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)
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)
"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
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
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
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.
