شبهای ظلمانی
Shab Haye Zulmani
“Dark Nights”
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.
About This Recording
Shab Haye Zulmani — Dark Nights — gives its title to the Vol. 3 cassette, establishing the album's emotional register: the darkness of separation, of longing without resolution, of the long nights of the heart. In classical Persian poetry, night is the natural condition of the lover: daylight belongs to the world of action and social life, while the interior life of longing is nocturnal.
Recorded in 1974, the song's dark imagery would acquire different resonance within a few years, as the Afghanistan of Zahir's golden era gave way to the turbulence of coup and revolution. The diaspora that carries his music hears these dark nights against the knowledge of what followed — which gives the recording a gravity that the original audience could not have anticipated.