Ghazal 424x, Verse 7

Asi:

The truth is that except for you, no one is present; whatever is, is you; whatever is, is from you. To whatever name we have prayed, that one is in truth a veil, in the shelter of which self-worship is performed. That is, our prayer, our praying-- this very thing is verbal polytheism, it is a kind of self-worship. Otherwise, the reality is that it's all words-- there's no such thing as submission or prayer. The forehead is yours, the prostration-strewing is yours, the doorsill is yours. How well he has said: {32,1}!

== Asi, p. 309

Zamin:

Self-worship in the sense that when the forehead is yours (from you) and the doorsill too is yours, then with your forehead to make prostration at your door is established as only/emphatically your worship of yourself.

== Zamin, p. 451

Gyan Chand:

To show humility/prayer is, in reality, to make one's existence separate from you, and this distinction is a kind of self-worship. In this way prayer/humility is an attempt to draw a veil/curtain over self-worship. Otherwise, my forehead is thanks to you, and your doorsill too is yours. As if there is any occasion at all for the display of my existence!

== Gyan Chand, p. 474

FWP:

SETS == SUBJECT?
ISLAMIC: {10,2}
VEIL: {6,1}

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.

As Gyan Chand notes in discussing {424x,1}, the addressee throughout this ghazal seems to be the Lord (or else a beloved so divinized that it's hard to tell the difference).

It's hard to avoid seeing this verse as theologically heretical. On the mildest reading of the first line, those who pray are accused not only of 'self-worship', but also of (consciously? unconsciously?) using their prayer and humility as a 'veil' for this self-worship. The second line makes it clear that such 'self-worship' is deeply inescapable: the 'forehead' that does prostrations comes from the Lord, and so does the 'doorsill' on which the prostrations are done. Muslims are commanded to pray, but prayer turns out to be inherently tainted by 'self-worship'. But since everything comes from the Lord, including one's own self, how could one be expected to escape from this dilemma?

A more piquant reading of this dilemma would take the tujh se to refer to the addressee himself. On this existentialist reading, the addressee seems somehow to imagine himself into existence: he creates or generates both his own forehead, and the doorsill where he prostrates himself.

It's even possible that the Lord himself might be the one charged with 'self-worship'. He creates the worshipers, and requires them to pray; and he himself receives their prayers. This certainly sounds like a (not very) 'veiled' form of 'self-worship'.

Compare the intriguing {26,7}, which plays with some of the same ideas ('Whose life is it, anyway?'). There's also the famous verse-set that begins with {162,4}, and meditates on the strange multiplicity of the world, when really there's nobody there except the Lord.