Aftaab Magazine

1,100-Year-Old Poem that Inspired a Legacy  

A glance at Ahmad Zahir’s Song “The memory of that gliding cypress” (یاد آن سرو روان)

By Farhad Azad

Spring 2026  | بهار ۱۴۰۵

"He believes that half of a song's emotional richness and impact rests entirely in the choice of its lyrics—a standard that, unfortunately, many artists today overlook due to various excuses.”

The journalist N. Faryad paraphrased these words by Ahmad Zahir (1946-79) (احمد ظاهر) in his article, “Ahmad Zahir, the soulful singer of the young generation,” published in the April 2, 1973 issue of the Karawan-e Jawan newspaper in Kabul.

From his first 1964/65 recording at Radio Kabul—"Speak to Me, Oh River" (آخر ای دریا)—with a poem by Zia Qarizada (1922-2008) (ضیا قاریزاده) and composed by his friend and counterpart Zahir Howaida (1945-2012) (ظاهر هویدا), to his final 1978 recording of “The Wine Cups Are Empty,” (باده ها خالیست) a inspired poem of Simin Behbahani (1927-2014) (سیمین بهبهانی) to pass the tyrannical Khalq regime censors (1978-79), Ahmad Zahir consistently treated poetry as the lifeblood of his music.

Nowhere does that poetic heritage carry more historical importance than on a unique track on Afghan Music Cassette Number 13—the final collaborative album between Ahmad Zahir and Fazel Ahmad Zekrya Nainawaz (1935-79) (فضل احمد زکریا نینواز), the famed composer of countless songs and partnerships with Kabuli vocal artists.

This one track bridges a gap of over 1,100 years. Its roots go back to Rudaki (c. 858 - 941 AD), one of the founding fathers of the modern Farsi language, whose original verses famously persuaded his patron, Amir Nasr II (906-943 AD), the ruler of the Samanid Empire (819-999 AD), to abandon a years-long campaign in Herat (920–921 AD) and return to the capital, Bukhara.

In a rare audio recording of Nainawaz, luckily preserved today, the composer recounts this legendary tale with visible excitement: "The Shah had no intention of traveling home... but Rudaki, playing the dutar, setar, or chartar common at the time, sings this poem..." Nainawaz continues, "I told my friend Ada, 'Refashion this poem.' And he wrote it. Now, the judgment is in the hands of the listener: whether he successfully refashioned it or not."

Thanks to a surviving handwritten notebook sheet belonging to Nainawaz, we can see exactly how the poet and lyricist Abdul Ahmad Ada (1927-94) (عبدالاحمد ادا) answered that challenge. Ada composed seven couplets, following the classical Persian “ramal” cadence meter of Rudaki’s original, right down to the iconic, looping refrain: "Ay-yad Hami" (آید همی)—meaning "it continuously returns or flows."

On that very same sheet, a few incomplete, lovely phrases laze in the margins: “Attain her union… The shadow of her eyelashes... flowing tears…” Were these the loose thoughts of Ada, or the weaving notes of Nainawaz? We may never know, but right above them, Nainawaz affectionately inked the name of the singer who would give them life: “Dear Ahmad Zahir” (احمد ظاهر جان).

The story of this cassette gives even more treasure. In a late-1980s television segment broadcast by Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA), Ada revealed the treacherous journey behind these tracks. His account begins with the night Nainawaz and Ada left Kabul for Kunduz, likely in the fall of 1977—an arduous journey of more than 300 kilometers through the heart of the Hindu Kush mountains. 

They passed through the Salang Tunnel, which, at 3,365 meters, was the second-highest tunnel in the world at the time. During this mountain transit, the duo completed all ten tracks for Cassette 13. Upon returning to Kabul, the songs were musically arranged and brought to life at the Afghan Music Studios in Golden Lotus Square.

Ustad Fakir Mohammad Nangyalai (1926-2003) (فقیرمحمد ننگیالی)—Ahmad Zahir's brilliant bandleader, studio virtuoso, and Western music instructor at Kabul's school of music—masterfully set Ada's lyrics to a classical Western waltz, whose strict 3/4 time signature perfectly mirrors the inherent, three-beat cadence of the classical Farsi ramal poetic meter. 

When Ahmad Zahir sings "Ay-yad Hami" (آید همی), the waltz rhythm catches the phrase and spins it back to the beginning of the next musical measure. The music behaves exactly like the meaning of the words: it keeps returning, calling out the cascading thoughts of a longing lover.

Nangalai’s arrangement continued the magical achievement of blending indigenous instrumentation (tabla and sitar) with Western orchestral elements (trumpet, flute, saxophone, drums, guitar) so seamlessly that the two traditions remained inseparable.

It was the ultimate auditory pattern of Kabul’s ancient geographical destiny: East meets West. Centuries earlier, in this region, Gandharan artists in Hadda, 150 km from Kabul, first fused classical Hellenistic sculpture with an Eastern faith to carve the face of the Buddha into human form. Just as Gandharan art blended the aesthetics and philosophies of two worlds to create something uniquely resonant, the music on this cassette merges Eastern and Western traditions, resulting in a soundscape both rooted in Kabuli heritage and enhanced by global influences.

When it came time to record, Ahmad Zahir selected only three of Ada’s seven couplets. While Rudaki’s ancient poem was a political persuasion aimed at a ruler, Ada’s adaptation moved closer to the tragedy of Ahmad Zahir’s personal life. The lyrics channel his sincere longing for his first wife, Najia, the muse behind most of his heartbreak songs. When a poem matched his internal state, he sang it with absolute conviction. As Ahmad Zahir himself once stated in an audio recording (این شعر به حال دلم می‌خواند): “This poem perfectly captures where my heart is at this very moment.”

The Ada lyrics recorded in the track follow:

یادِ آن سرو روان آید همی / در تن من باز جان آید همی

The memory of that gliding cypress floods back to me,

And life rushes back within my body once again

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پا نگیرم ز آستانت یک قدم / بر زمین گر آسمان آید همی

I will not take a single step away from your sacred threshold

Even if the sky comes crashing down upon the earth

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تا که ابروی کمانش دیده‌ام / تیر در چشمم کمان آید همی

Ever since I caught sight of the bow of her eyebrow,

Arrows stream toward my eyes like a bent bow

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Separated by eleven centuries, a poetic masterpiece originally conceived by Rudaki, who was from the north of the Amu Darya, found a modern rebirth in Kabul through an era-defining partnership among a poet, a composer, a singer, and an arranger. This collaboration stands as a beautiful, fleeting bookmark of creative freedom—a time of open exchange that would be violently shattered shortly after the cassette's release. 

The political upheaval of the Khalq tyrannical “Saur Revolution” in April 1978, followed by the Soviet invasion of 1979 and the escalating turmoil of war, led to a clampdown on open artistic expression, namely the closing and confiscating of all private recording studio and their reels, and ended this remarkable period of cultural openness.

On this anniversary of Ahmad Zahir’s birth and death, June 14th, we are left with a precious jewel in his treasury of songs, backed by a wealth of historical documentation. It recalls the prophetic confidence he shared with his drummer, Abdullah Etemadi, at his final concert in the spring of 1979, just weeks before his tragic murder: “They will listen to me for the next 50 years, because I know what the people want of me.”

He was right. And it will surely be for another fifty. * Special thank you to Parween Pazhwak for helping transcribe the Farsi text from the notebook of Nainawaaz.

Farewell — Forugh Farrokhzad's Poem and Ahmad Zahir's Song

By God, I was a blossom of joy,

love's hand arrived and

plucked me from my branch

now I am nothing but a

burning sigh, the regret,

that my lips shall never kiss those

lips again

—Forugh Farrokhzad

In the autumn of 1954, when she was twenty, Forugh Farrokhzad wrote a poem in Tehran called "Farewell" (وداع). At that time, the Iran of her youth was governed by rigid expectations around marriage and motherhood, where divorce carried a heavy social cost and the law, more often than not, favored fathers in matters of custody. Following her own divorce, Farrokhzad was declared unfit by the courts and barred from seeing her son. This poem became her way of saying goodbye after that devastating loss.

Two decades later, in the mid-1970s, Ahmad Zahir—himself in his twenties and newly acquainted with the pain of divorce and separation from his child—set Farrokhzad’s poem to music. In doing so, he layered his own sense of loss onto hers, blending the original verses with a fresh current of emotion and meaning.

When poetry is turned into song, the pain of loss can feel even stronger. Listeners are invited not just to read, but to feel the emotions at its core as the narrative intensifies. In this transformation, the poem becomes a lived experience that lingers in both the mind and heart. Perhaps that is poetry’s true performative purpose: to be spoken aloud and sung to reach a wider audience.

In a 2019 article, the Maymanagi poet, lyricist, and visual artist Hashmat Omid (1952-2025) explored this vital connection in “The Role of Poetry in Song.” He explained that singers play an important role in teaching poetry: “Through their sincerity, by what they select to sing, and pronunciation, they can be the best literary teachers for society.”

Ahmad Zahir, an acute learner of poetry, understood the hardship behind Farrokhzad’s words. Twenty years after she penned the poem in Tehran, he recorded his version of the lyrics at Afghan Music Studios in Kabul's Golden Lotus Square.

Their lives, though separated by time and place, traced parallel arcs. The poet’s life was cut short in 1967, when she died in a car accident at thirty-two. The singer also died young, at thirty-three. Although his death was made to look like an accident, it was actually an act of violence by the Khalq regime in 1979. Each, in their own way, was a pioneer, offering up their most intimate truths through art—their legacy that continues to resonate across generations.

Translated poem from the Farsi and words by Farhad Azad Spring 2026. | بهار ۱۴۰۵

Caption: Cassette Jacket Ahmad Zahir ( احمد ظاهر ) Afghan Music Cassette 06 (افغان موزیک ۶) Recorded at Afghan Music (افغان موزیک ), Golden Lotus Square, Kabul (1974/75) Side 2, Track 4 contains the the track "Farewell" (وداع ) of the poem by Forugh Farrokhzad and musical composition of Ahmad Zahir Source: Afghan Cassette Archive

Parched

By Raziq Roien

​Translated from the Farsi by Farhad Azad

Our hands, how distant,

distant

How bare the gardens of our love,

naked

Without you in my thoughts—oh, unattainable one—

even more parched than before

sleeping like a droplet in the throat of the vine

I have surrendered my heart to the earth’s warm hope,

I arrive so that..

I arrive so your earth, newly blossomed and green—

—like the devout hush of morning solitude—

I may bring an offering of prayer

and our hands, which, caressed by passing cloud and wind,

in the court of nature

have wept with rain-like tears

and love’s four seasons, rooted in Balkh—

—they have bound to every horizon

high upon Ahriman’s throne*, God...

may call out to you,

may He make it so

Ah, oh earth, more patient than patience!

you have grown heavy with sorrow for my sake

you have grown heavy with sorrow for your own

— Raziq Roien

Sofia, April 1986

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* throne of Ahriman

In the Zoroastrian faith, which originated in Balkh, the spirit of absolute evil and darkness is Ahriman (اهرمن). The poet, himself a native of Balkh, sees his world flipped upside down, with forces of malice placing God upon the throne of darkness. Like his fellow Balkhi contemporary, Wasef Bakhtari (1943-2023), Roien masterfully revives pre-Islamic imagery and ancient mythologies as symbols in his poetry—a deliberate reclaiming of a rich, historical past that was suppressed for generations under rigid religious censorship.

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An Introduction to the Poem

I recently discovered this touching poem by Raziq Roien (b. 1950), published in the September/October 1988 issue of the Kabul-based magazine Sabawoon. Written in 1986 while he was pursuing his PhD abroad in Sofia, Bulgaria, the poem offers a telling gaze into his homeland from afar.

He evokes the image of a parched garden—his beloved country—and expresses his readiness to return, fully aware that the raging conflict has left even nature itself—in the form of passing clouds—mourning in sympathy.

For me, the most arresting part of the poem is its unsettling imagery of darkness and evil usurping the throne of goodness and light, as forces of war have taken over the land, turning everything upside down.

It is as if Roien were peeking into the future, foreseeing a time when the malice overtaking his homeland would become so absolute that it would govern all, leaving the spirit of virtue dethroned. But he is hopeful that virtue may prevail as it calls to the people of his homeland.

He closes the poem on a message of deep, cyclical grief: a silent witness to a land made sorrowful by its people's suffering, leaving the soil to mourn itself.

— Farhad Azad, Spring 2026 | بهار ۱۴۰۵

Caption: Ustad Mohammad Hashim Cheshti on tabla, accompanied by his brother Ustad Aref in the background and Fazl Ahmad Nainawaz. Photograph from Hartmut Geerken’s archive, taken on October 4, 1974, at Ustad Hashim's home in Kabul.

From Analog to Archive: A Photograph Draws Us to the Musical Past

By Farhad Azad

Spring 2026 | بهار ۱۴۰۵

The German musician, composer, and writer Hartmut Geerken, who lived in Kabul, inscribed in his photo album, “Oct. 4, 1974. At the home of Ustad Hashim,” and added a handwritten caption, “Nainawaz.”

The warm caramel colors of 1970s film make the image feel like time is standing still in Kabul, just a few years before the city’s first wave of violent political chaos.

The photograph from Geerken's archive captures a genuine moment between teacher and student. The master laughs freely, while the student, chin in hand, looks on with admiration.

The photo features the late Ustad Mohammad Hashim Cheshti, a tabla master, composer, and teacher, alongside Fazl Ahmad Nainawaz, a composer and lyricist. Their backgrounds were very different. Nainawaz was born into the extended ruling family and raised by a father who was both a diplomat and a poet.

Hashim came from the winding alleys of Kharabat, a place where music was carried down through generations. His father, Chacha Mahmoud Chishtis, was one of the first tabla players to record with Radio Kabul’s first orchestra in the early 1940s.

Nainawaz learned the Kabuli ghazal style from Ustad Mohammad Hashim Cheshti, a form in which Farsi classical poetry is set to music. Nainawaz and Ustad Hashim went on to write lyrics for many singers, drawing on this tradition.

Hashim was known for his sophisticated rhythms and improvisation, raising the standard of tabla playing. He taught many students and trained singers, helping to shape Kabul’s musical style. Their recordings continue to resound around the world today.

We should also remember Hashim’s younger brother, Ustad Aref, who was equally talented. In the photo, behind Ustad Hashim, his smile reflects joyful pride.

The photo was most likely taken in Kharabat, based on the home's interior in the larger photo set—a neighborhood once filled with houses and workshops where music resonated for centuries beneath the old Bala Hissar castle. The name “Kharabat” is rich with Sufi meaning. In Farsi poetry, it describes a place where people forget their status and lose themselves in music and spiritual longing. Rumi wrote a famous poem about Kharabat, which the late Ahmad Zahir later turned into a song:

بیـاید بیایـد به میـدان خـرابـات مترسید مترسید ز حوریان خربات Come now, come all to the heart of Kharabat, Have no fear, have no fear of the enchanting souls of Kharabat

In this place, the elite and the ordinary come together, and music arises from both joy and sorrow, nourishing the soul. Here, Nainawaz and Hashim found friendship and a mutual artistic goal, meeting in a space where the past always feels close. Ancient and contemporary poems were sung with a freshness that made them feel newly written the night before. People from across Kabul came here to hire musical artists—both women and men—to perform at their festivities, engagements, weddings, and other joyous occasions. Female and male musicians alike were celebrated and sought after for these events.

All year long, Kabul’s trade guilds asked these musicians to bring life to their events. The most anticipated was the springtime festival on the arghawan (judas tree) hills in the city’s north, where music welcomed the new season.

When I look at this photograph, I think of old manuscript paintings depicting musicians and patrons gathered to celebrate, whether indoors or outdoors. Both the photo and the paintings show the closeness of making music together, the mixing of different social groups, and the happiness that comes from shared art. Still, there are important differences.

The paintings place their figures carefully and symmetrically, giving a formal feeling. The photograph, on the other hand, is spontaneous. Laughter, relaxed poses, and changing light make it feel immediate and real.

While the paintings make us think about an idealized past, the photograph shows the tradition as it was really lived. It captures warmth and feeling in a single, honest moment. At that moment, social boundaries faded away, brought together by the strength of music.

Sadly, just as the people in old paintings disappeared over time, the subjects of this photograph have also merged into memory. Nainawaz was killed in August 1979 by the Khalq regime, and Ustad Hashim was murdered in Germany in 1994.

Although their lives ended in tragedy, their recordings live on—unlike those of earlier musicians, remembered only in fragments and paintings. Today, listeners can find recordings of Nainawaz’s lyrics set to music online. Ustad Hashim’s tabla playing can still be heard in the Radio Kabul archives, in solo pieces and performances with Kharabat groups, all of which are easily accessible in digital form.

These recordings invite new generations to explore them—illustrating how music can outlast its creators and continue to impact the world and those who made it. When we listen, we can remember a past that was more analog, but maybe more connected to life’s rhythms.

Caption: Handwritten in German by Hartmut Geerken: “zu Hause bei Ustad Haschem 4. Okt. 1974”

Translation: “At home with Ustad Hashem, Oct 4, 1974”

From Kabul to Mazar-i Sharif: A Postcard Opens the Past

By Farhad Azad

A few years back, my beloved maternal uncle Naim left this world after spending over four decades far from his native Kabul. With his departure, our family lost another living bridge to our origins. Yet, he gifted us many vivid stories and precious keepsakes. Uncle Naim’s childhood unfolded in a tranquil Kabul, where, like many of his peers, he flourished during the 40-year reign of Mohammad Zahir Shah—a time of steady, homegrown modernity and calm.

​

Driven by his fascination with history and art, Uncle Naim opened an art gallery and traveler’s shop near the Spinzar Hotel in central Kabul in the early 1970s. His passion swept him into the heart of the city’s lively culture. He gathered rare antiques, showcased creations by local artists in various mediums, and built one of Kabul’s most impressive stamp collections. His pursuits often led him beyond Kabul, with Balkh and Bamiyan among his favorite destinations, where he sometimes guided Western tourists through the majestic Bamiyan Buddhas.

​

After his passing in Northern Virginia, I walked through his home, surrounded by voices of his animated tales—his journeys, the artists he cherished, and the prizes he collected. These memories drew me back to his singular passion for stamps. His devotion ran so deep that he collected postcards and envelopes adorned with stamps from countless eras.

​

Among a framed array of postcards and envelopes stretching back to the early 1930s, one postcard caught my attention. Its neat, deliberate handwriting revealed an educated hand, and it had journeyed from Kabul to Mazar-i Sharif in Balkh some 80 years back.

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The framed postcard showed only the address and handwritten notes; I couldn’t free it to glimpse the front. The script emits comfort and warmth. Dated August 6, 1941, it calls from a world swallowed in war. Yet, under Mohammad Zahir Shah, Kabul’s government chose neutrality—a decision that proved wise.

​

This neutrality let Kabul’s government preserve peace while conflict flared on every frontier. To the south and east, British India braced for danger. Northward, the USSR fought Nazi Germany. Merely twenty days after this postcard was penned, the Allies swept into Iran, capturing vital oil fields and supply routes for the Soviets.

​

Returning to the postcard itself, let’s take a closer look at the handwritten notes—and attempt a translation from the back:

Header

“Bound for Mazar-i-Sharif”

​

Main Address Section (Center)

This occupies the main lines in the middle of the card:

"In the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, at the Serai of Mirza Muhammad Qasim Khan, in the presence of my esteemed brother, Sayyid Maqsood Shah Sahib. May it be honorably presented at a fortuitous time."

​

Bottom Margin (Horizontal - along the bottom edge)

This is the long horizontal line of text at the very bottom, beneath the red French print:

“Please convey my humble greetings to Wasel Sahib and Doctor Al-Mukammal Sahib. Greetings to be honorably presented to Wali Sahib."

​

Vertical Margin (Vertical - along the left edge)

This is the text written sideways along the left side of the card:

“From the city of Kabul, yours truly, Muhammad Naim Dilsoz. Wednesday, the 15th of Asad, 1320." (Solar calendar equating to August 6, 1941)

​

The card was stamped in Kabul on August 6, 1941, and the Lighthouse postmark marks its arrival in Mazar-i-Sharif on August 12. To send it, the writer likely used a humble copper 10-pul coin to buy the red stamp featuring King Mohammad Zahir Shah’s portrait.

​

This stamp belongs to the first series to feature a monarch. In 1937, Kabul issued Afghanistan’s inaugural stamp bearing the royal portrait of the late Mohammad Nadir Shah (r. 1929-33), father of Mohammad Zahir Shah (r. 1933-73).

​

The stamp on the card reads "Post-e Afghanistan" in Farsi and "Poste Afghanistan" in French. And it features the youthful portrait of Mohammad Zahir Shah (r. 1933-73).

​

It is also notable that the card’s instructions appear in both Farsi and French.

​

CARTE POSTALE

کارت پستال

Translation: Postcard

​

CE CÔTÉ EST EXCLUSIVEMENT RÉSERVÉ À L'ADRESSE

در این صفحه تنها باید عنوان نوشته شود

Translation: This side is reserved exclusively for the address.

​

Since the late 19th century, French has been the official language of the Universal Postal Union. Any country sending mail internationally used French on their postal stationery to ensure mail carriers worldwide could understand the instructions.

​

Kabul’s ties with France deepened after the 1919 war of independence from the British. When Amir Amanullah took the throne, the Afghan government forged close bonds with France. The young Mohammad Zahir Shah even studied there, making French the unofficial language of diplomacy. France’s neutrality provided a vital bridge between British India and the USSR.

The first Afghan students sent overseas journeyed to France. Over the years, French words seeped into local Farsi, leaving a permanent mark. Terms like “Lise” (لیسه) from lycée, “mâyo” (مایو) from maillot, “român” (رمان) from roman, and “post” (پست) from poste became woven into everyday language.

​

As I study this postcard, I can only imagine the journey it has taken. Could its sender have ever dreamed that his words would one day hang in a frame in a suburban Virginia home, or be shared with the world nearly 85 years later on the internet?

In the end, the postcard remains—its ink faded, its message a riddle, its journey between Kabul and Mazar-i Sharif a subtle record of a world that once was. In its silence, it tells stories not only of my uncle and a vanished Kabul, but also of the small, persistent ways history lingers, tucked away in a frame, waiting for someone to look more closely.

Note:

بی پناه

تن من

چون نهالیست

              ستاده به مسیر باد

میلرزد

         میلرزد

             از وحشت

دست های تو پناه چه کسی خواهد بود؟

— ليلا صراحت روشنی

Without Refuge 

my body 

like a sapling            

standing in the path of the wind

trembles

trembles               

from terror

whom shall your hands shield?

— Layla Sarahat Rushani (1958-2004)

From her collection The Discourse of the Night (حدیث شب). 

Translated from the Farsi by Farhad Azad

​Khallaq al-Ma’ani’s Ruabi:

A Brief Study of the Poem, the Poet and Our Times

By Farhad Azad

Spring 2026 | بهار ۱۴۰۵

In this rubai (رباعی), or quatrain, Khallaq al-Ma’ani invites the reader to value each moment of life, knowing it brims, like a cup, with both happiness and sadness. He calls for a mindful pursuit of joy with those who bring love, and a gentle release of the rest to the passage of time.

​

The poet uses the cup (جام) as a symbol for life, showing that all experiences, good or bad, are part of it. The image of lips touching the cup suggests being fully present. By comparing the 'loved one’s lips' (لب یار) and the 'rim of the cup' (لب جام), he connects themes of joy and longing, blending outer happiness with inner meaning. These images help Khallaq al-Ma’ani reflect on embracing all parts of life with honest self-awareness.

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Khallaq al-Ma’ani ("The Creator of Meanings"), born Kamal al-Din Isma’il, was the son of Jamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Abd al-Razzaq Isfahani. He is known as the last significant poet of the Farsi qasida (ode) before the Mongol invasion.

The Mongol conquest in the early 13th century led to immense upheaval: libraries were destroyed, centers of learning scattered, and many poets and scholars lost their lives or fled to remote regions, including Rumi, who left Balkh for Konya. The deaths of Khallaq al-Ma’ani and other poets, such as Attar, during this time are often seen as marking the end of a special era in Farsi poetry, after which the literary world changed greatly.

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In today’s chaotic world—at times repeating the upheaval humanity faced during the Mongol invasions—what lessons can we draw from Khallaq al-Ma’ani’s four lines? One answer may be to seek truth, cherish honest companionships, and beware against the bitter poison of lies and distorted realities, which continue to embitter societies around the world and empower those who instill cruelty.

The long line of these humanist writers channel the same philosophy handed down through countless generations, including Noozar Elias, who wrote to his poetic friend and counterpart, Qahar Asi, in a letter dated May 9, 1991: "May your spirit and your work always carry the flame of awareness and love."

The rubai (رباعی) of Khallaq al-Ma’ani (خلاق‌المعانی):

لب باز مگیر یک زمان از لب جام تا برداری کام جهان از لب جام در جام جهان چو تلخ و شیرین به هم است این از لب یار خواه و آن از لب جام خلاق‌المعانی

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A Poem and Song for the Heart in Exile

By Farhad Azad

Spring 2026 | بهار ۱۴۰۵

I recently found Haidar Salim’s first cassette, recorded on the Kabuli label Afghan Music sometime between 1975 and 1978. Back then, Kabul was alive with creative energy, as musicians blended traditional local music with new global sounds. Cassettes produced by the three major studios—Afghan Music, Ariana Music, and Music Center—made it easier for artists to share their work, reaching people far beyond live shows and radio.

This atmosphere led to both experimentation and the preservation of local styles. Haidar Salim’s cassette is a joy to hear because it brings back memories of the sound of Kabul that I was born into. The songs reveal Salim’s unique blend of pop, lite classical Kharabati, and the colloquial singing found at gatherings in Kabuli salons. Even now, his voice carries the warmth of that original recording.

Of the twelve tracks, the third stood out to me the most. Maybe it’s the poem that draws me in, paired with Salim's smooth tone. The poem, from the mid-1700s, is by Hazin Lahiji (حزین لاهیجی), a poet from Isfahan. The lyrics come from a ghazal one might call “Where Are You?” (کجایی), in which Hazin shares the pain of his exile to India—the country he was forced flee to.

The poem’s most powerful line, describing his desperate life in Delhi and finally Benares, is not recorded in the song; yet, its feeling resonates in the verses that are sung: “This cruel land of exile in India is eating me alive and has turned my life into a pathetic spectacle; grief has torn away my every layer—O joyful heart, where have you gone?” (رسوای جهان می کندم، هند جگرخوار / غم پرده در افتاده، دل شاد، کجایی؟)

Of the three stanzas sung, the first introduces the ghazal, establishing the poet as a captive to grief. He longs for the heart he once knew as free and describes a soul so stifled and weary it can no longer find the strength to cry out.

The second stanza develops this lament: the poet seeks a soulmate to share even one breath of joy. He invokes two of Farsi literature’s most forlorn figures—Majnun, the lover lost to the desert, and Farhad, the sculptor who perished on a mountain—inviting them to join him in a grief as vast as theirs.

The final stanza brings the poem’s traditional “takhallus” ending, where the poet addresses himself by name. He reflects that, with a single flash of lightning, longing and love will come to an end. Hazin sets his life’s work aflame and asks the wind to scatter the ashes.

Today, the song is popular on social media for its honest plea—the voice of someone trapped and unable to find that "breath of joy." When I listen, it’s little wonder that Hazin’s longing still connects across time and distance. 

Salim’s delivery touches me deeply, especially as it reminds me of stories from my own family about exile and loss. Every time I hear this song, I feel both comforted and unsettled by how it blends personal pain with collective memory. The music video, easily found online, was recorded by Radio TV Kabul and likely dates to 1978 or 1979.

Special thanks to the Afghan Cassette Archive for sharing this recording. It reminds us that music keeps the voices of longing and resilience alive through time.

Lyrics / متن آهنگ:

در قید غمم، خاطر آزاد کجایی؟ تنگ است دلم، قوت فریاد کجایی؟ کو همنفسی، تا نفسی شاد برآرم؟ مجنون تو کجا رفتی و فرهاد کجایی؟ در عشق به یک جلوه، حزین کار تمام است من برق به خرمن زدم، ای باد کجایی؟ حزین لاهیجی

Grief holds me captive, where is the heart that once was free?  My soul is stifled—the strength to cry aloud has abandoned me Who is there to breathe with me, that I might draw one breath of joy? Where did you go, Majnun? Farhad, where do you hide? In love, Hazin, the end is reached within a single flash of lightning  I’ve set the torch to my life’s work—rushing wind, where are you?  —Hazin Lahiji

Translation of the poem from the Farsi by Farhad Azad Listen to the track "Grief holds me captive" (در قید غمم) by vocalist Haidar Salim (حیدر سلیم) from his Afghan Music Cassette no. 1 album:

Petals from the Same Flower: 

A Letter from the Canadian Cold to the Kabul Fire

Introduction and translations to Noozar Elias’ letter to Qahar Asi 

By Farhad Azad

Spring 2026 | بهار ۱۴۰۵

In May 1991, as spring began to settle over Canada, Noozar Elias sat in a public library and wrote to Qahar Asi. The letter was less news than a conversation—two poets, continents apart, still sharing their craft's language.

The relationship had deep roots. In a 1994 radio interview, Asi recalled that Elias "refined my mind, opening a window for me to see this garden for what it truly is." Asi and Elias spent time together at Kabul University in the early 1980s. They bonded through verse and discourse. This letter became a vital link in that ongoing exchange.

To understand Elias’s influences, it helps to know he walked in the path of Abdulilah Rastakhiz, the revolutionary Herati poet executed by the Khalq dictatorship in 1979. Yet, where Rastakhiz’s protest was overt and fiery, Elias’s own work moved in quieter, more concealed ways against injustice.

Under Elias’s guidance, Asi found his own form of resistance. In 1983, while working as an agricultural engineer in Logar, he cast off his family name, Aman. He began writing under the pen name "Asi” (عاصی), meaning "Rebel."

In 1984, he composed his poem Freedom (آزادی) in the lush landscape of Logar. The poem gave voice to an ancient longing for liberty. It captured a community whose tough exterior shielded a deeper, luminous hope of unshackling in the "Land of the Sun."

With this history in mind, the 1991 letter becomes a deep gesture from exile. Upon receiving Asi’s latest books, Elias describes the solace they bring—a rescued warmth and a vivid reminder of home.

This sense of separation mirrors the historical fate of the poets and artists of Timurid Herat in the early to mid-1500s. After the collapse of their world, they were scattered from Bukhara to Samarkand to Tabriz. Once a tight-knit circle, they became a diaspora. Each carried a fragment of a lost heritage, like petals plucked from a single flower and cast into distant realms.

Along with the letter, Elias enclosed his poem Strange Syllables (هجاهای غریب). The poem meditates on the uneasy life of the displaced: the haunting moment of departure, the endless waiting, and the complicated survival within the "gilded cage" of the West. The letter remains a stirring record of a connection between two poets—one who fled and one who stayed.

A Letter to Asi By Noozar Elias, May 9, 1991, Canada to Qahar Asi in Kabul  My Dear Qahar, As I write these few lines, it is the ninth of May, 1991. The weather in the city where I reside is partially turning warm. During these four years that I have been stuck in the depths of this country's cold, a kind of lethal restlessness has crept into my very veins and roots. I have let so many opportunities go to waste. Exile and cold are terrible things. May the Unseen God never let you, nor any living soul, be imprisoned by the shackles of exile and cold! Amen. I wrote that the weather of this city is partially turning warm—meaning one must still sit and wait for the heat! The long winters of this land have exhausted me. They have drained me of life, of living, and of loving. A massive dust of heavy exile has settled upon the very core of my soul: I am a wanderer, pacing aimlessly upon this soil. An hour ago, to escape the malice of the anxious marketplaces, I took refuge in a quiet corner—a library nearby. I gathered my writing tools. First, I wrote a letter to Farhad Saba, and then my thoughts drifted straight to you. Your blessed countenance and your spiritual light of the East within you—a grace rarely found in these lands. The people of these parts know nothing of "love," they know nothing of "pain." They are of a different sort, these people! Lest my words become scattered.. Yes, my dear Qahar! At last, the letter and the books—the fruits of your restless, aching spirit—reached me and drew me out from the exhaustion of waiting. Many thoughts have come to mind regarding your letter and your books. Had you been here with me, I would have shared much conversation with you. Now that you are not, I shall strive to write things to you through regular correspondence in the future. For the time being, I am sending you a piece I composed before receiving your first letter, so that you may understand the general state of my being. May your spirit and your work always carry the flame of awareness and love.

Translated from the Farsi by Farhad Azad 

Caption: “The immortal Asi and I, on the grounds of Kabul University. Mid-October 1982.”  — Noozar Elias (source kabulnath.de)

A Conversation in Exile: Qahar Asi on Noozar Elias’ Influence

This audio fragment, steeped in the languid heat of an Iranian summer in 1994, finds Qahar Asi (قهار عاصی) in reflective dialogue with a literary radio program—a voice drifting through the landscapes of memory and exile. Here, Asi delicately traces the contours of his creative kinship with Azim Herati (عظیم هراتی), known to the literary world as Noozar Elias (نوذر الیاس).

Asi remained in Iran from the spring through the late summer of 1994. Unable to extend his stay, by the Iranian officials, he was forced to depart in August; shortly after returning, he was killed in his beloved Kabul by a rocket attack. In this interview segment, Asi looks back a decade to Kabul University, where the mentorship between the two poets flourished. It was Elias, Asi confides, who first encouraged him toward poetry, becoming "my window to look through this garden." — Farhad Azad Spring 2026 | بهار ۱۴۰۵

Audio Translation:

"Azim Herati—he is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Afghan poetry. He currently lives in Canada. He was in the School of Law, and I was in the School of Agriculture [at Kabul University]. We met in my third year at the School of Agriculture. He had a masterful understanding of the intricate artistry found in contemporary Iranian poetry. He had already established himself as a respected poet in Kabul before coming to Iran, where he quickly gained recognition for his literary achievements. According to him, I was apparently a natural poet. I was writing things back then, too. He refined my mind, opening a window for me to see this garden for what it truly is. From 1983 onwards, I truly became a poet. I was an agricultural official in Logar, but I heard the call of poetry. I left agricultural engineering behind and entered the fields of literature and art."

Audio Transcription of the Farsi Text by Paween Pazhwak

Translated from the Farsi by Farhad Azad Audio of Qahar Asi's Interview / نوای گفت‌وگوی قهار عاصی

زمانه

هر آن چه از سر این شهر خسته می گذرد

شکسته می رسد، از ره گسسته می گذرد

خیال خاطر خوش جلوه بال عنقایی است

کز آسمان سر ما شکسته می گذرد

از این دیار، از این یادگار آبایی

زمانه،بقچه امید بسته، می گذرد

نه بانگ مهر، نه بوی صداقت است این جا

محبت از بر ما دست شسته می گذرد

لوگر ۲ جوزای ۱۳۶۴

These Times Whatever passes over this exhausted city, Arrives broken, it passes by, severed off from the path The thought of happiness is like the glory of the *Anqa’s wing— Which travels, shattered, through the sky above our heads

From this land, from this ancestral heritage, The time passes by, its bundle of hope packed away Neither the cry of affection nor the scent of sincerity is here Love passes us by, having washed its hands of us — Qahar Asi Logar, May 23, 1985 (2 Jowza 1364)

Anqa: A mythical bird of divine mystery appearing in Ruzbihan Baqlī’s (1128–1209) Abhar al-Ashiqin (The Jasmine of the Lovers) as a metaphor for fleeting enlightenment.

Three Poems of War by Ahmad Behrad

By Farhad Azad

Spring 2026 | بهار ۱۴۰۵

Cover of the poetry collection The Village in a Tank (دهکده در تانک)

Amid the smoldering years of war in his homeland, the Herati poet Ahmad Behrad (احمد بهراد) published his collection “The Village Tank” (دهکده در تانک) in 2014. The conflict, relentless and unceasing, had raged since the poet’s birth. As Khoshbin Herawi (خوشبین هروی) observed in his 2014 article about this collection, it was a time when “a generation from birth has inhaled the smoke of war.”

Behrad’s poetry traverses the relatively new genre of “short poem” (کوتاه‌سرایی)—a form that, over the past two decades, has quietly taken root. It’s a subject that calls for deeper literary evaluation. Khoshbin Herawi, in his 2017 article “One Word Less: The Puzzle of Contemporary Short-Poetry,” offers a reason for its rise:

“Short poetry is the opportunity for discovery in a single breath. It is a response to the haste and the fragmented lives...which have left no room for long contemplations or lengthy odes such as the Qasidas.”

On the book’s title, Khoshbin Herawi notes:

“The choice of the name The Village in a Tank for this collection is brilliant—the tank here is not merely an instrument of war, but a metaphor for a situation that has swallowed the entirety of our lives. The village, which is a symbol of peace and tradition, is now besieged within the heart of iron and fire.”

The cost of the “endless war” (2001–21) is most often measured in dollars—Brown University’s “Costs of War” project estimates the tally between $2.3 trillion and $2.6 trillion. Yet how often do the transitional press or the so-called “influencers” pause to consider the real human toll?

One way to begin is by reading and discussing the works of indigenous writers—voices that bear witness to lives lost, displaced, or forever marked by distress. Yet even these accounts are filtered, the works of Behrad and his contemporaries largely ignored by both academia and the mainstream publishing industry.

If we pause to reflect on these three poems, three distinct vestiges of lives shaped by war emerge. War, in Behrad’s lines, is not a rigid structure but a living force—fluid, like a river that erases anything in its path. The unnatural rituals of conflict compel people to form unthinking habits; in the end, those habits consume them. And finally, dreams and hopes are diminished by foreign-manufactured rockets—products of profit, mass-produced, so effortlessly fired.

As the world faces ever more chaos, casualty numbers flash across our screens—like lottery numbers. But who are the people behind those statistics? What did their lives hold? What did they hope for? If we look sincerely, perhaps we’ll find more in common with our fellow humans than we imagine. In the end, we all seek the same: a chance to realize our wishes and hopes—alas, in peace.

There are poets, like Behrad, who merit readings—for they ring out as the voice of the voiceless. Will you take the time?

Poem One 

جنگ قطار نبود که ریل بخواهد

یک راست از دل دهکده گذشت

پدر می‌گفت

جنگ رود است

راست می‌گفت

او را با خودش برد.

War was not a train that needed tracks

It passed straight through the heart of the village

Father used to say

War is a river

He was right

It took him away.

Poem Two 

رسم این بود

صبح مرده‌ها را گور کنند

عصر

زنده‌ها را بشمارند

یک روز که صبح شد

در گور نشسته بودیم.

The custom was this:

In the morning, bury the dead

In the evening,

Count the living.

Then one day, morning came

And we were sitting in the grave.

Poem Three 

پنج نفر بودیم

رحیم که می‌خواست داکتر شود

کریم، انجینر

فرهاد، معلم

لطیف...

لطیف آرزوی عجیبی داشت

فرصت به من نرسید

راکت همه‌ی ما را به آرزوی لطیف رساند.

There were five of us

Rahim wanted to be a doctor

Karim, an engineer

Farhad, a teacher

Latif...

Latif had a strange wish

The chance never reached me

A rocket delivered us all to Latif's wish.

گرفت خواهم زلفين عنبرین ترا   

به بوسه نقش کنم برگ یاسمین ترا

اگر چه خامش مردم که شعر بايد گفت 

زبان من به روی گردد آفرین ترا

رودکی 

I long to caress your fragrant tresses 

And with kisses illustrate your face of jasmine bloom 

I was silent when I should have canted poetry

Here now, my words bestow praises upon you

Rudaki 

858-941 AD 

Rills of Timeless Verse: Rudaki 

Image: Spring Tulips, village near Kabul 

With spring’s arrival, I felt compelled to share a poem by Rudaki. And while rereading the article “Rudaki: A Poet and Thinker from Across the Centuries” (published in Kabul, 1988), the literary professor and scholar Pouya Faryabi noted in the piece:

Rudaki was an unparalleled master of speech and poetry in his time. Over a thousand years ago, he raised the banner of Farsi poetry across the vast lands of Transoxiana and Khorasan, strengthening the very foundations of Farsi literature. Before Rudaki, we know of no poet who elevated Farsi verse to such heights or surpassed his creative genius. As the first to 'unlock the treasures of Farsi poetry,' he remains a titan of the craft. It is only fitting that we recognize him as the pioneer of Farsi verse and address him as 'The Master.'

I find the greatest joy in Rudaki’s romantic verses. There is a refined elegance to his work. Even a millennium later, his poetry is as clear as spring’s melting snow—”water flowing in every dry rill” across the valleys of Central Asia— the very birthplace of modern Farsi.

— Farhad Azad 

گر شمع نیمه‌جان تلاش خود آگهی

در تار گوشه‌یی

روشن شود گهی

از گردباد حیله‌گر کاهنان شب

آن شمع نیمه‌جان 

خاموش می‌شود

آن گوشۀ غریب

هم‌رنگ گوشه‌های دگر تار می‌شود

—داوود سرمد

از شعر: جادوگران شب

If a waning candle of self-awareness

in a dark corner, is lit for a moment

by the deceitful whirlwind of the priests of night,

that waning candle is snuffed,

that lonely corner 

just like all the other corners, is cloaked in darkness.

—Daoud Sarmad

(1950-1979, executed by the Khalq reign of terror)

Lines his poem “Sorcerers of the Night” (1974, Kabul)

If you do not let the cascading light of dawn unfold its face upon the mirror of your land, night will stir a chaos of a different kind.

[Caption: "View of Kabul from Asmai" — an impressionist-style rendering based on an original 1879 photograph taken by Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. It depicts the incomplete mausoleum of Timur Shah Durrani (r. 1746-1793), the ancient city walls, and the Bala Hissar fort in the background.]

The Mirror of the Land: A Reflection on Asmai

Reflect on Noorzar Elais’ quatrain and the current state of Kabul

By Farhad Azad 

Spring 2026 | بهار ۱۴۰۵

به خون غلتیده شام آسمایی

بسی تلخ است کام آسمایی

صدای ضجه و زنجیر آید

سحرگاهان ز بام آسمایی

—نوذر الیاس

Steeped in blood is the twilight of Asmai

Bitter is the breath of Asmai

Cries and chains pierce the air

In the gray of dawn, from the heights of Asmai

—Noozar Elias

1986, New Delhi, India

Translation from the Farsi by Farhad Azad

This quatrain (Dubayti / دوبیتی) is from Noozar Elias’s collection, The Mirror of the Land (Aayine-ye Khaak / آیینه خاک) — a work of resistance poetry. It was written in 1986 while the poet lived in exile in New Delhi and was later published in Canada, where he currently resides. I was fortunate to receive this collection over two decades ago.

​

On a recent rereading, my gaze lingered on a poem about Asmai Mountain (کوه آسمایی), Kabul’s highest summit. The mountain’s name, Sanskrit in origin, means “Mother of Wishes.” At its foot stands the city’s oldest Hindu temple, a relic of a Kabul that once practiced many religions.

​

In 1980, Elias wrote of Asmai with a romantic nostalgia; by 1986, the romance had curdled. His verses now evoke a mountain "steeped in blood," its dawns broken by "cries and chains" — a portrait painted at the bloody zenith of the Soviet invasion, that infamous “bear trap” engineered by the United States, as a revenge from its own loss in Vietnam.

​

This historical context is always vital when taking any piece of literature into account, but especially so today. The poet’s role is forever essential in giving a voice to a people so often silenced. The people of this land are frequently dismissed as "Cold War statistics" or "collateral damage" — sanitized terms created and marketed to mask the reality of geopolitics that dismantle both the physical and emotional lives of millions.

​

Now, in 2026, forty years on from Noozar’s writing of the poem, Kabul endures another season of falling bombs. Nightly, Pakistani jets — USA-made — cross into Kabul airspace, renewing disputes over the eastern frontier. 

The lines that carve this region—branded “Afghanistan” by the British Imperialists—into uneasy fragments bear the names of British officers: Sir Louis Dane to the north, Sir Harry Lumsden to the west, and Sir Mortimer Durand to the east. 

These territories, once composed of non-homogeneous, independently ruled domains, were forced into a singular unity by British Imperial power. These men were the imperial draftsmen of these “wild” borderlands, their pens defending imperial “loot” from the ambitions of Tsarist Russia. It was, after all, the pursuit of Peter the Great’s (r. 1682–1725) long-held obsession: to push Russian ships toward the “warm waters” of India and shatter Britain’s global trade monopoly.

​

Today’s conflict uncannily mirrors the Basmachi movement of the 1920s — a Central Asian resistance against Bolshevik rule in the newly acquired city-states of the region. Kabul’s government, in those days, first lent support and then, with deceptive swiftness, snuffed out the movement in the 1930s to appease Moscow — a cycle of alliance and abandonment repeated.

​

Support for this eastern militant fringe seems endless, stoked by a century-old compulsion among Kabul’s rulers to reclaim the lands beyond the Durand Line. In their zeal of the last mid-century, they fashioned a flag, penned an anthem, and even dedicated a major city square to this futile, untenable cause — all while neglecting the city’s own, deeply rich heritage. 

This is Kabul, after all, the legendary birthplace of Rudaba — as Ferdowsi wrote in his epic, “a paradise perfected, she stands" — mother of Rostam, the tragic hero of the Shahnama, who met his end here, undone by his half-brother in the shadow of these mountains.

​

Spring: An Antidote for a Tangled World 

A look at Shukrea Erfani’s poem “Spring” (بهار)

By Farhad Azad

Spring 2026 | بهار ۱۴۰۵

Image: Video still from “Kabul Sky”  by Khaiber Nazimi

In her interview, poet Shukrea Erfani spoke candidly about the tangled state of the modern world:

“We live in a world of nuclear warheads, the dominance of capitalism, and the magic of the media. Even if we’re not directly involved, the weight of these realities still lands on us.”

It’s a chaotic world: truth is elusive, the cries of the masses are brushed aside, and artists are targeted. Maybe we’ve seen times like this before, but never while glued to the endless scroll of glowing handheld rectangles. For many of us, the humanities are a lifeline—an antidote for troubles both big and small. Erfani puts it simply:

“Poetry and art are inherently a cry against darkness, a light that keeps the human heart bright.”

In this spirit, we mark the new year and the arrival of spring at Now Roz. In the past, I turned to Rudaki, one of the founders of modern Farsi poetry. This year, though, I found Erfani’s “Spring,” posted on her old blog, dated April 13, 2007 (24 Farwardin 1386).

In “Spring,” Erfani explores nature, waiting, love, and union. She blends classical Farsi imagery with a modern style. The lover and beloved transform—from vapor to cloud to rain “gushing” on the lips and rooting into the body’s cells—in a kind of biological romanticism. For Erfani, the speaker is the ocean, and the body is a landscape where the long winter of the mind is washed away with a patient, rhythmic grace.

Two words from the poem lingered with me. First, اقیانوس آرام (Oqyanoos-e Aram)—the Pacific Ocean—draws its root, اقیانوس (Oqyanoos), from the Greek word for ocean: Ὠκεανός (Ōkeanós). The second is the old Farsi-rooted word آبستن (abestan), meaning “pregnant.” Here, it describes the cloud, heavy with water and ready to pour—as if the sun and ocean water together have created a life-force that will bring loved ones together.

This closeness gives “Spring” a modern texture, grounding the poem in real, present admiration. It reminds us of the sanctity of stillness. In a world of instant everything, patience as a virtue—like watching a rose bloom in a garden—becomes rare and precious. To reach that goodness is to finally let go of winter. This Now Roz, we are eagerly looking for healing. And so, in the imagery of Shukrea Erfani’s words, among the “hidden white cherry blossoms,” we wait.

بهار 

تنت را

آفتاب تبخیر میکند

بهار است

اقیانوس آرامم

ابرهای آبستن

تو را به سرزمین من می آورند

می بارند

و رودخانه های شیرینت

بر لبانم موج می زنند

 می نوشمت

مرغان دریایی

آوازهای عاشقانه می خوانند

در رگهایم جاری می شوی

در سلولهایم

پنهانت می کنم

ریشه ها جان می گیرند

و تنم

باغ گل سرخی می شود

که عطرش

زمستان دیرسال گذشته را

از یاد می برد

دلتنگ نیستم

در سلولهایم

در خطوط سر سبز اندامم

در شکوفه های سپید گیلاس پنهانی

شکریه عرفانی

بیست و چهارم۱۳۸۶

Spring

Your body

mists rising under the sun

It is spring

I am an ocean of peace

clouds, heavy with rain,

carry you back to my land

they shower,

and your sweet rivers

gush upon my lips

I drink you

feathered sky-bound dancers

sing songs of love

you flow through my veins

in my cells

I hide you

roots take life,

and my body

blooms to a garden of red roses 

whose fragrance

I caress away the memory

of the long winter past

my heart is at rest

you are in my cells,

in the lush lines of my form,

in the hidden white cherry blossoms

— Shukrea Erfani 

April 13, 2007 (24 Farwardin 1386) Translated from the Farsi by Farhad Azad

Spring 2026 | بهار ۱۴۰۵

Read more work from Shukrea Erfani:

Poem: Worry (دلواپسی)

Poem: Three Decades (سه دهه)

Poem: Speak with me of your hands (شکریه عرفانی)

Poem: It took a thousand years (هزار سال طول کشید)

Poem: The last love, the last bullet (آخرین عشق آخرین گلوله)