همچو نی مینالم
Hamcho Nay Menalam
“Like a Reed Flute I Lament”
Lyrics
Lyrics updated · July 2026English Translation
Like a reed I lament from the madness of the heart I carry fire in my chest in place of a heart
If the heart flees from me — woe is me If grief flees from the heart — woe to the heart
We have grown famous through disgrace Famous became whoever became the heart's disgrace
Transliteration
Hamcho nay menalam az sawdaye dil Atashe dar seena daram jaye dil
Dil agar az man gorezad, way man Gham agar az dil gorezad, way dil
Ma ze raswaye, beland aawaza-em Naamwar shod, har ke shod raswaye dil
متن اصلی
همچو نی مينالم از سودای دل آتشي در سينه دارم جای دل
دل اگر از من گريزد، وای من غم اگر از دل گريزد، وای دل
ما ز رسوايی، بلند آوازه ايم نامور شد، هر که شد رسوای دل
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.
About This Recording
The opening of Rumi's Masnavi is perhaps the single most famous passage in all of Persian literature. The reed, cut from its reed bed, cries not from personal grievance but from a metaphysical fact: it has been separated from its origin. Every sound it makes is a record of that separation. This is Rumi's image for the human soul's condition in the world.
'Like a reed I lament from the madness of the heart / I carry fire in my chest in place of a heart' — the fire in the chest replacing the heart is Rumi's addition to the standard reed image: the reed's music is not air but fire. Zahir's voice, carrying this image, inhabits the poem's logic entirely.
The couplet 'We have grown famous through disgrace / Famous became whoever became the heart's disgrace' is a characteristically Sufi inversion: shame, which the world avoids, becomes the mark of spiritual authenticity. The one shamed by love is the one who has loved fully enough to be destroyed by it.
Poetic Source & Adaptation
The first eighteen verses of Rumi's Masnavi-ye Manavi begin: 'Beshno in ney chon shekayet mikonad / Az judayeeha hekayet mikonad' — Listen to this reed, how it tells of separation / How it tells of separations. The reed cut from the reed bed is the soul separated from God. Zahir's version draws on this foundational image.
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