A, B: The structure of a ghazal verse in which the two lines are independent not only grammatically but also semantically, so that it is left to the reader to decide how they are to be connected.
ADAM (Ādam): Adam, the first man.
ADVISER (Nāṣiḥ): In the ghazal world, the stock figure of the man of worldly prudence and efficiency. He is always scolding and cajoling the lover, vainly urging him to change his self-destructive ways.
ALEXANDER (Sikandar): Alexander the Great. See also Khizr.
ALI (ʿAlī): Haẓrat (“His Excellency,” a title of respect) Ali was the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet.
ANGEL (Farishta, Sarosh): A divine messenger, of whom Gabriel is the most famous.
ASAD (Asad): A pen name (based on his given name, Asadullah, “Lion of God” in Arabic) that Ghalib used in some of his earlier ghazals.
ASCETIC (Zāhid): In the ghazal world, the stock figure of the religious renunciant who prides himself on his virtue.
BASKIH (baskih): This Persian-derived construction means “although,” but it can also be short for az bas kih, meaning “to such an extent.”
BLACK DOT (suvaidā): The “little black spot” on the heart is the essence of desire: some Sufi traditions advocate polishing this dot off from the mirrorlike heart, while other traditions approve of its presence as a sign of commendable passion for the divine Beloved.
BRAHMIN (Brahmin): In the ghazal world, a Hindu priest; he is distinguished by his sacred thread and thereby made comparable to outwardly religious Islamic figures.
CHINA (Chīn): “China” tends to include parts of Central Asia.
CLOSING-VERSE (maqt̤aʿ): A special ghazal verse that incorporated the poet’s pen name and usually formed the last verse, thus becoming a way of “signing” an orally performed poem.
COLLAR (garebān): The word “collar” is misleading, since the reference is to the deeply slit neck opening of a kurta. The mad lover is prone to grasp the two sides of it and simply rip the kurta down the front—perhaps because he feels suffocated, perhaps in grief, perhaps just because he’s mad.
COLLYRIUM (surma): A dark powder that is put around the eyes for beauty, health of the eyes, and protection from the sun.
CUPBEARER (Sāqī): The beautiful youth who pours out the wine; he is often identified with the beloved.
DIVAN (dīvān): A volume of a poet’s work; it may or may not contain the whole of his oeuvre.
DOOMSDAY (qiyāmat): The terrible day when God will summon the dead to rise from the grave and be judged.
DOORKEEPER (Darbān, Pāsbān): Usually he guards the beloved’s door, but sometimes the lover has his own Doorkeeper as well.
EID (ʿĪd): ʿĪd al-Fit̤r is a joyous celebration at the end of Ramadan, a special month of daytime fasting; its onset is signaled by the sight of the crescent moon.
EK (ek): This protean word can mean “one, single, sole, alone, only, a, an; the same, identical; only one; a certain one; single of its kind, unique, singular, preeminent, excellent” (Platts 1884:113). If it is deployed in a sufficiently ambiguous context, it can create significant complexities in a verse.
EXECUTIONER (Jallād): Since the beloved is both fatally cruel and disdainful, she often employs a sword-wielding Executioner to dispose of her lovers.
FARHAD (Farhād, Kohkan): In Persian story tradition, a humble stonecutter who fell in love with the princess Shirin. He was mockingly told that if he could carve a channel through the Black Mountain by a certain time, to bring milk for her bath, she could be his. When his passionate love enabled him almost to complete this superhuman task, he was sent false word of Shirin’s death. At once he plunged his axe into his own forehead and fell to the ground dead.
FAUX-NAÏF (tajāhul-i ʿārifāna): The attitude of someone who is showing a deliberate, sophisticated pretense of innocent ignorance.
FIRDAUSI (Firdausī): A very famous tenth- and eleventh-century Persian poet, author of the Shāhnāma (Book of kings).
GOD (Allāh, Ḥaqq): In a minority of verses, the beloved seems clearly to be God. See also Lord.
HASAN OF BASRA (Ḥasan-i Baṣrī): A famous eighth-century Muslim preacher.
HELL (dozakh): The place of punishment for the wicked.
HINDI (Hindī): A language name that Ghalib uses interchangeably with Urdu and Rekhta.
HOURI (Ḥūr): A celestial damsel who will be available to the pious (male) believer in Paradise.
HUMA (Humā): In Persian story tradition, anyone over whom this bird’s shadow passes will become a king.
HUNTER (Ṣaiyād): The beloved as she ruthlessly pursues her lover, the helpless prey.
HUSAIN (Ḥusain): Son of Ali.
IDIOMS: Idiomatic expressions that are often used in ways that make both the idiomatic sense of an expression and its (often-fossilized) literal meaning relevant to the verse.
IMAGINED BIRD (ʿAnqā): In later Arabic and Persian story tradition, a legendary bird with the distinguishing trait that whenever you look for it, it is not there.
INDIVIDUAL VERSE (fard): A single verse presented by itself.
INEXPRESSIBILITY TROPE: This rhetorical device, even more common in ghazal verses than in English poetry, suggests that something is beyond all words, so one should not even bother asking what it is like.
INSHA’IYA (inshāʾiya): A term for nonassertive utterances such as questions, exclamations, hypotheses; they are often more open-ended, and thus more poetically useful, than “informative” (khabariya) speech.
IZAFAT (iẓāfat): A Persian-derived grammatical construction most commonly translatable as “of.” And like “of,” it can have a wide range of meanings: possession (a book of mine), description (a book of mathematics), identity (the book of the heart), or some other association (it’s the book of the year!).
JACOB (Yaʿqūb): The father of Joseph.
JAMSHED (Jamshed): A legendary Persian king who owned a magic cup: the king could look into it and see everything that was happening in the world.
JESUS (ʿĪsā): A prophet of Islam. See also Messiah.
JOSEPH (Yūsuf): The Islamic counterpart of the biblical Joseph was one of the Prophets; his story is told at length in the Qur’an, Sura 12.
KA’BA (Kaʿba): The primary pilgrimage center for Muslims, located in Mecca.
KAUSAR (Kauṡar): A refreshing pool in Paradise.
KHIZR (Khiẓr): In Islamic folk tradition, a prophetlike figure associated with greenness, fertility, life, and right guidance. He is said to have guided Alexander on his quest for the Water of Life, but the result was that only Khizr drank it, so he alone will live till Judgment Day.
KHUTAN (Khutan): A region that corresponds roughly to Mongolia.
KING (shāh): Bahadur Shah (r. 1837–1857), the last Mughal emperor and Ghalib’s patron.
KOHKAN (Kohkan): “Mountain Digger,” an epithet for Farhad.
KYA (kyā): This versatile interrogative can be used to signal a positive exclamation (“What a wonderful thing!”), or a negative one (“What—as if it’s a wonderful thing!”); or else it can introduce a yes-or-no question (“Is it a wonderful thing?”). Since classical ghazals were never punctuated, in many verses all three possibilities are available, and none can be ruled out.
LAILA (Lailā): The beloved of Majnun.
LAMP-SHOW (chirāghāṇ): A fancy display of oil lamps; their flame evokes the mortally burning wounds in the lover’s heart.
LIVER (jigar): A poetic presence in the ghazal world. In ghazal physiology, the liver is the organ that makes and supplies fresh blood, even as the wounded heart hemorrhages it and the tearful eyes shed it in rivers. Thus the liver is an emblem of fortitude and endurance.
LORD (Rabb, Khudā): Less exclusively religious names for God.
MAGAR (magar): A versatile clause connector that can mean either “but” or “perhaps.”
MAJNUN (Majnūn): In ghazal tradition, Qais was the archetypal, mystically “Mad” [majnūn] lover of Laila, who returned his devotion. When she was forcibly married to another, he ran off to the desert, where he was cared for by wild animals who were drawn by his songs about Laila.
MANSUR (Manṣūr): A ninth-century mystic, also known as Hallaj, who was executed in Baghdad for publicly identifying himself with God.
MESSENGER (Qāṣid, Nāma-bar): The bearer of letters between the lover and the beloved.
MESSIAH (Masīḥā): The “anointed one,” referring to Jesus, a prophet of Islam.
MIR (Mīr): The only earlier (1723–1810) Urdu ghazal poet widely considered to be a peer of Ghalib’s.
MIRROR (āʾīna): Ghalib’s single favorite multivalent image. His mirrors can be made from either metal or glass, as suits the verse.
MIRROR CHAMBER (āʾīna-khāna): A windowless inner room with walls covered with small glittery and mirrored tiles, so that a torch could create a sudden dazzle.
MISSI (missī): A cosmetic paste that was rubbed on the gums to darken them.
MOOD (kaifīyat): The emotional effect created by a verse; for some verses, it is their chief charm.
MOTH (Parvāna): The Moth flies into the candle flame and thus finds a glorious death, as a true lover should.
MUSHAIRA (mushāʿira): The mushāʿira was the original performance venue for Urdu ghazals. The poet would recite the first line of his verse, then pause while people murmured approval and often asked him to repeat the line; only after as much suspense as possible would he finally recite both lines together.
NIGHTINGALE (Bulbul): The Nightingale’s desperate love for the rose is doomed by the advent of autumn.
ODE (qaṣīda): A poem usually in praise of a religious figure, ruler, or patron.
OPENING-VERSE (mat̤laʿ): A special verse that usually introduced a ghazal. By including the rhyme and refrain (if any) at the end of both lines instead of only the second line, it enabled the listener to quickly discern the rhyming elements.
OTHER (Ghair): One of the lover’s rivals in the competition for the beloved’s favor; usually the Other is represented as false or lecherous. See also Rival.
PARADISE (khuld, jannat, bihisht, firdaus): The Islamic heaven, envisioned as a series of lush gardens.
PARALLELISM: A structural device that often operates between the two lines of a verse.
PARI (Parī): A fairy, a beautiful creature made from fire.
PERSIAN (Fārsī): The language from which the Urdu ghazal tradition took its primary impetus and to which it continued to look for literary validation.
PREACHER (Vāʿiz̤): In the ghazal world, a sanctimonious sermonizer.
PROPHET (Rasūl, Nabī): The Prophet Muhammad.
QAIS (Qais): The real name of Majnun.
REFRAIN (radīf): The word(s) repeated identically at the end of every ghazal verse; such a refrain is not compulsory, but it is usual.
REKHTA (Rekhta): An older name for Urdu.
RHYME (qāfīya): The rhyming syllable(s) that appear at the end of each ghazal verse, right before the refrain (if there is one).
RIVAL (Raqīb): The true lover suffers from the presence of rivals in love, who are usually shown as false, lustful, or superficial. See also Other.
RIZVAN (Riẓvān): The keeper of a special garden in Paradise.
SA’DI (Saʿdī): A famous thirteenth-century Persian poet.
SALMA (Salmā): A famous beloved in Arabic story tradition.
SELF-LESSNESS (be-khwudī): “Self-lessness” has its odd hyphen in order to replace the normal English meaning (unselfishness) with a more literal sense of a transcendent state in which one is mystically absorbed, entranced, or almost literally “without a self.”
SHAIKH (Shaikh): A stock character in the ghazal world representing an ostentatiously pious Muslim.
SHIRIN (Shīrīn): The beloved of Farhad.
SOLOMON (Sulaimān): In the ghazal world, a virtuous king who was the recipient of special powers from God.
SYMMETRY: The poetically useful fact of Urdu grammar that if A is B, then it can equally well be said that B is A.
TUR (T̤ūr): Mount Sinai, where Moses had an almost direct encounter with God (Qur’an 7:143; 28:29–30).
VEIL (parda): An example of a common and multivalent image—does it conceal a woman, or the Divine?
VERSE (shiʿr): The two-line distich that is the basic compositional unit of the ghazal; as a rule, each verse is a small, independent poem in its own right. The ghazal verse does not normally rhyme, but its second line ends with the rhyme and the refrain (if any).
VERSE-SET (qit̤aʿa): A group of verses within a ghazal that are specially marked by the poet to be read as a set. The poet marks the beginning of such a set but does not mark its end.
WORDPLAY: The use in a single verse of several words from the same semantic domain.
ZAMZAM (Zamzam): A sacred well in the precincts of the Ka’ba.
ZULAIKHA (Zulaikhā): The “Potiphar’s wife” figure in the Qur’an, who tries in vain to seduce Joseph.