Chehel Asrar 13 - Thirteenth Ghazal

Ghazal 13

9 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 455–456

رِنْدانِ جان‌فِشان چُو قَدَم بَر فَنا زَنَنْد

rendān-e jān-feshān cho qadam bar fanā zanand

1a  When the free spirits who lavish their lives step into annihilation,

بَر خَوانِ دَرْدِ هِجْر صَلایِ عَنا زَنَنْد

bar khān-e dard-e hejr salā-ye ʿanā zanand

1b  at the table of separation’s pain they call all to the feast of suffering.

Commentary on couplet 1

The free spirits enter annihilation and turn separation’s pain into a feast to which others are summoned. Jān-feshān describes a lavish giving of life, so their hospitality offers what has already cost them everything. Rindān lends the company an unconventional freedom, but the prayers that follow prevent that freedom from being reduced to contempt for devotion. Fanā may here be read as the effacement of possessive self-assertion before God. The people who undergo it continue to love, speak, and ask; their literal destruction would not explain the poem’s sustained activity. The table makes deprivation shareable without removing its sting. This opening establishes a fellowship whose bond is a costly relationship, rather than a claim to immunity from longing.

اَز آبِ دِیدِه غُسْل کُنَنْد و بِه طُورِ دِل

az āb-e dīde ghosl konand o be Tūr-e del

2a  They wash themselves in tears, and on the heart’s Mount Sinai

اَز سَرِ عِشْق نالِهٔ «فَاغْفِرْ لَنَا» زَنَنْد

az sar-e ʿeshq nāle-ye “fa-ghfir lanā” zanand

2b  out of love they cry, “Then forgive us.” [1]

Commentary on couplet 2

Tears become the water of washing, and the heart becomes Sinai: outward gestures of preparation are brought into the lovers’ inward life. Their cry arises from love and asks forgiveness for a shared ‘us.’ Fa-ghfir lanā occurs in Qur’an 3:16 and in Moses’s plea at 7:155, making the Mosaic connection especially close.[8] The prayer places the heart’s heightened encounter alongside acknowledgment of need. Darwīshiyya, printed under Hamadani’s name, similarly values confession and humility over an obedience corrupted by pride.[7] This is a contextual parallel, with the attribution qualification recorded below. The washing image therefore concerns receptive contrition; the poem does not establish tears as a legal substitute for the ritual washing whose language it evokes.

اَز شَرِّ دِیوِ طَبْع کُنَنْد اِلْتِجا بِدُوسْت

az sharr-e dīv-e tabʿ konand eltejā be-dūst

3a  From the evil of the demon of natural impulse they seek refuge in the friend,

تِیرِ نِیاز بَر هَدَفِ «عَافِنَا» زَنَنْد

tīr-e niyāz bar hadaf-e “ʿāfinā” zanand

3b  shooting the arrow of need at the target of “Grant us well-being.” [2]

Commentary on couplet 3

The lovers seek the Friend’s protection against an impulse personified as a demon, then direct need like an arrow toward the prayer for well-being. The weapon’s force belongs to niyāz, acknowledged dependence, rather than to an ability to compel the one addressed. Tabʿ can name natural disposition or impulse; its demonic figure dramatizes the danger of being governed by it. The related singular petition ʿāfinī appears in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2697b alongside requests for forgiveness and guidance; the poem uses the plural ʿāfinā.[9] Its request for protection qualifies the opening feast of suffering: readiness to endure does not require seeking harm for its own sake. Refuge remains necessary even for those portrayed as free spirits.

چُون شُسْتِه‌اَنْد لَوْحِ دِل اَز ظُلْمَتِ حُدُوث

chūn shoste-and lowh-e del az zolmat-e hodūs

4a  Having washed the heart’s tablet clean of the darkness of created being,

دَر دَرْسِ غَیْب نَعْرِهٔ «فَاکْتُبْ لَنَا» زَنَنْد

dar dars-e ghayb naʿre-ye “fa-ktub lanā” zanand

4b  in the lesson of the unseen they shout, “Then decree for us.” [3]

Commentary on couplet 4

The cleansed tablet of the heart becomes ready for a lesson and a new inscription. Washing does not end learning: it prepares the lovers to ask that good be written or decreed for them. Their phrase alludes to Qur’an 7:156, where Moses asks for good in this world and the next.[8] Ḥudūth means originatedness, the condition of what comes into being. A cautious spiritual reading understands its darkness as awareness absorbed by contingent appearances or claims of independent existence; cleansing does not make the created heart uncreated. Darwīshiyya’s imagery of divine care washing stained lives offers a relevant parallel.[7] The tablet remains receptive. Its purification enables petition, rather than granting its owner final authority over what the unseen will disclose.

مَسْتانِ جامِ شَوْق کِه دَر مَجْلِسِ شُهُود

mastān-e jām-e showq ke dar majles-e shohūd

5a  Those drunk from longing’s cup, in the gathering of direct vision,

دَر اِسْتِزاد آن دَم «اَتْمِمْ لَنَا» زَنَنْد

dar estezād ān dam “ʾatmim lanā” zanand

5b  at that moment ask for more, crying, “Perfect for us.” [4]

Commentary on couplet 5

The intoxicated witnesses ask for more at the very moment of direct vision. Their request prevents the gathering from becoming a picture of completed possession. Atmim lanā recalls Qur’an 66:8, where believers whose light already shines ask that it be completed for them.[10] Estezād, asking for increase, makes receiving and desiring compatible. Shohūd, witnessing, names an immediacy of encounter, while the prayer preserves the difference between a gift and power over its source. An Akbarian comparison is precise here: Ibn ʿArabi’s Kitāb al-fanāʾ retains devotional practice amid realization and warns that witnessing never means encompassing God.[12] Longing’s cup thus deepens dependence. What has been received can become the reason for a more attentive request, instead of ending supplication.

اَز مَدْیَنِ وَفا چُو بِقُدْسِ صَفا رَسَنْد

az Madyan-e vafā cho be-qods-e safā rasand

6a  When they reach purity’s holy realm from the Midian of faithfulness, [5]

بَر صَخْرِهٔ قَبُولِ کَرَم «رَبَّنَا» زَنَنْد

bar sakhre-ye qabūl-e karam “rabbanā” zanand

6b  they strike the rock of gracious acceptance with “Our Lord!”

Commentary on couplet 6

The travelers move from faithfulness figured as Midian toward sanctity figured as purity, and their invocation strikes a rock of gracious acceptance. Moses’s Midian sojourn and subsequent call provide a scriptural context; striking the rock may also recall the provision of water in Qur’an 2:60.[11] The poem gathers these motifs into an inward geography without specifying a literal route or a particular shrine. Midian’s association with service and fulfilled commitment gives vafā, faithfulness, substance. The cry rabbanā, ‘our Lord,’ then makes relationship the instrument of approach. The rock need not mean that divine generosity is reluctant: its firmness can give acceptance a tangible image. The travelers continue addressing the giver even as the verse speaks of their arrival.

دَر سَیْرِ سِرِّ عالَمِ بِی‌مُنْتَهایِ عِشْق

dar sayr-e serr-e ʿālam-e bī-montahā-ye ʿeshq

7a  Traveling the mystery of love’s boundless world,

گامِ نَخُسْت بَر سَرِ اِین تَنْگْنا زَنَنْد

gām-e nakhost bar sar-e īn tangnā zanand

7b  with their first step they tread upon this narrow prison.

Commentary on couplet 7

Love’s journey is boundless, yet its first step already rises above a narrow enclosure. The scale of the contrast changes what counts as progress: leaving a constricted measure is only a beginning when the field of love has no stated end. Serr, mystery or inward secret, directs attention beneath what ordinary appearances disclose. The demonstrative ‘this’ makes the narrowness immediate, but does not identify it exclusively with the body, the world, or one faculty. It can gather the confinements evoked earlier, including impulse and attachment to created appearances. The verse enlarges the horizon of seeking without supplying a fixed sequence of stations. Freedom from one enclosure does not amount to exhausting the love that draws the travelers onward.

چُون دَر رِیاضِ اُنْس شَرابِ بَقا چَشَنْد

chūn dar riyāz-e ons sharāb-e baqā chashand

8a  When they taste the wine of abiding in the gardens of intimacy,

خُوش تِیغِ تَرْک بَر رُخِ دارُ الْفَنا زَنَنْد

khosh tīgh-e tark bar rokh-e dār ol-fanā zanand

8b  they gladly strike the face of this perishing abode with renunciation’s sword.

Commentary on couplet 8

A taste of abiding produces a decisive renunciation of the perishing abode. The garden and wine make endurance intimate and savored; the sword gives relinquishment a cutting edge. Baqā, abiding, can here be understood as a life sustained through God after possessive self-assertion loosens, not an independently immortal self. Dār al-fanā names the transient world, so its use of fanā differs from the opening’s spiritual effacement. Renunciation turns against attachment to what passes away rather than rejecting that earlier transformation. Ibn ʿArabi’s description of bestowed qualities as a loan supplies a useful comparison for abiding without independent ownership.[12] The sword belongs to the poem’s figurative language of separation; it does not identify people or places as targets for physical attack.

با داغِ مُفْلِسِی چُو عَلایِی خِیامِ عِزّ

bā dāgh-e moflesī cho ʿAlāʾī khiyām-e ʿezz

9a  Branded with poverty, like ʿAlāʾī, they pitch the tents of glory

بَر سِدْرِهٔ قَناعَت و اَوْجِ غِنا زَنَنْد

bar sedre-ye qanāʿat o owj-e ghenā zanand

9b  upon contentment’s lote tree, at the summit of self-sufficiency. [6]

Commentary on couplet 9

The destitute bear poverty’s brand while pitching tents of glory at the highest imaginable point. Contentment changes the meaning of wealth: qanāʿat is satisfaction with what suffices, while ghenā here can express freedom from grasping need. Neither requires that the creature become independent of God. The lote tree evokes Qur’an 53:14, but its qualification by contentment belongs to the poem’s distinctive image.[13] Darwīshiyya offers a related paradox in its description of spiritual dervishes possessing enduring sovereignty.[7] That parallel illuminates poverty joined to honor without supplying a separate explanation of this tree. By including ʿAlāʾī among the branded poor, the closing line makes the speaker share the condition through which the community’s apparent lack becomes sufficiency.

Reading notes

[1] 2b: The Arabic prayer echoes Qurʾanic supplication, including 3:16 and 7:155.

[2] 3b: ʿĀfinā is an Arabic supplication for well-being and protection.

[3] 4b: The Arabic phrase alludes to Qurʾan 7:156, a prayer for good in this world and the next.

[4] 5b: The Arabic phrase alludes to Qurʾan 66:8: a prayer for the completion of one’s light.

[5] 6a: The place names extend the poem’s imagery of Moses’s sacred journey.

[6] 9b: The lote tree evokes the heavenly boundary of Qurʾan 53:14; here it is associated with contentment.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal places spiritual effacement inside a life of continuing address. Its free spirits enter fanā, yet go on washing, seeking refuge, learning, asking for increase, and calling upon their Lord. The Arabic petitions give these actions a communal voice: forgiveness, protection, goodness, and completed light are requested for ‘us.’ Persian imagery describes the encounter’s force, while the embedded prayers allow that force to become supplication. The two languages therefore work together within each line’s movement, rather than dividing poetry from devotion.

Mosaic images give the inner journey a remembered sacred landscape. Sinai becomes the heart; Midian becomes faithfulness; washing, a tablet, and a struck rock gather different forms of preparation and reception. These allusions need not map a single itinerary or make the lovers repeat every episode of Moses’s life. Their significance lies in the passage between effort and what must be received. A cleansed tablet still asks to be written upon, and those already in the gathering of vision still ask for completion. The poem’s account of arrival preserves the language of need.

The relation between fanā and baqā likewise resists a simple story of the self acquiring absolute power. Effacement loosens possessive claims; abiding is tasted as sustained life, while renunciation concerns attachment to the perishing abode. An Akbarian comparison helps preserve this distinction by treating spiritual gifts as received and witnessing as something short of encompassing God.[12] Darwīshiyya provides complementary ethical contexts in its emphasis on contrition, restorative generosity, and the sovereignty of the dervish.[7] These parallels support the poem’s union of intensity and humility without claiming to explain every image or establish a compulsory order of spiritual stages.

The closing tents complete the opening hospitality. Those who summoned others to separation’s painful table can now inhabit glory, yet poverty’s mark remains on them. The highest point is associated with contentment, making sufficiency a changed relation to desire. ʿAlāʾī enters this fellowship through shared lack rather than standing outside it as an accomplished owner of its treasures. The ghazal’s particular insight is that relinquishment can make prayer more intimate: the less the lovers claim as their own, the more fully their common voice can ask, receive, and give.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes [1]–[6] reproduce the supplied notes. References [7]–[13] document the added commentary and the checked scriptural contexts. All supplied Persian and embedded Arabic, transliterations, translations, punctuation, numbering, and the closing name ʿAlāʾī remain unchanged. In particular, the prayer wording is preserved even where its conjunction differs from the Qur’anic passage it recalls. Contextual parallels are distinguished from prior commentary on this exact poem.

7. 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 values confession and humility over pride in obedience; p. 499 pictures divine generosity washing stained lives in forgiveness; p. 492 joins the dervish’s condition to enduring sovereignty. 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.
8. Qur’an 3:16, Āl ʿImrān, and 7:155, al-Aʿrāf, contain fa-ghfir lanā; the latter is part of Moses’s supplication. 7:156 continues his request for good in this world and the next. Its wording begins wa-ktub lanā, with “and”; the poem’s fa-ktub lanā, with “then,” is an adaptation whose supplied wording is retained.
9. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2697b, Kitāb al-dhikr wa-l-duʿāʾ wa-l-tawba wa-l-istighfār; the linked edition also identifies it as Book 48, Hadith 45. Its supplication includes the singular ʿāfinī, asking for protection or well-being. The ghazal’s plural ʿāfinā belongs to the same petitionary vocabulary; no exact quotation of this report is claimed.
10. Qur’an 66:8, al-Taḥrīm. The believers ask that their light be completed and seek forgiveness. The ghazal quotes the brief request atmim lanā, while leaving its object unstated in the reading text.
11. Qur’an 28:22–28, al-Qaṣaṣ, on Moses in Midian and his agreed term of service; 28:29–30, on his departure and call; and 2:60, al-Baqara, on striking the rock and receiving water. These supply related Mosaic motifs, without establishing a literal itinerary or a particular shrine for couplet 6.
12. Ibn ʿArabi, Kitāb al-fanāʾ fī l-mushāhada, translated by Layla Shamash and Stephen Hirtenstein, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society, 9 (1991). Used comparatively for bestowed qualities as a loan, continuing devotional practice, and witnessing without encompassing God. These passages preserve the recipient’s dependence rather than establishing independent possession of divine reality.
13. Qur’an 53:14, al-Najm, names the lote tree at the utmost boundary. Its association with contentment in the ghazal is the poet’s particular use of the image, rather than part of this verse’s wording.