Ahmad Zahir Songs

سلطان قلبم

A declaration of love in the ghazal tradition — the beloved addressed as sovereign over the speaker's heart. His most-recognized romantic recording.

دوستت دارم همیشه همیشه

The repetition of "hamesha" (always) transforms a love declaration into something closer to prayer — insistence as devotion. One of his warmest and most unguarded recordings.

تنها شدم تنها

A meditation on solitude — the doubled word "tanha" (alone) carrying the ghazal's formal logic of return. Among his most emotionally direct recordings.

عاشق شده‌ای ای دل

Ahmad Zahir addresses the heart as a character — the classical Persian convention of the speaking heart held responsible for its own falling in love.

زندگی آخر سر آید

The recording that cost him his place on Radio Afghanistan — a meditation on mortality and resistance, banned after the 1978 Saur Revolution.

ای سرود واپسینم

A reflexive song about the nature of song itself — music as something that returns to the singer, not composed but received, arising from the accumulated longing of a life.

اگر تو یارک من باشی

The conditional mode — 'if you were my friend' — opens a world the speaker inhabits only in imagination. A ghazal structured around an unrealized possibility.

خودت می‌دانی گل من

You Know, My Flower — a tender address using the floral endearment, 'gule man' (my flower), in the intimate mode that runs through the entire Persian lyric tradition.

این چه عشقیست که

What Kind of Love Is This — a questioning that turns the emotion itself into an object of examination. The speaker cannot name what has happened to them, which is the most honest possible response to the experience.

ز سنگ نیست قلب من

A defense of emotional susceptibility — my heart is not made of stone, and this is not a weakness. One of his most direct refusals of emotional armor.

به خود گفتم پس از چندی

A Hafiz poem of private reckoning — the speaker in interior dialogue, coming to terms with what love has done to them, after a passage of time has brought clarity.

صد را در انتظارت

The hyperbolism of the ghazal — not once but a hundred times the speaker has waited. Counting as a form of devotion, waiting transformed from passive endurance into active proof of love.

دلکم ای دلکم

The apostrophe to the heart — addressing one's own heart as a separate being, holding it responsible for its choices while unable to separate from it. A song of tender self-interrogation.

می‌روی از من لبریز فغانم

You Leave Me Overflowing with Grief — the beloved's departure as the cause of a grief so complete it cannot be contained. Departure itself as a form of violence done to the one left behind.

من ندانستم از اول

The retrospective recognition — I did not know from the beginning what this would become. Love understood only after the fact, the speaker arriving at clarity too late to change course.

ای که از یار نشان

The messenger figure — addressing whoever brings news of the absent beloved. A song in the ancient tradition of the gharib (stranger) waiting for word from the one they love.

ای به دیده‌ام تاری

You who have darkened my eyes — the beloved's departure or unfaithfulness leaving the world without light. Blindness as the consequence of love's loss.

تو گل ناز هما

You are the coquettish flower of all, the swaying cypress — all are drawn to you, what remedy shall I make? The city proclaims your beauty; come to my embrace, O silver-breasted one; I have become like Majnun, enchanted.

گرچه مستیم خراباییم

Though we are drunk and ruined — the kharabat tradition's acceptance of ruin as the necessary condition of genuine love. Disrepute as spiritual credential, not social failure.

هوای عشق تو از سر

The air of your love will not leave my head — whoever came to your door will not leave again. A midnight song: the tryst where she said she would not travel without us; the tavern that offers shelter until dawn.

دلما هرچه ریش خسته

"My Heart, However Wounded" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 2).

اگر بهار بیاید

If spring were to come — a conditional reunion poem, spring used as the figure for the beloved's return and the renewal she would bring to a world that has gone cold without her.

اولین عشقم تو بودی

You were my first love — the particular weight of what comes first, the love that calibrates all subsequent experience. A recording of origin and original loss.

به عزم تو به سحر گفتم

"In Your Resolve I Told the Dawn" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 2).

مرا دل خون کردی

You Made My Heart Bleed — the beloved's unfaithfulness or cruelty named directly, without the mediation of elaborate metaphor. One of his most emotionally unguarded recordings.

بریده بد پای من

May my feet be cut off if they go to her house — the oath of non-return, the broken covenant, the resolve: even if she falls at my feet and says have mercy, I will not bow again.

به جز تو مونس دیگر

No companion other than you — the radical exclusivity of the ghazal's devotion. The beloved as the only possible companion in a world that has otherwise receded.

اگر ای آسمان

"If O Sky" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 2).

هرچند که دور از تو

"However Far from You" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 2).

ای یار خوب من

O my good beloved, O faithful one — I want you, I ask for nothing but you from God. Though I say in words that I do not love you, my heart secretly always calls: I want you.

ای جان من اسیرت

O my soul is your prisoner, my life is a sacrifice for you — wandering scattered like a lock of hair in your wake. Neither lucky enough for one night of union nor strong enough to flee cruelty for a single day.

اگر آواره مستم

"If I Am a Wandering Drunkard" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 3).

همه روز از تو به قهرم

"Every Day I Am Angry with You" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 3).

مرا مرا می بده

Give Me Wine, Give Me Wine — the repeated demand in the kharabat tradition, wine as both literal drink and figure for the intoxication of genuine spiritual and emotional life.

تنهاترین مرد زمینم

The loneliest man on earth — with you, a song of certainty; without you, a dry leaf of sorrowful autumn. From white jasmine to fallen leaf: the change that the beloved's absence accomplishes.

چه بیهوده چه ساده

What futility — I ran a lifetime in hope and love of you but heard no answer. You were a mirage. I no longer love you — go quickly from my side.

بوی تو خیزد هنوز

Your fragrance still rises from my bed — the bed disturbed, giving your scent yet empty; from you I have only one wish: let me have another night, be with me another night.

بی‌وفا یارم کرده غم برام

My Unfaithful Love Has Made Me Sad — the naming of betrayal as the simple, central fact. Among the most emotionally direct statements of grief in his catalog.

شب‌های ظلمانی

Dark Nights — one of his most haunting golden-era recordings, the image of oppressive darkness carrying both personal and, in retrospect, political resonance in the Afghanistan of the 1970s.

همه یارانند که سیاه شام

"All Friends in Dark Evenings" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 3).

امشب به قصه دل من

Tonight with the Tale of My Heart — a song that frames itself as a story, the heart's condition given narrative form. The night as the appropriate time for telling what the day cannot contain.

عاشقم عاشق به رویت

I am in love with your face — if you do not know, then know. Despite rivals, chains, slander, and deceit, I will come to your lane; if the rival dies of envy, I will plant a kiss on your face.

ز همراهان جدایه

A Rumi ghazal of spiritual counsel: separation from companions is not wise, self-centeredness is not wise, poverty when the heavenly table has arrived is not wise. The poem ends in dissolution — be silent, dissolve into the Real.

ز جان من چه می‌خواهی

What do you want from my soul — you left, without you I died; I was faithful for a lifetime, alas you were faithless; how many nights without you — where were you? You took my heart and left — go, you are not lacking a lover.

از برای غم من سینه

"For My Sorrow, My Chest" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 4).

روز و شبم منم

"Day and Night I Am" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 4).

چشم سیا داره قربانت

She Has Dark Eyes, I Am Sacrificed — the dark-eyed beloved of Afghan and Persian lyric tradition, the speaker declaring complete surrender. Eyes as the weapon that undoes the speaker's resistance.

بت نازنینم

O my delicate idol — why are you angry? Do you want my life — I will give it; do you give me poison — I will take it; the sky was astonished at my former power, now I am helpless before you.

ناله کن ای دل شوریده

Lament, O my turbulent heart — my companion has fled tonight; others make drunken laughter, I make drunken weeping; since she is no longer beside me, my house is dark; the step of death draws near.

بازی تو کرده به سرنوشتم

"You Have Played with My Fate" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 4).

پر کن پیاله را

Fill the cup — the fire-water of the ghazal tradition, cups emptying one after another like a sea of fire. Zahir at his most directly Hafiz-ian: intoxication as the only route through thought into the city of memories.

برایم گریه کن امشب

Weep for me tonight — for tonight alone I am with you. A farewell poem that invokes Layla and Majnun only to deflect it: the speaker does not want love sealed on his grave or his beloved left without another.

نمی‌خواهم ترا ای دخت

"I Don't Want You, O Girl" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 5).

به سنگ غم زده پیمانه

"My Wine Vessel Struck by the Stone of Grief" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 5).

گذشت آنکه تو سرخیل دلبران

"Time Has Passed When You Were Chief of Hearts" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 5).

گاه در آغوش این

Sometimes in the embrace of this one, sometimes that one — my heart has gone from my grasp; you with another — may I go blind; you boast of faithfulness; last night dancing with the rival you diminished my soul.

از دستت فغان فغان دارم

"From You, Lamentation Upon Lamentation" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 5).

بر خاطره آزاده غباری

"On the Memory, a Free Dust" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 5).

کیستم من راه‌نورد

Who Am I, a Traveler — the self-questioning of the perpetual wanderer, identity located in movement rather than place. Love as the condition that makes all fixed home impossible.

شکست عهد من

"My Covenant Was Broken" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 5).

بهار من سر از نو

O my spring — how long will you flee from the new spring, scatter the book of our memories? Your silent gaze has a hundred tongues; how long will you treat the wild breeze and gentle dew alike?

مرنجان دلم را که

Do not distress my heart — for this wild bird, once it rises from a roof, settles again with great difficulty. A poem that collects the great archetypes of impossible love: Yusuf and Zulaikha, Layla and Majnun.

ماهم ز راه رسید

The moon too arrived from the road but left before arriving — a poem of departure so complete that the arrival itself is retrospectively erased.

امشب به یاد روی تو

Tonight in memory of your face I will make an uproar — grief performed as event, as noise, as flood. The speaker announces his planned suffering to the world, then confirms he is mad by nature and carries on with goblet and flask.

ای بی‌خبر از درد من

O you unaware of my pain — my dust has risen to the sky; you did not know my love, engaged with others, scattered me; I endured alone with the sea of my eyes — completely.

قدح را سر کنید

Drain the cup — turn night to dawn, drive the world's grief from your head. The cup as instrument of transformation: not escape, but the conversion of grief into endurance.

تنها توی تنها توی

Only You, Only You — the radical exclusivity of the ghazal's love, the beloved named as the singular fact of a life from which all other possibilities have been excluded.

من غلام قمرم

I Am the Moon's Slave — Rumi's ecstatic ghazal of surrender: speak of nothing but the moon, nothing but candle and sugar. Love arrives in the night and commands silence; the speaker obeys.

شب چو در بستم

When I closed the door at night and feasted drunkenly on pure wine — if the moon knocked, I answered; that Tartar enemy I called friend for a lifetime; I wept so much I ruined the dwelling; when I told the candle the moth's burnt-heart tale, I set it on fire then cooled it.

نگاه کن نگاه کن

Watch so the wine does not spill — I sacrifice for your eyes, O cupbearer; treat the righteous with wine of Kawthar on condition they don't take my cup; a thousand repentances broken for a good cause; I stand helpless before your beauty — the world sees I am captive to your radiance.

به دل من شر افروخت

"A Fire Was Lit in My Heart" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 6).

خال به کنج لب

A Mole at the Corner of the Lip — the beloved's beauty mark as focal point, the small physical detail that concentrates all of love's attention. Precision as a form of devotion.

سوز قلبم جاودانیست

The burning of my heart is eternal and the flood of my tears is crimson; O moon of the sky, constant among the planets — my eyes are your stars, I am helpless in your love, O nightingale of this gathering.

من مست و تو دیوانه

I Am Drunk and You Are Mad — Rumi's ghazal of double intoxication, both speaker and beloved outside the boundaries of sober social life, both beyond the reach of ordinary judgment.

فقط سوز دلم را

Only the moth knows the burning of my heart; the nightingale does not know my grief; I do not lament because the beloved knows me as stranger; even my heart laughs at me and calls me mad.

به آسمان بگویید

Tell the sky, carry the condition of my heart to the lovers — my heart is for another. The unexpected ending: I will not ask why you left me and I do not want you to come back.

من در سرای تو

In your abode I have a different tumult from cup and vessel — the beloved's dwelling as the site of spiritual transformation, where ordinary passersby see only the familiar signs of intoxication.

ای نام غمت ترانه من

O your name of grief is my song — your love is my only excuse; O white bird of acquaintance, come back to my nest; your love mixed another madness with my melody.

چه خلاف سر زد از ما

What wrong came from us that you locked the door and sat with enemies? A poem of wounded innocence, where the beloved's cruelty transforms even her physical attributes — kohl, lips, gaze — into sources of bewilderment.

من بار سنگینم

I am a heavy burden — leave me and pass. The refrain a kind of self-imposed exile from consolation: the speaker refuses each offered comfort, including the candle's weeping, in favor of being acknowledged and left alone.

باز آی کنارم بنشین

Come Again and Sit by My Side — the simplest request a lover can make. Proximity as what is asked for, not possession, not permanence — just the presence of the beloved, here, now.

صیاد صیاد رحم کن

O Hunter, Show Mercy — the speaker as the hunter's prey, asking for mercy. Love as capture, the beloved as the one who has set and triggered the trap.

من نگویم که مرا از قفس

I Will Not Say Free Me from This Cage — Bahar's prison ghazal of 1933: the caged bird does not ask for freedom, only that the cage be carried to a garden. Sung by Zahir, it became an Afghan anthem of dignity under confinement.

معشوقه به سمن شد

The beloved came into harmony — may it ever be so; her faithlessness all became faith; the scattered kingdom, like Solomon's, became whole again; every corner became a field, the world became a garden of sugar.

می‌خندم آقا امشب

"I Am Laughing Tonight, Master" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 7).

اشک‌های من همچو

My tears fall like drops of rain before my beloved; I have complaints no intimate can hear; on the day of resurrection I will grasp the hem of your robe and demand the answer you never gave.

بعد از این که رقیب

After the rival took your hand in his and stole a kiss — I want death. Three stanzas of 'without you,' each stripping something further away, until existence itself becomes death.

گفتم که نرو مادا آزارم

"I Said Don't Go, You're Troubling Me" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 8).

ز دستم بر نمی‌خیزد

It Is Beyond Me — Saadi's ghazal of love past the point of choice: the speaker cannot sit a single moment without the beloved, loves against the judgment of the whole world, and would drop the shield before the beloved's drawn sword.

ای گلزار من

O my rose garden, my spring — the fire of your love burns my body; like a moth in hope of union I burned at your candle; your dark eyes and moon-like face take me from myself; day and night I pursue you.

از غمت ای نازنین

From your grief, O darling, I resolve to travel — I turn my qibla another direction; I go carrying the brand of your cruelty; so no one else is deceived, I will raise a clamor everywhere about your grief.

شکایت دارم

I Have a Complaint — the formal lodging of a grievance, the beloved taken to account. The ghazal tradition's understanding that love gives the lover the right to complain.

من اگر دیوانه‌ام

If I am mad, where is my chain? If I am the prisoner of wisdom, where is its solution? A poem of spiritual paradox — the self interrogating its own nature and finding that neither madness nor reason fully accounts for what it is.

دلبر اگر تو یار من

"O Beloved, If You Are My Friend" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 8).

به تو گلگشت چمن

Without you the garden walk, cup and wine-vessel, the wild rose — nothing pleases. I will wander the desert like Majnun; I am not a moth to circle every candle, only yours.

دانم چرا چشمان تو

I know why your eyes rain fire-filled tears — why your lashes hold the arrow that hunts hearts; I am much weakened; if the heart dies from grief it will die at your feet; I know — no one knows — I am the lover who longs to see you.

پیدا شد پیدا شد

She appeared — my lost one, tonight; I circle and dance with the morning breeze; the revolving sky never accompanied us; the sun has become a guest in our gathering, moonlight spreading its radiance.

ناله به دل شد

"The Lament Became the Heart" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 9).

پیری رسد فصل جوانی

Old Age Has Arrived at the Season of Youth — the collision of time's advancement with the desire that belongs to youth. One of his most philosophically weighted recordings from the early sessions.

به داغ ناموردی سوختم

Burned by the brand of misfortune — the weary heart, the prison chains better than freedom, the beggar's bowl asking only for bread. A poem of total dispossession in which meaning itself has been lost.

آخر ای دریا

In the end, O sea — the sea is addressed as a fellow sufferer with a mad heart, restlessness in its hands and waves in its head, asked where its dwelling is and how long it will burn.

زیبا نگارم به من نگاه

"My Beautiful Love, Look at Me" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 9).

سحر می‌گفت بلبل

At Dawn the Nightingale Said — the nightingale (bulbul) as the poet's alter ego, the bird that sings of roses and grief. Dawn as the liminal hour when the nightingale's message can be heard.

چه شب‌ها به یادت

A song of separation and obsession — the speaker spending nights in the corner of longing, maddened by the beloved's face. The accusation of unfaithfulness and the speaker's own admitted madness exist side by side.

ستاره دیده فرو بست

The star closed its eyes and rested — come; wine of light ran through the veins of night; you did not come when the sky held the Pleiades, now dawn has picked them away; at the moment of my death — come; you are the hope of the silver-hearted broken one.

ای دزدیده چشم از آهو

"O One Who Stole Eyes from the Deer" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 9).

یار از ما جدایی می‌کند

"The Friend Parts from Us" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 10).

در کنج دلم عشق کسی

"In the Corner of My Heart, Love of Someone" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 10).

بمان ای شب

Stay, O night — the speaker asks darkness to remain, tells the moon to go away. Grief desires its own proper setting: night, wakefulness, the space to burn and mourn without dawn interrupting.

ترا افسون چشمانم

My eyes' enchantment has led you astray — why do you claim your heart is hard as iron? In this cup of lips I carry a wine that fells men; you will never find a warmer embrace; do not stray — the dark stone of a sorrowful grave awaits.

از سنگنای محبس تاریکی

From the dark prison, from the dark swamp — a prayer of need. God addressed as the only one aware of the first transgression, the only one capable of restoring the soul's original purity.

دور از تو هر شب

Far from you every night until dawn I weep like the candle of the gathering; the cup brimful of tears; like a shadow I have fallen in your lane, hopeful eyes toward you — alas for my futile hope.

اگر پنهان بود پیدا

If the hidden were manifest — I am that manifest hidden one. If the ignorant were wise — I am that wise ignorant one. A poem of spiritual paradox and self-assertion: the Huma, the alert drunk, the moon to the sphere of love.

آه چه خوش آمدی

Ah, how wonderfully you came — the speaker greets the beloved's unexpected return with wonder and a gentle question: what fault did faithlessness have, that you finally repented of it?

بگذار بگریم

Let me weep in this dark midnight — like a cloud over the rose garden in the mourning of hope's fading flowers; this love draws me into the abyss of madness.

خرابم ز مستی

I am ruined by intoxication — I am all wine, all wine, O God. The Sufi kharab (ruin) as spiritual state: the self dissolved by love, the desert crossed toward a Kaaba that keeps receding.

تو به یک دشت پر از گل

You, Like a Meadow Full of Flowers — the beloved compared to an entire flowering field: not one rose but a whole landscape in bloom. One of the most-searched songs in his catalog, a melody that generations learned before they learned where it came from.

دلت می‌خواست با تو

"Your Heart Wanted That" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 11).

اگر ز خلق ملامت

Whether blame comes from the world or remorse from within, the speaker has endured it all from one beloved — cataloguing broken covenants and suffering borne in silence.

می‌گویم که دوستت دارم

I say I love you — you go silent; you keep me at a distance from your warm heart; don't be angry; I saw you with rivals on the road; my rival has money, I am poor — in the end you will choose him.

گفتی که می‌بوسمت را

You said: I will kiss you; I said: I wish it. You said: if a rival comes; I said: I will enchant him away. In the end: if I undo the chain of your love, you said — more mad than you, I will find.

به آتشین خوی خود

With your fiery nature and sword-brow you shed my heart's blood; with gentle words and warm glance you burned my soul; at the rival's feast you danced like a wave — alas, alas, alas.

زبانم را نمی‌فهمی

You do not understand my language, you do not see my glance; words lie sleeping in my eyes — my glance has a hundred languages; look once at my white hair, O dark-lashed one; you do not see my dark days.

مجنون مجنون جان

"Majnun, Majnun, Dear" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's resistance-era sessions (Vol. 12).

نه نه هرگز هرگز

No, never — the wine without you turns to poison; may my hand break if I embrace another; I carry love for you until death; you alone are my love — be faithful to your promise; in your love's path you will never see error from me.

کاشکی کاشکی مرا

"Oh If Only, Oh If Only Me" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's resistance-era sessions (Vol. 12).

من رانده ز میخانه

I am banished from the tavern — flee from me. The speaker cast out even from the place of outsiders, warning the beloved away. A ruined house, a mountain flood, a destroyer of nests: self-description as hazard.

نباری گمان که

"You Would Not Think That" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's resistance-era sessions (Vol. 12).

ای تیر غمت را

The arrow of your grief targets lovers' hearts — I seek you from house to house, from monastery to mosque; my purpose from the Kaaba and the idol-house is only you; I am not mad — I who go from house to house.

من نمی‌نوازم شب‌های

"I Do Not Caress the Nights" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's resistance-era sessions (Vol. 13).

ای بت بی‌رحم

O merciless idol — make me your prey, throw a lasso, shoot an arrow I will place within my chest; your seductive eye drowns my heart in blood; come that I may be your sacrifice, slain by a single glance.

آهنگ زندگی

The song of life sang into my ear: turn toward love, for time is short. A philosophical three-couplet poem — the speaker a fistful of dust in the world's expanse, knowing no realm but longing.

یاد آن سرو روان

The memory of that walking cypress brings life back into my body; I will not lift one step from your threshold even if the sky comes to the ground; since I have seen your eyebrow's bow, an arrow keeps coming into my eyes.

روشنی چشمم

Light of my eyes — without you I cannot even for one night be alone with myself and live; your love carries many torments; but union with you carries many secrets; I stood watching on the road to your union.

ای رشک گل‌ها

O envy of flowers — you deceived me; for ages I wanted a single kiss and you deceived me with today and tomorrow; I resolved to take your name no more, you put my heart at ease — and deceived me again.

سرود شبانگاه

The song of the evening arrives suddenly from a shepherd's pipe — accustom yourself to this melody, make your way to the tavern; white clouds rain, the meadow takes on color, the morning breeze scatters leaves.

مست شدم ای ساقی

I am drunk, O cupbearer — the mahfil (gathering) set in uproar by one sip of wine. The saaqi, the cupbearer, is as much a figure of spiritual mediation as domestic service in the ghazal tradition.

عشق و مهرت

Your love and affection — threads are bound at my feet; I cannot take your name to my lips; I burned again — burn me again; O your two warm eyes — you are my sea.

کرده‌ام ناله بسه

I have lamented much in search of a kindred soul — I hear at midnight the lamenting of a caravan bell; my complaint is against the sky; when will the fever of your love release my collar?

توبه توبه از شب هجران

Repentance, repentance from the night of separation — from weeping eyes, ruined heart, cruelty of the beautiful; the counselor knows nothing of this burning; love was day and night, rolling in mud and blood — where was hearing, like seeing with the eyes.

وای من بیهوده‌ام بیهوده

"O I Am Futile, Futile" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's resistance-era sessions (Vol. 14).

امشب از باده خرابم

Tonight let wine ruin me — let me die. The triple request (ruin me, drown me, put me to sleep) structured around 'let me die' as refrain. Life without the beloved is more bitter than death.

چرا دیشب به سوی من

Why last night did you not look my way at all — not even secretly smile? Was it inattention or fear of rivals? All night I devoured heart's blood in sighing and weeping and lamentation.

تا به جفایت خوشم

I was content with your cruelty — you have abandoned cruelty; you have blocked every path of my salvation and cut my hope from everywhere; have I gone astray, or have you made the mistake? You have repaid the debt.

اگر عشق باشد گناه

"If Love Were a Sin" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's resistance-era sessions (Vol. 14).

به خدا تنگ است دلم

By God my heart is tight, tight — perhaps of stone. A catalog of what is missed: dark eyes, lip colors, sincerity, the fragrance of the body, the manner of a glance, the sound of a voice.

از تو دورم

Far from you yet so lost in you I'm as if in your embrace — distance that is not distance. Living by memory and the warmth of an embrace that is not happening but feels present.

دل ز سودای

"The Heart from Longing" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's resistance-era sessions (Vol. 14).

هنوز بر لب من

Still on my lips is the place of your kisses, still rippling in my heart is the longing — you are not here, but your memory is in your place. A song of persistent bodily memory after the beloved's departure.

ای دل ای دل دل دیوانه

O heart, O heart, frenzied heart — in love you became a legend and a prisoner. A long poem that travels from the heart's entanglement through the beloved's inaccessible beauty to the speaker holding a goblet until dawn.

از جهان به رخ

From the world without his face I turn away — the nightingale and flower turned to dust. The heart is blood-filled from distance; every mountain and ridge receives the lament.

با کس چه با کس چه

What is it to anyone? The speaker's defense of his private life against social judgment: if he drinks, wanders, breaks cups, loves this Leila — what business is it of others? The Majnun comparison as defiant self-identification.

رهانم از درد

Free me from pain and weakness — from eternal burning, autumn windstorm, crimson tears; my heart is a hundred pieces; go, O faithless one — you gave lessons in love's school but did not make me your teacher.

عجب صبره خدا دارد

How patient God is — if I were in His place, I would not endure the sight of the hungry beside feasters, the naked beside the robed, or a conscienceless creature's oppression for a single moment.

شده ابرو پاره پاره

The cloud broke apart and the star winked — the beloved returned; a lantern bright as the moon, a diamond of the royal crown; beauty and grace emerging from occultation.

در پیش بی‌دردان چرا

Why cry uselessly before the painless? Behind the curtain I burn like a rose; I am not the disgraced candle to weep in the gathering — in the end, one cup of wine nullifies all thinking.

دیگر اگر دل خون

If once more my heart bleeds, I no longer want you — but each stanza imagines the beloved becoming more essential: light of his eyes, body and soul, candle of the bedchamber. Rejection that cannot stop describing what it refuses.

موج دریا ابر سیاه

Wave of the sea, black cloud — heart of the world, O love; a night created from my beloved's eyes; a night shoulder to shoulder with Layla's tresses, embracing Majnun's fortune.

کمر باریک من

Come let me embrace you — may I be the sacrifice of your tangled hair; for you I have 360 kisses; slender-waisted one, come close, make peace — enough cruelty, now be faithful.

طوفان اشک حسرتم

The storm of my longing's tears has legends in the heart; the candle of my amazement's spread has moths in the heart; O sane ones — my heart wants its chains; the intoxication of my flask draws the cup's heart to dance.

صبح دمید و روز شد

Dawn broke and the day came — the beloved left on this pretext; may the morning's face turn black; O astrologer, take the star of my ill fortune from its constellation — my sighs will set the sky on fire.

آسمان خالیست

The Sky Is Empty — absence perceived cosmically, the sky without its usual stars read as a figure for a world emptied by the beloved's departure.

مانند من فسرده دلی

May there be no heart as broken as mine in the world. A series of inverted prayers wishing the speaker's own fate on no one, culminating in the wish that nothing remain of them but the tale of a love.

من در این ویرانه

In this ruin I have lost everything — treasures, the bird of my heart, one who had no equal. The classical Sufi kharabat, the ruin as the place of loss and paradoxically also of God's presence.

مردم از درد

I died from pain and still you do not come — the speaker watching his own death while the beloved's face remains absent. Youth passed, desire dead, love fled; only grief refuses to leave.

هرگز هرگز هرگز

Never Never Never — the triple negation as the ultimate form of refusal or impossibility. Among his most emotionally extreme recordings, the word 'never' repeated until it becomes a kind of absolute.

همچو نی می‌نالم

The reed of the Masnavi — Rumi's founding image of the soul cut from its origin, lamenting separation. Ahmad Zahir sets the most famous opening in Persian literature as a pop song.

این توسن ایام

This steed of time — how sweetly tamed it is today. A poem moving between philosophical acceptance and political promise: its closing lines, spoken by angels from behind a veil of lights, announce the end of an enemy's evening.

تو جان منی دیگر چه خواهی

You are my soul, my beloved — what more do you want? Whether near to me or far, you are my longing; I cannot be mistaken when I say: you are my every breath — what more do you want?

رفتم مرا ببخش

I left — do not blame me, do not say he had no faithfulness; this fiery love had dragged me into the valley of ruin and madness; the flee is from two bright weeping eyes and from the storm's wild laughter.

وفا اگر ز کس بینم

If I see faithfulness from anyone, I become estranged from myself — I am that candle that circles around the head of the moth; why do you pour my tears in longing for one kiss, for I circle around your lips like a drunken smile.

خواهم چو راز پنهان

I wish no trace remained of me — like a hidden secret. The speaker asking for a grave as a prison for the body, wishing fire on the city of acquaintance so the shame of being known would vanish.

رفت از برم دلستان

My sweetheart left from my side — day and night in lamentation, O sky; do not wink, O sun — she has fallen into sleep; tonight what a storm you are making, O tears; let us wander door to door, mad over someone.

سر تا به پا سیاه

Head to toe dark — like my fortune you are; from head to toe sin yet chaste; your glance upon mine, and tomorrow the city will echo that you are with me; like a flower stitched on black velvet — in a black garment, worth seeing.

تا ای ماه من رفتی

Since you, O my moon, left from my side, blood-water drips from my wet eyes; perhaps one night out of faithfulness you will come once more; since you left, my liver has turned to blood.

سنگ بارانم مکن

Do not rain stones upon me, O sky — my wings are broken. A prayer to the sky not to add cruelty to existing injury: wings broken, calamity bound to feet, no flight possible.

چه خواهی گفت روز

What will you say on the day of resurrection — you who have taken my hope, dishonored me, and now leave me with only the pale face and autumn leaves of memory?

نازنین من مه جبین من

O my delicate one, my moon-faced one — I became very patient, submerged in blood; I was your lover and grew heart-pleased; from your separation I became sorrowful, O my beloved, my rose garden.

پس از این زاری مکن

After this do not weep — O ill-fated, mad heart; sleep peacefully at the grave of my breast with your ancient grief; you acquainted me with her love — now after this do not desire companionship.

تو همچنان نفس من حیات

From so much calling upon God in your memory every night, I raised a resurrection in the court of God; in your memory I fell and laid my head on grief's knee like an orphan; you are still my breath, my life, my every moment.

بیا نور دیده مرو

Come, light of my eyes — do not go from my side; look at this restless heart; like Majnun who tears his collar in the desert, I am here with tear-filled eyes from your love.

گناهم ببخش

O moon, show compassion — accept my plea; love is witness; if you will not take me back, give me to death; look at my white hair with affection; accept me with a single gaze.

گنگ شوی یار

You show so much coquetry — may you go silent, beloved; on the road of love the longing is to become companions; that tulip-faced one stole my heart and made it prisoner of your gaze.

از یادت من برفتم

I have slipped from your memory — the speaker gone from the beloved's mind while nights of burning in separation continue. The rivals' feast while the speaker burns; the dark-eyed one asked to stay as a final wish.

ز بس به یاد تو

Calling on God so many nights in the beloved's memory that the speaker has raised a resurrection in God's court. Love of the human beloved addressed through prayer — the boundary between divine and human longing dissolves.

شب ظلمانیم امشب

My dark night tonight is blacker than last night. If I say this is the longest night of my life I would not be wrong — and my soul has reached my lips.

تا لبش در نظارم

As long as her lips pass before my sight, melting from head to toe passes over me; at this crossing, to what shall I bind my heart — everything passes; my lifetime passes at the outside of the door; whatever comes upon my head — passes.

ترسم آزاد نسازد

I Fear That Freedom Will Not Be Made — one of his most explicitly political recordings, the fear that the promise of freedom will not be fulfilled under the new order.

افسوس که عشقه

Alas, that pure love took on the color of mere desire — the grief of a love that began as something transcendent and became something ordinary. Fire took hold of the too-quickly-ripened fruit.

امشب شده‌ام مست

Tonight I have become drunk so that I may weep drunkenly — the tavern corner as the proper place for grief. Intoxication sought not for joy but as the condition that makes weeping fully possible.

ای دل تو گریه کم کن

O heart, cry less — the speaker addresses the heart as a restless companion, urging discretion before the moon-faced ones, acknowledging a lifetime spent in ruins, and finally pleading on behalf of a poor featherless bird caught in the snare.

ای شعله حزین

O sorrowful flame — the speaker asks whether it is the beloved's fervor or their own tears that gives them everlasting burning; then resolves to stop seeking, stop wandering, stop telling secrets — and quietly travel the silent road of those who are gone.

باخبر باش

Be aware — tonight I am coming to you. I will untie the knot of your tresses, I will press my lips to yours, whether you wish it or not. One of his boldest, most direct statements of amorous intent.

برود ای حریفان

Hafiz sends companions to bring the beloved, accepting her promises of 'another time' as beautiful deceit. The messenger poem — having others conduct what you cannot — is a classic ghazal structure.

هرگز کسی به روزه مانه

May no one ever be in my powerless state — may there never be in the world a withered heart like mine; a hundred sorrows from my own kind heart; if my tongue burns from love, may no word other than love ever be on it.

مرغ دلم کرده

"The Bird of My Heart Has Done" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions.

ز بهار عمر من

Of the spring of my life nothing but faithfulness; of what lies before me nothing but cruelty; I carry the world's wounds as a gift; do not look at my heart, look at yourself; do not do more cruelty to the broken-winged bird.

دوش از مسجد

Hafiz's famous poem: last night the elder — the spiritual guide — left the mosque and went to the tavern. What now do we disciples do? A radical critique of institutional religion's authority.

گشتم آخر فریاد

A complaint against the heart itself — ruined by this heart, crying out against this heart. The heart that shows wheat but delivers barley, holds two worlds of madness in a single drop of blood.

مستانه بزن بر سنگ

Give me neither the promise of union nor any remedy — I am thirsty for torment; dishonor me, make me wretched; dash the cup against stone; draw me from behind the curtain and make me notorious.

برو بابا ما کتت نستم

May I be a sacrifice for the whiteness of your neck — go, I am not with you; you are from the city, I am from the village; come, let us go away from this land, you and I — go, I am not with you.

من از شراب و ساقی

A hundred times I have repented of wine and joy, and now repent no more. The classic reversal: the repentance itself renounced, the vow of sobriety abandoned as beneath the speaker's dignity.

خدای کن ای ماه گناهم

O moon, show compassion — accept my plea; my failing is great and my love is witness; accept me before this witness of mine.

عشق من چه چاره سازم

My love — what remedy shall I make that you relent and once more become my companion? Brush the rust of anger from your heart; can it be again in the dark of nights, in the alley's curve, that we tell heart's secrets?

نه دل مفتون دلبنده

Neither is my heart captivated nor my soul dazed — neither a tear nor a sigh; my gathering finds no warmth from candle or crowd; my memory holds no attachment; I am a wanderer with lost desire, alone.

شبی ز شب‌ها

One night of nights, you and I alone at the sea's wave, gazing raptly — you left, broke my heart, fled like a gazelle; another night: I and my heart and my grief, at the foot of flowers, told our tales — how many nights sick and alone.

باز می‌خواهم ترا ای عشق من

I want you again — the dim gaze, the cold lips, asking when a fire will kindle again. The speaker admits madness, accepts lovelessness, but has become afflicted with this love regardless.

بوسه‌ها طلب می‌کند

Kisses are sought by those rose-colored lips; one glance enchants me; like fire warm and burning, like a star in the night — I who have fallen into your snare have openly laid my heart upon your path.

عزیزم به یادت شب‌های

Remembering you on dark nights, I come to you with a torn heart — seeking, scenting, in hopelessness; anyone who sees the moonlight of your face through your hair is driven mad.

گفتم که می‌خواهم ترا

I said I want you — do not believe it. I am smiling like a flower but have set a trap of deception. Then: No — curse it — think of no embrace but mine. A self-cancelling song that warns and contradicts itself in the same breath.

بیمارم و غیر از جگره

I am ill and have nothing but a piece of my torn liver — if I lament I disturb you, if I am patient I have no heart of stone, if I go far I die, if I come near I have no strength to look at you.

به ساغر نقل کرد

Wine poured slowly, the sun rising slowly, love's danger revealing itself slowly — this song uses the repeated 'slowly, slowly' (asta asta) to pace a gradual undoing.

امشب به بام آسمان

Tonight on the roof of the sky, winking and trailing her skirt — the Pleiades addressed as a flirtatious young woman whose love has become the speaker's faith.

اگر سبزه بودم

If I were greenery in the desert, I would ask the morning breeze for news of you. If I were water, I would seek you all the way to God. If I were a harp, I would rest in your lap. Each hypothetical state serves the same purpose: approaching the beloved.

ای ماه کنهانی من

O my moon of Canaan, give back the heart you took from me. A triple demand addressed to a beloved figured as Yusuf — either illuminate my heart, or return what you took.

ای نیلگون دریای من

O my azure sea — I have come back; hear my footsteps, be silent and listen, then open your arms; like a fluttering nightingale I come to you from the sky.

بلبل شوریده

The frenzied nightingale — in Persian poetry the nightingale (bulbul) is the archetypal lover, singing for the rose that will never return his love. Zahir's own nickname, Bulbul-e-Habibia, makes this song personally resonant.

تو گر به من یار شوی

If you become my companion I tell no one; if you torment my heart, if you become faithless, rage at me — I still tell no one; my head is your sacrifice and the secret stays ours.

ای آه سحرگاه تو

O predawn sigh, take effect — the speaker addresses the sigh itself as an agent, asking fate for a share of what it gives others, and finally asking Love to take this ruinous heart away and give it to someone else.

بگذرد بگذرد عمر من

Let it pass — let my life pass; poor in my own homeland, free from servitude, the sky raining love above me; the tavern my home, the monastery my temple, without bowing my head in shame.

ای که از کلک هنر

O you whose pen draws God's image — you broke your covenant, friends reproach me for giving my heart, but they should have first asked you: why are you so beautiful? The bird cannot help going for the grain.

ای پادشاه خوبان

O king of beauties — help me from the grief of loneliness; the garden's rose does not stay fresh forever; there is no self-regard in the world of the rend.

ساقیا مرا دریاب

O cupbearer, look after me — fill my cup with faithfulness; I am drunk tonight from griefs, disgraced without having drunk; do not make me repent from wine; free me from reckoning; I weep inwardly from fear of disgrace.

بگو که گل نفرستاد

Tell them not to send flowers to my house — the fragrance of your memory has already filled my nest. Tears like dew dripping from white buds; if the desire to live could rise from any wings, come spread them here.

آغاز گشته زندگی

"Life Has Begun Anew" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions.

یار از دل من خبر

The beloved has no news of my heart — or my sigh has had no effect; or the season of my patience is autumn; or your eyes are friends with my heart; or your arrow passes unseen; without love the world has no skill.

دلم در عاشقی آواره شد

My heart in loving has wandered — may it wander more; your tresses have rogue cunning — may they have more; all say she torments; I say: for my life's sake, may she be even more bloodthirsty.

آخرین شب آشنای ما

The last evening of an acquaintance — she comes furious, demands back her letters, the speaker returns them, she tramples her own faithfulness underfoot. A remarkably narrative-driven love ending.

از پیش من برو

Go away from me — I trouble the heart, unreliable, weak, full of sin. The speaker's petition to God: this is not a heart you gave me; plunged in blood, let it go free, or bind it in the chain of love.

نمی‌دانم به روی که بخندم

I do not know on whose face to smile or for whom to weep — sated with the water of life, captive in the cold trap of loneliness; the cup of my pleasure broken, my drunken gazelle has fled, the bird of joy has flown.

یارب غم بی‌رحمی جانان

O God, to whom shall I tell the grief of the beloved's cruelty — my soul burned from grief for her; they say tell your pain, but pain beyond remedy — to whom? The wound burnt in secret — to whom shall I tell it?

عشق من با تو بود

My love was with you, my heart was with you — you left and broke both. A direct accusation in the voice of abandonment: the speaker begs return while describing the beloved as a wild deer, untameable, giving no word.

بهار جوانیم رفت

An elegy for lost youth — the spring of one's young years gone, happiness taken flight like an eagle. The classical Persian theme of time's passage and the fleeting nature of life's beauty.

بس که جفا ز خار و گل

From so much cruelty of thorn and flower, the heart's eye has taken fright — since you cut yourself from me, I have cut myself from the world; separation's grief has slain me.

خواب از چشمانم ربودی

You stole sleep from my eyes — faithless, you broke my heart; life without you is forbidden; may my eyes go blind if I take notice of anyone but you; my love was trampled — where did friendship, loving, acquaintance all go?

تو برایم مقدسی

You are sacred to me — the dearest being; like water on flowers, sleep for the weary, a gentle smile on a word without reply; like rain on the meadow, jasmine's scent, southern mountains, spring moonlight.

چه گرمی چه خوبی شرابی

What warmth, what goodness — what are you? A wine, a spring, a flower, moonlight? My thirsty lips get no satisfaction. O silent beauty — for God's sake, give an answer: what are you?

از نازو چه می‌خندانی

Why do you laugh with coquetry at the eye that weeps? This eye once laughed too. A hundred hidden wounds does this chest carry that laughs — a portrait of concealed grief beneath a public surface.

دوستت دارم والله بلله

I Love You, By God, By God — the oath sworn on God's name, the beloved addressed with both tenderness and solemn conviction. Love as something that must be testified to.

کی باشد و کی

When will it be — and when? A harp, a flute, she and I, wine; a night of moonlight on the garden, pure wine, she and I hand in neck till dawn — the deferred intimate night, precisely imagined.

تو با منی تو با منی

You are with me, like my soul, like my heart within my body — O distant, O impossible — in the world of imagination; at nightfall in your memory I compose a song and the hidden secret of your love lies within my instrument.

مرا چون قطره‌ای اشکه

You cast me off like a teardrop from your eye and left — a poem structured on the tear metaphor: the speaker was produced by the beloved's grief, then expelled, then even the capacity for weeping itself departs.

ای نازنین از عشق تو

For your love I am mad; from all others I have become a stranger; I sacrifice my soul each moment — yet you still knock, as if the door that is mine were not already yours.

وقتی که دل تنگ است

When the heart is tight, what use is freedom? Life is a prison when there is no joy; the sad person remains alone among a hundred million; the bird whose wing burns — in the end, death becomes their release.

دزد عشقم من و دیشب

I am love's thief and last night I robbed hearts — in court I deny it; why notorious in your love when I spoke only to you? Grief scorched the wings of Nowruz; I pitched tent in the desert.

سرمه کدی

She applied kohl, curled her tresses, arched her brow, reopened my wound — then left and composed a different tune; from her ruby lips a hundred drunkennesses arise; the moon of the sky turns to water from shame.

شبه را با من

One night with me, O moon of the early risers, you turned to dawn — at dawn, like the sun, you journeyed from my nest; like two charming birds we came close — you flew and left me without wings; one glance overturned the whole of my foundation.

حسنت رباید آب و تاب

Your beauty steals the luster from the sun itself, O moonlight. A devotional address to the moon as the light that makes drinking possible — in its light, the speaker drains cup after cup.

آواره بیچاره قلب من

Free me from eternal burning, from crimson tears — a wandering, wretched heart in a hundred pieces. The song of the student who was taught but never made teacher, who circles in blood but will not turn away.

الهی من نمی‌دانم

O God, I Don't Know — a song of surrendered understanding: I do not know; You, in Your knowledge, know. Zahir's plainest statement of humility before the divine, and one of his most beloved devotional recordings.

چشمک بزن ستاره

The clouds broke apart — wink, O star; you shone again, you made a sign to me; in the night a lantern on the road; I am asleep and you awake, unaware while you work away with your grace.

عاشق رویت من

I am in love with your face, I am bound by your hair, I am slain by you — a direct beauty poem built on the three classical attributes of the Persian beloved: face, hair, bearing.

A song of hopeful prayer — the speaker asking God to separate the beloved from rivals, imagining a day when fortune makes them known to each other and the sigh of the burning heart finds its place.

ای بلبل خوش الحان

O sweet-voiced nightingale, you had a covenant with the rose — arise, spring has come. The ancient bulbul-and-gul pairing invoked as mutual obligation: the nightingale owes its voice to the rose, and now the season has arrived.

کاش ای تنها امید زندگی

Would that I could forget you — or silence you within my breast on a night of burning; would that your memory would flee like heavy sleep; the bird of my heart, cold and broken-winged, would flee from the realm of your longing.

خنده به لب‌های ورا

The smile on your lips, your coquetry and gestures, your glances — who else has them? I am your wretched lover, the night of your waiting; who other than me is your companion, faithful, your sweetheart?

خبر داری که دین

Do you know that you are my longing, my love, and my devotion? Do you know that you are my pain, my anguish, and my cure? The beloved asked directly whether she knows what she is — the poem's central question, unanswered.

پنداشتم همیشه گله

I thought you were always the flower of my heart — the song of a belief that turned out to be wrong. The inventory of what was thought: love, hope, sweetheart, gaze as messenger of affection.

ترا صد بار گفتم

I told you a hundred times I am your servant — is this not enough? I sacrifice myself for one greeting of yours; I wrote my life and death in your name with a wordless hand; with your name I began — is this not enough?

همش درد و همش رنج

All pain and all suffering — this was my share from the world; always in the corner of loneliness, always a branch of hope and breaking; the heart told to forget love; but it will not come back — the heart is a nest of pain.

اگر این آسمان ستاره

If this sky had no stars, I would make my own eyes into stars; if no flowers were laughing in the meadow, I would pluck petals from the blush of dawn. The speaker's suffering transformed into adornment for the beloved.

هرجا که سفر کردم

Wherever I traveled, you were my companion — whatever way I went, you were my guide; with whomever I spoke, the answer I heard from you; when I sang, the burning of you was in my instrument; when I flew, you were my wings.

شب‌های روشن

Bright nights — let us sit alone together in the moonlight until the wind rises lamenting from the mountain; an enchanting voice echoes through the mountain; from afar a shepherd's flute; let us tell each other the griefs of the heart.

بی‌وفایی مکن ای نگارم

Do not be faithless, O my moon — I am without rest; without your face no night has become dawn; grief became my companion; if I die, you are the candle of my tomb.

به آن همه قول و قرار

With all those promises and pledges you went — you said God had brought you to me, then felt no shame before God. One day I will find you and expose your secret before everyone.

کیست در شهرو که

Who in the city has not cried out from your cruelty's hand? Everyone who called you sun-faced now bears a wound. The beloved's cruelty depicted as universal, a civic condition rather than a personal one.

آمد نفس صبح

The morning breeze came but brought only fragrance, not the greeting — either it was never sent, or morning jealousy intercepted it. The dove failed too, and fortune refused to carry even heart and soul to the rooftop.

ای عشق

O Love! — the direct address to Love itself as an entity, responsible for the burning heart, the fixed eyes, the ruined nature. Love entered through the eye, made a home in the heart, turned it to a ruin. The speaker decapitated but still circling.

گرچه چشمه تو

Although your eye is still hunting for hearts, my waiting eye is still drowned in longing. A smile on the lips but a chest full of grief — and the tomorrow that was promised every day, still not arrived.

A ghazal on the beloved's wind-scattered hair as a trap set for hearts — the ship of patience cast into a sea of grief, no shore promised, the king of kingdoms asked to spare one glance for a beggar.

چون درخت فروردین

Like a spring tree in full blossom — my soul has a lapful of flowers: on whom shall I scatter them? I am silk moonlight, firmly rooted; no one in the wine-drinkers' gathering knows my state — I laugh with a blood-full heart.

از آن روز که پیمان

Since the day I made a covenant with you, I have broken two hundred other covenants — so that I might belong only to you; I cut my heart from every other face; I have broken another kind of pledge.

A Hafiz ghazal turned into song — the poet addressing God directly, asking what divine substance the wounded heart was made of, that even in death it clothes itself in tulips.

مرا آن روز گریان آفریدند

They created me weeping on that day — a cosmological lament in which the speaker's grief is original, not acquired, built into creation on the same day as the desert.

پوشیده چون جان می‌روی

You go hidden like a soul within my soul — you are the swaying cypress, the glory of my garden; do not go without me, O soul of the soul; through your grace I became like a soul and hid from myself — O hidden one, revealing yourself.

دست از طلب ندارم

One of Hafiz's most determined ghazals: I will not stop seeking until I achieve my desire or die. After death, open my grave — smoke rises from the fire still burning inside.

Hafiz's famous defense of the wine-drinker against the pious — Ahmad Zahir delivers it as a declaration of personal freedom, wine as emblem of authentic life over religious performance.

این شعرو را برای تو

This poem I say for you on a thirsty summer evening — let my shadow be far from yours; one day we'll meet with no one between us but God; this city of ours has long been the home of the devil.

به کدام در روم من

To which door shall I go with the pain of my heart? The bitter rim of the cup is sweeter than your honey-sweet smile when I see you seeking kisses in the arms of another.

ندانست رسم یاری

The faithless companion I have does not know the custom of friendship — she strives to torment my heart; if I free my heart a hundred times, she seeks another torment; in the lane of heart-deceivers this is all I do.

نه سرود نه سرور

Neither Song Nor Joy — silence as the appropriate response to a world that has made singing impossible. Among the starkest of his resistance-era recordings.

مرگ من روز فرا

The Day of My Death Is Near — a recording that acquired biographical weight after his assassination on June 14, 1979. Premonition or poetic convention — the listener can no longer be sure.

بگذارو تا بگریم

Saadi's farewell ghazal — let me weep like spring clouds on the day of parting from companions. One of the classical tradition's most direct treatments of grief as a natural, unstoppable force.

یاد روزگار شیرین

Memory of sweet days, old love, warm kisses and salty lips; my head in your warm embrace at the silence of midnight; you said — when spring comes and flowers bloom again, ask of me again your ancient love.

عشق تو بر من

Without you I cannot for even one night be alone and live — your love carries many torments but union with you carries many secrets; you are my hope, shelter, glory of love.

یار با ما بی‌وفایی

The companion is being faithless — without cause she keeps distance; that faithless one extinguished my soul-candle and now illuminates another place; sweet-tongued Saadi in the path of love begs for a kiss from her lips.

ای نگاهت سبزتر

O your gaze — greener than the green meadows of hope. The messenger of longing is safe from the ambush of inadequacy: I have a lament that arrives wherever I send it.

می‌روم خسته و افسرده

I go weary and broken and wretched — by God I was the bud of joy, plucked from the branch by love's hand; I go with laughter on my lips and a blood-filled heart; O vain hope — release me.

What happened that our nest was ruined again — why was the warp and woof of our home torn? A handful of feathers given to the wind and fire of injustice, the nightly lament in danger of being scattered.

"The World Ensnared Has Fine Consolation" — a Dari ghazal recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions.

The wine cups are empty, the tavern door is shut — where is the cupbearer? The stars are sleeping side by side while the speaker, lost in the desert of madness, asks where the calm road has gone.

گر کنی یک نظاره

His first recorded song — Indian raga melodic frameworks fused with Western pop structure. The audacious fusion that announced his entire creative vision.

لیلا جان

Dear Laila — the name activates the entire Laila-Majnun tradition. One of his most recognizable recordings, the beloved's name carrying centuries of literary longing in two syllables.

باز آمدی

A reunion song in the Persian tradition — the return of the absent beloved reorders the speaker's world. Pop arrangement with a distinctly cinematic quality.

ای شهر تو نه‌ای

You are not of this city — the beloved identified as someone apart from the ordinary world, whose presence makes the ordinary city strange by contrast.

جینا یہاں مرنا یہاں

Live here, die here — where else can one go? The world wears a thousand masks; the face changes but returns; heaven is here, hell is here — this is all there is, and it is enough.

Ahmad Zahir's celebrated cover of the American folk-country standard — given an Afghan arrangement and performed with the directness of someone who understood the song's emotional logic in any language.

Giving constant grief — how delicate the heart is; alas, this cruel age; like a dove you sat on my roof, ate the grain and did not become tame; go away, stay away.

The urgency of love's demand — his interpretation of the international pop standard gave it an Afghan musical frame while preserving the original's insistence that love cannot be deferred.

O my lady — you have bound my heart to the thread of your tresses, stolen my heart with eyes and brows; your lips drunk the honey of ghazal; your glances wear the robe of night; the wine of your kiss has been savored.

"Walk Alone, Walk Alone" — a cross-cultural fusion recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions.

Whatever Will Be, Will Be — the fatalist acceptance of the future's unknowability, a Western pop standard that Ahmad Zahir made resonate with Persian poetry's own tradition of tawakkul (trust in fate).

خدا بود یارت

A song of blessing and farewell — commending a departing loved one to God's care. His most immediately recognizable expression of the traditional Afghan sound.

از من بگریزید

Love expressed as warning — the speaker presenting himself as incapable of the love offered. Frequently cited as one of his most emotionally precise recordings.

میهن ای میهن

A patriotic invocation of the homeland — 'maihan' called out as both address and refrain, in the tradition of Afghan longing poetry where the homeland is addressed as the absent beloved.

بنازم قلب پاکت مادر من

"Play the Pure Heart, O My Mother" — a Dari folk recording from Ahmad Zahir's golden-era sessions (Vol. 4).

ای ساربان آهسته ران

O Camel Driver, Go Slowly — Saadi's great ghazal of the departing caravan, asking the driver to slow so the speaker can catch one last sight of the beloved being carried away.

وای باران باران

Oh Rain, Rain — a folk invocation of rain, the beloved figured as the rain that restores the parched earth. One of his most direct connections to the Afghan natural world.

کاش بودم لاله

Would I were a tulip sought in the desert — would my heart's wound were visible; would I were a fallen book in a silent corner; would I were a heading on the page of the age; would I were a candle burned from head to toe by others' glances.

شادی کنید ای دوستان

Be joyful, O friends — I am glad and at ease; smell the fragrance of youth from my worn body; free from love's bondage, I have given away my heart; like the children on the road, I have walked longer but walk the same road.

اوبه درته رولم

I will bring you water, I will cook food for you — O companion, come with me, may the ruined house become inhabited; in the fort two pigeons sit, one shot while the other watches.

گل سنگم گل سنگم

I Am a Stone Flower, Stone Flower — the speaker identifying with the stone flower, something that blooms in the most inhospitable conditions. Resilience figured through the natural world.

بیا برویم به سنگران

Come, let us go to Sangaraan — all the beautiful ones are there; the Panjshir's mulberries, roaring sea, laughing children, presence of saints; my heart pounds for Kabul.

جمهوریت

A song greeting the republic — the patriots' Eid, the people's hope. Recorded in the era of Daoud Khan's 1973 republic, the word 'republic' became bitterly ironic after 1978's communist coup claimed the same name.

دا جمهوریت زمونږ

This Is Our Republic — a Pashto patriotic song from the era of the Republic of Afghanistan (1973–1978), celebrating the new republican order established after the 1973 coup.

راشه در دست باغبان

A trembling in the gardener's hand — a shudder upon the young sapling; anxiety fell upon the garden; the voice of autumn came again; nightingales packed their things, broke their joy's wings, and separated from their nests.

این محفل این خوشی

This gathering, this joy — may God bless it. A wedding song, short and devotional, its repetition performing the communal blessing it describes.

عروسی ما مبارک

Blessed is our wedding — friends are called to clap and sing, the groom is crowned as head of friends and the bride is beloved of seven heavens, and the benediction rings three times.

راکره شراب د سرو لبانو

Give me the wine of your red lips — look with a glance at the lovers; I am always in the ember of love, always the buyer of love; in the fire of love I burn always, O beloved.

لالای داغدیده

I resemble a grief-marked tulip — the daghdida (heart-burned) tulip carries the mark of love's wound in its petals. A lament on the impossibility of return once the heart has flown.

گل سبو به دوش آمد

The flower-jug-bearer has come — where are the goblets of the silent ones? The cup of wine is bubbling but the wine-drinkers are absent. The solitude was mine and my heart's — love joined us too.

چه لیوانی گرزومه غم

How madly I wander from the grief of separation — I am not to blame, the beloved weighs heavy upon me; my collar wet with tears; in the pure love of my beloved I was fresh, now my state has become hard.

لارشه ننگرهار

Go to Nangarhar, bring me a black shirt. A folk song rooted in eastern Afghanistan: the black shirt of mourning paired with fresh flowers, and the grief of separation named explicitly as the grief of homeland.

به زمین قسم

By the earth I swear, by time I swear, by the God of both worlds I swear — a qasam poem, the oath structure that appears in Persian poetry and in the Quran itself.

شمالی

The North Wind — or the Shamali plain north of Kabul, Afghanistan's famous wine and grape region. A song of place, the north wind as both literal and as the breath of the beloved.

سخی جان می‌روی

O Sakhi Jan, you go on foot — watch your shoes; O heart, go to the garden and learn generosity from the pomegranate: blood in its heart, laughter on its face; pray for us as you go.

بهار آمد بیا ای نوبهار

Spring Has Come — the seasonal invitation in the folk tradition, spring as both literal renewal and as figure for the beloved's possible return. An Afghan celebration of the new season.

بهارست و سمن و افغان

It Is Spring, and Jasmine, and Afghan — a patriotic spring song, the season, the jasmine flower, and Afghanistan itself named together as three facets of a single beautiful fact.

در دامنه صحرا

In the desert's lap, unaware of the world — the song of existence sung into the ear; one who does not bind their heart to time loves the melody of love; drowned in sin from your innocence, thirsty for pain, wanting your love.

گندم‌ها داراو شد

The wheat was harvested and my beloved did not come. The uncut wheat remained and still she did not come. A folk song of agricultural time and unfulfilled promise.

بوی خوش بهار

The sweet fragrance of spring came to my dark little house and said: spring! I said: go away — your spring for me is autumn without the face of that beloved.

درخت یار درخت سبز

Tree of friend — O lone green tree in the mountain's chest, silent and without lament; my moon has shone in your shadow; be in my evenings like a branch of Judas tree.

تیل دې وئ نصیب

May unity and happiness always be your lot — this republic is ours; guard it with your heads and red blood; by name we are all Afghan and each other's sacrifice; may the flower of this homeland bloom through our effort.

مبارک مبارک جمهوری ما

Congratulations our republic — young people, clap your hands; the morning of the republic has dawned; the glass of oppression has shattered; the curtain of sorrows has torn.

لیلی لیلی دلبر و دلدار

Laila Laila, O Sweetheart and Heart-Holder — the beloved named twice over, as both the one who captures hearts and the one who holds them. A folk celebration of the beloved's dual power.

رقص بکن شور بده

Dance, Create Commotion — an invitation to the kind of public joy that Persian poetry has always associated with the beloved's presence, her movement as the cause of the world's disruption.

ای خدا مادر من

O God, give me back my mother — my star, my jewel; separated from her face, spring and autumn are both thorns; by your Quran, the world itself has narrowed in her absence.

بیاید بیاید به میدانه

Come to the field of the tavern — fear not the nakedness; the King of Kings has set a feast; the Sultan of Sultans has become the tavern's guest; sinners are forgiven.

اوه نه راضی جانانه زما

You do not come — I lie here in my bed; sleep has left my eyes; sun and moon have gone yet your faithfulness is nowhere; I lie exhausted by your grief, sick and restless, no peace left in me.

ای قوم به حج رفته

Rumi's famous challenge to the Hajj-pilgrims: the beloved is not in Mecca — she is wall-to-wall with you at home. The Sufi interior journey against the outward religious one.

راو سر بیني به بالین

Go, lay your head on the pillow — leave me alone, this ruined night-wanderer; I am here with the waves of longing, alone from night till dawn; whether you come and forgive or go and be cruel — on the king of the beautiful, faithfulness is not required.

کاجکی ابروی تل

Your slanted eyebrow is the sting of a scorpion — alas, it belongs to another; who has your wine-clouded eyes, your serpent-tail brows? I roam mountain to mountain asking who holds your heart's authority.

کمه نه رندایم

We have not yet spurred the horse of desire, yet we have lost our heart — fallen like a scattered pearl longing for a caressing hand; deprived of late-night companions, like a dead candle; arms opened in helplessness.

برآمد از پس کوه

The sun rose from behind the mountain slowly, slowly — and love's deception revealed itself the same way, the beloved's fiery face consuming blood like a kebab; separation's poison manifests little by little.

بدوایت کونم

I will curse you — may you be warm but may your bread be cold. You went alone on the city road, to the park without us, you said no to my ruined house, and you looked at others despite your promise.

خدا بود همراهت

May God be your companion, the Quran your support — a farewell prayer for the beloved's pilgrimage; tonight I am sick from grief, counting stars; I entrust you to God; may your glad heart never see sorrow.

ای هموطن ای نیروی

O compatriot, O vigorous everlasting power — a rare nationalist anthem from Zahir, calling to the laborer and the worker who built the age, celebrating a people that did not fear the storm of events.

سر سرے پشته

On the hilltop the lover has been slain — from his blood Layla Jan has written a letter; come into my sky, O my sun; O Pleiades of love, O Venus of secrets — may your lips be my cup of wine; from the cup of your eyes it pours.

بیاید بیاید که گلزار

Come — the garden has bloomed and the sweetheart has arrived; the madman has been freed from his chain; hush — the grape has ripened, do not eat it unripe and spread rumor.

بودانه رفتارش چنگ است

The partridge — her gait is like music. Gul-Begam at the hallway entrance sewing, drawing a cold sigh; the speaker's heart and soul burns; slowly slowly, tell me to come to you.

After all else, the sovereign of my heart is you — the complete mirror of my heart is you; I have placed my trust in your hands; the melody-maker of my heart is you.

انگور لبت

A playful folk song from the Shamali plain tradition — the beloved's lips compared to sweet grapes, her smile to a sparrow worth catching. One of his most joyful and colloquial recordings.