Four Persian lines by Khwaja Habibullah Nowshehri of Kashmir, inspired by a couplet of Shah-i Hamadan.
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
Bismi llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm.
In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful.
A traveller may walk for years and still struggle to find the way. A disciple may gather words about the spiritual life and still need someone who can help those words become understanding. The verses considered here place that need at the centre of the journey.
Khwaja Habibullah Nowshehri’s four-line poem develops a teaching expressed in a couplet of Shah-i Hamadan. Their connection is especially clear in the phrase بِه جَایِی نَرَسَد, bi jāyī narasad: “gets nowhere.” Shah-i Hamadan joins arrival to the master’s gaze. Nowshehri carries the thought through three figures: the traveller, the guide, and the beggar approaching a King.
Shah-i Hamadan: the master’s gaze
بِه عَلِی یَکْ نَظَرِی کُنْ زِ سَرِ صِدْق وُ صَفَا
کِه بِه جَایِی نَرَسَدْ بِینَظَرِ پِیرْ، مُرِیدْ
Bi ʿAlī yak naẓarī kun zi sar-i ṣidq u ṣafā,
Ki bi jāyī narasad bī-naẓar-i pīr murīd.
Cast a glance toward ʿAlī with sincerity and a pure heart;
for no disciple reaches the goal without the master’s guiding gaze.
Naẓar means a look or gaze. In the company of pīr, the spiritual master, and murīd, the disciple, it suggests the attention through which a teacher recognizes and tends to a seeker’s condition. “Guiding gaze” brings that implication into English. A person can be looked at in passing; to receive sustained attention is to be known well enough to be helped.
The first line gives this looking an inward quality: ṣidq, sincerity or truthfulness, and ṣafā, purity and clarity of heart. The phrase zi sar-i means “out of” or “with a disposition of.” The glance is therefore joined to a truthful, clear-hearted intention. The couplet makes sincerity part of the relationship in which guidance becomes fruitful.
Nowshehri: the path, the guide, and the King
Nowshehri, also known by the pen name Hubbi, belongs to Kashmir’s Sufi poetic tradition. The importance of a spiritual teacher also appears in accounts of his other writings, including Tanbīh al-qulūb.[1] Here, that concern takes the compact form of two couplets.
1. The traveller
مَرْدِ بِیپِیرْ دَرْ اِینْ رَاهْ بِه جَایِی نَرَسَدْ
Mard-i bī-pīr dar īn rāh bi jāyī narasad.
Without a spiritual guide, a seeker gets nowhere on this path.
Mard is literally “a man”; the translation brings out his role as a seeker. Pīr literally means an elder and here names a guide with experience of the spiritual path. The line asks us to consider where our effort is taking us. Movement can become habitual, and confidence can grow before understanding does. An experienced guide helps the traveller recognize the road and his own condition upon it.
2. Finding someone who knows the way
نَرَسَدْ تَا بِه یَکْ رَاهنُمَایِی نَرَسَدْ
Narasad tā bi yak rāh-numāyī narasad.
He will not arrive until he finds a guide.
The repeated narasad, “does not reach,” makes one arrival depend upon another: reaching the goal begins with reaching a guide. Rāh-numā means one who shows the way. The word gives the teacher a practical task. Guidance helps the seeker recognize a mistaken turn, understand a difficulty, and learn how to proceed. The next step becomes possible through instruction, correction, and the willingness to receive them.
3. Hearing and witnessing
مَا شَنِیدِیم وُ بَدِیدِیم زِ هَرْ کَسْ هَرْ جَا
Mā shanīdīm u badīdīm zi har kas har jā.
This is what we have heard and witnessed, everywhere and from everyone:
The voice changes from the solitary traveller to “we.” Shanīdīm, “we heard,” stands beside badīdīm, “we saw.” A received teaching has become something the speaker believes he has recognized in life. “Everywhere and from everyone” expresses the breadth of his conviction. Its force is poetic: the lesson seems to meet him wherever he turns.
4. The beggar before the King
کِه بِلَاوَاسِطَه بَادْشَاهْ گَدَایِی نَرَسَدْ
Ki bilā-wāsiṭa bādshāh gadāyī narasad.
No beggar reaches the King without an intermediary.
Ki, “that,” connects this line to what the speaker has heard and witnessed. The scene changes from a road to a royal court. Gadāyī here means “a beggar,” while bādshāh names the King. The traveller now approaches in need, hoping for a generosity he cannot command. Wāsiṭa, the intermediary, is the one who helps him reach the royal presence.
In the poem’s spiritual imagery, the King can be read as God and the beggar as the seeker. The image gives the pīr’s help the form of an introduction: someone receives the traveller, understands his need, and helps him approach with humility.
How Nowshehri develops the earlier teaching
Read together, the poems give guidance both a personal and a practical form. Shah-i Hamadan’s naẓar-i pīr, “the master’s gaze,” emphasizes attentive relationship. Nowshehri’s rāh-numā, “one who shows the way,” emphasizes direction. To be seen and to be shown the way become related conditions of learning.
The verbal echo, bi jāyī narasad, makes the connection audible. Nowshehri then repeats narasad through the poem, returning the listener to the question of arrival. The rhyming words jāyī, rāh-numāyī, and gadāyī draw destination, guidance, and need into the same pattern. The teaching unfolds through images that a listener can picture: a road, a person who knows it, and a threshold beyond which generosity is hoped for.
Learning to receive guidance
The sincerity named in Shah-i Hamadan’s first line helps us read Nowshehri’s traveller. A willing heart can listen to correction, acknowledge confusion, and let understanding change its conduct. Guidance bears fruit in such acts: a more honest word, a steadier practice, a gentler response, or a responsibility finally accepted.
The royal image also needs to be held beside God’s nearness. The Qur’an says, “I am near,” and speaks of God answering the one who calls upon Him (2:186). Read in that light, the pīr’s work helps the seeker become attentive to a relationship with God already open to prayer. The teacher cultivates understanding, remembrance, and conduct; divine generosity remains God’s gift.
The beggar’s humility gives the journey its final shape. Even at the threshold, he comes with need. The guide has helped him approach; the seeker brings sincerity, receives instruction, and takes the next step.
Text and reading notes
The transliteration uses classical Persian vowel values: i and u often correspond to modern Iranian e and o. The letter w in wāsiṭa corresponds to modern Iranian v. Long vowels are marked ā, ī, and ū; the connecting vowel, or ezāfe, is written -i. The letters ṣ, ẓ, and ṭ preserve distinctions in the script, without requiring Arabic emphatic pronunciation in Persian.
[1] Bashir Ahmad Dar, “Khawaja Habib Ul Lah Nowsheri: Expressing Sufism in Common Dialect”, reproduced on Kashmirsufis, 29 September 2021. Consulted for Nowshehri’s pen name and the importance of the spiritual guide in his writings.
