Chehel Asrar 36 - Thirty Sixth Ghazal

Ghazal 36

9 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 475–476

نِقابِ عِزّ اَگَر یِکْدَم زِ رُویِ خُود بَراَنْدازی

neqāb-e ʿezz agar yekdam ze rū-ye khod barandāzī

1a  If for one moment you cast the veil of majesty from your face,

هِزاران بِیدِل اَز هَر سو دَر آیَد دَر سَر اَنْدازی

hezārān bīdel az har sū dar āyad dar sar-andāzī

1b  thousands of heartsick lovers on every side will rush to give their heads.

Commentary on couplet 1

The speaker addresses a beloved whose face is guarded by majesty and imagines the rush of lovers that one moment of unveiling would provoke. Bīdel, literally without a heart, describes those already dispossessed by attraction; offering their heads would carry that loss of self-command further. The veil belongs to ʿezz, glory or might, so beauty’s concealment expresses its inaccessibility. Removing the veil need not mean relinquishing the majesty associated with it. The tiny interval and the multitude of responses establish the poem’s recurring disproportion between a slight gesture and an overwhelming effect. Human beauty and devotional disclosure remain possible registers of the address, while the offered heads give surrender the extravagant urgency of love poetry.

زِ یِک پِیچِ سَرِ زُلْفَت دُو عالَم گَشْتِه عَنْبَربُوی

ze yek pīch-e sar-e zolf-at do ʿālam gashte ʿanbar-būy

2a  One twist at the end of your tresses has scented both worlds with ambergris;

اَگَر آن پِیچ بُگْشایی سَمَن بَر عَنْبَر اَنْدازی

agar ān pīch bogshāyī saman bar ʿanbar andāzī

2b  if you undo that twist, you will spread jasmine over ambergris.

Commentary on couplet 2

One twist of the beloved’s tresses has already perfumed both worlds; undoing it promises a further mingling of jasmine and ambergris. The first half asserts an effect within the poem, while the second leaves the new gesture conditional. The immense reach of a single curl gives beauty influence beyond what the eye immediately sees. Jasmine spread over ambergris layers fragrances, and may also suggest the brightness of an exposed face against darker hair. That visual association remains an interpretation of the sensuous image. The curl is therefore more than a simple obstruction: even while coiled, it communicates beauty through scent. Its release could change how that beauty appears without making the earlier fragrance worthless.

زِ شُورِ جِلْوِهٔ حُسْنَت غُبارِ غَیْر شُد ظاهِر

ze shūr-e jelve-ye hosn-at ghobār-e ghayr shod zāher

3a  The tumult of your beauty’s unveiling raised the dust of otherness;

گَر اَز غَیْرَت کُنی غَمْزی غُبار اَز رَه بَراَنْدازی

gar az ghayrat konī ghamzī ghobār az rah barandāzī

3b  if in jealous ardor you cast one glance, you will sweep that dust from the road.

Commentary on couplet 3

Beauty’s display has raised the very dust that a further glance is asked to clear. The first unveiling therefore produces disturbance and apparent separation; it does not immediately abolish otherness. The dust can evoke a throng stirred by beauty, recalling the lovers gathering in couplet 1, while also suggesting distinctions that obscure their source. Ghayrat gives the beloved an exclusive claim that will tolerate no rival; ghamza keeps that claim embodied in an intimate glance.

Hamadani’s prose pictures divine radiance effacing the devotee’s shadows within an account of prayer and need. [3] This parallels the clearing movement, without explaining why the dust first arose. A spiritual reading can concern the loss of attention to the beloved through the very commotion that beauty awakens.

غُبارِ غَیْر و کُفْر و دِین طِلِسْمِ گَنْجِ مَعْنی شُد

ghobār-e ghayr o kofr o dīn telesm-e ganj-e maʿnī shod

4a  The dust of otherness, unbelief, and faith became the spell guarding meaning’s treasure;

طِلِسْمِ گَنْج کَی مانَد چُو زُلْف اَز رُخ بَراَنْدازی

telesm-e ganj kay mānad cho zolf az rokh barandāzī

4b  how can that spell remain when you sweep the tresses from your face?

Commentary on couplet 4

The dust now becomes a talisman guarding meaning’s treasure, and unbelief and faith are included in its obstruction. A talisman protects access to something precious; the poem imagines its power collapsing when the beloved sweeps the hair from the face. Kofr and dīn place opposed religious positions on the same side of the barrier. Attachment to such identities is one possible interpretation, but the verse itself makes the broader claim and should retain its unsettling force. The rhetorical question expects the spell to fail before unveiled beauty. That poetic access to meaning does not explain the status of religious obligations. The tresses participate in concealment here, although the preceding fragrance showed that concealment can also communicate beauty.

صَدَایِ مَوْکِبِ عِزَّم نَگُنْجَد دَر هَمِه عالَم

sadā-ye mowkeb-e ʿezz-am nagonjad dar hame ʿālam

5a  The sound of my glorious procession would fill more than the whole world, [1]

گَرَم یِک رَه بِدُشْنامی عِنایَت بَر سَر اَنْدازی

gar-am yek rah be-doshnāmī ʿenāyat bar sar andāzī

5b  if just once you bestowed your favor on me with an insult.

Commentary on couplet 5

The speaker imagines a procession whose splendor cannot be contained by the world, provided the beloved grants even an insult. The supplied reading ʿezz-am, “my glory,” links this imagined distinction with the beloved’s majesty in the opening; the alternative noted in the source remains an editorial uncertainty. Favor arrives in a form that would ordinarily diminish honor. Saʿdi offers a close literary parallel when his lover welcomes the beloved’s coming even with insults. [4] Here the value lies in being addressed, and that recognition would make the speaker’s glory resound everywhere. The reversal expresses this lover’s hunger for attention, rather than a general approval of humiliating conduct. His procession remains conditional upon a word he cannot command.

زِ ذُلِّ ظُلْمَتِ صُورَت شَوَم دَر مَسْنَدِ مَعْنی

ze zoll-e zolmat-e sūrat shavam dar masnad-e maʿnī

6a  From the abasement of form’s darkness I would rise to meaning’s throne,

گَر اَز راهِ کَرَم یِکْدَم خُورَم دَر خاوَر اَنْدازی

gar az rāh-e karam yekdam khor-am dar khāvar andāzī

6b  if for one moment your kindness set my sun in the east. [2]

Commentary on couplet 6

The speaker would move from the abasement of darkened form to a throne of meaning if kindness brought about his sunrise. The supplied khor-am, “my sun,” is explicitly provisional; under that reading, darkness, the east, and elevation form a coherent pattern. Sūrat and maʿnī contrast outward form with inward significance, giving the transformation both a visual and a spiritual dimension. Hamadani’s prose likewise links grace with illuminated perception and the lighting of the heart’s garden. [3] This offers a parallel for awakening through received light, without making the poem’s sun a literal cosmological body. The throne belongs to meaning, and its dignity depends upon generosity from the beloved. The verse imagines changed perception and standing without specifying bodily destruction.

جَهان زِنْدانِ مَن گَرْدَد گَرَت یِکْدَم نَه بِینَد دِل

jahān zendān-e man gardad gar-at yekdam na bīnad del

7a  The world becomes my prison if my heart fails to see you for one moment;

نَعِیمِ جان شَوَد دُوزَخ گَرَش غَم دَر بَراَنْدازی

naʿīm-e jān shavad dūzakh gar-ash gham dar bar andāzī

7b  hell becomes the soul’s bliss if you cast your sorrow into its embrace.

Commentary on couplet 7

The world becomes a prison when the heart cannot see the beloved, while hell could become bliss through sorrow associated with him. The paired conditions make relationship determine the lover’s experience of a place. Seeing belongs explicitly to the heart, allowing inward awareness to resonate with the loss of a human beloved’s presence. Saʿdi similarly rejects paradise without the beloved’s face and imagines remembrance making hell’s torment painless. [5] This ghazal makes the sharper choice of sorrow as the bearer of intimacy. “Your sorrow” can mean the pain of loving the addressee; it does not require the beloved personally to suffer. The paradox voices an experience of attachment without establishing a universal account of hell’s eventual condition.

کِرامِ عالَمِ عُلْوی لِوایِ رِفْعَتَم گِیرَنْد

kerām-e ʿālam-e ʿolvī levā-ye refʿat-am gīrand

8a  The noble beings of the higher world will raise the banner of my eminence,

اَگَر یِک نُقْطِه اَز نامَم رَقَم بَر دَفْتَر اَنْدازی

agar yek noqte az nām-am raqam bar daftar andāzī

8b  if you inscribe a single dot of my name in your register.

Commentary on couplet 8

The noble beings above would raise the speaker’s banner if the beloved entered even a dot of his name in a register. The least written acknowledgment thus carries an immense public consequence. No particular celestial order is named: the phrase suggests exalted witnesses to an honor whose source lies elsewhere. The register likewise remains the beloved’s, without being identified as a specific scriptural book. The dot measures how little recognition the speaker asks for; it need not encode a doctrine of letters. As with the insult and the sunrise, the decisive action belongs to the addressee. Even this banner of eminence is imagined under an “if,” keeping distinction dependent upon being remembered and recorded by another.

عَلی با دَرْدِ دِل عُمْری مُقِیمِ خاکِ اِین دَر شُد

ʿAlī bā dard-e del ʿomrī moqīm-e khāk-e īn dar shod

9a  ʿAlī has spent a lifetime with an aching heart in the dust of this doorway,

مَگَر اَز دارُویِ لُطْفَت دَوایی دَر خُور اَنْدازی

magar az dārū-ye lotf-at davāyī dar khor andāzī

9b  hoping you will bestow a fitting remedy from the medicine of your kindness.

Commentary on couplet 9

The closing names ʿAlī and brings the imagined processions and banners back to a lifetime in the dust of a doorway. His aching attendance is asserted within the poem; the remedy remains a hope. Magar carries the expectancy preserved in the supplied translation, while dar khor asks for medicine fitting the wound. Dārū and davā bring remedy into close verbal association, answering dard, the pain that has endured. Hamadani distinguishes inward preparation from divine gifts that remain beyond the seeker’s control. [3] This provides a devotional parallel for waiting without guaranteed receipt. The lifetime at the door gives the petition weight, but cannot compel its answer. After the imagined elevations, the final need is simply for kindness that can heal.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal addresses a beloved whose slightest gesture could transform the lover’s condition. Its recurrent andāzī and barandāzī give that power physical movement: casting, bestowing, clearing, and setting down. A veil may fall, tresses may loosen, dust may disappear, or a name may enter a register. The addressee remains unnamed, with bodily beauty and sovereign authority sustaining both human and devotional readings. Yet the poem is not wholly hypothetical. The worlds have already become fragrant, dust has appeared, a talisman has formed, and the named lover has spent a lifetime at the door. Against these assertions, further acts of favor remain desired.

The opening images give concealment an unusually active role. Coiled hair sends fragrance through both worlds, while beauty’s display raises the dust of otherness. A fresh gesture is then needed to clear what the earlier display has stirred. These tensions resist a scheme in which every covering is simply bad and every appearance immediately liberates. Faith and unbelief become part of the talisman, pressing the question of what obstructs access to meaning. Hamadani’s account of radiance effacing shadows remains situated within prayer and creaturely need. Its context offers a parallel for illumination while preserving a difference from the poem’s sweeping treatment of religious opposites. [3]

The later images turn from the beloved’s beauty toward the lover’s possible dignity. A procession, a throne, and a celestial banner seem to magnify the self, yet each elevation depends upon attention received. An insult would suffice, or one moment of kindness, or a single dot. The reversals of ordinary value become most forceful when sorrow makes hell desirable and absence makes the world a prison. These are the lover’s measures of intimacy and loss. Their devotional possibilities should retain the emotional intensity of the address rather than becoming instructions to seek humiliation or a systematic account of the afterlife.

The signature ʿAlī finally places the speaker below all this imagined grandeur, at a dusty threshold. This dust differs from the earlier dust of otherness: an image of obstruction gives way to a setting for fidelity, where he remains with an aching heart. The ending does not report the medicine’s arrival. Its unresolved petition allows the poem’s great claims for beauty to coexist with the seeker’s continued vulnerability. The smallest acknowledgment could confer immeasurable honor, but only the beloved’s kindness can supply the remedy being awaited.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes

[1] 5a: عزم is read as ʿezz-am, “my glory,” rather than ʿazm, “resolve.”

[2] 6b: خورم is provisionally read as “my sun,” fitting the darkness and east imagery.

Editorial references

3. 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. 94–95, on divine light and the devotee’s shadows in prayer; printed p. 413, on grace and the illuminated heart; and printed p. 414, on inward preparation and gifts beyond the seeker’s control. The English translation was checked; the Persian wording was not independently collated.
4. Saʿdi, ghazal 279, couplet 2 in Ganjoor’s numbering. The Persian reading text welcomes the beloved’s coming even with insults. This is a literary parallel, without a claim of direct borrowing.
5. Saʿdi, ghazal 517, couplets 6–7 in Ganjoor’s numbering. Paradise without the beloved’s face is unwanted, and remembrance changes the experience of torment. The comparison preserves the difference between Saʿdi’s remembrance and this ghazal’s sorrow.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991, printed p. 475–476 reference, the signature ʿAlī, and both reading notes are retained unchanged. That edition and the attribution of this ghazal have not been independently verified. The commentary distinguishes the supplied reading from the documented prose parallels and other contexts cited here.