نالہ کش شیراز کا بلبل ہوا بغداد پرداغ رویا خون کے آنسو جہاں آباد پر

English translation

The Nightingale of Shiraz was the lamentor on Baghdad; Dagh shed the tears of blood on Jahanabad.
(The Nightingale of Shiraz: This is the honorific title of Sheikh Musleh al-Din Sa’adi of Shiraz. This hemistich alludes to Sheikh Sa’adi’s elegy on the destruction, pillage, mass murders and unprecedented atrocities at the hands of Halaku Khan at the time of invasion of the Tartars on Baghdad in 1258. Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Khilafah headed by al-Musta‘a-Åam Billah. Sheikh Sa’adi wrote two allegies, one in Persian and the other in Arabic, of which the first is very famous… Dagh: The Urdu poet Nawab Mirza Khan Dagh. Jahanabad: This is an abbreviation for ‘Shahjahanabad’ which was the name given to Delhi by the Mughal Emperor Shahjahan after rebuilding it. The allusion refers to the allegy of Dagh on the destruction of Delhi at the time of the First War of Indian Independence in 1857.)

Translated by Dr M.A.K. Khalil

Word meanings

نالہ کش: نوحہ کرنے والا۔شيراز کا بلبل: مراد ہے سعدی شیرازی۔