بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
اَی خُدا کَمتَرین گَدایِ تُوَام
چَشم بَر خوانِ کِبریایِ تُوَام
میرَسَم بَر دَرِ تُو هَر روزَه
شَیءٌ لِلّٰهزَنان بِه دَریوزَه
نَفس و شَیطان کِه خَصمِ دینِ مَنَند
چون سِگانِ خُفتِه دَر کَمینِ مَنَند
گَر چُنین خوار و بیکَسَم نِگَرَند
پوست بَر مَن چُو پوستین بِدَرَند
اَز بَدِ این سِگان اَمانَم دِه
هَر چِه آنَم، بِهاَست آنَم دِه
O God, I am the least of Your beggars,
my eyes fixed on the table of Your majesty.
Every day I come to Your door,
crying, “for God’s sake, something,” like a beggar.
The lower self and Satan are enemies of my faith;
they lie in ambush for me like sleeping dogs.
If they see me weak and friendless,
they will tear my skin from me like a sheepskin.
Give me refuge from the evil of these dogs,
and grant me whatever state is better than the one I have now.
Language:
Persian/Farsi
Transliteration:
Ay Khudā kamtarīn gadā-ye to-am
Chashm bar khwān-e kibriyā-ye to-am
Mī-rasam bar dar-e to har rūzeh
Shay'an lillāh-zanān be daryūzeh
Nafs o shayṭān ke khaṣm-e dīn-e manand
Chūn sagān-e khufta dar kamīn-e manand
Gar chunīn khvār o bī-kasam nigarand
Pūst bar man chu pūstīn bidarand
Az bad-e īn sagān amānam deh
Har che ānam, beh-ast ānam deh
Origins:
This passage is explicitly titled “Munājāt” in Jāmī’s Silsilat al-dhahab. Jāmī (1414–1492) was a Persian poet, scholar, and Sufi, and Silsilat al-dhahab is the first of the seven long masnavis gathered under the title Haft Awrang. Iranica notes that the first daftar of Silsilat al-dhahab was composed between 1468 and 1472, and this prayer appears as section 87 of that first daftar.
The placement is part of the meaning. The section immediately before this one is about istiʿādhah, seeking refuge from Satan, and it ends with the image of a beggar fleeing a hostile dog and throwing himself into the protection of a master. This little munājāt then reads like the lived form of that teaching.
Brief Explanation:
This little prayer is short, but it carries a whole map of the inner struggle. The speaker does not come to God as a possessor of virtue. He comes as a beggar. That is the first truth of the poem. The eye is fixed on God’s table, not on the self’s imagined resources.
Then the danger is named plainly: nafs and Satan. Jāmī does not soften them. He calls them dogs lying in ambush. That image matters because temptation is not always noisy. A great deal of it waits. It watches for weakness, loneliness, discouragement, and spiritual fatigue.
To my ear, the deepest line is the last one: “grant me whatever state is better than the one I have now.” The prayer does not stop at protection. It asks for transformation. It leaves the choice of the better state to God. That is humility in its real form: not merely saying that I am low, but admitting that God knows better than I do what I ought to become.
Devotional Use:
Munājāt is a recognized genre of intimate, personal prayer in Persian literature, and the broader classical understanding of doʿā centers on asking God while confessing one’s weakness and helplessness. That is why a piece like this lives so naturally in private devotion: it is short, direct, and built on need rather than display.
This is, to my ear, a daily beggar’s prayer. It can be carried into the morning before the day’s struggles, into the night after one has seen one’s own failures, or into any hour when the soul feels surrounded. Its movement is sound: confess poverty, name the enemies, ask for refuge, then ask not only for rescue, but for a better state.
What gives the prayer its lasting force is that it does not flatter the self. It does not say, “I am nearly safe.” It says: I am poor, I am exposed, and if You do not shelter me, I will be torn apart. Like the best munājāt, it does not perform piety. It speaks from need.
