mudda((aa dar-pardah ya((nii jo kahuu;N baa:til samajh
vuh farangii-zaadah khaataa hai qasam injiil kii
1a) the intention veiled-- that is, 'consider what I would/might say [to be] vain/false'
1b) the intention veiled-- that is, having considered whatever I would/might say [to be] vain/false
2) that 'son of a European' takes {an oath / oaths} on the Gospel!
baa:til : 'False, untrue, wrong, incorrect; fictitious, spurious, unreal, unfounded, unsound; vain, futile, worthless, useless, unprofitable'. (Platts p.122)
farangii : 'European; — Frank; a European; an Englishman'. (Platts p.780)
zaadah : 'Born, born of; — son, offspring'. (Platts p.614)
injiil : 'The Evangel ... ; the New Testament, the Gospel'. (Platts p.89)
The Lord knows why an oath on the Gospel became vain/false-- and that too, on the tongue of a 'son of a European'! And then, why did the intention remain veiled?
According to Islamic belief, the Gospel is an abrogated and vain/false book. That English beloved swears on the Gospel, the meaning of which is that his intention is not that which is apparent in his words. He is announcing, 'Consider my words false'.
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
'The intention is veiled' is of course highly ambiguous; the purported explanation ('that is') doesn't exactly clear things up. The commentators read the first line as (1a): the beloved inwardly intends to lie, and so he swears on a non-binding book, the Christian Gospel. But then, can this really be called a 'veiled' intention, since it's so entirely clear to the speaker? Moreover, the 'son of a European' is very likely to be a Christian, so would he really consider the Gospel to be a non-binding book to swear on?
There's also the possible reading (1b)-- that the beloved considers the speaker's intention to be veiled, such that any words the speaker might say would be false. In response, the beloved takes an oath (of some unspecified kind) on the Gospel. (On the poetic possibilities of qasam , see {89,3}.)
But why is the beloved called a 'son of a European'? (The suffix zaadah is far more likely to refer to a son than a daughter; for other verses in which the beloved is a youth, see {9,2}.) There would seem to be two possibilities: Perhaps the beloved really is a 'European' boy. If so, he is likely to be a Christian, so why would he have such a dismissive view of the Gospel?
Or perhaps the beloved is being called a 'son of a European' in affectionate sarcasm, the way the beloved is often called an 'infidel' [kaafir]-- as for example in {136,2} (in the context of vow-making). In {34,8}, the speaker reproaches himself for having foolishly 'taken an infidel to be a Muslim', and in that verse there's no reason to suspect the involvement of any other religion-- the beloved is a faithless, bad, unworthy Muslim, not a member of some other religion. But in the present verse, if the beloved is not really a 'son of a European', why does he take an oath, or perhaps even oaths in general, on the Gospel?
In short, the verse doesn't really hang together very convincingly. But of course I had to include it, because it's just about the only verse in which Ghalib uses the piquant word farangii .
Asi:
That 'son of a European' beloved swears on the Gospel, and his veiled intention is that whatever he would/might say, he would consider it vain/false, because the Gospel is a celestial book which has already been abrogated and no command of which is fit to act upon.
== Asi, p. 271