S. R. Faruqi:

The utterance 'we became all that' is worthy of attention. For 'all' can mean 'everything', and also 'completely'. That is, with regard to quality and quantity both, no difference remained between that/him and us. By 'that/him' can be meant the beloved, and also the Lord. If the beloved is meant, then there can also be the implication that when both will be free from their bodies of dust, only then is union possible between them. Whether the theme be that of meeting with the beloved or meeting with the Lord, in the speaker's tone there's not even the smallest suspicion of sorrow that there will be no union before death. Rather, in the tone there's a devastating confidence and composure.

The idiomatic style of writing the past and intending the future ('we became that' = 'we will become that'; 'that became us' = 'that will become us') he has used most appropriately. Besides confidence, there's also the aspect in it that there won't be much delay in the occurrence of this. On one side the veil of the body of dust was lifted, on the other side this took place. In ;xaakii and jahaa;N (meaning 'world') there's also the pleasure of a zila.

This theme too is Mir's own, because according to the Sufis it's possible that at some stage or other a man might meet the Lord and obliterate his own existence. This is possible during life as well as after life is over. But the changing of the existence of the seeker into that of the sought is not established by the Sufis, nor is it true according to the Shari'a. There's a famous Arabic saying, 'Passion is a kind of fire that reduces to ashes everything except the sought one'.

It's possible that Mir might have composed this verse in such a mood, or might have wanted the verse to express such a mood, as the Sufis call in their terminology sukr (extreme intoxication). It's well known of Hazrat Bayazid Bistami that one time, in some state of uncommon absorption and mystical attraction, from his lips there emerged [in Arabic], 'I am pure-- how great is my grandeur!'. It's obvious that with regard to the outward Shari'at, this is heresy. The Mujaddid Sahib, about these words spoken in the state of sukr , has written in his letters, 'Such words that have emerged from the mouths of elders, one ought to look at with regard to their state, and ought to consider their accomplishment as separated from such utterances'. Mir, having mentioned the veil of this 'body of dust', has maintained a kind of veil. That is, the matter of the oneness of seeker and sought he has confided to the world of spirits.

However it may be from a Shari'a perspective, in the tone of this verse there's in any case the grandeur of revelation. He has composed this very same theme, at a slightly lower level, in the second divan like this [{735,4}]:

ek the ham ve nah hote hast agar
apnaa honaa biich me;N ;haa))il hu))aa

[we and that one were one-- if existence had not been
our existence was a hindrance in between]

See ghazal:

{307}

FWP:

SETS
MOTIFS == VEIL
NAMES
TERMS == ZILA

There's almost a 'misdirection' [iihaam] in that initial phrase: jism-e ;xaakii kaa jahaa;N is so readily readable as 'the world of the physical body'. Only after we hear pardah u;Thaa are we able to judge that the more probable reading is going to be based on the relative-pronoun sense of jahaa;N ; though even then it's not entirely guaranteed. But since both readings are possible from the start, the seductive power of the 'world' reading doesn't really rise to the level of an active 'misdirection'.

There's also a pantheistic 'one with the universe' reading ('we became all that, all that became us') in which no divinity is necessary. But within the larger universe of Mir's ghazal world, it does seem far more likely that he means for the verse to be read Sufistically.

Along the same lines of mystical identity with the divine, but more baroquely elaborate, see Ghalib's famous

G{32,1}.