🌙 بی‌یار مخسب امشب | Do Not Sleep Without the Beloved Tonight
There are nights when the heart trembles with remembrance, when silence itself becomes music, and every breath whispers a single name.
In such nights, love is not a concept, nor an emotion, but a living presence, a fire that refuses to let the soul rest.
In this luminous ghazal, Jalal al-Din Rumi calls out to the Beloved: “Do not let us be without You tonight. Do not sleep without the Beloved.”
It is both a lover’s plea and a mystic’s command to himself: Stay awake in love. Stay awake in remembrance.
بی یار مهل ما را بی‌یار مخسب امشب
“Do not leave us without the Beloved; do not sleep without the Beloved tonight.”
From the very first verse, Rumi establishes a sacred tension. He speaks in the language of supplication, yet also of awakening.
The “Beloved” (Yar) is not a human figure here, it is the Divine, the Essence, the One whose presence sustains existence. To be without the Beloved is to fall into forgetfulness, into the sleep of the world.
Every mystic fears this sleep, that moment when the fire cools, when remembrance fades, when the connection loosens. So Rumi cries out:
“Do not let me drift back into separation.”
He begs not only for divine nearness but for the awareness of that nearness.
It is possible to live in the presence of God and yet remain blind. The poet’s plea, then, is a cry against spiritual blindness, against sleeping through the miracle of existence.
زنهار مخور با ما زنهار مخسب امشب
“By all means, do not eat apart from us; by all means, do not sleep apart from us tonight.”
Here, Rumi extends the image. He invites the Beloved not merely to stay near but to share intimacy, to break bread together, to dwell within the same breath.
Food, in Sufi imagery, is the sustenance of the spirit, the remembrance (zikr), the prayer, the inward taste of divine sweetness.
To “eat apart” from the lover is to be absent from love’s banquet.
To “sleep apart” is to live as if the Beloved were far.
Thus, this line is both mystical and deeply human, a yearning for companionship, but also a reminder that the true feast is within. Every moment of remembrance is a bite of that divine bread. Every breath shared with the Beloved is nourishment.
امشب ز خود افزونیم در عشق دگرگونیم
“Tonight, we are beyond ourselves, transformed in love.”
Rumi now describes a spiritual state: “beyond the self.”
Love has turned him inside out. The boundaries that once defined “me” and “You” have melted away. This is fanaa, the annihilation of the ego in divine presence.
He says, “This time, see how we are!”, as though he himself marvels at the transformation.
The lover, drunk with divine wine, no longer recognizes his own voice or face.
In ordinary life, we are bound by reason, habit, and fear, but love upends all. It rewrites the laws of being.
When Rumi says “Tonight, we are changed in love,” he means: We have become what we love.
The fire and the moth have merged; the seeker and the sought are one flame.
این بار ببین چونیم این بار مخسب امشب
“See us this time, look how we are this time; do not sleep tonight.”
There is a sweet desperation here. Rumi speaks as if the Beloved might pass by unnoticed, might overlook the lover’s burning state.
He pleads: “Look at us now, do not turn away.”
This line reveals the paradox of mysticism:
Though God is omnipresent, the lover still yearns for recognition, for a moment of divine gaze.
For Rumi, a single glance from the Beloved carries more weight than a lifetime of worship.
He says, in essence: “If You look upon me once, I am saved. If You pass me by, I am lost.”
ای طوق هوای تو اندر همه گردن‌ها
“O You whose collar of love encircles every neck!”
This verse expands Rumi’s vision beyond the personal to the universal.
Every being, whether aware or not, wears the same invisible collar, the taoq-e-hava, the chain of divine desire.
It is a profound metaphor. Each heart is bound to the Beloved, even when it believes itself free.
Every search, for beauty, success, companionship, peace, is secretly a search for God.
Rumi reminds us that the yearning within us is not weakness but evidence of divine connection. The restlessness of the heart is not a defect; it is proof that we belong to something infinite.
ما را همه شب تنها مگذار مخسب امشب
“Do not leave us alone tonight; do not sleep tonight.”
The repetition here is deliberate. Each “tonight” (emshab) is a drumbeat of longing, an insistence that this moment of nearness must not fade.
Night, in Sufi poetry, symbolizes both separation and secrecy. It is the time when lovers meet unseen, and when mystics turn inward.
Rumi asks the Beloved not to abandon him in the solitude of night, for even his loneliness is sacred when filled with remembrance, but unbearable when empty of presence.
This is the cry of every soul that has tasted union: “Now that I have known You, how can I live without You?”
صیدیم به شست غم شوریده و مست غم
“We are caught in the snare of sorrow, bewildered and drunk with grief.”
Here, Rumi acknowledges the paradox of divine love: it wounds as it heals.
The lover is both enchanted and destroyed. The “net of sorrow” is the web of longing itself, a trap woven by beauty.
He calls himself a shorida, a madman. But this madness is sacred.
In Rumi’s world, reason is the true insanity, and divine madness is the highest wisdom.
To be drunk with grief means to feel separation so deeply that it becomes a form of intoxication, pain so pure it turns into joy.
He prays: “Do not hand us over to grief itself. Let sorrow be only the fragrance of Your nearness.”
ما را تو به دست غم مسپار مخسب امشب
“Do not leave us in the hands of sorrow; do not sleep tonight.”
The lover knows that even grief has its limits. Without the Beloved’s touch, sorrow becomes despair.
So he pleads for divine companionship even within his suffering.
In Sufi thought, grief is not rejection, it is refinement.
The fire of pain burns away all impurities until only love remains. But Rumi asks that this refining flame be held gently, that sorrow not become abandonment.
His cry is universal: “Let me suffer with You, not without You.”
ای سرو گلستان را وی ماه شبستان را
“O cypress of the garden, O moon of the chamber!”
Now the poem turns from plea to praise. Rumi calls the Beloved by images of beauty drawn from Persian tradition.
The cypress stands for grace, dignity, and spiritual uprightness, it grows straight and tall, unswayed by wind.
The moon represents light in darkness, guidance amid confusion.
By invoking both, Rumi paints the Beloved as the perfect balance of majesty and gentleness, a light that illuminates and a form that enchants.
This is not idolatry but symbolic devotion: every beauty in creation mirrors the beauty of the Creator.
To praise the cypress and the moon is to praise the One who made them.
این ماه پرستان را مازار مخسب امشب
“Do not torment these moon-worshipers; do not sleep tonight.”
In the final verse, Rumi identifies himself and all lovers as moon-worshipers, those who lose themselves in beauty.
Their worship may seem foolish to the world, but it is pure devotion. They are intoxicated by divine radiance.
He pleads gently: “Do not torment us tonight. Do not hide Your light.”
It is the tenderest ending, a whisper rather than a cry.
After all the burning, the madness, the longing, Rumi closes with humility and surrender:
We have loved You beyond reason.
We have watched the night for Your light.
Now stay with us until dawn.
✨ The Night of Love and Wakefulness
“Do not sleep without the Beloved tonight”, Rumi’s refrain is both literal and symbolic.
For the mystic, sleep represents forgetfulness, the slumber of the spirit that has lost awareness of its Source.
To stay awake means to remain conscious of the divine presence, to keep the heart open even in darkness.
Every seeker faces this choice: to drift into the comfort of ordinary life, or to remain restless in love.
Rumi chooses restlessness. He would rather be sleepless in devotion than comfortable in indifference.
There is a sacred vigil in these lines, a call to turn the night of separation into the dawn of remembrance.
In the stillness of midnight, when the world sleeps, the lover keeps watch, whispering the Beloved’s name.
This wakefulness is not fatigue; it is illumination.
Each hour of love spent awake brings the soul closer to its origin, until the boundary between “lover” and “Beloved” dissolves completely.
🌹 Love as Wakefulness, Sleep as Forgetfulness
Rumi’s poetry often transforms simple human experiences, eating, sleeping, sorrow, and joy, into spiritual metaphors.
Here, he builds the entire ghazal around the polarity of sleep and wakefulness.
Sleep is forgetfulness, the loss of divine awareness.
Wakefulness is love, the soul’s constant remembrance.
To “sleep without the Beloved” is to forget the truth of existence: that we are not separate, that every heartbeat is a call and an answer.
To “stay awake with the Beloved” is to live consciously, to turn every breath into prayer.
Thus, Rumi’s message is not only for mystics in secluded cells but for anyone seeking meaning in the noise of life.
He reminds us that presence is the real act of devotion. To stay awake in love is to participate in creation itself.
🌙 Closing Reflection
Rumi’s “Do Not Sleep Without the Beloved Tonight” is a song of vigilance, a hymn of the soul refusing to close its eyes to love.
It is the voice of every heart that has ever felt the divine whisper and feared losing it again.
He asks for no miracle, no heaven, no reward. Only this:
That the Beloved not turn away.
That the night not end in forgetfulness.
That the heart remain awake until dawn.
In his plea, we hear the timeless longing of all who seek beauty, truth, and love, a reminder that to live is to remember.
So when night falls and the world grows quiet, let Rumi’s voice echo within you:
“Do not sleep without the Beloved tonight.”
Stay awake.
For the Beloved walks in silence, and those who keep their eyes open may see His light.
