Chehel Asrar 34 - Thirty Fourth Ghazal

Ghazal 34

11 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 473–474

اَگَر تُو بَر سَرِ کُویَش دَمی گُذَر یابی

agar to bar sar-e kūy-ash damī gozar yābī

1a  If you should pass for a moment through the beloved's lane,

کُنوزِ غَیْبِ دو عالَم بِیِک نَظَر یابی

konūz-e ghayb-e do ʿālam be-yak nazar yābī

1b  in a single glance you will discover the hidden treasures of both worlds.

Commentary on couplet 1

The speaker invites an unnamed listener to imagine a moment’s passage through the beloved’s lane yielding the hidden treasures of both worlds. The small measures, a moment and a single glance, stand against the abundance of konūz, treasures. Ghayb names what is hidden or unseen; the verse promises disclosure without cataloguing its contents. The direction of the glance is not fully specified, so the image can remain an encounter rather than being assigned exclusively to either lover or beloved. Its conditional opening establishes the pattern of the ghazal: “you will find” follows an opportunity for contact or recognition. The grandeur of the promise belongs to that invitation, before any claim that the listener has already received it.

کِلیدِ عُقْدِهٔ اَبْوابِ بارْگاهِ جَلال

kelīd-e ʿoqde-ye abvāb-e bārgāh-e jalāl

2a  The key that unfastens the gates of the court of majesty

تُویی، اَگَر سَرِ مُوئی زِ خُود خَبَر یابی

toyī, agar sar-e mūyī ze khod khabar yābī

2b  is you, if you gain even a hair's breadth of self-knowledge.

Commentary on couplet 2

The first half presents a key to the gates of majesty, then the second reveals its surprising identity: “it is you.” Yet this affirmation immediately requires some knowledge of the self, even a hair’s breadth. The minute measure continues the opening disproportion between slight contact and immense access. The seeker possesses a capacity that must be recognized before it can serve its purpose. Hamadani’s prose explicitly makes awareness of the self and its shortcomings a key to understanding God. [2] That parallel gives self-knowledge an ethical depth, anticipating the later relinquishment of pride. The key opens toward a court belonging to another; the image preserves both human possibility and dependence upon what the seeker approaches.

چِراغِ مَجْلِسِ روحانِیانِ عالَمِ قُدْس

cherāgh-e majles-e rūhāniyān-e ʿālam-e qods

3a  The lamp of the spiritual beings' assembly in the holy realm

زِ سوزِ تُسْت، گَر اَز شَمْعِ جان اَثَر یابی

ze sūz-e to-st, gar az shamʿ-e jān asar yābī

3b  burns with your fire, if you find a trace of the soul's candle.

Commentary on couplet 3

The poem gives the listener’s inward ardor a startling cosmic significance: the lamp of a holy assembly burns through that ardor. The second half places the claim under a condition, finding even a trace of the soul’s candle. The movement from candle to assembly magnifies what inward life might contribute to a wider spiritual order. It should retain that imaginative boldness without becoming a literal account of celestial beings requiring human fuel. The lamp, flame, and trace belong to one poetic image of illumination. Later, the spark is explicitly received from the beloved’s fire. Within the ghazal, the listener’s luminous possibility therefore remains bound to the relation through which it is awakened.

نِدایِ هاتِفِ غَیْبی زِ لا مَکان هَر دَم

nedā-ye hātef-e ghaybī ze lā makān har dam

4a  At every moment, the unseen caller's voice from beyond place

بِگوشِ جان شِنَوی گَر زِ خُود خَبَر یابی

be-gūsh-e jān shenavī gar ze khod khabar yābī

4b  will reach your soul's ear, if you come to know yourself.

Commentary on couplet 4

An unseen voice is continually calling, but hearing it depends upon knowing oneself. The first half locates the call beyond place and gives it the rhythm of every moment; the second brings reception to the soul’s ear. Hātef names an unseen caller without identifying a particular angel or person. Lā makān, beyond place, also prevents the source from being treated simply as a distant geographical point. The repeated phrase about self-knowledge recalls the key of couplet 2: inward recognition becomes a condition of access, now through hearing. The contrast is between a continuing call and the listener’s capacity to receive it. The verse describes spiritual receptivity through hearing while leaving the message itself unspoken.

تُو رَوْضِهٔ دِل اَگَر زِ آبِ عِلْم تازِه کُنی

to rowze-ye del agar ze āb-e ʿelm tāze konī

5a  If you refresh the garden of your heart with the water of knowledge,

بِعاقِبَت زِ رِیاضِ وِصال بَر یابی

be-ʿāqebat ze riyāz-e vesāl bar yābī

5b  in time you will gather fruit from the gardens of union.

Commentary on couplet 5

The heart is already a garden, but it needs the water of knowledge to become fresh and fruitful. Unlike the opening moment and glance, be-ʿāqebat, in time, gives this promise the duration of cultivation. The listener is asked to tend what can later yield the fruit of union. ʿElm, knowledge, is not restricted in the verse to a named discipline. Hamadani also compares knowledge to rainwater whose effects depend upon the disposition receiving it. [2] His warning that learning can nourish pride gives the image an ethical qualification. In the poem, the garden’s refreshment looks toward a good harvest; the later command to abandon pride helps explain what such fruitful cultivation requires.

سَریرِ سُدِّهٔ اِیْوانِ هَر کَمال تُراسْت

sarīr-e sodde-ye eyvān-e har kamāl torā-st

6a  Yours is the throne at the threshold of every palace of perfection,

بَر آسْتانِ جَلالَش رَهی اَگَر یابی

bar āstān-e jalāl-ash rahī agar yābī

6b  if you can find a way to the threshold of his majesty.

Commentary on couplet 6

The speaker announces a throne among the palaces of perfection, then makes its possession depend upon finding access to the beloved’s threshold. The courtly vocabulary gathers together dignity and attendance: sarīr is a throne, while sodde and āstān keep the image close to an entrance. The repeated threshold matters because the promised elevation does not remove the seeker’s relation to the sovereign. “Every perfection” gives the offer breadth, but its condition remains the way to his majesty. The listener is neither shown ruling independently nor reported to have entered already. The couplet extends the earlier image of the key into the honor that access may bring, sustaining the poem’s alternation between immense promise and required response.

حِجابِ نَقْشِ تَن اَز ماهِ روح بَرخیزَد

hejāb-e naqsh-e tan az māh-e rūh barkhīzad

7a  The veil of bodily form will lift from the soul's moon,

اَگَر زِ آتَشِ عِشْقَش یِکی شَرَر یابی

agar ze ātash-e ʿeshq-ash yakī sharar yābī

7b  if you find a single spark from the fire of his love.

Commentary on couplet 7

A single spark from the beloved’s love lifts the veil of bodily form from the soul’s moon. The moon’s light is already implied beneath the covering, so the change concerns what can become perceptible. Naqsh-e tan, the form or configuration of the body, gives the veil a definite outward shape. The poem uses this shape to describe an obstruction without narrating bodily destruction. Its spark is small, like the hair’s breadth of knowledge and the trace of the candle, yet its effect is large. Fire and moonlight cooperate rather than compete: love’s heat makes inward luminosity visible. The image therefore joins transformation to disclosure, preserving the distinction between the covering and the light it conceals.

رِیاضِ عالَمِ جان مُشْکْبُوی گَرْدانی

riyāz-e ʿālam-e jān moshk-būy gardānī

8a  You will fill the gardens of the soul's realm with musk,

نَسیمی اَز سَرِ زُلْفَش چُو دَر سَحَر یابی

nasīmī az sar-e zolf-ash cho dar sahar yābī

8b  when at dawn you catch a breeze from the tips of his curls.

Commentary on couplet 8

The listener will make the soul’s gardens fragrant after receiving a dawn breeze from the beloved’s curls. The active promise, “you will fill,” rests upon an encounter that cannot be supplied entirely from within. A slight movement of air carries the beloved’s fragrance into a much wider inward landscape. The gardens recall the heart watered by knowledge, while dawn gives this second cultivation freshness and expectancy. The curls retain their sensuous presence as the breeze touches their tips; no fixed metaphysical meaning is needed to explain their role. The verse moves from receiving an intimate trace to spreading its quality, bringing the listener’s agency and the beloved’s influence into the same act of transformation.

اَساسِ خُود چُو بِدانی، تَکَبُّری بِگُذار

asās-e khod cho bedānī, takabborī begozār

9a  Once you know what you are made of, set pride aside:

زِ کارْخانِهٔ عِزَّت یَقین ثَمَر یابی

ze kārkhāne-ye ʿezzat yaqīn samar yābī

9b  you will surely reap a harvest from the workshop of glory.

Commentary on couplet 9

Self-knowledge now receives an explicit test: once the listener knows his basis, pride must be put aside. Asās means foundation or basis; the supplied “what you are made of” does not require a single specified material substance. The answering harvest comes from the workshop of glory, giving honor a source beyond self-congratulation. Hamadani likewise joins recognition of personal weakness to recognition of divine greatness as a remedy for pride. [2] This clarifies how the poem’s grand promises can coexist with humility. The person described as a key and a source of light must understand those possibilities without claiming independent greatness. Knowledge shows its fruit in a changed relation to the self, preparing the certainty sought in the following couplet.

اَگَر تُو عالَمِ وَحْدَت یَقین کُنی اَز دِل

agar to ʿālam-e vahdat yaqīn konī az del

10a  If your heart gains certainty in the realm of oneness,

رِواقِ مَنْظَرِ جَبَروت را تُو فَر یابی

revāq-e manzar-e jabarūt rā to far yābī

10b  you will behold the splendor of the pavilion of divine might. [1]

Commentary on couplet 10

Certainty arising from the heart opens onto a magnificent architectural image: the splendor of a pavilion associated with divine might. Vahdat means oneness; the verse asks that it become inwardly assured, rather than merely named. Jabarūt carries the sense of overwhelming power or divine might, as the supplied note explains. The second half’s construction is compressed, and the retained translation reads far as the pavilion’s splendor. That reading does not provide enough detail to map a fixed hierarchy of spiritual worlds. The court and throne of earlier couplets now become a prospect of glory. Yet the promise remains conditional upon the heart’s recognition, and the next couplet will bring this elevated prospect back to hope at a door.

عَلایی، اَز دَرِ اُمید رُخ مَتاب دَمی

ʿAlāʾī, az dar-e omīd rokh matāb damī

11a  ʿAlāʾī, do not turn your face from hope's door for even a moment;

زِ فَیْضِ رَحْمَتِ عَامَّش مَگَر اَثَر یابی

ze fayz-e rahmat-e ʿāmm-ash magar asar yābī

11b  perhaps you will find a trace of the outpouring of his all-embracing mercy.

Commentary on couplet 11

The closing addresses ʿAlāʾī directly and asks for steadfastness at hope’s door. After treasures, thrones, and splendor, the desired gift becomes a trace of mercy. Magar, “perhaps,” makes that modesty audible: the named figure is urged to remain receptive rather than declare the promise fulfilled. Hamadani distinguishes inward preparation from divine gifts whose abundance remains beyond the seeker’s control. [2]

The refusal of despair has a scriptural context in Qur’an 39:53–54, which joins hope in mercy to returning to God; 7:156 affirms mercy’s encompassing reach. [3] The poem gives these possibilities its own intimate form. A moment began the journey, and not even a moment should now be spent turning away. The final trace remains hoped for, not reported as possessed.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal speaks through promises addressed to “you.” Its recurring yābī, “you will find,” follows conditions of passage, self-knowledge, cultivation, love, and inward certainty. The promised discoveries are immense, yet their measures of contact are often minute: a glance, a hair’s breadth, a trace, a spark, a breeze. That disproportion gives the poem its confidence in the possibilities of human inward life. It does not establish that its listener has already fulfilled the conditions. The final address to ʿAlāʾī makes the distinction especially clear, leaving him at the door of hope.

Self-knowledge connects the poem’s most daring affirmations to its demand for humility. The listener is the key to the court and the source of a holy assembly’s light, but these possibilities depend upon recognition and receptivity. Later, knowing one’s basis requires the abandonment of pride. Knowledge and love work together through the changing images: water refreshes the heart, fire lifts a veil, and fragrance spreads through inward gardens. Cultivation takes time even where a single encounter promises disclosure. The spatial images similarly preserve a relation to the beloved: courts, palaces, and pavilions repeatedly bring the seeker to a threshold.

Hamadani’s prose supplies close parallels in its self-knowledge as a key, knowledge as rainwater, and remedy for pride through recognition of human weakness and divine greatness. Its distinction between preparation and uncontrollable gifts also clarifies the final uncertainty. [2] These passages support particular connections without authenticating the poem or turning its cosmic lamp into a literal mechanism. The ghazal’s oneness, spiritual hearing, and inward illumination concern ways of recognizing and responding; they do not require the seeker to become independently divine. Body, moon, water, and curls keep the argument close to concealment, freshness, and affection.

The last couplet changes the scale of the demand without abandoning the earlier confidence. All the grandeur is brought to bear upon the willingness to wait for a trace. “Perhaps” qualifies the addressee’s possession of the gift, while mercy remains expansive. Hope therefore accompanies knowledge rather than being displaced by it. The seeker who may discover treasures in a glance must still resist turning promise into entitlement. The poem ends with the face directed toward a door: self-knowledge has made that posture both possible and necessary.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes

[1] 10b: The compressed construction is read as finding the pavilion’s splendor; jabarūt is the realm of divine might.

Editorial references

2. Hamadani, Dhakhīrat al-mulūk, consulted in Mohammad Umar Farooq, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani’s Dhakiratul Muluk: An Annotation and Translation (PhD thesis, University of Kashmir, 2009), printed pp. 438–439, on self-knowledge, the key, and knowledge as rainwater; printed p. 454, on humility; and printed p. 414, on preparation and divine gifts. The English translation was checked; the Persian wording was not independently collated.
3. Qur’an, al-Zumar 39:53–54, joining the prohibition of despair with return and submission to God; and al-Aʿrāf 7:156, on mercy encompassing everything. The latter verse also retains divine judgment and specifies reverence, almsgiving, and belief in God’s signs in its promise of mercy. The Arabic and displayed English translations were consulted as contexts for the closing, which is not a direct quotation.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991, printed p. 473–474 reference, the signature ʿAlāʾī, and the reading note are retained unchanged. That edition and the attribution of this ghazal have not been independently verified. The interpretation preserves the compressed reading of couplet 10 and the distinction between the poem’s conditional promises and the closing “perhaps.”

Couplet order. The leaf runs 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 5, 11 in your numbering. "تو روضهٔ دل" stands seventh, immediately before the maqṭaʿ, not fifth. Your commentary has cultivation-in-time introduced early and then extended by the gardens of couplet 8; the manuscript gives the sequence the other way round, so the heart's own watering falls last before ʿAlāʾī is left at the door.

Two couplets are not on this leaf. Neither اساس خود چو بدانی (9) nor اگر تو عالم وحدت (10) appears. The page carries nine couplets, closing with the maqṭaʿ. Since your argument about pride and about certainty rests on exactly those two, the section "Understanding this ghazal" would need either a facing folio or a note that the printed text runs longer than this witness.

Word-level variants

Couplet 4b — clear reading, real difference

بِسَمْعِ دِل بِشنَوی گَر ز خود خبر یابی

be-samʿ-e del beshnavī gar ze khod khabar yābī

"you will hear it with the heart's hearing, if you come to know yourself"

The printed text has بگوش جان شنوی, the soul's ear. Reception sits in the heart here, not the soul, which then links forward to روضهٔ دل and backward to nothing in particular — the poem's inward faculty becomes consistently del. سمع also carries the Qurʾanic faculty vocabulary that گوش does not.

Couplet 7a — one letter, large consequence

حجاب نقش تن از راه روح برخیزد

hejāb-e naqsh-e tan az rāh-e rūh barkhīzad

"the veil of bodily form will be lifted from the soul's path"

The printed text reads ماه, the soul's moon. راه and ماه differ by a single stroke, and "از راه برخاستن" is the ordinary Persian idiom for an obstruction cleared from the way. Your commentary on this couplet is built on the moon image — light already present beneath a covering, made perceptible. On the manuscript reading there is no moon at all, only an obstacle removed, and fire no longer cooperates with moonlight. This is the crux most likely to need a second opinion on a higher-resolution scan.

Couplet 8b — the sensuous register at stake

نسیمی از رَهِ لطفش چو در سحر یابی

nasīmī az rah-e lotf-ash cho dar sahar yābī

"when at dawn you catch a breeze from the way of his grace"

The printed از سر زلفش gives the beloved's curls. لطف gives divine kindness, and with it the couplet joins the closing رحمت عامّه rather than the amatory idiom. Note the direction of the pressure: a copyist spiritualising زلف into لطف is a common enough move, and so is the reverse in an anthologist's hand. Your dissertation's interest in editorial mediation has a workable case here, since the two readings assign the ghazal to two different genres of reading.

Couplet 6b — transposition, plus an unresolved first word

The manuscript has جلالش اگر رهی یابی against the printed جلالش رهی اگر یابی. اگر and رهی carry the same prosodic weight, so nothing shifts metrically, and the sense is unchanged. The opening word of the hemistich resolves poorly at this resolution — بستان and بآستان are both defensible from the strokes, and they are not the same word.

The marginal entry

A large سدره stands in the left margin at the height of couplet 6, beside سدّهٔ in سریر سدهٔ ایوان هر کمال تراست. Position and size both point to a collation note rather than a catchword. Read it as a proposed variant: سدرهٔ ایوان for سدّهٔ ایوان, which trades the threshold for the Lote-Tree of Q 53:14 — the boundary of the ascent, with the Garden of Refuge beside it. The weights are identical, so the substitution passes unnoticed in recitation. Your reading of couplets 2, 6 and 10 as a sustained architecture of court, threshold and pavilion would take on a Qurʾanic anchor at exactly its midpoint if the marginal reading is adopted.

Readings I could not settle

Couplet 3a: چراغ محفل or چراغ مجلس. Same sense, same weight; the final letter does not resolve.

Couplet 11b: the manuscript may transpose اثر and مگر. Substance and metre are unaffected either way, but I would not print it from this image.