FWP:
SETS
DOOMSDAY: {10,11}
NIGHT/DAY: {1,2}
The first line might purport to be a claim of some sort of orthodoxy, though it's phrased in an oddly negative way. Apparently someone has been reproaching the lover with lack of proper religious belief. The lover replies indignantly; he phrases his reply in negative terms, with two separate appearances of nahii;N . His claim is, basically, that he knows Doomsday when he sees it. 'It's not that I don't believe in Doomsday,' he says-- and then, when we're finally allowed (under mushairah performance conditions) to hear the second line, we realize that after this insistence his argument can branch off in several different directions. 'It's not that I don't believe in Doomsday'--
= '-- I do believe it will come someday, but I'm not so worried about it. After all, I know it won't be any worse than the night of separation, and I already know what the night of separation is like.' This reading makes for the kind of reverse comparison developed in the 'snide remarks about paradise' verses (see {35,9}, in which the direction of comparison is to the disadvantage of the transcendent world. In the present case, the unstated putdown is that I compare the Doomsday (or the 'Day of Requital') to the 'night of separation', and not the other way around. It's the 'night of separation' that is more real, and in fact also more terrifying.
= '-- why, on the contrary: I know very well what Doomsday is, and I have the heartiest respect for it, because I experience it all the time: it's nothing other than my nights of separation.' On this reading, the verse would be playing with the metaphorical meaning of Doomsday. The lover's attitude is so far from pious that when someone asks him about Doomsday, he thinks at once of his own private 'doomsday' of separation from the beloved, and introduces the Day of Requital only to emphasize the dreadfulness of the real 'doomsday' he constantly experiences in this life.
= '-- it's just that I know it will actually be a minor experience, less cruel and tyrannical than the night of separation that I already have to endure. Compared to the night of separation-- well, Doomsday will be a piece of cake.' This reading (2b) takes se as short for jaise , and treats ziyaad as a noun.
Nazm:
That is, I'm convinced of the coming of Doomsday, but I'm not convinced that the terror and dread of that day will be more than the intensity of this night. (111)
== Nazm page 111