Chehel Asrar 12 - Twelfth Ghazal

Ghazal 12

11 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 454–455

اَی خُوش آن دَم کِین دِل اَز غَوْغا قَدَم بِیرُون زَنَد

ay khosh ān dam k-īn del az ghowghā qadam bīrūn zanad

1a  How sweet the moment when this heart steps out of the tumult

دَر فَضایِ لامَکان جان خَیْمِه بَر گَرْدُون زَنَد

dar fazā-ye lāmakān jān khayme bar gardūn zanad

1b  and the soul pitches its tent above the heavens, in the expanse of placelessness.

Commentary on couplet 1

The opening welcomes the prospect of release. The heart steps out of tumult, and the soul answers by pitching a tent beyond the heavens. Lāmakān, placelessness, makes the imagined destination paradoxical: spatial language opens toward what cannot simply be another location. The tent suggests a new way of dwelling, while the movement away from noise prepares the later music of ordered longing. A useful Akbarian comparison appears in a Futūḥāt passage translated by Chittick, where ascent is interpreted through release from desire and recognition of divine presence.[12] This illuminates the inward significance of departure while preserving the poem’s celestial imagery. The longing is for freedom from confinement, not merely a more distant campsite.

چار طاقِ جِسْم با اِین شِشْدَر و پَنْج آشِیان

chār tāq-e jesm bā īn sheshdar o panj āshiyān

2a  The body’s four arches, with these six doors and five nests, [1]

جُمْلِه بَر هَم سُوزَد و دِل چَتْر بَر هامُون زَنَد

jomle bar ham sūzad o del chatr bar hāmūn zanad

2b  it burns down together, and the heart spreads its canopy over the plain.

Commentary on couplet 2

The body appears as an elaborate enclosure whose entire arrangement is consumed, allowing the heart to spread its canopy across an open plain. Under the supplied numerical interpretation, elements, directions, and senses combine into a structure that circumscribes experience. Sheshdar also carries the suggestion of being hemmed in, reinforcing the pressure of enclosure. The change is from a bounded construction to spacious habitation; the heart still shelters beneath a canopy. That continuity matters: the poem imagines another manner of dwelling rather than simply leaving a blank after destruction. Burning gives release a radical intensity. As an image of spiritual transformation, it can express the loosening of bodily and sensory limitation without becoming an instruction to damage the body.

بارْگاهِ اُنْس دَر صَحْرایِ عِزَّت بَرکَشَد

bārgāh-e ons dar sahrā-ye ʿezzat barkeshad

3a  It raises the pavilion of intimacy on the plain of glory,

مِیخَش اَسْرار و طَنابَش ذَوْق و عِلْم اُسْتُون زَنَد

mīkh-ash asrār o tanāb-ash zowq o ʿelm ostūn zanad

3b  with mysteries as its pegs, spiritual savor as its ropes, and knowledge for its pillar.

Commentary on couplet 3

The new dwelling has its own carefully described supports. Inner mysteries serve as pegs, savor as ropes, and knowledge as the pillar: each contributes differently to the pavilion’s stability. Ons, intimacy, names the closeness housed within it, while the plain of glory gives that intimacy dignity and breadth. Zowq, tasting, supplies experiential tension and connection; ʿilm, knowledge, provides upright support. The verse thus joins experience and understanding rather than making one cancel the other. Darwīshiyya, printed under Hamadani’s name, similarly associates the heart’s health with the sweetness of remembrance and the savor of knowledge and love.[8] This is a documented parallel, with the attribution qualification recorded below. Its relevance lies in their association, not an exact decoding of every part of the tent.

عَقْلِ کُلِّی دامَنِ هِمَّت بَراَفْشانَد زِ خاک

ʿaql-e kollī dāman-e hemmat barafshānad ze khāk

4a  Universal intellect shakes aspiration’s skirts free of dust

مُهْرِ اِقْبالِ اَبَد بَر هَیْئاتِ مَکْنُون زَنَد

mohr-e eqbāl-e abad bar hayʾāt-e maknūn zanad

4b  and stamps the seal of everlasting fortune on the hidden forms.

Commentary on couplet 4

Universal Intellect clears aspiration’s skirts of dust and impresses hidden forms with a seal of enduring good fortune. The first gesture removes encumbrance; the second confers confirmation or distinction. Himmat, concentrated spiritual aspiration, is given movement through a familiar bodily image, while the seal makes the change authoritative. Intellect acts positively here, an essential counterweight to the later criticism of reasoning confined to how and why. The epithet ‘universal’ indicates breadth without independently specifying a complete cosmological system. Likewise, the hidden forms should remain unspecified rather than being confidently identified with a particular school’s technical entities. Within the poem, intellectual illumination and aspiration cooperate: what was weighed down can receive a mark of lasting significance.

چَشْمِ هامانِ اَمَل گَر بَرکَنَد دَسْتِ یَقِین

chashm-e Hāmān-e amal gar barkanad dast-e yaqīn

5a  If the hand of certainty plucks out the eyes of hope’s Hāmān, [2]

رُوحِ رُوحانِی قَدَم دَر قُدْس با هارُون زَنَد

rūh-e rūhānī qadam dar qods bā Hārūn zanad

5b  the spiritual soul walks with Aaron in the holy realm.

Commentary on couplet 5

Certainty disables the sight of an ambition figured as Hāmān, and the soul becomes able to walk with Aaron. The names place two kinds of assistance in opposition. In Qur’an 40:36–37, Pharaoh commands Hāmān to build a tower through which he imagines reaching the heavens; in 20:29–32, Moses asks for Aaron’s strengthening companionship.[9] These contexts make the contrast especially suggestive amid the poem’s repeated architecture and ascent. Hope’s Hāmān can represent a self-serving project that mistakes its own construction for access to divine truth. The violent removal of its eyes belongs to that personification; it interrupts a misleading vision. Walking with Aaron instead associates the soul’s progress with prophetic guidance, without asserting that the seeker thereby acquires prophetic office.

اَز هَوایِ نَفْس گَر یِکْدَم خَلاصِی باشَدَش

az havā-ye nafs gar yekdam khalāsī bāshad-ash

6a  If it gains a moment’s freedom from the self’s desires,

دَر هَوایِ لامَکان لاف اَز مَلَک اَفْزُون زَنَد

dar havā-ye lāmakān lāf az malak afzūn zanad

6b  in the air of placelessness it boasts of surpassing the angels. [3]

Commentary on couplet 6

A moment free from the self’s desire opens into an air where the soul boasts of exceeding angels. Havā performs the turn: the word shifts from inward appetite to the surrounding air, transforming what confined movement into an image of spaciousness. The conditional opening and lāf, boasting, both matter. The verse allows an audacious expression of release, but its wording does not certify a permanent rank above every angel. Nor does it unambiguously condemn the claim as false. Darwīshiyya warns that even obedience may be corrupted when it produces self-admiration.[8] That context keeps the vulnerability of spiritual pride visible. The later criticism of lofty speech adds pressure to the question of how experienced freedom differs from speaking grandly about oneself.

عَقْل با چُون و چِرا دَر وَحْشَت‌آبادِ بَدَن

ʿaql bā chūn o cherā dar vahshat-ābād-e badan

7a  Reason, with its hows and whys, remains in the body’s desolate abode,

مانْدِه و بَر طارَمِ عُلْوِی دَمِ بِی‌چُون زَنَد

mānde o bar tāram-e ʿolvī dam-e bī-chūn zanad

7b  yet speaks of the Unconditioned on the lofty vault above. [4]

Commentary on couplet 7

Reason remains lodged in bodily desolation while speaking of heights it has not reached. The opposition between chūn, how, and bī-chūn, without how, makes the limitation audible: a method governed by qualification speaks about what exceeds qualification. The criticism concerns this mismatch between condition and claim. Earlier, knowledge supported the pavilion and Universal Intellect acted freely, so the poem does not dismiss understanding as such. A precise Akbarian comparison appears in Ibn ʿArabi’s distinction between what intellect acquires through thinking and what it can receive from God beyond that method.[10] This comparison concerns ways of knowing. It allows the verse to challenge discursive self-sufficiency without treating ignorance as spiritual attainment or equating every intellectual act with confinement.

تا اَز اِین ظُلْمَت‌سَرایِ تِیهِ حِرْمان نَگُذَرَد

tā az īn zolmat-sarā-ye tīh-e hermān nagozarad

8a  Until it passes beyond this dark dwelling, this wilderness of deprivation,

دَسْتِ هِمَّت دَر جَنابِ کِبْرِیایِی چُون زَنَد؟

dast-e hemmat dar janāb-e kebriyāyī chūn zanad?

8b  how can aspiration’s hand reach the court of divine grandeur?

Commentary on couplet 8

The question turns the previous critique into a demand for passage. A hand cannot reach the court of grandeur while its owner remains enclosed in a dark dwelling and lost in deprivation. The images combine domestic confinement with wilderness: being settled somewhere does not guarantee finding a way. The first half makes departure a condition of aspiration’s reach, giving effort a directional purpose. Darwīshiyya similarly describes releasing what holds the heart captive as the beginning of the seeker’s aspiration.[8] This offers an ethical context for the darkness without fixing it to one bodily faculty or philosophical category. The verse presses for a change in how the seeker lives and perceives, beyond the mere announcement of a lofty destination.

چُون نَسِیمِ رَوْح و رَیْحانِ رِیاضِ اُنْس دِید

chūn nasīm-e rowh o rayhān-e riyāz-e ons dīd

9a  Once it feels the breeze of rest and fragrance from the gardens of intimacy, [5]

پایِ رِفْعَت بَر سَرِ اِین صُورَتِ مَکْنُون زَنَد

pā-ye refʿat bar sar-e īn sūrat-e maknūn zanad

9b  it sets the foot of exaltation upon this hidden form. [6]

Commentary on couplet 9

A breeze from the gardens of intimacy precedes the next act of elevation. The scent offers an intimation of a freedom not yet fully described. Rowh o rayhān echoes Qur’an 56:89; in its immediate context, 56:88–89, rest and abundance accompany the condition of those brought near.[11] The poem draws that language into its own garden of intimacy. The second half remains less secure: ‘this hidden form’ has no unambiguous referent in the supplied text. It may suggest a subtle limitation that still has to be exceeded, but assigning it a definite faculty, body, or metaphysical level would resolve more than the wording permits. A received intimation of nearness is followed by another image of elevation.

اَرْغَنُونِ عِشْق چُون با نَغْمِهٔ تَوْحِید ساخْت

arghanūn-e ʿeshq chūn bā naghme-ye towhīd sākht

10a  When love’s organ tunes itself to the melody of oneness,

مُطْرِبِ شَوْقِ جَمالَش نالِه‌ها مَوْزُون زَنَد

motreb-e showq-e jamāl-ash nāle-hā mowzūn zanad

10b  the minstrel of longing for his beauty gives voice to measured laments.

Commentary on couplet 10

Love becomes an instrument tuned to oneness, and longing answers with laments that possess measure. Towḥīd, the affirmation of God’s oneness, supplies the melody to which expression must respond. Mowzūn suggests proportion and rhythm: grief finds form without losing its intensity. The image answers the opening tumult, allowing the poem to move from distracting noise toward an ordered voice. Longing remains, so harmony does not mean that desire for the beloved has disappeared. The instrument and minstrel also make expression relational, with no single isolated voice claiming the whole music. Its discipline is audible in the pairing of longing with measure: the desire to speak has learned to listen to what orders it.

گَر رَهَد رُوزِی عَلایِی اَز کَشاکَشْ‌هایِ نَفْس

gar rahad rūzī ʿAlāʾī az kashākash-hā-ye nafs

11a  If one day ʿAlāʾī escapes the self’s struggles,

زِین کَشاکَش گامِ جان بَر نَقْدِ اَفْلاطُون زَنَد

z-īn kashākash gām-e jān bar naqd-e Aflātūn zanad

11b  emerging from that struggle, his soul will step beyond Plato’s treasure. [7]

Commentary on couplet 11

The final name brings the expansive vision back to a condition the speaker has yet to fulfill. If one day ʿAlāʾī escapes the self’s struggles, the soul may step beyond Plato’s treasure. Naqd evokes coin or available capital, making philosophical knowledge a resource whose reach the hoped-for transformation would exceed. The verse does not deny that it has value: the earlier pillar of knowledge and active Universal Intellect resist that conclusion. The decisive condition is freedom from the self’s contention, not simply victory in an argument. Darwīshiyya likewise makes fair examination of pride, greed, and envy part of the seeker’s work.[8] The closing ambition is therefore exposed to an ethical test. The poet voices a hope of surpassing philosophy while withholding the claim that this has already occurred.

Reading notes

[1] 2a: The numbers evoke the four elements, six directions, and five senses; sheshdar also suggests being hemmed in.

[2] 5a: Hāmān, associated with Pharaoh, contrasts with Aaron, Moses’s brother, in the next line.

[3] 6b: Havā shifts from “desire” in the preceding line to “air” here.

[4] 7b: Bī-chūn, “without how,” denotes the divine beyond qualification; it answers the preceding “hows and whys.”

[5] 9a: Rowh o rayhān, “rest and fragrant herbs,” echoes Qurʾan 56:89.

[6] 9b: The referent of “this hidden form” remains obscure; the image suggests rising beyond form.

[7] 11b: Plato’s “coin” or “treasure” represents the resources of philosophical knowledge.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal imagines freedom through a succession of dwellings, departures, and transformed forms of speech. The heart longs to leave tumult; the soul pitches a tent beyond the heavens; a confined bodily structure gives way to a pavilion of intimacy. Yet placelessness remains expressed through tents, plains, courts, and heights. That tension makes the images fruitful: the desired freedom exceeds ordinary limits, while the poem continues to make it felt through recognizable acts of inhabiting and moving. The opening welcome is finally answered by ʿAlāʾī’s conditional hope, keeping the vision open rather than presenting it as an achieved itinerary.

The treatment of knowledge is equally differentiated. Knowledge supports the pavilion, and Universal Intellect confers lasting distinction. Later, reason confined to how and why speaks beyond its actual condition. The contrast concerns the scope and manner of understanding, as well as the distance between saying and realizing. The Akbarian comparison between knowledge reached through thinking and knowledge received beyond that method helps clarify this distinction.[10] It does not make the poem a complete account of Ibn ʿArabi’s cosmology. Nor do the obscure hidden forms invite a confident technical identification merely because the language permits metaphysical interpretation.

Desire supplies the practical test of the imagined ascent. Hāmān’s ambitious construction is opposed to Aaron’s companionship; the repeated conditions require release from the self’s demands before claims of height can be trusted. Even the boast of surpassing angels retains its audacity and possible vulnerability. Darwīshiyya offers relevant parallels in joining taste with knowledge, directing aspiration beyond binding attachments, and requiring honest scrutiny of inward faults.[8] The ascent can consequently be read as demanding ethical refinement alongside altered perception. Its grandeur does not remove the question of what continues to govern the seeker.

The musical couplet gathers these tensions without silencing longing. What began as tumult becomes measured lament attuned to oneness. The final gesture beyond Plato then returns attention to the unresolved struggle of the person who speaks. This ending gives the ghazal its particular restraint: intellectual and spiritual ambition remains answerable to transformation of the self. Its most persuasive freedom is the possibility of a voice whose understanding, longing, and conduct have learned to move together.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes [1]–[7] reproduce the supplied notes, including the uncertainty about the hidden form in couplet 9. References [8]–[12] support the added commentary. All supplied Persian readings, transliterations, translations, numbering, edition citation, and the closing name ʿAlāʾī remain unchanged. The prose parallels and Akbarian comparisons do not claim to be earlier explanations of this exact poem or to resolve its underdetermined metaphysical terms.

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 p. 490 joins knowledge and love with experiential savor and warns against self-admiration in obedience. Printed p. 497 relates aspiration to its object and to release from binding attachments; p. 499 directs fair self-examination of inward faults. These passages were checked against the scans. Riaz’s introduction, printed p. 486, defends Hamadani’s authorship against a competing attribution to Sayyid Muhammad Nurbakhsh; that qualification is retained. Digitized Riaz edition.
9. Qur’an 40:36–37, Ghāfir, on Pharaoh ordering Hāmān to build a tower; and Qur’an 20:29–32, Ṭā Hā, on Moses seeking Aaron’s help and companionship in his task. These verify the scriptural contrast behind the names in couplet 5; the internal personification of ambition belongs to the poem.
10. James Winston Morris, Ibn ʿArabi’s “Short Course” on Love, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society, 50 (2011), translating al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, chapter 73, Question 118. Used for the distinction between thinking and the intellect’s capacity to receive knowledge from God beyond what thinking alone establishes.
11. Qur’an 56:88 and 56:89, al-Wāqiʿa. The second verse contains the words echoed by rowh o rayhān, in a passage concerning those brought near and the promise of rest and a garden of bliss. This confirms the supplied allusion while leaving the ghazal’s hidden form unidentified.
12. William C. Chittick, Presence with God, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society, 20 (1996), closing translation from al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, chapter 559. Used comparatively for ascent understood through release from desire and recognition of a divine presence that does not depend on reaching a distant place.

Couplet 1b reads در فضای قدسیان, not the printed لامکان — "in the expanse of the holy ones" rather than "of placelessness." The manuscript reading avoids repeating لامکان, which the printed text uses again in couplet 6b.

Couplet 7 diverges in both hemistichs. The first reads عقدهٔ چون و چرا, "the knot of how and why," where the print has عقل با چون و چرا, "reason, with its hows and whys." The second reads ماند و در طارم علوی دم از چون زند, against the printed مانده و بر طارم علوی دم بی‌چون زند — "speaks of the how" rather than "speaks of the Unconditioned." Taken together the manuscript gives a self-consistent couplet about a knot of how-and-why that stays lodged in the body and still speaks only of how from the lofty vault. The reading note [4], which turns on bī-chūn answering the preceding hows and whys, rests entirely on the printed reading, and the commentary on couplet 7 would need reframing if the manuscript reading stands. The subject of the criticism changes from reason itself to the entanglement.

Two smaller ones: in 9b the word before زند carries a clear sīn and is not مکنون, and in 10b the manuscript has مطرب از شوق جمالش with the preposition.

The copy was collated against another manuscript. Four short notes stand in the margins, each with a ṣaḥḥ mark: خیمه beside couplet 1, سوزد و beside couplet 2, a note ending بد above the disputed word in 9b, and زین کشاکش beside couplet 11. Three further supplements were written above the line where the ruling ran out — بر گردون زند over couplet 1, بدن over 7a, and زند over 7b. That apparatus is itself evidence for our argument: the Kashmiri copyists were comparing witnesses, which makes the divergences from Riaz harder to dismiss as simple corruption.