrine or establish freedom from moral accountability.

Understanding this poem

This short poem constructs a collective voice through a sequence of increasingly extreme professions of fearlessness. Swords, daggers, bonds, and execution establish threats to the body; the image of drinking hell then carries the declaration beyond bodily possibility. Only in the final half-line does the immediate comparison become clear: ordinary talk and gossip should possess little power over speakers who profess such endurance. The poem names neither their undertaking nor the people criticizing them. Its force comes from the disparity between the dangers invoked and the social pressure finally dismissed.

The first-person plural gives the utterance the sound of a shared pledge, though it does not identify a historical community. Repeated forms of “we fear” allow the speakers to name fear while refusing its authority over their declared position. The imagery changes from receiving wounds and suffering restraint to swallowing an overwhelming fire, making the second couplet more active and defiant. On the supplied provisional reading, the speakers’ fiery quality answers hell’s heat with a corresponding intensity. The compound’s uncertainty remains relevant: the interpretation rests on the text as given rather than on a silently reconstructed phrase.

A spiritual reading may hear a refusal to let public reputation determine fidelity to a chosen commitment. The poem does not name that commitment, however, so it cannot by itself establish the truth of every cause defended with courage. Nor does its dismissal of gossip make all criticism worthless. Its hyperbole expresses a stance toward intimidation; it supplies no warrant for violence or exemption from responsibility. The closing comparison brings extravagant language back to a recognizable human difficulty: remaining steady when other people’s speech threatens to govern one’s conduct.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes

[1] 2a: گرم‌روان is provisionally read as a compound, “fiery of soul,” describing the hell-drinkers; no ezafe is supplied after روان.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991 reference and attribution remain unverified; the reading text is preserved unchanged.

Attributed short poem 7

2 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 482

گَر بَدْرِ مُنِیرِی وُ سَمَا مَنْزِلِ تُو

gar badr-e monīrī o samā manzel-e to

1a  Even if you are a radiant full moon, with heaven for your home,

وَز کَوْثَر اَگَر سِرِشْتِه بَاشَد گِلِ تُو

v-az Kowsar agar sereshte bāshad gel-e to

1b  and even if your clay was kneaded with Kawthar’s water, [1]

Commentary on couplet 1

The speaker imagines the addressee possessing celestial beauty and an origin formed from heavenly water. A radiant full moon inhabiting heaven supplies the first distinction; clay kneaded with Kawthar supplies the second. Both are concessive possibilities, preparing a judgment still to come. Qurʾan 108:1 names Kawthar as a gift to the Prophet, while Bukhārī 4964 identifies a heavenly river by that name. [2] Kneading the addressee’s clay with its water is the poem’s own imaginative extension. The clay keeps creaturely formation within an otherwise luminous scene, making an extraordinary beginning the strongest possible example of a privilege that may prove insufficient.

گَر مِهْرِ عَلِی نَبَاشَد اَنْدَر دِلِ تُو

gar mehr-e ʿAlī na-bāshad andar del-e to

2a  if love for ʿAlī is absent from your heart,

مِسْکِین تُو وُ سَعْیْهَایِ بِی‌حَاصِلِ تُو

meskīn to o saʿy-hā-ye bī-hāsel-e to

2b  how pitiable you are, and how fruitless all your striving.

Commentary on couplet 2

The imagined heavenly person is declared pitiable and their striving fruitless if love for ʿAlī is absent from the heart. The first couplet’s height and radiance now face an inward lack, and the repeated tū makes both distinction and disappointment belong to the same addressee. Meskīn voices pity sharpened into rebuke; material poverty is not the point. Muslim 78 connects love for ʿAlī with faith, providing a relevant devotional context. [3] The poem makes its own emphatic judgment about the worth of striving. Its attention falls on the heart, where celestial appearance and an imagined privileged origin cannot supply the missing love.

Understanding this poem

This poem tests the value of spiritual distinction by imagining an addressee endowed with every visible sign of heavenly privilege. The full moon offers radiance, heaven provides a dwelling, and Kawthar’s water enters the clay of creation itself. These are possibilities granted for the sake of argument. The poem does not announce anyone’s actual celestial origin. Its second couplet brings the entire imagined condition before one question: does love for ʿAlī dwell in the heart? The answer determines the worth of a person whose outward splendour has already been described in the strongest terms.

The arrangement makes height and inwardness speak to each other. Heaven lies above, while clay evokes the material from which the addressee is formed; the heart then becomes the decisive interior. Kawthar connects the imagined beginning with a gift named in Qurʾan 108:1 and identified as a heavenly river in the cited hadith. [2] The poem extends this context into its own account of kneading clay. Those bestowed advantages are then joined by personal exertion in the closing reference to striving. Neither what one is imagined to have received nor what one undertakes compensates, in this devotional claim, for love’s absence.

The ending moves from admiration to pity without changing the addressee. The same person who could resemble a full moon becomes meskīn, pitiable, because the heart lacks the allegiance the speaker values. The words retain their severity as the poem’s judgment; they do not independently establish its attribution or a universal ruling about other people’s worship. No pen name resolves the speaker’s identity. What remains is a concentrated challenge to confidence in status: the most splendid imagined beginning still leaves the question of inward love unanswered.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes

[1] 1b: Kawthar (Persian Kowsar) evokes the abundant heavenly gift and the river or pool of Paradise; compare Qur’an 108:1.

Editorial references

2. Qurʾan 108:1; Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4964, on Kawthar’s river; and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 400a, relating the river to the Prophet’s pool. The kneading of clay is the poem’s imaginative extension.
3. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 78, on love for ʿAlī and faith; see also poem 3, reference 2.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991 reference and attribution remain unverified; the reading text is preserved unchanged.

Attributed short poem 8

2 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 482

شَاهَا زِ کَرَم بَر مَنِ دَرْوِیش نِگَر

shāhā ze karam bar man-e darvīsh negar

1a  O King, look kindly upon me, a poor dervish;

بَر جَانِ مَنِ خَسْتِهٔ دِلْرِیش نِگَر

bar jān-e man-e khaste-ye del-rīsh negar

1b  look upon my weary, wounded soul.

Commentary on couplet 1

A poor dervish asks a king to look with kindness upon a weary, wounded soul. The paired commands to look make attention the immediate form of relief sought: before any named gift, the speaker asks to be seen. Shāhā, “O King,” establishes an asymmetry of standing, while darvīsh presents dependence and need. The title can address a human sovereign or bear devotional significance; the wording does not settle the referent. Bodily weakness and inward hurt meet in the description of the soul, giving the appeal a vulnerable intimacy within its formal language of rank.

هَرْچَنْد نِیَم لَایِقِ بَخْشَایِشِ تُو

har chand niyam lāyeq-e bakhshāyesh-e to

2a  Though I am unworthy of your forgiveness,

بَر مَن مَنِگَر بَر کَرَمِ خِویش نِگَر

bar man ma-negar bar karam-e khīsh negar

2b  look to your generosity, rather than to me.

Commentary on couplet 2

The speaker acknowledges unworthiness of forgiveness, then asks the addressee to take generosity itself as the measure of response. The commands turn upon a precise verbal reversal: “look upon me” becomes “do not look upon me,” followed by “look upon your own generosity.” The apparent contradiction distinguishes receiving compassionate attention from being assessed solely by personal desert. Bakhshāyesh is retained as “forgiveness” in the supplied translation, making pardon central to the plea. The speaker’s admission of inadequacy supports the request rather than ending it. Hope rests on what the giver can freely give, not on a claim that the applicant has earned it.

Understanding this poem

This short poem arranges a plea around the act of looking. A dervish asks a king for a kindly gaze, repeats the request over a wounded soul, and then startlingly asks the king to look away from the applicant toward the king’s own generosity. The change gives the poem its governing distinction: the speaker wants compassionate attention while fearing a judgment based only on personal worthiness. Rank, poverty, weariness, and injury all contribute to this unequal encounter. No specific offense, material need, or promised response is disclosed in the four half-lines.

The king’s identity remains open. A human ruler could grant pardon or aid, while a devotional reading directs the plea toward divine generosity. In either reading, the speaker invokes a quality of the addressee rather than presenting an inventory of personal achievements. Karam, generosity, frames the appeal in its opening and closing, so the final turn returns to the ground on which the first request was made. The confession of unworthiness intensifies the need for that quality. It is the supplicant’s judgment of personal desert, expressed within a plea, rather than a detached account of the person’s total value.

The closing asks that generosity determine the response without claiming control over it. Humility and hope consequently strengthen one another: acknowledging need makes an appeal possible, and the giver’s character prevents that acknowledgment from collapsing into despair. The dervish remains dependent upon a decision that the poem does not narrate. Its compact form ends with the proposed measure of that decision still before the addressee. The wounded speaker’s strongest appeal is that the king answer in keeping with the generosity by which the king has been addressed.

Sources and textual notes

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991 reference and attribution remain unverified; the reading text is preserved unchanged.

Attributed short poem 9

2 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 482

دِلْ‌تَنْگَم وُ دِیدَارِ تُو دَرْمَانِ مَنَسْت

del-tang-am o dīdār-e to darmān-e man ast

1a  My heart aches, and seeing you is my cure; [1]

بِی‌رَنْگِ رُخَت زَمَانِه زِنْدَانِ مَنَسْت

bī-rang-e rokhat zamāne zendān-e man ast

1b  without the radiance of your face, the world is my prison.

Commentary on couplet 1

The speaker names seeing the beloved as the heart’s cure, then imagines the whole world as a prison without the beloved’s face. Del-tang suggests a heart constricted by longing, and zendān enlarges that constriction into the surrounding world. The supplied “radiance” conveys the enlivening effect of rang, color or complexion, in the face. The contrast makes relief depend upon encounter rather than a change of scenery. The beloved remains unnamed, allowing human longing and devotional desire to resonate together. These are the speaker’s emotional measures of presence and absence, not a report that the hoped-for meeting has occurred.

بَر هِیچ دِلِی مَبَاد وُ بَر هِیچ تَنِی

bar hīch delī ma-bād o bar hīch tanī

2a  May no heart and no body ever suffer

آنْچِه اَز غَمِ هِجْرَانِ تُو بَر جَانِ مَنَسْت

ānche az gham-e hejrān-e to bar jān-e man ast

2b  what my soul suffers from the grief of separation from you.

Commentary on couplet 2

The speaker turns from describing personal distress to wishing that no one else should undergo it. Heart, body, and soul give the anguish an encompassing reach, while the repeated hīch, “no,” extends the wish beyond a particular companion or fellow lover. The final line returns to the speaker’s own suffering, but that return now supports concern for others. Ma-bād expresses a wish that such pain never befall them; it does not announce that suffering has ended. The turn gives separation an ethical consequence: the lover’s experience becomes a reason to spare others, rather than a distinction to demand that others earn.

Understanding this poem

This quatrain moves from the exclusiveness of personal longing to a wish embracing every heart and body. At first, the speaker’s entire experience is organized around one face: seeing it would heal, while its absence makes the world confining. The beloved is addressed directly but never identified. Nothing in the supplied wording requires choosing between a human encounter and a devotional longing for presence. The poem’s small scale holds an immense emotional claim, since a single relationship determines whether the surrounding world feels habitable.

Its imagery joins inward sensation with outward space. The constricted heart finds its counterpart in a prison-like world, and the face’s color or radiance supplies the contrast through which confinement is felt. The second couplet changes the purpose of this description. Having made the grief palpable, the speaker wishes it upon no one. The pairing of heart and body refuses to confine anguish to a single aspect of the person. The final reference to the soul gathers the pain back into the speaker while leaving the generous wish intact. No cure is narrated, yet the voice has moved beyond its own need.

The attribution requires particular care because the supplied editor explicitly questions its assignment to Hamadani. A closely matching text also appears in Ganjoor’s collection of Rumi’s Dīvān-e Shams quatrains, numbered 321. [2] That placement documents another attribution rather than settling authorship without manuscript investigation. The reservation should remain visible while the poem is read on its own terms. Its decisive movement does not depend upon identifying its author: the person who describes the world as a prison can still wish freedom from such pain for everyone else.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes

[1] 1a: The source editor questions the attribution of this particular quatrain to Hamadani.

Editorial references

2. Ganjoor, Rumi’s Dīvān-e Shams, quatrain 321, a closely matching text placed under Rumi’s name. This documents another attribution; it does not independently establish authorship.

Editorial note: The supplied attribution reservation is retained. Neither Riaz 1991 nor the authorship of this quatrain has been independently established here.

Standalone couplet

1 couplet  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 482

دَارُویِ دَرْدِ جَانَان سُوز وُ گُدَاز وُ زَارِی اَسْت

dārū-ye dard-e jānān sūz o godāz o zārī ast

1a  Burning, melting, and lamentation are the cure for the ache of the beloved;

مَنْشُورِ مُلْکِ عِشْقَش اَنْدُوه وُ ذُلّ وُ خَوارِی اَسْت

manshūr-e molk-e ʿeshq-ash andūh o zoll o khārī ast

1b  sorrow, abasement, and humility are the charter of the kingdom of his love.

Commentary on couplet 1

The couplet calls burning, melting, and lamentation a cure for longing, then makes sorrow and abasement the charter of love’s kingdom. The two halves overturn expected measures of relief and authority: the lover’s distress becomes medicinal, and humility carries the dignity of a royal grant. Manshūr denotes a sovereign’s decree or charter, giving the second image its public authority. [1] Sūz and godāz describe an inward intensity that loosens settled self-possession. The statement belongs to the language of devoted longing. It gives suffering a meaning within that relationship without saying that every pain is beneficial or that suffering should be inflicted.

Understanding this poem

This standalone couplet joins two paradoxes through a single account of love. The first half asks what can treat the lover’s ache and answers with experiences that seem to deepen it: burning, melting, and lamentation. The second asks what authorizes participation in love’s kingdom and names sorrow, abasement, and humility. No particular speaker is named and no scene of encounter is narrated. Instead, the verse offers a compact definition of the lover’s standing, measured by what the relationship does to the person who enters it.

The medicinal and royal vocabularies give that definition different kinds of force. A remedy should restore someone, while a charter should establish recognized standing. Here restoration entails being softened, and standing is conferred through lowliness. The triads in the two halves make these reversals rhythmically cumulative: inward heat and lament answer the sorrow and reduced self-importance of the second line. The poem thus gives experiences usually counted as losses a place within a valued allegiance. Its royal metaphor dignifies humility without changing the grief into pleasure or claiming that the lover has already received consolation.

Hamadani’s discussion of gratitude places a beloved’s blow above a rival’s favor in the lover’s estimation, giving the relationship priority over immediate comfort. [2] This is a documented literary parallel, whose meaning depends upon the devotional relation it imagines. The couplet itself leaves the beloved’s response unstated and presents no practical demand that someone endure mistreatment. Its emphasis falls on the lover’s relinquishment of pride and willingness to express need. The charter of this kingdom grants a standing that becomes legible through humility.

Sources and textual notes

1. Dehkhoda, Loghatnāma, “Manshūr”, on the word’s use for a sovereign’s decree or charter.
2. Hamadani, Dhakhīrat al-mulūk, Farooq translation, printed p. 328; edition details in poem 1, reference 1.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991 reference and attribution remain unverified; the reading text is preserved unchanged.

Chehel Asrar 41 - Forty First Ghazal

Ghazal 41

8 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 479–480

مِیانِ آبِ حَیاتی و آب مِی‌جُویی

miyān-e āb-e hayāt-ī o āb mī-jūyī

1a  You are amid the water of life, yet you search for water;

فَرازِ گَنْجی و اَز فاقِه دَر تَک و پُویی

farāz-e ganj-ī o az fāqe dar tak o pūyī

1b  you sit atop a treasure, yet poverty keeps you running about.

Commentary on couplet 1

The addressee searches for water while immersed in life-giving water and runs about in poverty while sitting above treasure. These paired situations make restless effort look misdirected: the needed good is already close, but remains unrecognized. Āb-e hayāt, the water of life, gives the first image a promise of renewal; the treasure gives the second a hidden abundance. Farooq’s translation of Hamadani includes a passage closely matching this water-and-treasure pair, followed by echoes of couplets 2 and 7. [1] The poem’s question is therefore where and how the seeker looks. Its spiritual paradox concerns failure to recognize an available richness, without making material poverty unreal or treating every practical search as a mistake.

تُو کُویِ دُوسْت هَمِی جُویی و نَمِی‌دانی

to kū-ye dūst hamī jūyī o namī-dānī

2a  You keep seeking the friend’s lane, unaware

کِه گَر نَظَر بِحَقِیقَت کُنی تُو آن کُویی

ke gar nazar be-haqīqat konī to ān kūy-ī

2b  that if you look into reality, you are that very lane.

Commentary on couplet 2

The seeker repeatedly looks for the friend’s lane, while the speaker declares that the seeker is that very lane. This is stronger than saying that the destination is nearby: the place of encounter belongs to the addressee’s own reality. Yet the predicate names the lane, not explicitly the friend, preserving the image’s relational character. Gar, “if,” makes a changed way of seeing the condition for recognizing what the speaker already affirms. Be-haqīqat can suggest looking truly or looking into reality; in either case, unawareness distorts the search. The outward route folds back toward the one pursuing it. The verse calls for recognition of that relation, leaving the closing couplet to ask what such recognition requires of the heart.

رُخی کِه آیِنِه بِنْمُودِه اَسْت نِیز اَز تُسْت

rokhī ke āyene benmūde ast nīz az tost

3a  The face the mirror has shown also comes from you;

چُو نِیک دَر نِگَری اَصْل و فَرْعِ آن رُویی

cho nīk dar negarī asl o farʿ-e ān rūy-ī

3b  when you look closely, you are that face, root and branch.

Commentary on couplet 3

The face shown by the mirror comes from the addressee, who is then identified with that face “root and branch.” The compressed second half can also be heard as “you are the root and branch of that face”; the supplied rendering is retained. Source and visible manifestation are drawn into an intimate relation that exceeds merely admiring a reflection. As an Akbarian comparison, Qūnawī describes a perfected witness perceiving things through identity with them after limiting bonds loosen. [2] His passage concerns realized witnessing; this ghazal still calls someone toward recognition. The comparison gives substance to the identification without reducing it to private fantasy. The mirror image itself leaves the precise relation between the familiar individual and the reality recognized open to interpretation.

زِ بُویِ زُلْفَش اَز آن غافِلی کِه مَزْکُومی

ze bū-ye zolf-ash az ān ghāfel-ī ke mazkūm-ī

4a  You are unaware of the fragrance of the beloved’s tresses because your nose is blocked;

وَگَرْنِه اَز خَمِ زُلْفَش تُو خُود یِکی مُویی

vagarna az kham-e zolf-ash to khod yekī mūy-ī

4b  otherwise you yourself are a single hair among those curling tresses.

Commentary on couplet 4

The beloved’s fragrance is missed because the seeker’s nose is blocked, although the seeker already belongs among the curling tresses. The almost comic diagnosis relocates the difficulty from the beloved’s absence to an obstruction in perception. Being one hair makes the relation intimate while preserving particularity: this hair belongs within the tresses rather than standing outside them. As an Akbarian comparison, Qūnawī describes ignorance veiling extreme nearness while denying division or indwelling in divine manifestation. [3] Such a reading understands participation without turning a hair into a detachable piece of God. Within the poem, the immediate point remains sensory and affectionate: fragrance surrounds someone unable to notice it, and clearing the obstruction would disclose a belonging that is already asserted.

سُرادِقِ جَبَرُوتی مُعَطَّر اَز دَمِ تُسْت

sorādeq-e jabarūtī moʿattar az dam-e tost

5a  The pavilion of divine power is fragrant with your breath;

تُو مُشْکِ طَیِّبی و اَز جَهْل جِیفِه مِی‌بُویی

to moshk-e tayyeb-ī o az jahl jīfe mī-būyī

5b  you are sweet musk, yet in ignorance you sniff carrion.

Commentary on couplet 5

The addressee’s breath perfumes a pavilion of divine power, yet the same person turns toward carrion instead of recognizing the sweet musk that they are. The first half gives breath an influence extending beyond the visible human body; the second exposes a failure to value its source. Jabarūtī describes the pavilion as pertaining to divine power, while the direct identification with musk belongs to the following half-line. These distinctions matter because the verse praises the person’s spiritual significance through more than one relation. Jahl, ignorance, now names the misdirection explicitly. The fragrant breath and the nose seeking decay occupy the same scene, making the contrast one of mistaken attraction rather than distance from the good.

حَظایِرِ مَلَکُوت اَز تُو زِیب مِی‌یابَد

hazāyer-e malakūt az to zīb mī-yābad

6a  The sacred precincts of the spiritual kingdom gain their beauty from you;

تُو دَر مَزابِلِ طَبْع و هَوا چِه مِی‌جُویی

to dar mazābel-e tabʿ o havā che mī-jūyī

6b  what are you seeking in the dunghills of instinct and desire?

Commentary on couplet 6

The spiritual kingdom’s sacred precincts receive beauty from the addressee, who nevertheless searches among the dunghills of instinct and desire. The rhetorical question asks why someone who contributes to such splendor would choose this degraded setting. Malakūt gives the first half its spiritual horizon, but the poem supplies no fixed map connecting it with the preceding pavilion of jabarūt. Its immediate work is contrast: elevated precincts face accumulated waste, and giving beauty faces looking for satisfaction. Tabʿ and havā, instinct and desire in the supplied translation, concern the inclinations governing this misplaced search. The following couplet specifies greed and envy, helping locate the criticism in destructive attachments rather than in the mere fact of embodied life.

گُلی زِ گُلْشَنِ وَصْلی فُتادِه اَنْدَر خاک

golī ze golshan-e vasl-ī fotāde andar khāk

7a  You are a rose from the garden of union, fallen into dust;

مِیانِ گُلْخَنِ حِرْص و حَسَد چِه مِی‌پُویی

miyān-e golkhan-e hers o hasad che mī-pūyī

7b  why do you wander through the furnace of greed and envy?

Commentary on couplet 7

The addressee is a rose from union’s garden, fallen into dust, yet wanders through the furnace of greed and envy. Golshan and golkhan bring garden and furnace close in sound while setting their effects sharply apart. The rose retains its origin in union even in its displaced condition; the image need not establish a literal history of a soul’s descent. Hamadani’s prose makes love burn greed and jealousy while truth and purity clear the heart’s mirror. [1] That context distinguishes love’s cleansing fire from the consuming furnace sought here. The question asks why the rose continues toward what damages it. The poem’s earlier failure of recognition has acquired an ethical shape in the attractions that the seeker pursues.

بَزْمِ مَجْلِسِ خاصَّش عَلائِیا نَفَسی

bazm-e majles-e khāss-ash ʿAlāʾiyā nafasī

8a  O ʿAlāʾī, to the feast of the beloved’s private gathering, for one moment,

رَهَت دَهَنْد اَگَر دَسْتِ دِل زِ خُود شُویی

rah-at dahand agar dast-e del ze khod shūyī

8b  they will admit you if you wash your heart’s hands of yourself.

Commentary on couplet 8

The closing names ʿAlāʾī and promises admission to the beloved’s private gathering if the heart washes its hands of the self. The heart is personified as having hands, making attachment something it can release. The idiom carries renunciation into an intimate bodily gesture: what must be relinquished is the self’s possessive hold. Nafasī specifies a moment or breath, recalling the fragrant breath of couplet 5 while keeping the desired audience brief. The surrounding prose in Hamadani joins cleansing the heart to removing desire’s obstructions, while gifts remain beyond personal control. [1] Here the unnamed “they” grant entry conditionally; the poem does not report its accomplishment. The identities proclaimed earlier become a summons to live without clinging to a separate, self-sufficient claim.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal addresses someone who searches anxiously for what the poem declares already intimate with them. Water, treasure, the friend’s lane, a reflected face, and fragrant tresses repeatedly overturn the assumption that the desired good must lie elsewhere. The speaking voice corrects the seeker with growing urgency, eventually naming ʿAlāʾī. Its affirmations deserve their full force: the addressee is the lane, the face in the supplied reading, a hair among the curls, sweet musk, and a rose from union. These different relations cannot all be reduced to a single formula, but together they challenge the seeker’s sense of standing outside what is sought.

Recognition is both a matter of attention and a matter of desire. Looking truly would reveal the lane; looking closely would disclose the face; an unobstructed nose would register the fragrance. The imagery then becomes more severe. Musk seeks carrion, a source of spiritual beauty searches dunghills, and a rose wanders through greed’s furnace. The good has not vanished from the addressee, but attraction is directed toward what obscures or damages its expression. The movement from sensory obstruction to greed and envy gives the inward search an ethical demand. Understanding one’s significance must change what one pursues.

The closely corresponding passage in Hamadani links this poem’s inward turn with a discussion of spiritual readiness. [1] Qūnawī’s accounts of recognition through identity and of ignorance veiling nearness offer illuminating Akbarian comparisons. [2] [3] These comparisons preserve a distinction between the spiritual reality disclosed and the habitual individual who claims it as a possession. They also help explain why the poem can affirm intimate participation while continuing to require purification. Its images remain poetic and varied: a lane affords access, a mirror shows a face, and a hair belongs within the tresses. Their differences prevent the praise from becoming a simple assertion of the individual’s independent divinity.

The closing makes this distinction practical. After so many affirmations of what “you” are, admission depends upon washing the heart’s hands of “yourself.” The apparent contradiction directs attention toward the self that clings, seeks elsewhere, and mistakes its attachments for its identity. A single breath of intimacy is conditionally promised when that grip loosens. The poem’s inward treasure therefore offers no warrant for complacency: what is already near becomes accessible through relinquishment.

Sources and textual notes

1. Hamadani, Dhakhīrat al-mulūk, in Mohammad Umar Farooq, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani’s Dhakiratul Muluk: An Annotation and Translation (PhD thesis, University of Kashmir, 2009), printed pp. 414–415, including the unlabelled passage corresponding closely to couplets 1, 2, and 7; and p. 74. The short passage names no poet and does not reproduce the complete ghazal. The English translation was checked; the Persian was not independently collated.
2. Qūnawī, al-Nafahāt al-ilāhiyya, translated passage ending at note 15 in William C. Chittick, “The Central Point—Qūnawī’s Role in the School of Ibn ʿArabī”, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society 35 (2004). Consulted for the perfected witness’s recognition through identity after limiting bonds loosen. The translated passage was checked; the original edition cited there was not independently collated.
3. Qūnawī, al-Nuṣūṣ, section 20, also the opening chapter of Miftāḥ al-ghayb, translated in William C. Chittick, “Qūnawī on the One Wujūd”, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society 49 (2011). Consulted for the discussion of dependence, ignorance, nearness, and manifestation without division or indwelling. Both Qūnawī references serve as comparisons; no direct borrowing or specific authorial intention is claimed.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991, printed p. 479–480 reference and the signature ʿAlāʾī are retained unchanged. That edition and the attribution of this ghazal have not been independently verified. The commentary preserves the supplied reading while distinguishing the partial textual correspondence in Hamadani’s English translation from the explicitly comparative Qūnawī passages.

Structure: one couplet fewer, and a transposition

The leaf carries seven couplets, in this order against our numbering: 1, 2, 4, 3, 6, 7, 8.

The tresses couplet (ز بوی زلفش) stands before the mirror couplet (رخی که آینه), reversing the printed sequence. Our commentary reads 3 and 4 as a progression from sight to smell — the mirror's face, then the fragrance missed through a blocked nose. On the leaf the order runs the other way, so the blocked nose comes first and the mirror follows.

Couplet 5 is not in the main text. سرادق جبروتی معطر از دم تست / تو مشک طیبی و از جهل جیفه میبویی does not appear among the written lines. This matters for our reading: the musk-and-carrion contrast is the hinge you use between sensory obstruction and moral misdirection, and on this witness the poem moves from the mirror straight to the precincts of malakūt.

Word-level variants

Couplet 6b — طمع for طبع

تو در مزابل طمع و هوا چه میجویی

to dar mazābel-e tamaʿ o havā che mī-jūyī

"what are you seeking in the dunghills of greed and desire?"

One dot separates these: ب carries a dot below, م does not, and the leaf has no dot there. The weights are identical, which is why such a difference travels unnoticed.

The interpretive gain is real. Our commentary has to work its way from طبع, instinct, toward moral attachment, and leans on the following couplet to supply greed and envy so the criticism does not fall on embodied life as such. On the leaf's reading that argument is unnecessary: greed is named here, and حرص in the next couplet picks it up directly. The poem never disparages nature; it names an appetite twice.

Couplet 7a — وصل او for وصلی

گلی ز گلشن وصل او فتاده اندر خاک

golī ze golshan-e vasl-e u fotāde andar khāk

"a rose from the garden of union with him, fallen into dust"

The printed وصلی carries the copula that makes the line read "You are a rose…", which our commentary states as a direct identification. The leaf names the beloved instead and leaves the line as an apposition to the "you" addressed in the question that follows. The identification survives, but by juxtaposition rather than by predication — and the beloved re-enters a couplet from which the printed text has removed him.

Couplet 3a — the mirror's showing is addressed to "you"

رخی که آینه بنمود آن ترا از تست

rokhī ke āyene benmūd ān to-rā az tost

"the face the mirror showed you is from you"

Against the printed بنموده است نیز از تست. The leaf has no نیز, and what stands in its place carries two adjacent dots above, which suits ت rather than the widely separated dots of نیز. The line then has the mirror showing the face to you, which the printed "also" does not carry. I would record this as probable rather than settled — the hemistich is compressed at exactly that point.

Couplet 8a — ترا for the vocative ending

The leaf reads …مجلس خاص علائی ترا نفسی, giving "ʿAlāʾī, for you, a single breath", against the printed علائیا نفسی. The first word of the line sits under the diagonal marginal script and cannot be read with confidence; بزم and حرم are both available from what remains visible, so I would leave it open and record ترا as the substantive difference.

Couplets 1, 2, 3b (چو نیک در نگری…) and 8b (رهت دهند اگر دست دل ز خود شویی) agree with the printed text.

The two marginal features

Right margin, beside couplet 4a: مزکومی, written large and clearly, with a small collation sign above it of the same kind seen on the Ghazal 34 and 39 leaves. The corresponding word at the end of that line in the main text is cramped against the column edge and carries its own supralinear mark. The likeliest function is clarification of a squeezed word rather than replacement of a different one, since the main-text form does show the tall kāf with its sarkash. Even so, whether the copyist wrote مزکومی or something else there deserves a look at higher resolution, because the word is the whole joke of the couplet.

Lower margin: an insertion in a smaller, faster hand, running diagonally in at least two lines across the area of the maqṭaʿ and continuing into the lower left corner. At this resolution it does not resolve into words, and I will not guess at it.

Its significance is structural rather than lexical. One couplet is absent from the main text, and the lower margin is precisely where an omitted couplet gets restored. That makes سرادق جبروتی… the obvious candidate for what is written there — a hypothesis our better scan can confirm or dismiss in a minute, and one worth testing, since it would turn an apparent gap in this witness into a recorded repair.

Chehel Asrar 40 - Fortieth Ghazal

Ghazal 40

9 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 478–479

دُوش دِل دَر غَمِ اُو مِی‌زَد با جان رایی

dūsh del dar gham-e ū mī-zad bā jān rāyī

1a  Last night, grieving for the beloved, the heart took counsel with the soul:

کِه تُرا دَر پَیِ اِین سُود نَشُد سَوْدایی

ke torā dar pay-e īn sūd nashod sowdāyī

1b  “Did no longing stir in you to pursue this profit?” [1]

Commentary on couplet 1

The heart turns its grief into a consultation with the soul, asking whether longing has stirred toward the profit it perceives in love. This inward conversation gives desire more than one voice: one part suffers and proposes, while another is invited to respond. Sūd, profit, stands beside sowdā, whose linked meanings of longing and trade are preserved in the supplied note. Their interplay makes sorrow resemble a venture whose value ordinary accounting might miss. Rāyī, counsel, also prepares the next couplet’s emphasis on clear judgment. The question therefore opens an inquiry into the lover’s readiness: attraction has suggested a gain, but neither the nature of that gain nor the capacity to receive it has yet been established.

گُفْتَمَش مُلْکِ سُلَیْمان بِگَدایی نَرَسَد

goftam-ash molk-e Solaymān be-gedāyī narasad

2a  I told it, “Solomon’s kingdom is not gained through begging;

تاجِ رِفْعَت نَکِشَد جُز سَرِ رَوْشَن‌رایی

tāj-e refʿat nakeshad joz sar-e rowshan-rāyī

2b  only a clear-sighted person’s head can bear the crown of eminence.

Commentary on couplet 2

An explicit “I” answers with the distance between begging and Solomon’s sovereignty, then asks what kind of head can bear a lofty crown. The recipient of “I told it” remains grammatically open; the reply need not be assigned automatically to the soul. Rowshan-rāyī, clear judgment, echoes the preceding counsel and makes discernment a qualification for eminence. In Qurʾan 38:35, Solomon asks God to grant him a distinctive sovereignty, explicitly acknowledging God as giver. [5] That context keeps royal dignity dependent upon a gift, while this couplet stresses fitness to bear it. The contrast with begging challenges the adequacy of an approach; it does not require contempt for poverty. Desire alone has not shown that the desired crown can be carried.

دَوْلَتِ جَم کِه سَلاطِینِ جَهان پَی نَبَرَنْد

dowlat-e Jam ke salātīn-e jahān pay nabarand

3a  The fortune of Jam, which the world’s kings cannot attain— [2]

کَی جَنابَش رَسَد آخِر چُو مَن شَیْدایی

kay janāb-ash rasad ākher cho man shaydāyī

3b  how could a mad lover like me ever reach its presence?”

Commentary on couplet 3

The speaker places himself below even the kings who cannot reach Jam’s fortune. Jam is Jamshīd, as the supplied note states; Ferdowsi’s Shāhnāma introduces his reign through a throne, golden crown, and sovereign glory. [6] That literary context gives dowlat, fortune or sovereignty, its grandeur. Here, however, the world’s actual rulers fall short of it, so worldly power cannot provide an adequate measure. Pay bordan can suggest finding access or coming to understand, allowing the distance to concern discernment as well as rank. The self-description shaydā, a mad lover, then returns the comparison to the speaker’s own inadequacy. The question preserves desire while refusing to treat the intensity of that desire as proof of admission.

سَیْرِ عَنْقایِ جَمالَش کِه نَگُنْجَد دَر کَوْن

sayr-e ʿanqā-ye jamāl-ash ke nagonjad dar kown

4a  The flight of the phoenix of the beloved’s beauty cannot fit within existence;

طَمَعِ جِلْوِهٔ اُو بِین تُو زِ هَر بِی‌جایی

tamaʿ-e jelve-ye ū bīn to ze har bī-jāyī

4b  yet see how every unworthy person hopes for its appearance. [3]

Commentary on couplet 4

The beloved’s beauty takes the form of a phoenix whose flight exceeds the space of the created cosmos, yet people still expect it to appear for them. The two halves set uncontainable movement against the confidence of a claimant. Kown can designate created existence here; the image need not describe passage beyond existence in every possible sense. Jelve, appearance or display, makes the expected encounter something visible and particular, sharpening the disproportion. The supplied “unworthy person” interprets the compressed bī-jāyī, whose uncertainty should remain active. The speaker’s rebuke also belongs within the poem’s larger self-questioning: the preceding couplet has already called his own access doubtful, and the closing will challenge his own tongue. He does not secure immunity by criticizing others.

قَطْرِهٔ بِی‌سَر و پا را زِ کُجا آن مِقْدار

qatre-ye bī-sar o pā rā ze kojā ān meqdār

5a  Where could a helpless drop find the capacity

کِه دَرُونِ دِلِ خُود جای دَهَد دَرْیایی

ke darūn-e del-e khod jāy dahad daryāyī

5b  to give an ocean room within its heart?

Commentary on couplet 5

A helpless drop is asked to provide room within its heart for an ocean. The question makes the mismatch between desire and capacity almost visible: the proposed guest exceeds the dwelling beyond calculation. Bī-sar o pā evokes the drop’s helplessness, while meqdār concerns its measure or ability. The verse asks where such capacity could come from; it does not announce that containment has occurred. Hamadani denies God’s bodily form and spatial containment while making access to divine knowledge dependent upon grace. [7] That parallel distinguishes inward receptivity from literal enclosure and leaves open the possibility of capacity received as a gift. The poem itself sustains the question, allowing the drop’s need to be felt before any answer is supplied.

سُخَنِ دُوسْت دَرِین پَرْدِه کَسی را زِیبَد

sokhan-e dūst darīn parde kasī rā zībad

6a  Speech of the friend in this veiled language befits someone

کِه بِه غَیْر اَز غَمِ یارَش نَبُوَد پَرْوایی

ke be ghayr az gham-e yār-ash nabovad parvāyī

6b  whose sole concern is sorrow for the beloved.

Commentary on couplet 6

The poem now considers who may speak fittingly of the friend through its veiled language. The qualification is concentrated concern: the speaker should have no competing preoccupation beyond sorrow for the beloved. Sokhan-e dūst can suggest speech about the friend or the friend’s speech; the phrase need not be resolved into a direct divine utterance. Parde, veil, describes a guarded manner of expression without establishing a fixed code for every earlier image. The second half locates fitness in the speaker’s involvement with love rather than in verbal ingenuity alone. This is a claim about the inward ground of such speech. It gives the poem a standard by which its own elaborate language, as well as another person’s claims, may be examined.

شَرْحِ دَرْدِ دِلِ خُود کَرْدَمی اَر یافْتَمی

sharh-e dard-e del-e khod kardamī ar yāftamī

7a  I would tell the story of my heart’s pain if I could find,

دَر هَمِه عُمْر دَمی رُویِ جَهان‌آرایی

dar hame ʿomr damī rū-ye jahān-ārāyī

7b  for one moment in all my life, a face that adorns the world.

Commentary on couplet 7

The speaker would explain the heart’s pain if a single meeting with a world-adorning face became possible. A whole lifetime is set against one moment, making the imagined opportunity both minimal and immeasurably precious. The conditional forms kardamī and yāftamī keep the telling and encounter alike unfulfilled. After the previous couplet’s account of a fitting speaker, this verse reveals the need for a fitting presence before whom speech could happen. The face may belong to the beloved or to a receptive interlocutor; the wording does not identify it conclusively. Its beauty promises a setting in which pain might become communicable. The wish to tell therefore survives the poem’s cautions about speech, carrying vulnerability rather than a claim to mastery.

اَز خَطّ و خالِ تُو هَر بِی‌خَبَری را چِه خَبَر

az khatt o khāl-e to har bī-khabarī rā che khabar

8a  What can any heedless person know of your down and beauty spot?

بِه سُها رَه نَبَرَد دِیدِهٔ نابِینایی

be Sohā rah nabarad dīde-ye nābīnāyī

8b  A blind eye cannot find the star Sohā. [4]

Commentary on couplet 8

The address turns directly to “your” down and beauty spot, then compares their elusive significance to a faint star. Khatt and khāl retain their bodily beauty: subtle details of a face demand an attentive beholder. Dehkhoda records Sohā’s faintness and its traditional use as a test of eyesight. [8] The analogy concerns the capacity to notice what is present; the eye’s failure does not erase the star. Bī-khabarī, heedlessness, also prepares an inward reading. Hamadani associates knowledge of God with the heart’s recovery from heedlessness, contrasting this discernment with conceited demands to be recognized as knowledgeable. [7] This parallel concerns spiritual attention. The poem’s image of physical blindness serves the comparison without making bodily eyesight a measure of someone’s spiritual worth.

لافِ عِشْقَش مَزَن اِمْرُوز عَلایی بِزَبان

lāf-e ʿeshq-ash mazan emrūz ʿAlāʾī be-zabān

9a  ʿAlāʾī, do not boast of love for the beloved today with your tongue,

چُون یَقِین اَز پَسِ اِمْرُوز بُوَد فَرْدایی

chūn yaqīn az pas-e emrūz bovad fardāyī

9b  for surely after today there will be a tomorrow.

Commentary on couplet 9

The final address names ʿAlāʾī and forbids boasting of love, because today will be followed by tomorrow. Lāf specifies an inflated claim; the warning does not withdraw the earlier wish to speak of pain. “With your tongue” concentrates attention on speech that may run ahead of what its speaker can sustain. Tomorrow can suggest later testing or ultimate accountability, although the verse does not explicitly name the Resurrection. Hamadani treats recognition of one’s own faults and God’s greatness as a remedy for pride, producing humility and kindness. [7] That parallel clarifies the closing turn toward examining oneself. The poem ends by placing its speaker under the standard he has applied to others: the truth of love remains answerable to what comes next.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal begins with an inward consultation and ends with a warning addressed to ʿAlāʾī’s tongue. Between them, longing repeatedly encounters the question of capacity: who can bear a crown, approach sovereign fortune, receive beauty, house an ocean, or speak fittingly of love? The opening heart and soul give this inquiry several voices, and the subsequent “I” should not be forced into a rigid account of separate spiritual faculties. The beloved remains unnamed. Bodily beauty, grief, and the wish for a meeting sustain the possibilities of human affection, while images of uncontainable beauty and inward receptivity invite a devotional reading.

The poem’s changes of scale unsettle easy claims. Solomon’s kingdom and Jam’s fortune exceed the speaker’s standing; the phoenix exceeds the created world; the ocean exceeds the drop. Yet the face’s down, its beauty spot, and the faint star shift the difficulty from vastness to subtlety. What overwhelms by magnitude and what escapes through minuteness both require a beholder whose longing is joined to discernment. This relation also links the opening counsel with the clear judgment needed to bear a crown. The couplets approach a shared difficulty from different directions without establishing a sequence of achieved spiritual stages.

Hamadani’s prose supplies relevant distinctions: divine knowledge depends upon grace, heedlessness can yield to inward understanding, and recognition of one’s faults restrains pride. [7] These parallels illuminate the devotional possibilities without authenticating the ghazal’s attribution. They also help keep its severity from becoming a verdict of permanent exclusion. The drop questions its capacity, and the speaker doubts his access; neither question is resolved into a completed attainment. The uncertainty of bī-jāyī remains particularly significant, since a compressed expression should not carry an elaborate judgment about other people’s spiritual standing.

Speech provides the poem’s most intimate test. The speaker criticizes presumptuous expectation, describes the concern that would make speech fitting, and longs for one moment in which his pain could be heard. The closing distinguishes that vulnerable wish from boasting. Its tomorrow leaves room for experience to test what language claims today, turning scrutiny back upon the named poet. The poem does not fall silent: it speaks carefully enough to make its own right to speak a question. Love’s claim must remain open to the life that follows it.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes

[1] 1b: Sowdā carries the linked senses of longing and trade.

[2] 3a: Jam is Jamshīd, the legendary Iranian king.

[3] 4b: Bī-jāyī is read as an unworthy or out-of-place person; the expression is compressed.

[4] 8b: Sohā (Alcor), a faint star, traditionally tests the sharpness of eyesight.

Editorial references

5. Qurʾan 38:35, Solomon’s prayer for a distinctive sovereignty and acknowledgment of God as giver. This is a scriptural context for the royal image, not a source for the poem’s wording about begging or the clear-sighted head.
6. Ferdowsi, Shāhnāma, Jamshīd, section 1, opening couplets 1–6 in the online text. The crown, throne, and sovereign glory provide a classical context for Jam’s royal magnificence; no direct borrowing from this passage is claimed.
7. Hamadani, Dhakhīrat al-mulūk, in Mohammad Umar Farooq, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani’s Dhakiratul Muluk: An Annotation and Translation (PhD thesis, University of Kashmir, 2009), printed pp. 61–62, on transcendence and divine knowledge; p. 335, on knowledge and heedlessness; and p. 454, on the remedy for pride. The English translation was checked; the Persian wording was not independently collated.
8. ʿAlī Akbar Dehkhoda, Loghatnāma, “Sohā”. The entry records the star’s faintness and its use in testing eyesight, supporting the traditional context given in supplied reading note [4].

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991, printed p. 478–479 reference, the signature ʿAlāʾī, and all four reading notes are retained unchanged. That edition and the attribution of this ghazal have not been independently verified. The commentary distinguishes the supplied reading from documented Hamadani parallels and the scriptural, literary, and lexical contexts cited here.