Chehel Asrar 09 - Ninth Ghazal

Ghazal 9

11 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 452–453

هَر سَحَرْگَه بُویِ زُلْفَش دِل بِبالا مِی‌کِشَد

har sahargah bū-ye zolf-ash del be-bālā mī-keshad

1a  At every dawn, the scent of his tresses draws the heart upward;

صُورَتِ مَوْهُوم را خَط دَر مَن و ما مِی‌کِشَد

sūrat-e mowhūm rā khatt dar man o mā mī-keshad

1b  on illusion’s image it strikes a line through “I” and “we.”

Commentary on couplet 1

At dawn, the beloved is apprehended through fragrance: an intimate trace reaches the heart before any full appearance. Its upward drawing becomes an act of cancellation in the second half, where the imagined picture of identity is crossed through. The repeated verb mī-keshad can convey both pulling and drawing a line, joining attraction to inscription. The pairing of man and mā, ‘I’ and ‘we,’ extends the challenge from personal self-importance to collective claims of possession. In a Sufi reading, love loosens the heart’s attachment to these claims; the image does not require the destruction of the person. Every dawn renews the encounter, giving the verse a rhythm of recurring awakening rather than a single, finished achievement.

سایِه دَر خُورْشِید گُم مِی‌گَرْدَد و سِیمُرْغِ عَقْل

sāye dar khorshīd gom mī-gardad o sīmorgh-e ʿaql

2a  The shadow vanishes in the sun, and the Simurgh of reason

زالِ زارِ اُفْتادِه را اَز تِیهِ سَوْدا مِی‌کِشَد

Zāl-e zār-e oftāde rā az tīh-e sowdā mī-keshad

2b  draws fallen, wretched Zāl from the wilderness of obsession. [1]

Commentary on couplet 2

Two images describe release: a shadow disappears in sunlight, while a great bird lifts a fallen figure from bewildering isolation. In Ferdowsi’s epic, the Simurgh shelters and raises the abandoned Zāl; the ghazal adapts this rescue to a wilderness of obsessive longing. That psychological setting belongs to the present poem, rather than to the episode exactly as told in the epic.[9] Crucially, the bird here is the Simurgh of reason. The verse grants understanding a protective, liberating power, even as the preceding shadow image unsettles the illusion of separate self-sufficiency. Reason need not be love’s enemy: it can rescue the heart from fixation. The final couplet’s perplexity will therefore qualify intellectual mastery without simply undoing this positive role.

جان خَرامان مِی‌شَوَد دَر هَوْدَجِ غَیْبِ یَقِین

jān kharāmān mī-shavad dar howdaj-e ghayb-e yaqīn

3a  The soul moves gracefully in the howdah of certainty’s unseen realm;

هاتِفِ هِمَّت دِل اَز چاهِ تَمَنّا مِی‌کِشَد

hātef-e hemmat del az chāh-e tamannā mī-keshad

3b  the unseen voice of aspiration draws the heart from the well of desire.

Commentary on couplet 3

The soul travels with the poise of someone borne in a howdah, while the heart is lifted out of a well. The contrast is between spacious movement and confinement, with both halves emphasizing assistance rather than unaided climbing. Himmat means concentrated spiritual aspiration: the heart’s directing purpose, distinguished here from the wishes that imprison it. The unseen caller gives that purpose a voice. Certainty does not make the unseen visibly ordinary; the soul moves confidently amid what exceeds its present sight. A close contextual parallel appears in the Darwīshiyya printed under Hamadani’s name in Riaz’s edition: aspiration begins by releasing what holds the heart captive, and its worth depends on what it seeks. The work’s attribution requires the qualification recorded below.[8]

دَسْتِ غَیْرَت گُلْخَن اَز غُولانِ نَفْسِی کَرْدِه پاک

dast-e ghayrat golkhan az ghūlān-e nafsī karde pāk

4a  The hand of jealous devotion has cleared the furnace of the self’s demons

رَخْتِ دِل بَر گُلْشَنِ اِین سَقْفِ خَضْرا مِی‌کِشَد

rakht-e del bar golshan-e īn saqf-e khazrā mī-keshad

4b  and carries the heart’s belongings to the garden of this green vault. [2]

Commentary on couplet 4

The heart moves house: its belongings leave a furnace for the garden of the green vault, the sky. Golkhan and golshan bring these sharply different places close in sound, making a small verbal change carry an extensive transformation. Ghayrat, jealous devotion, can here suggest the vigilance that protects the heart’s commitment from rival compulsions. The self’s demons dramatize those disruptive forces; the verse need not be read as a report of literal possession. In the Darwīshiyya, cultivation produces flowers in the heart’s garden, while the heart’s mirror requires cleansing from moral defilement.[8] This documented parallel supports an ethical reading of purification. The relocation includes the heart’s belongings: the image evokes a changed manner of inhabiting life, not merely an isolated exalted feeling.

چُون حِجابِ ماسِوی اَز دِیدِهٔ دِل دُور شُد

chūn hejāb-e māsevā az dīde-ye del dūr shod

5a  Once the veil of all that is other falls from the heart’s eye, [3]

شَبْنَم اَز صَحْرایِ کَثْرَت سُویِ دَرْیا مِی‌کِشَد

shabnam az sahrā-ye kasrat sū-ye daryā mī-keshad

5b  it draws the dew from the desert of multiplicity toward the sea.

Commentary on couplet 5

A veil leaves the heart’s eye, and a minute drop is drawn from arid multiplicity toward the sea. The two halves connect a change in perception with a change of orientation: what seemed stranded now moves toward abundance. Māsevā, all that is other than God, names the veil in the supplied reading. One possible devotional interpretation is that created things cease to monopolize attention or appear self-sufficient, allowing their dependence on God to become evident. The dew and sea suggest affinity without making the image a literal account of God’s composition. The verse describes movement toward the sea, leaving room for longing and incompletion; it does not explicitly declare that the drop has disappeared or that creaturely existence has ended.

جُزْوِ کُل‌جُویانِ خاکِ کُویِ آن عالِی‌مَقام

jozv-e koll-jūyān-e khāk-e kū-ye ān ʿālī-maqām

6a  Among seekers of the Whole, in the dust of that exalted one’s lane, [4]

هَرکِه یابَد نَکْهَتِی عَزْمَش بِاَقْصا مِی‌کِشَد

har ke yābad nakhatī ʿazm-ash be-aqsā mī-keshad

6b  whoever catches a fragrance is drawn by resolve to the farthest reaches.

Commentary on couplet 6

The verse sets the dust of an exalted dwelling beside a resolve reaching the farthest distance. A passing fragrance, barely possessed, is enough to awaken immense aspiration. This returns to the opening couplet’s scent, now emphasizing the seeker’s answering movement. The compressed first hemistich does not securely settle the relationship between the part, the seekers of the Whole, and the dust; the supplied provisional construction remains essential to any interpretation. Its clearer images nevertheless hold humility and far-reaching purpose together. Darwīshiyya similarly raises the bird of aspiration toward the height of nearness.[8] This is a useful parallel in spiritual vocabulary, without resolving the difficult grammar. Aqsā supplies an extreme of distance here; the word alone does not establish a particular sacred destination.

هَرکِه اُو دَر کُویِ وَحْدَت جانِ خُود را ساخْت ذَوْق

har ke ū dar kū-ye vahdat jān-e khod rā sākht zowq

7a  Whoever makes his soul sheer delight in the lane of unity [5]

رایَتِ عِزّ و شَرَف را تا ثُرَیّا مِی‌کِشَد

rāyat-e ʿezz o sharaf rā tā Sorayyā mī-keshad

7b  raises the banner of glory and honor to the Pleiades.

Commentary on couplet 7

A soul transformed into delight is answered by a banner raised as high as the Pleiades. The humble lane of unity and the magnificent height of honor belong together: inward orientation alters the meaning of elevation. The phrase sākht zowq remains unusually compressed, so the supplied rendering should not bear more doctrinal weight than its uncertainty allows. Zowq literally concerns taste and can evoke immediately felt enjoyment; a spiritual reading would understand unity as savored, rather than merely asserted. Even then, the verse does not define a complete theory of being. The banner makes this inward joy visible through the public language of distinction. Its celestial height magnifies the honor bestowed by attachment to the beloved, without necessarily promising worldly office or social superiority.

دَر خَمِ زُلْفَش چُو پِنْهان گَشْتِه هَر پَیْدا کِه هَسْت

dar kham-e zolf-ash cho penhān gashte har paydā ke hast

8a  Since all that is visible lies hidden in the curve of his tresses,

نُورِ رُویَش آن نِهان دَر خِویش پَیْدا مِی‌کِشَد

nūr-e rūy-ash ān nehān dar khīsh paydā mī-keshad

8b  the light of his face draws that hidden thing into view within itself.

Commentary on couplet 8

The beloved’s tresses conceal everything visible, while the face’s light brings the hidden into appearance. The two halves reverse one another’s terms, making concealment and disclosure aspects of a single encounter. Curls enfold and obscure; light allows what is enfolded to be seen. These effects arise from the images themselves, without requiring an inflexible symbolic code. The supplied ‘within itself’ intensifies the intimacy between what appears and the light in which it appears, but does not by itself establish a complete metaphysical identity. An Akbarian comparison is illuminating: the Adam chapter of Ibn ʿArabi’s Fuṣūṣ relates the divine names Manifest and Hidden to the unseen and witnessed orders of creation.[10] This is a comparative context, not proof of an intended quotation.

اَبْرِ جُودَش کُو نِثارِ فَیْضِ رَحْمَت مِی‌کُنَد

abr-e jūd-ash k-ū nesār-e fayz-e rahmat mī-konad

9a  The cloud of his generosity, scattering an outpouring of mercy,

خاکِیانِ خَسْتِه را دَر صَفِّ اَعْلا مِی‌کِشَد

khākiyān-e khaste rā dar saff-e aʿlā mī-keshad

9b  draws weary creatures of dust into the highest ranks.

Commentary on couplet 9

Generosity becomes a cloud, and those it benefits are tired beings made of dust. Rain normally descends; here the outpouring produces an ascent, raising its recipients to the highest ranks. The reversal locates the power of elevation in mercy rather than in an already impressive spiritual condition. Dust indicates earthly frailty, while weariness gives that frailty an emotional register. Neither word requires the assumption that the recipients are being condemned as sinners. The Darwīshiyya offers a related assurance that repeated wrongdoing should not produce despair of divine generosity, picturing divine care as cleansing and rescue.[8] The parallel clarifies the restoring character of mercy, while the poem’s own wording leaves the causes of exhaustion open and makes generosity the leading image.

زُبْدِهٔ اَسْرارِ کَوْن و نَقْدِ مِعْیارِ وُجُود

zobde-ye asrār-e kown o naqd-e meʿyār-e vojūd

10a  The essence of creation’s mysteries and the tested coin of existence—

دَر نِهادِ پَیْکَرِ خاکِی اَز آنجا مِی‌کِشَد

dar nehād-e paykar-e khākī az ānjā mī-keshad

10b  it draws these from there into the core of the earthly body.

Commentary on couplet 10

After repeated movements upward, the treasure is drawn into an earthly body. Creation’s concentrated secrets and the tested coin of existence give bodily life an unexpected dignity: dust can receive what carries the highest value. The monetary image emphasizes worth recognized through testing, while the preceding cloud of generosity provides a plausible continuing context for the gift. The pronoun and ‘from there’ remain less explicit than a systematic account would require. A comparison with Ibn ʿArabi’s Adam chapter helps articulate the human being’s comprehensiveness: Adam gathers cosmic realities and completes the world’s mirror. That chapter also preserves created dependence upon God.[10] Such a comparison supports the body as a receptive meeting place of meanings, without making it a container that exhausts the divine Essence.

چُون عَلایِی صَیْدِ عَنْقایِ جَلالَش گَشْت اَز آن

chūn ʿAlāʾī sayd-e ʿanqā-ye jalāl-ash gasht az ān

11a  Since ʿAlāʾī has become prey to the ʿAnqā of his majesty, [6]

بَر ضَمِیرَش داغِ اِشْکالِ مُعَمّا مِی‌کِشَد

bar zamīr-ash dāgh-e eshkāl-e moʿammā mī-keshad

11b  it brands his inward heart with the riddle’s perplexity. [7]

Commentary on couplet 11

The closing name, ʿAlāʾī, identifies a speaker captured by majesty: the bird’s prey bears an inward brand. This complicates the earlier language of honor and ascent, since nearness now leaves a riddle rather than a trophy of mastery. The Simurgh rescued Zāl; the ʿAnqā captures the speaker. Their distinct actions matter more here than assigning both birds an identical meaning. Under the supplied reading eshkāl, the brand is perplexity. The alternative ashkāl, ‘forms,’ changes the wording materially and must remain unresolved. An Akbarian comparison may help with the retained reading: Chodkiewicz explains continuing bewilderment through the inexhaustibility of divine gifts.[11] The poem itself does not use the technical term ḥayra, or bewilderment. Its final inscription recalls the opening cancellation: the heart relinquishes its own claims yet receives a mark it cannot fully decipher.

Reading notes

[1] 2b: In Persian epic, the Simurgh rescues and raises the abandoned Zāl.

[2] 4b: The green vault is the sky.

[3] 5a: Māsevā means all that is other than God.

[4] 6a: The construction جزو کل جویان is compressed and uncertain; this reading and its connection to the next line are provisional.

[5] 7a: ساخت ذوق is unusually compressed; “makes his soul sheer delight” is a provisional literal reading.

[6] 11a: The ʿAnqā is a fabulous, elusive bird.

[7] 11b: اشکال is read eshkāl, “difficulty, perplexity”; ashkāl, “forms,” is also possible.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal asks what draws the heart beyond its confining account of itself. The beloved is mostly spoken of through traces and powers: fragrance, tresses, face, generosity, and majesty. The recurring mī-keshad binds these encounters through several related actions—drawing upward, pulling free, bringing into appearance, and inscribing. The heart is repeatedly moved, yet it also answers through aspiration, resolve, and the clearing of its attachments. Spiritual life emerges as a relation between being attracted and becoming able to respond. Dawn gives this relation a recurring freshness, while the closing name brings the apparently general descriptions home to a particular inward life.

The images resonate without forming a compulsory sequence of stages. Wells, furnaces, and wilderness convey confinement; gardens, the sky, and the Pleiades open expansive alternatives. Birds can shelter or capture. Reason receives a strikingly affirmative place as the Simurgh that rescues Zāl, so the ending’s perplexity cannot simply mean that thought has always been worthless. The poem allows understanding to release the heart from obsession while refusing to make that release equivalent to possessing every answer. The uncertain constructions in couplets 6 and 7 also counsel against turning these resonances into an excessively tidy doctrinal argument.

A further tension concerns earthly life. The poem’s upward motions might initially suggest escape from material existence, yet its tenth couplet draws creation’s treasure into the earthly body. The dust that appears lowly is also receptive. Mercy makes this dignity possible, while purification concerns what obstructs the heart. The Darwīshiyya printed under Hamadani’s name supplies relevant parallels in its treatment of aspiration, cultivation, and restorative generosity; these strengthen a devotional and ethical reading while leaving the poem’s images their own freedom.[8] Unity is approached through sight, scent, taste, and relationship, rather than presented as a definition that cancels the distinctions among them.

The closing couplet brings majesty into the place prepared by attraction. A heart whose claims of ‘I’ and ‘we’ were crossed through now bears another inscription, one it cannot confidently decode. With eshkāl retained, perplexity becomes the unresolved consequence of capture; with ashkāl considered, the textual question remains open. Either way, the final name does not announce effortless possession of the beloved. The poem’s distinctive force lies in joining elevation to receptivity: the heart rises, receives, and becomes more deeply answerable to what exceeds its own account of the encounter.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes [1]–[7] reproduce the supplied notes. The provisional constructions in couplets 6 and 7, the eshkāl/ashkāl alternative in couplet 11, and the closing name ʿAlāʾī remain unchanged. The supplied citation to the poem’s printed pages is retained; the reading text has not been silently reconciled with a different edition. References [8]–[11] support the new commentary and do not claim to be earlier explanations of this exact ghazal.

8. Darwīshiyya, printed under Hamadani’s name in Muhammad Riaz, Aḥvāl o āsār o ashʿār-e Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī, second edition, Islamabad, 1991. Printed pp. 493–494 discuss cultivating and cleansing the heart; pp. 497–498 relate aspiration to its object and develop imagery of birds and spiritual height; p. 499 encourages hope in divine generosity. These passages were checked in the scans. At printed p. 486, Riaz defends Hamadani’s authorship against a competing attribution to Sayyid Muhammad Nurbakhsh. This qualification accompanies the comparisons. Digitized Riaz edition.
9. Hanns-Peter Schmidt, SIMORḠ, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Used for the literary background of the Simurgh’s rescue and upbringing of Zāl in Ferdowsi’s Shāh-nāma. The identification of the bird with reason and the wilderness of obsession belong to the supplied ghazal.
10. Ibn ʿArabi, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Adam chapter, in the English translation by Bulent Rauf: Extract from the Fusus al-hikam, Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society. Used comparatively for Manifest and Hidden, Adam’s comprehensiveness and mirror imagery, and the distinction between created dependence and divine freedom from need.
11. Michel Chodkiewicz, The Endless Voyage, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society, 19 (1996). His discussion of Ibn ʿArabi’s Kitāb al-isfār connects continuing bewilderment with the inexhaustibility of divine gifts. This comparison does not resolve the supplied variant in couplet 11 or equate its vocabulary with the technical term ḥayra.

One textual matter worth recording alongside the plate. Couplets 6 and 7 — the jozv-e koll-jūyān line and the kū-ye vahdat line — do not appear in the Kashmiri manuscripts. The leaf runs continuously from couplet 5 to couplet 8, with no gap, no marginal insertion, and no catchword suggesting an omission. Their absence here is consistent with the reading notes, where both are the couplets flagged as textually compressed and provisional:   on the uncertain جزو کل جویان construction and  on ساخت ذوق. That the two lines requiring the most conjectural reconstruction are also the two missing from the Kashmiri witness is a point we should carry, since it bears directly on whether they belong to the poem as transmitted in Kashmir or entered through the Riaz printed text.