Chehel Asrar 01 - Introduction and First Ghazal

چِهِل اَسْرار

Chehel Asrar · Forty Secrets

Hazrat Amir-e-Kabir Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani Shah-e-Hamadan R.A

Based on the Muhammad Riaz edition, 1991

With selected readings checked against the 1968 standalone edition

New editorial preparation · September 2026

How to read this edition

Each poetic half-line (hemistich) is presented in three successive lines: vocalized Persian, English translation, and transliteration. The labels 1a and 1b identify the two halves of couplet 1; numbering starts again in each poem. A marked line refers to the brief reading notes following its poem.

The English aims for clear, natural language while preserving the poem’s images, shifts of address, and spiritual vocabulary. A sentence may continue across the two halves of a couplet. The wine, tavern, beloved, and beauty imagery remains visible; it is not replaced with a single doctrinal explanation.

Vocalization and editorial status

This is a newly prepared, AI-assisted study version, not an officially authorized vocalized edition. The Persian has been supplied with short-vowel marks, ezāfe, doubled consonants, and necessary sukūn throughout. These marks express an editorial reading of an ordinarily unvocalized text. A small number of corrupt or ambiguous printed expressions remain explicitly marked as uncertain; missing certainty is not supplied by invented wording.

Persian pronunciation follows modern literary Iranian Persian, with poetic contractions retained. It does not reconstruct Hamadani’s fourteenth-century pronunciation or every feature of metrical performance. Genuine Arabic quotations receive Arabic vocalization. Silent consonants and long-vowel letters follow Persian spelling, so the Roman line also helps with pronunciation.

Transliteration key

a, e, o are short vowels; ā, ī, ū are long vowels. kh is the sound in Scottish “loch”; gh and q distinguish the two written consonants; sh, ch, and zh have their usual phonetic values. ʿ represents ʿayn and ʾ represents hamza. ay and ow mark diphthongs. Persian letters with the same modern sound share a Roman spelling.

Ezāfe is written -e after a consonant and -ye after a vowel. Thus rū-ye to means “your face,” and del-e man means “my heart.” The prefix mī- and attached pronouns are joined with a hyphen where helpful. The conjunction is generally o, with va or contracted v- where the reading calls for it. Arabic phrases retain Arabic vowel values and consonants such as ḥ, ṣ, ṭ, th, and dh.

Names and Sufi terms

ʿAlāʾī is the poet’s pen name and sometimes names the self that obstructs spiritual understanding. ʿEshq is intense love; fanā is the passing away of selfhood; baqā is abiding life; maʿrefat is experiential knowledge of God. Their English wording varies with context. Third-person Persian pronouns do not identify gender; English “he” or “his,” where used for the beloved, is a literary convention.

Source and scope

The complete poetic sequence follows Muhammad Riaz, Aḥvāl o āsār o ashʿār-e Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī (with six treatises), second edition, Iran-Pakistan Institute of Persian Studies, Islamabad, 1411 AH / 1370 SH / 1991, printed pages 445–482. The preceding editorial introduction is on pages 443–444.

1991 institutional edition: digitized scan

Selected difficult readings were compared with Chehel Asrar yā ghazaliyyāt-e Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī, edited by Dr Sayyida Ashraf Bukhari, Vahid Publications, Tehran, 1347 SH / 1968. The base transcription also used the eShia digital text, checked against the scanned print.

1968 standalone edition: digitized scan

eShia digital transcription, beginning at printed page 445

The title “Forty Secrets” covers 41 ghazals in the source edition. All 378 ghazal couplets are included, followed by the nine attributed short poems (18 couplets) and the final standalone couplet. The ninth short poem has an attribution reservation in the source editor’s note. Modern editorial introductions, apparatus, and unrelated poems quoted in footnotes are outside this poetic sequence.

Textual corrections carried into this version

Digital transcription errors corrected from the 1991 scan include word division at 11.3b and 29.7b, ḥarīq at 19.3b, qorb-ash at 35.7b, kūyī at 41.2b, and porsīd at short poem 4.1a. Six limited restorations supported by the 1968 edition are retained: zanand (13.3b), pashe (25.5b), del in az lowḥ-e del (29.3a), be-khūn (37.3a), daryāyī (40.5b), and bazm (41.8a). They correspond to 1968 printed pages 30, 45, 50, 59, 62, and 64. Spacing and diacritic placement have been regularized for reading.

The vocalization, English translation, transliteration, and explanatory notes are newly prepared for this document. They should not be attributed to the historical editors or treated as an independently established critical text.

Presentation note

This post presents Ghazal 1. The supplied introduction above describes the complete study edition and its earlier arrangement. In this presentation, each Persian half-line is followed by its supplied transliteration and then its English translation. The introductory wording and all supplied readings remain unchanged; the couplet commentaries, overall explanation, and additional source notes are new.

Ghazal 1

9 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 445

زِ عَکْسِ رُویِ تُو یَابَنْد مَقْبُولَان هِدَایَتْهَا

ze ʿaks-e rū-ye to yāband maqbūlān hedāyat-hā

1a  From the reflection of your face, the favored find guidance;

زِ خَاکِ کُویِ تُو یَابَنْد مَسْعُودَان سَعَادَتْهَا

ze khāk-e kū-ye to yāband masʿūdān saʿādat-hā

1b  from the dust of your lane, the fortunate find bliss.

Commentary on couplet 1

The opening balances the radiance of the beloved’s face against the dust of the beloved’s lane: even a reflection or the humblest trace of proximity brings guidance and happiness. The repeated yāband, ‘they find,’ makes both gifts something received. Maqbūlān suggests those who have been accepted or favored; masʿūdān names those blessed with good fortune. Their standing therefore depends on the beloved’s generosity. The face and lane retain the intimacy of a lover’s address, while the later language of forgiveness and creation strongly supports a devotional reading. The poem does not name its addressee, so the possibility of approaching divine generosity through a beloved spiritual figure should remain open.

تُو آن اَنْفَاسِ رَحْمَانِی کِه جَانْهَا اَز دَمَت یَابَنْد

to ān anfās-e rahmānī ke jān-hā az damat yāband

2a  You are the breaths of the Merciful from which souls draw life;

تُو آن دَرْیَایِ غُفْرَانِی کِه مِی‌شُویَد خِجَالَتْهَا

to ān daryā-ye ghofrānī ke mī-shūyad khejālat-hā

2b  you are that sea of forgiveness that washes shame away.

Commentary on couplet 2

Breath and sea express two forms of mercy: the first gives life, while the second cleanses the shame that burdens it. The repeated to ān, ‘you are that,’ intensifies the praise. Anfās is plural, ‘breaths’; in this context it can evoke repeated life-giving inspirations or blessings. It invites comparison with Ibn ʿArabi’s singular nafas al-Raḥmān, the Breath of the All-Merciful, through which he describes the merciful bestowal of existence. The comparison concerns divine generosity, not bodily breathing, and does not establish that this verse states his full cosmology. [3] In the Darwīshiyya printed under Hamadani’s name in Riaz’s edition, realized servants’ blessed breaths guide the erring toward acceptance—a closer contextual parallel that also leaves room for spiritual mediation. [2]

قَبَاحَتْهَایِ فِعْلِ مَا کِه سَگ زِ آن عَار مِی‌دَارَد

qabāhat-hā-ye feʿl-e mā ke sag ze ān ʿār mī-dārad

3a  The ugliness of our deeds would shame even a dog:

بِغَیْر اَز پَرْدِهٔ عَفْوَت کِه پُوشَد اِین قَبَاحَتْهَا؟

be-ghayr az parde-ye ʿafvat ke pūshad īn qabāhat-hā

3b  what but the veil of your pardon could cover such ugliness?

Commentary on couplet 3

The speaker turns from praise to confession, replacing the fortunate recipients of the opening with the exposed ‘we’ of human wrongdoing. Saying that even a dog would be ashamed is deliberately extreme self-reproach; the verse directs its judgment at our deeds. Its question already implies the answer: only the beloved’s pardon can cover what the speaker cannot defend. The veil here protects the ashamed lover from exposure, so it should not automatically be interpreted as an obstacle to spiritual vision. Qur’an 39:53–54 offers a relevant context: hope in forgiveness accompanies a call to return to God. This is a scriptural resonance, not an identified quotation or permission to persist in wrongdoing. [4]

عِنَایَت‌هَایِ بِی‌عِلَّت کِه بَا هَر مُفْلِسِی دَارِی

ʿenāyat-hā-ye bī-ʿellat ke bā har moflesī dārī

4a  The grace you show every destitute soul, without a cause—

تَسَلِّی مِی‌دَهَد دِل رَا اُمِیدِ آن عِنَایَتْهَا

tasallī mī-dahad del rā omīd-e ān ʿenāyat-hā

4b  the hope of that grace brings comfort to the heart.

Commentary on couplet 4

Mofles evokes someone without resources, including one unable to present a claim of spiritual worth. The heart’s comfort comes from hope in grace, rather than confidence in its own achievements. Bī-ʿellat, literally ‘without a cause,’ is best understood here as generosity not purchased by the recipient’s merit; it need not imply that divine action is meaningless or arbitrary. The Darwīshiyya uses the same expression, ʿināyat bī-ʿillat, while counseling hope despite wrongdoing. [2] This close verbal parallel strengthens the reading of the couplet as confidence in unearned mercy. Qur’an 35:15 supplies a broader context for spiritual poverty: human beings depend on God, whose sufficiency does not depend on them. [5]

حِمَایَت‌هَایِ فَضْل آوَرْد جَان رَا اَز عَدَم بِیرُون

(the font had to be changed as it was not rendering properly)

hemāyat-hā-ye fazl āvard jān rā az ʿadam bīrūn 

5a  Your grace and protection brought the soul out of nonexistence;

دِگَر رَه چَشْم مِی‌دَارَم زِ فَضْلَت آن حِمَایَتْهَا

degar rah chashm mī-dāram ze fazlat ān hemāyat-hā

5b  once more I look to your bounty for that protection.

Commentary on couplet 5

The plea now reaches behind the speaker’s present failures to the gift of existence itself. Fazl is bounty that exceeds what can be demanded, while ḥimāyat combines shelter, support, and protection. The first half remembers being brought from nonexistence; the second asks the same generosity to act again. Degar rah, ‘once more,’ makes the original gift the ground of renewed hope. This does not by itself require a doctrine of repeated creation, although an Akbarian comparison is fruitful: Ibn ʿArabi understands created existence as continually dependent on divine bestowal. [3] The poem’s more immediate movement is devotional: the giver who first sustained the soul remains the one to whom it turns.

هُمَایِ لُطْف اَگَر یِکْدَم نَظَر بَر حَالَم اَنْدَازَد

homā-ye lotf agar yekdam nazar bar hālam andāzad

6a  If the humā of grace casts one moment's glance on my condition, [1]

سَرِ هَر مُویِ مَن یَابَد اَز آن دَوْلَت کَرَامَتْهَا

sar-e har mū-ye man yābad az ān dowlat karāmat-hā

6b  the tip of every hair of mine will gain honors from that blessing.

Commentary on couplet 6

The humā, explained in the supplied reading note as a bird whose shadow confers good fortune, gives grace a swift and living image. Here the bird casts a glance: the poem joins its auspicious presence to the beloved’s attentive regard. A single moment is enough to transform the speaker down to the tip of every hair. Dowlat carries the sense of good fortune or blessed prosperity; karāmat-hā can mean honors and generous distinctions. Although karāmat also has a technical use for a saintly marvel, nothing requires that narrower meaning here. The contrast between one brief glance and innumerable honors magnifies the disproportion between the giver’s kindness and the recipient’s resources. The Darwīshiyya similarly joins the humā to spiritual aspiration and nearness, showing how this bird image participates in the prose’s vocabulary of the path. [2]

زِ حُسْنَت هَر کَسِی هَر دَم حَدِیثِی دِیگَر آغَازَد

ze hosnat har kasī har dam hadīsī dīgar āghāzad

7a  Everyone, at every moment, begins another tale of your beauty;

رُخَت گَر جِلْوِه‌اِی سَازَد نَمَانَد آن حِکَایَتْهَا

rokhat gar jelve-ī sāzad na-mānad ān hekāyat-hā

7b  if your face reveals itself, none of those tales will remain.

Commentary on couplet 7

Every speaker produces another account of beauty, but the face’s appearance overturns their accounts. Ḥadīs here means a tale or discourse; it does not identify a prophetic hadith. Jelveh is an appearing or display, and the conditional ‘if’ preserves the intensity of anticipation. The second half places encounter beyond the lover’s accumulated descriptions, without requiring that language or learning have no value. In an Akbarian comparison, tajallī means divine self-disclosure: what becomes present to a witness can unsettle that witness’s concepts. Yet such witnessing is not exhaustive comprehension of the divine Essence. [6] The verse dramatizes the limits of speech through speech itself, letting poetic beauty point beyond its own account.

عُقُولِ قُدْسِیَان گُم گَشْتِه اَنْدَر یِک خَمِ زُلْفَش

ʿoqūl-e qodsiyān gom gashte andar yek kham-e zolfash

8a  The minds of the holy ones are lost in a single bend of those tresses;

زِ مُشْتِی خَاکِیَان آنْجَا چِه سَنْجَد اِین مَقَالَتْهَا؟

ze moshtī khākiyān ānjā che sanjad īn maqālat-hā

8b  what weight can the words of a handful of mortals carry there?

Commentary on couplet 8

The image becomes almost impossibly small: a single bend in the beloved’s tresses defeats the minds of the holy ones. Qodsiyān can suggest celestial or angelic beings, while khākiyān, those made of dust, emphasizes human creatureliness. The question asks what weight our pronouncements could carry where more exalted intellects already lose their way. Tresses function here as an image of intricate, bewildering beauty; assigning every curl a fixed cosmological meaning would outrun the wording. The verse’s force is intellectual humility before what exceeds us. Alongside the preceding couplet, it also preserves a distinction emphasized in Ibn ʿArabi’s account of presence: disclosure does not give a creature all-encompassing knowledge of God. [6]

عَلَایِی، دَامَنِ هِمَّت اَگَر اَز خُود بِیَفْشَانِی

ʿAlāʾī, dāman-e hemmat agar az khod bī-afshānī

9a  ʿAlāʾī, if you shake your self from the hem of your aspiration,

رَسِی دَر عَالَمِی کَانْجَا نَبَاشَد اِین مَلَالَتْهَا

rasī dar ʿālamī kānjā na-bāshad īn malālat-hā

9b  you will reach a world where these sorrows are unknown.

Commentary on couplet 9

The closing address turns the poem’s challenge toward ʿAlāʾī, the poet’s own pen name. Hemmat is aspiration or concentrated spiritual resolve. Its ‘hem’ makes that inward orientation a garment that can be shaken free of the self that clings to it. The command is especially searching because even spiritual striving can become preoccupation with one’s own attainment. Read in the vocabulary of fanā, the image suggests the loosening of self-appropriation and self-importance, rather than physical destruction or a person becoming God. The Darwīshiyya likewise connects aspiration with relinquishing attachments and directing oneself toward the beloved’s beauty. [2] The promised freedom from ‘these sorrows’ gives that release its emotional horizon. It remains a poetic promise of transformed orientation, not a detailed account of a spiritual station or a guarantee against every human grief.

Reading notes

[1] 6a: The humā is the legendary bird whose shadow bestows good fortune.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal asks how a person who recognizes both wrongdoing and dependence can remain open to the beloved. Its answer gathers around grace. Guidance comes from a reflected face, happiness from the dust of a lane, and restoration from a sea of pardon. The beloved’s generosity is never measured by what the speaker can offer in return. Although the poem leaves the addressee unnamed and speaks through the intimate imagery of Persian love poetry, forgiveness and the giving of existence make a divine address especially persuasive. Its devotional force need not erase the image of a human beloved or spiritual guide through whom generosity becomes perceptible.

The couplets resonate through contrasts of scale: a reflection brings guidance; one glance bestows countless honors; a single curl confounds exalted minds. Against such abundance, the speaker repeatedly becomes small: destitute, ashamed, made of dust. Yet this smallness opens into hope. The soul’s existence is already a gift, so its failure cannot establish that generosity has ceased. A particularly close parallel occurs in the Darwīshiyya attributed to Hamadani in Riaz’s edition, where unconditioned grace and the sea of pardon likewise ground an appeal against despair. [2] That documented connection gives firmer support to this reading than assigning a complete metaphysical system to each image.

The later couplets shift the emphasis from receiving pardon to the limits of the receiver’s claims. Tales of beauty yield before its appearance; celestial intelligence loses itself in a curl. An Akbarian comparison brings these movements into relation: merciful bestowal sustains existence, while divine self-disclosure exceeds the concepts through which a creature tries to encompass it. [3] [6] These are illuminating parallels, not evidence that every phrase functions as Ibn ʿArabi’s technical terminology. The language of encounter retains intimacy without making the divine Essence an object the lover can possess.

The final self-address gathers the poem’s concerns into the texture of aspiration itself. The speaker who has asked for so much must also loosen the claim of ‘my’ worth, ‘my’ knowledge, and even ‘my’ attainment. This does not make the preceding confession irrelevant; it changes the ground on which the heart hopes. Nor must the ghazal be read as a rigid sequence of spiritual stages. Its images converge on a particular insight: the heart finds room for mercy as it relinquishes the demand to make mercy the reward of its own importance.

Sources and textual notes

The following references support the newly added commentary. Reference [1] is the supplied humā reading note above. Scriptural connections are contextual parallels, not claims of direct quotation; comparisons with Ibn ʿArabi are identified as such.

2. Darwīshiyya, printed under Hamadani’s name in Muhammad Riaz, Aḥvāl o āsār o ashʿār-e Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī, second edition, 1991: pp. 497–498 on aspiration, detachment, beauty, the humā, and spiritually effective breaths; p. 499 on unconditioned grace and the sea of pardon in the context of ethical self-examination. These passages were checked against the scanned pages. Riaz argues for Hamadani’s authorship against a later attribution to Sayyid Muhammad Nurbakhsh on p. 486; the parallel is therefore cited with that attribution qualification. Digitized Riaz edition.
3. William C. Chittick, The Anthropology of Compassion, especially “The All-merciful Breath,” Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society. Used for the comparative explanation of merciful bestowal and the continuing dependence of creation. No claim is made that Chittick comments on this ghazal.
4. Qur’an 39:53–54: hope in divine forgiveness together with returning and submitting to God.
5. Qur’an 35:15: human dependence on God and divine self-sufficiency.
6. William C. Chittick, Presence with God, Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society, including his translated passages from the Futūḥāt on absence, presence, and self-disclosure. Used to distinguish witnessing a divine disclosure from comprehending the divine Essence. Chittick’s web article was consulted; its underlying Arabic edition was not independently collated for this commentary.