Chehel Asrar 19 - Nineteenth Ghazal

  

Ghazal 19

9 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 461

نِقابِ کِبْرِیا رُوزی اَگَر اَز رُوی بِگْشایَد

neqāb-e kebriyā rūzī agar az rūy begshāyad

1a  If one day he lifts the veil of majesty from his face,

هِزاران بِیدِلِ شَیْدا زِ هَر سُویی بِرَقْص آیَد

hezārān bīdel-e shaydā ze har sūyī be-raqs āyad

1b  thousands of lovestruck souls will come dancing from every side.

Commentary on couplet 1

The speaker imagines one unveiling drawing thousands of distraught lovers into dance. Kebriyā, majesty or greatness, gives the beloved an explicitly exalted quality, while face and veil retain the intimacy of love poetry. Bīdel describes those whose hearts have been lost to love; their helplessness becomes a shared movement of delight. The conditional opening leaves the encounter hoped for, rather than possessed. A relevant but different image appears in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 179a: removal of the divine veil exposes creation to the consuming radiance of the divine face.[3] The ghazal imagines dancing instead. The parallel clarifies the religious resonance of unveiling without making this couplet a quotation of the report or evidence for a prescribed ritual.

اَگَر اَز عَکْسِ رُخْسارَش شُعاعی بَر زَمین اُفْتَد

agar az ʿaks-e rokhsār-ash shoʿāʿī bar zamīn oftad

2a  If a ray reflected from his face should fall upon the earth,

بَسا اَنْوارِ رُوحانی زِ خاکِ تیرِه بِنْمایَد

basā anvār-e rūhānī ze khāk-e tīre benmāyad

2b  how many spiritual lights would shine forth from the dark dust.

Commentary on couplet 2

A reflected ray reaches the earth, and dark dust releases many spiritual lights. The conditional construction continues the opening’s expectation, but the scale changes: even an indirect glimmer can awaken an abundance of illumination. The contrast between one ray and many lights makes the beloved’s power felt through disproportion. Dust need not be dismissed as worthless matter, since it becomes the very place where radiance appears. The imagery can suggest dormant spiritual capacities becoming perceptible through divine disclosure, while remaining intelligible as the lover’s experience of a world transformed by beauty. Reflection also preserves a distinction between the source and what reaches the earth; receiving a trace does not mean possessing the face itself.

نَسیمِ زُلْفَش اَر بَر کُویِ مُشْتاقان گُذَر سازَد

nasīm-e zolf-ash ar bar kū-ye moshtāqān gozar sāzad

3a  If the breeze from his hair passes through the street of those who long for him,

حَریقِ نارِ هِجْران را زِ آتَش راحَت اَفْزایَد

harīq-e nār-e hejrān rā ze ātash rāhat afzāyad

3b  it brings greater relief from the flames to one burned by separation.

Commentary on couplet 3

The breeze carries something of the beloved’s hair into the lovers’ street, bringing relief to someone consumed by separation. Sight now yields to scent and touch: what cannot yet be encountered directly may still make itself felt through the air. The breeze’s gentleness answers the violence of burning without requiring the longing to end. The supplied translation reads ze ātash as relief from the flames; the compressed phrase can also suggest comfort arising from fire, especially beside the following joy in grief. Hair remains a sensuous sign of the beloved rather than an automatic code for a particular doctrine. Spiritually, the verse can evoke consolation arriving within absence, sufficient to sustain a lover who still waits.

بِه اَنْدوهَش بُوَد شادی، زِ یادَش اَز غَم آزادی

be andūh-ash bovad shādī, ze yād-ash az gham āzādī

4a  Grieving for him brings joy; remembering him brings freedom from sorrow,

کِه اَنْدوهَش رَوان بَخْشَد، بِیادَش رُوح آسایَد

ke andūh-ash ravān bakhshad, be-yād-ash rūh āsāyad

4b  for grief for him gives life, and in remembering him the spirit rests.

Commentary on couplet 4

Grief for the beloved gives joy and life, while remembrance releases sorrow and rests the spirit. These parallel statements distinguish a longing that keeps attachment alive from a distress that consumes attention without bringing nearness. The poem’s claim concerns grief for this beloved; it does not make all suffering spiritually beneficial. Yād, remembrance, becomes the active center of the couplet, bringing the beloved into awareness. Qur’an 13:28 offers a clear parallel in its association of divine remembrance with the heart’s repose.[4] The Darwīshiyya printed under Hamadani’s name likewise treats remembrance, love, and knowledge as nourishment for heart and spirit.[5] That supports the devotional context without turning pain itself into the nourishment identified by the prose text.

بِسانِ ذَرِّه دَر رَقْصَنْد دِل‌ها اَز غَمِ رُویَش

be-sān-e zarre dar raqsand delhā az gham-e rūy-ash

5a  Like motes, hearts dance in longing for his face;

وَلی آن شَه کُجا هَرگِز دَرین ظُلْمَت‌سَرا آیَد؟

valī ān shah kojā hargez dar īn zolmatsarā āyad?

5b  yet how could that king ever enter this dwelling of darkness?

Commentary on couplet 5

Hearts dance like motes longing for the beloved’s face, yet the speaker asks how the king could enter this house of darkness. Motes made visible in a beam bring together the earlier dancing souls and reflected light. The first half registers an effect already felt; the second refuses to equate that effect with complete arrival. The dark dwelling may suggest the world of obscured perception or an inward condition unready for the guest, rather than one securely identified location. Its darkness is especially troubling after the dust’s promised illumination. The couplet sustains that tension: a heart can be stirred by what it has not adequately received, and longing does not itself establish fitness for nearness.

غُبارِ دِل نِمِی‌زیبَد کِه بَر رُویِ غَمَش باشَد

ghobār-e del nemī-zībad ke bar rū-ye gham-ash bāshad

6a  It is unfitting for the heart's dust to settle on the face of grief for him;

مَقامِ جانِ هَر عاشِق جَنابَش را نِمِی‌شایَد

maqām-e jān-e har ʿāsheq janāb-ash rā nemī-shāyad

6b  not every lover's soul is a dwelling worthy of his presence.

Commentary on couplet 6

The heart’s dust is imagined settling on the face of grief itself, before the second half questions the soul’s fitness to receive the beloved. This unusual personification makes love’s sorrow something whose clarity can be obscured. Ghobār can thus suggest the clouding of devotion by the lover’s own inward condition, although the line does not specify a single fault. Maqām allows both a dwelling and a station, bringing spiritual standing into the image of hospitality. A close ethical parallel occurs in the Darwīshiyya’s instruction to cleanse the heart’s mirror of blameworthy traits before intimacy with the lights of faith.[5] Read alongside that passage, the couplet asks what must change within a lover, beyond merely claiming the name of love.

هِزاران سَر دَرین سَوْدا کِه بُوئی اَز دَرَش یابَنْد

hezārān sar dar īn sowdā ke būyī az dar-ash yāband

7a  Thousands of heads are intent on catching a scent from his door,

وَلی اِین گَنْج را هَر مُفْلِسی دَر خُور نِمِی‌آیَد

valī īn ganj rā har moflesī dar khor nemī-āyad

7b  but not every pauper is fit for this treasure.

Commentary on couplet 7

Thousands strain toward the beloved’s doorway for the slightest scent, but the treasure does not suit every pauper. The vast number of seekers emphasizes the difference between wanting access and being prepared for what access would mean. Sowdā can carry both passionate preoccupation and the atmosphere of a venture, fitting a couplet concerned with a treasure beyond ordinary acquisition. The pauper, mofles, challenges any easy equation between having nothing and possessing spiritual readiness. Within this sequence, fitness concerns the inward quality of seeking; the verse gives no basis for measuring it by income or social standing. It unsettles a claim of entitlement through deprivation, just as the preceding couplet questions entitlement through the title of lover.

زِ مُهْرِ مِهْرِ رُویِ اُو هَر آنکو دَوْلَتی یابَد

ze mohr-e mehr-e rū-ye ū har ānkū dowlatī yābad

8a  Whoever wins good fortune wins it through the seal of the sun of his face; [1]

بِبُویِ لُطْفِ اُو آیَد هَر آن بِیدِل کِه پِیش آیَد

be-bū-ye lotf-e ū āyad har ān bīdel ke pīsh āyad

8b  every lovestruck soul who approaches comes drawn by the scent of his kindness.

Commentary on couplet 8

Fortune bears the seal of the beloved’s luminous face, and every approaching lover is drawn by a scent of kindness. After the repeated questions of worthiness, the emphasis returns to what the beloved gives. The printed vowels support mohr, seal, and mehr; mehr allows both the sun emphasized in the supplied translation and the resonance of love.[5] A seal suggests authorization or an impress received, so success is marked by its source. A comparative Akbarian parallel appears in Ibn ʿArabi’s account of the servant’s love as arising from God’s love for the servant.[6] Here too, approach answers a prior generosity in the sense of dependence: the kindness attracting the lover already makes the movement possible.

عَلی، چُون دَر خُورِ یادَش نَئی، رَو نَوْحِه کُن بَر خُود

ʿAlī, chūn dar khor-e yād-ash naʾī, row nowhe kon bar khod

9a  ʿAlī, since you are unworthy to remember him, go and mourn for yourself;

کَسی را شایَد اِین کو دِل بِغَیْرِ اُو نَیالایَد

kasī rā shāyad īn k-ū del be-ghayr-e ū nayālāyad

9b  this befits the one who does not stain the heart with anything but him. [2]

Commentary on couplet 9

The speaker addresses himself as ʿAlī, turning earlier judgments of unworthiness into a personal accusation. The command to mourn is sharpened by the second half: remembrance belongs fittingly to one whose heart is not stained by other attachments. The supplied note rightly links this to remembrance, rather than to mourning itself. This is an exacting poetic measure of undivided attention, not a demonstrated prohibition against beginners remembering God; Qur’an 33:41 addresses believers with an open command to remember abundantly.[7] In the ghazal’s devotional context, the stain can be read as rival attachments claiming the heart’s ultimate allegiance. The closing confession leaves kindness necessary even for the speaker who has described its transforming power.

Reading notes

[1] 8a: Mohr is a seal; mehr is the sun and also love. The print explicitly distinguishes the two vowels.

[2] 9b: “This” refers to remembrance of the beloved.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal turns on a demanding question: how can a lover already moved by the beloved’s beauty become fit to receive that beloved? Its opening imagines unveiling, illumination, and a consoling breeze through repeated conditions. The beloved remains predominantly spoken about rather than directly addressed, while thousands of lovers gather around the possibilities of an encounter. Majesty and kingship encourage a divine reading, but face, hair, scent, and the lovers’ street preserve an intimate poetic language. What reaches the lover is powerful precisely because it is so slight: a ray, a breath, or the scent of kindness.

Light and dust make the problem of reception visible. Dark earth may yield spiritual radiance, and hearts dance like motes, yet the king still seems unable to enter the dark dwelling. These couplets need not describe successive events. Together they distinguish being affected by beauty from receiving it without obstruction. The dust that first awaited illumination later settles upon grief itself, suggesting that even longing can be clouded by the one who longs. The many seekers and the unprepared pauper extend this scrutiny: desire and deprivation cannot by themselves establish a right to the treasure.

Remembrance joins the poem’s emotional and practical dimensions. Grief for the beloved awakens life, while keeping the beloved in awareness gives rest. The Darwīshiyya transmitted under Hamadani’s name supplies relevant parallels in the nourishment of heart and spirit through remembrance and the cleansing of the heart’s mirror; its attribution remains disputed.[5] These passages help explain the movement from inward disturbance toward attentive receptivity without making the ghazal an illustration of a prose manual. The Akbarian comparison in couplet eight adds one precise insight: the love drawing a person toward God already depends upon divine generosity.[6] It does not remove the poem’s demand for inward preparation.

The closing signature makes that demand personal. After speaking of thousands of lovers and the conditions of their approach, ʿAlī refuses to exempt himself. His mourning answers the earlier life-giving grief, now sharpened into recognition of a divided heart. Yet the preceding scent of kindness keeps this confession from becoming a self-contained verdict of exclusion. The poem leaves readiness and gift in tension: the lover must attend to what clouds the heart, while the very movement toward the beloved remains drawn by a kindness the lover cannot manufacture.

Sources and textual notes

The supplied Persian, vocalization, transliteration, translation, numbering, bibliographical line, and reading notes are preserved. The couplet commentaries and overview are editorial additions. The print was consulted to check the vowel distinction described in reading note [1]; the different meanings of mehr remain an interpretive question. Alternatives discussed in couplets 3 and 6 do not replace the supplied reading text. The scriptural and Akbarian comparisons below identify relevant parallels, not verified statements of the poet’s intention.

3. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 179a, Book of Faith, in-book reference Book 1, Hadith 350, reported by Abū Mūsā. The report describes a veil of light, with fire recorded as a variant, and the consuming radiance of the divine face if the veil were withdrawn. The poem’s veil of majesty and dancing lovers constitute a different formulation; no ritual prescription is inferred from the resemblance.
4. Qur’an, al-Raʿd 13:28. The association of divine remembrance with the heart’s repose supplies the scriptural parallel for couplet 4. The ghazal’s specific joining of grief, joy, and life is its own poetic development.
5. Muhammad Riaz, Aḥvāl o āsār o ashʿār-e Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī, second edition, Islamabad, 1991; consulted scan. Printed p. 461 supports the vowel distinction in mohr/mehr. In the Darwīshiyya printed under Hamadani’s name, p. 490 treats remembrance, love, and knowledge as nourishment for heart and spirit; p. 494 concerns cleansing the heart’s mirror before intimacy with the lights of faith. Printed p. 486 discusses attribution to Nūrbakhsh and defends Hamadani. These prose passages are therefore cited with an attribution reservation, not as uncontested evidence of Hamadani’s authorship or explanations of this exact ghazal.
6. James Winston Morris, “Ibn ʿArabi’s ‘Short Course’ on Love”, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society 50 (2011), translating al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, chapter 73, Question 119. Its opening and closing explanations relate the servant’s love to God’s love for the servant. This is the limited comparative basis for couplet 8; it does not establish direct borrowing or a chronological sequence of divine acts.
7. Qur’an, al-Aḥzāb 33:41. Its command to believers to remember God abundantly provides context for distinguishing the self-reproach of couplet 9 from a general rule excluding imperfect seekers from remembrance. It is not identified as a direct quotation or a necessary allusion in the poem.

The left margin carries a short word beside the line of couplet 1. It reads as بگشاید, which is the word closing that hemistich — نقاب کبریا روزی اگر از روی بگشاید.