Chehel Asrar 17 - Seventeenth Ghazal

Ghazal 17

9 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 459–460

هَر سَری کَز سِرِّ عِشْقَش والِه وُ شَیْدا شَوَد

har sarī k-az serr-e ʿeshq-ash vāle o shaydā shavad

1a  Every head bewildered and entranced by the secret of his love

اَز بَد وُ نِیکِ وُجُودِ خِویش بِی‌پَرْوا شَوَد

az bad o nīk-e vojūd-e khīsh bī-parvā shavad

1b  grows unconcerned with the good and bad of its own existence.

Commentary on couplet 1

The opening describes a person so absorbed in love that concern for personal fortune loses its governing force. The sound-play between sar, head, and serr, secret, brings the whole person under the influence of something inward and difficult to articulate. Vāle and shaydā convey bewilderment and passionate absorption. The second half redirects attention from those intense states to their consequence: one’s own advantage and adversity matter less. A pertinent parallel occurs in the Darwīshiyya printed under Hamadani’s name, where freedom from binding attachments includes release from anxiety over prosperity and adversity. [6] This supports a reading centered on diminished self-preoccupation; the couplet itself offers no comprehensive rule suspending ethical judgment.

بَر سُوَیْدایِ دِلِ هَرکَس کِه اِین سَوْدا نِشَسْت

bar sovaydā-ye del-e harkas ke īn sowdā neshast

2a  When this longing settles in the dark core of someone's heart,

عاقِبَت جان وُ دِلَش رُوزی دَرین سَوْدا شَوَد

ʿāqebat jān o del-ash rūzī dar īn sowdā shavad

2b  one day both heart and soul will be spent in this bargain. [1]

Commentary on couplet 2

Longing settles in the heart’s darkest center, and the poet foretells that heart and soul will eventually be spent upon it. Sovaydā evokes the innermost core; its sound closely answers sowdā, the passion taking possession there. The repeated sowdā then shifts toward its commercial sense, a bargain or transaction. Love first appears as something held within the heart, but becomes the transaction in which the heart itself is surrendered. The phrase ‘one day’ gives this consequence an unhurried inevitability. The image unsettles the idea that the lover can keep passion as one possession among others: what has been welcomed inwardly comes to claim the very resources that welcomed it.

نِیکْنامی بایَدَت، پِیرامَنِ اِین دَر مَگَرْد

nīknāmī bāyad-at, pīrāman-e īn dar magard

3a  If you want a good name, do not linger around this door:

هَرکِه رُویِ مَه بِگِل پُوشَد، سَبُک رُسْوا شَوَد

harke rū-ye mah be-gel pūshad, sabok rosvā shavad

3b  whoever covers the moon's face with mud will soon be exposed.

Commentary on couplet 3

The speaker warns anyone seeking a respectable name away from love’s door, then pictures someone trying to conceal the moon with mud. The second half makes that attempt both disproportionate and futile: the conspicuous brightness exceeds the cover placed upon it. It is the person covering the moon who becomes exposed or disgraced, not the moon itself. Read alongside the final straw-covered fire, the image suggests an attempt to hide an overwhelming attachment while preserving an acceptable public appearance. Sabok lends the exposure speed. The warning concerns love’s incompatibility with managing appearances; disgrace here does not automatically establish either wrongdoing or spiritual distinction in whoever experiences it.

آبِ حَیَوان بایَدَت، دَر ظُلْمَت نابُود شَو

āb-e hayavān bāyad-at, dar zolmat nābūd sho

4a  If you want the water of life, lose yourself in the darkness: [2]

کانکِه چَشْم اَز خُود بِبَنْدَد، چُون خِضْر بِینا شَوَد

k-ānke chashm az khod bebandad, chūn Khezr bīnā shavad

4b  whoever shuts his eyes to himself gains sight like Khizr.

Commentary on couplet 4

The command joins two reversals: life is found through losing oneself, and sight through closing one’s eyes to oneself. Khizr gives these paradoxes a recognizable literary setting. In Niẓāmī’s Sharaf-nāma, he discovers the water of life in the darkness, and the encounter brightens his eyes. [7] The ghazal turns the journey inward through the act of closing one’s eyes to oneself: habitual self-regard must cease to monopolize vision. Darkness can therefore suggest entry into what the familiar self cannot command or survey. The image promises a changed quality of life and perception, while its language of disappearance anticipates the next couplet’s self-effacement. It does not describe a physical procedure for attaining immortality.

حَلّ نَگَرْدَد هَرگِز اِین مُشْکِل تُرا تا با خُودی

hall nagardad hargez īn moshkel torā tā bā khodī

5a  This difficulty will never be solved for you while you remain with yourself;

چُون زِ خُود فانی شَوی، اِین مُشْکِلَت حَلْوا شَوَد

chūn ze khod fānī shavī, īn moshkel-at halvā shavad

5b  once you pass beyond yourself, this difficulty will turn to halva. [3]

Commentary on couplet 5

The difficulty remains insoluble while the seeker stays enclosed in self-concern; once that attachment falls away, the difficulty becomes halva. The playful turn matters. Ḥall offers the prospect of a solution, while halvā makes the problem into something sweet enough to taste. The second half therefore does more than announce successful reasoning: it imagines the seeker’s relationship to the difficulty transformed. Fānī, passing away or becoming effaced, supplies the language of fanā, the falling away of self-centered claims in spiritual awareness. The self that insists on possessing the answer can itself be part of the obstruction. The confection gives this demanding thought warmth and wit, allowing release to appear as enjoyment.

آب چُون اَز اَبْر اُفْتَد، قَطْرِه خوانَنْدَش هَمِه

āb chūn az abr oftad, qatre khānand-ash hame

6a  When water falls from a cloud, everyone calls it a drop;

چُون بِبَحْر اَنْداخْت خُود را، نامِ اُو دَرْیا شَوَد

chūn be-bahr andākht khod rā, nām-e ū daryā shavad

6b  once it casts itself into the sea, its name becomes the sea.

Commentary on couplet 6

Water receives the name ‘drop’ when it falls from the cloud; after giving itself to the sea, it receives the sea’s name. The image preserves continuity of water while changing the boundary by which it is recognized. Nām, name, makes this explicit, and the drop’s voluntary casting of itself gives the scene the character of surrender. In a comparative Akbarian reading, Ibn ʿArabi’s Kitāb al-fanāʾ describes contemplation of unity while retaining the significance of differentiated degrees and names. [8] This can illuminate the loss of an exclusive claim to separate identity. The water-image alone does not determine how divine reality and the dependent human person are related in being.

وَر صَدَف اُو را بِلُطْفِ خِویش گیرَد دَر کِنار

var sadaf ū rā be-lotf-e khīsh gīrad dar kenār

7a  And if an oyster takes it into its gentle embrace,

بِی‌گُمان اَز یُمْنِ ذاتَش دُرِّ بِی‌هَمْتا شَوَد

bī-gomān az yomn-e zāt-ash dorr-e bī-hamtā shavad

7b  through the blessing of its being, it surely becomes a peerless pearl. [4]

Commentary on couplet 7

An oyster may instead receive the drop, hold it gently, and bring forth a peerless pearl. Var introduces an alternative to the preceding sea-image. Here transformation produces precious distinctness, so the two couplets should not be forced into successive stages of one process. The blessing associated with zātash most naturally recalls the receiving oyster, although its spiritual referent remains unstated. Saadi’s Būstān offers a close literary parallel: a raindrop acknowledges its littleness, receives nurture within an oyster, and becomes a distinguished pearl. [9] The ghazal similarly makes receptivity and care productive. A spiritual guide is a possible comparison for that nurturing embrace, but the poem does not identify the oyster with one.

گَشْتِه اَز غَوْغایِ عِشْقَش عالَمی پُرشور وُ شَر

gashte az ghowghā-ye ʿeshq-ash ʿālamī porshūr o shar

8a  The uproar of his love has filled a world with tumult and trouble;

هَرکُجا زَد خَیْمِه اِین دَوْلَت، یَقِین غَوْغا شَوَد

harkojā zad khayme īn dowlat, yaqīn ghowghā shavad

8b  wherever this good fortune pitches its tent, an uproar is certain.

Commentary on couplet 8

Love’s clamor has disturbed an entire world, and wherever its good fortune settles, renewed commotion follows. The repetition of ghowghā surrounds the couplet with the very noise it describes, while porshūr o shar intensifies the sense of agitation and trouble. Calling this disturbance dowlat, good fortune, gives the verse its paradox: the coveted arrival unsettles those who receive it. The tent makes love’s visitation mobile and temporary in its location, yet forceful in its effects. After the intimacy of the oyster’s embrace, the scale expands again to collective upheaval. The couplet portrays love’s disruptive power without prescribing disorder as a measure of spiritual attainment.

تا کَی اِین آتَش بِخَس پُوشی، عَلایی، اَز نَظَر؟

tā kay īn ātash be-khas pūshī, ʿAlāʾī, az nazar?

9a  How long, ʿAlāʾī, will you hide this fire from sight beneath straw?

کاخِر اَز خَس‌پُوشِ فِکْرَت اِین شَرَر پَیْدا شَوَد

k-ākher az khaspūsh-e fekrat īn sharar paydā shavad

9b  At last this spark will show through the straw covering of thought. [5]

Commentary on couplet 9

The closing question confronts ʿAlāʾī with an impossible concealment: straw is supposed to hide a fire that will eventually show through it. The covering is vulnerable to the very force it conceals, so continued concealment can only delay exposure. Fikrat, thought, names that covering here; the criticism concerns thinking used to contain or disguise love. A useful Akbarian comparison appears in Ibn ʿArabi’s discussion of knowledge received from God beyond what thinking can establish: intellect remains capable of receiving that knowledge. [10] The verse therefore need not condemn all thought. By naming himself, the poet finally turns the earlier warning about reputation into an immediate challenge to his own concealment.

Reading notes

[1] 2b: Sowdā means both passionate longing and a bargain or transaction.

[2] 4a: Khizr is traditionally said to have found the water of life in the land of darkness.

[3] 5b: The printed halvā, a sweet confection, is intentional in this rendering; it plays against hall, “solution,” in the preceding half-line.

[4] 7b: The traditional image makes a pearl from a raindrop received by an oyster.

[5] 9b: Fekrat is “thought”; the straw covering cannot contain love's fire.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal considers what happens when love reaches the center of a person’s life and exceeds the arrangements made to contain it. The beloved remains unnamed, while the voice moves from descriptions of any lover to direct instructions and finally an address to ʿAlāʾī himself. The repeated shavad, ‘becomes,’ gives the poem a rhythm of transformation: concern falls away, a bargain consumes its participants, obscurity yields sight, and a difficulty becomes sweet. These changes are not a single continuous story, but they repeatedly unsettle the self that expects to remain unchanged while loving.

Concealment takes several forms, with different consequences. Mud cannot adequately cover the moon, and straw cannot keep a fire hidden. Yet darkness can be the setting of discovery, and the oyster’s enclosure can nurture a pearl. The distinction lies in what the covering does: some images expose the futility of managing appearances, while others offer a place for a life beyond habitual self-regard. Khizr’s sight and the sweetness of halva give self-effacement a positive dimension. What seems like loss from one position can become perception, nourishment, or delight from another.

The Darwīshiyya printed under Hamadani’s name provides a qualified context through its account of relinquishing binding attachments and anxious concern for one’s fortunes. [6] The drop and pearl develop that concern through two possibilities. One loses its separate designation in the sea; the other receives a precious new form through nurture. Their juxtaposition resists making the destruction of individuality the poem’s only goal. Ibn ʿArabi’s account of unity and differentiated names supplies a comparative way to think about this tension, without assigning the sea and pearl to a compulsory sequence of spiritual stations. [8] The images should retain their different kinds of transformation.

The final uproar and spark return the poem to the secret announced at its opening. Inward love has consequences that become visible, even when thought tries to keep them under cover. The pen name is especially telling: after describing the loss of a separate name, the speaker uses his own to question himself. The person remains accountable for the attempt at concealment. The ghazal ends with a particular exposure: the material chosen to hide love proves unable to withstand it, and the hidden spark becomes the sign by which the lover is recognized.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes [1]–[5] reproduce the supplied notes. The intentional halvā reading, the drop’s change of name, the alternative introduced by var, and the closing name ʿAlāʾī remain unchanged. The supplied edition reference is retained; the reading text has not been newly collated against manuscript witnesses. References [6]–[10] support the added commentary. Literary and Akbarian parallels are identified as comparisons rather than verified accounts of this poem’s composition or intended doctrine.

6. 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. 497–498 describe release from binding attachments and anxiety over the prosperity and adversity of both worlds. The 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.
7. Niẓāmī, Sharaf-nāma, section 60, Alexander’s journey into the darkness, in the Persian text hosted by Ganjoor. The passage describes Khizr finding the water of life, the brightening of his eyes, and his drinking from the spring. It verifies the literary tradition behind supplied note [2]. The ghazal’s inward application, closing the eyes to oneself, is distinct from this narrative; no direct borrowing is asserted.
8. Ibn ʿArabi, Kitāb al-fanāʾ fī-l-mushāhada, translated by Layla Shamash and Stephen Hirtenstein, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society, 9 (1991). The translated opening, after the invocation, uses the One and numbers to discuss contemplation, differentiated degrees, and changing names, and warns against an undifferentiated identity inferred from that contemplation. Used comparatively for the name and boundary of the drop, without attributing the poem’s water-image to Ibn ʿArabi.
9. Saadi, Būstān, chapter 4 on humility, section 2, in the Persian text hosted by Ganjoor. The raindrop recognizes its littleness before the sea, is nurtured by an oyster, and becomes a distinguished pearl. This is a verified literary parallel for receptive transformation, not a claim about pearl formation in natural science or proof that this ghazal directly borrows from Saadi.
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. The discussion distinguishes knowledge obtained through thinking from knowledge received from God, while retaining the intellect as a recipient. Used as a limited comparison for the closing image of thought as a covering.

The right margin carries two additions. سویدای stands beside the line of couplet 2, whose opening is بر سویدای دل هرکس. Lower down, او را stands beside couplet 7 with a thin line running from it into the text — that looks like an insertion supplied after copying, which would make the manuscript text of 7a agree with the printed ور صدف او را بلطف خویش گیرد در کنار only after correction. Worth checking against the line itself at high magnification before you record it in the apparatus; the connecting stroke is faint.