Somewhere/Something else

 

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

 

Some lines in poetry and spiritual literature seem to outgrow the page where they first appear. They pass from book to memory, from prose to recitation, and in that movement they begin to live more than one literary life. The famous couplet: 

کُشْتِگانِ خَنْجَرِ تَسْلیم را

هَرْ زَمان اَز غَیْب جانی دیگَرَسْت

is one of those. 

 

This couplet has extra significance in South Asia, which has been blessed with Sufi saints, mystics, dervishes, scholars and other holy people. The dominant silsilah is the Chistiyyah or Chisti silsilah, founded by the great South Asian Sufi shaykh Khwaja Muʿīn al-Dīn Chisti and developed, among others, by his famous disciple, Sufi scholar and poet,  Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki (May Allah bless them all).

It is made extra famous by an incident in which Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki,  was listening to a poetry recital (qawwali) and upon hearing these lines swooned and lost consciousness. Staying unconscious for three days, he gave up his soul on the fourth day and came to be known as a "Martyr of Love".

To this day, these verses are now considered taboo in qawwali performances, although on a separate note the modern qawwalis are a far cry from the original poetry recitations and have become song and dance numbers. 

 

It is securely present in chapter 148 of ʿAyn al-Quḍāt Hamadānī’s Lavāyeḥ, where it appears as part of a brief two-bayt passage inside a prose anecdote. The same line also appears in a longer ghazal transmitted under Shaykh Aḥmad Jām; the Sufinama text presents that fuller poem under his name and cites Dīvān-e Ḥaẓrat Aḥmad Jām Zinda Pīl, p. 41 among its printed sources. The careful thing, then, is not to collapse the two witnesses into one, but to let each text speak in its own setting.

What gives these lines their force is the severity of the image. “Surrender” is not described as the easy way out. It is a dagger. Something in the nafs must be cut. Yet the poem immediately overturns the fear: those struck down by that blade are given another life, perpetually, from the unseen. What looks like loss from the side of the self becomes enlargement from the side of the unseen. Reason stands outside the experience and asks where such a mystery could come from. The poem answers, quietly but firmly, that there are states of the heart reason alone cannot measure.

This is  mystical language, not  doctrinal formula. I feel that it will resonate with many readers who have a proclivity towards spirituality, and who will immediately recognize this truth: when we surrender ourselves to the Divine, a different kind of life begins. 

 

From the Dīvān-e Ḥażrat Aḥmad Jām Zinda Pīl:

مَنْزِلِ عِشْق اَز مَکانی دیگَرَسْت
مَرْدِ مَعْنی را نِشانی دیگَرَسْت

Love has its dwelling somewhere else;
the person of inward meaning bears another sign.

عَقْل کِی دانَد کِه این رَمْز اَز کُجاست
کاین جَماعَت را نِشانی( زَبانی) دیگَرَسْت

Reason cannot know where this mystery comes from;
this company is marked (the language of this group is identified) in another way.

آن فَقیرانی کِه این‌جا می‌رَوَند
هَرْ یِکی صاحِب‌قِرانی دیگَرَسْت

Those poor dervishes passing through here—
each one carries a different royal destiny.

دِل چِه می‌بَنْدی دَر این فانی جَهان
کاین جَهان را هَم جَهانی دیگَرَسْت

Why bind your heart to this passing world?
This world too has another world beyond it.

دَر دِلِ مِسْکینِ هَر بی‌چارَه‌ای
شاه را گَنْجِ نِهانی دیگَرَسْت

In the poor heart of every helpless soul
the King has another hidden treasure.

بَر سَرِ بازارِ صَرّافانِ عِشْق
زیرِ هَر داری جَوانی دیگَرَسْت

At the head of the bazaar of love’s money-changers,
beneath every gallows stands another young man.

کُشْتِگانِ خَنْجَرِ تَسْلیم را
هَر زَمان اَز غَیْب جانی دیگَرَسْت

Those slain by the dagger of surrender
receive another life from the unseen at every moment.

دِل خُورَد زَخْمی زِ دیدَه خون چَکَد
این چِنین زَخْم اَز کَمانی دیگَرَسْت

The heart takes a wound; blood drips from the eye.
A wound like this is shot from another bow.

عِشْق را دَر مَدْرَسَه تَعْلیم نیست
کان چِنان عِلْم اَز بَیانی دیگَرَسْت

Love is not taught in the madrasa;
that kind of knowledge comes by another kind of speech.

اَحْمَدا تا گُم نَکَرْدی هُوش دار
کِین جَرَس اَز کارَوانی دیگَرَسْت

Ahmad, stay awake before you lose yourself:
this bell belongs to another caravan.

 

 

 

 

From Lavāyeḥ of ʿAyn al-Qużāt Hamadānī, chapter 148,

 

کُشْتِگانِ خَنْجَرِ تَسْلیم را
هَرْ زَمان اَز غَیْب جانی دیگَرَسْت

عَقْل کِی دانَد کِه این رَمْز اَز کُجاست
کِین جَماعَت را زَبانی دیگَرَسْت

Those slain by the dagger of surrender
receive another life from the unseen at every moment.

How could reason know where this mystery comes from?
These people speak a different language.

 

 

My take: the poem is insisting on an “otherness” that keeps returning in almost every couplet. Another place. Another sign. Another world. Another treasure. Another bow. Another caravan. The repeated word dīgar is doing real work here. The poem is teaching the reader not merely to feel more deeply, but to see differently. It is asking us to admit that the spiritual life cannot always be read by the surface meanings of ordinary success, safety, and explanation.

That is also why this line matters: “عِشْق را دَر مَدْرَسَه تَعْلیم نیست”. 

This is not an attack on learning. It is a reminder that there are kinds of knowing that do not come through formal instruction alone. One may study definitions, categories, and doctrines, and still remain outside the lived taste of surrender. The poem’s world is not anti-intellectual. It is simply refusing to let reason claim total jurisdiction over the heart.