FWP:
SETS == DEFINITION
RELIGIONS verses: {14,2}; {38,7}; {59,5}; {60,2}; {60,8}*; {91,8}; {93,3x}; {99,7}; {102,2}; {109,5x}; {111,14}; {112,1}; {115,2}; {118,1}; {120,8}; {121,9x}; {143,7x}; {145,7x}; {173,7}; {173,10}; {174,6}; {204,7}*, on prayer-beads vs. sacred-thread; {208,9}; {231,6} // {245x,5}; {251x,6}; {255x,8}; {255x,10}; {269x,1}; {298x,4}*; {300x,5}; {360x,9}*; {433x,2}; {438x,8}; {438x,7}; {440x,1}, mosque and idol-house
In general, Ghalib's references to other religions are very
sympathetic; he establishes a kind of mystical parallelism that unites them
all under the great banner of passion and faithfulness. And when he speaks
more skeptically about religions, as in the unpublished {93,3x},
then too he sees them as a group with shared qualities and roles.
In {59,5}, the lover accepted the likelihood that people would abuse him with the general term 'infidel' because of his 'worship' of an 'infidel idol'. In the present verse, people call him a 'fire-worshipper', as though he had abandoned Islam for the Zoroastrian creed of the Parsis. Only the 'people of the world' do this, of course, and we in the ghazal world know their limitations all too well; see {5,6} for a scathing indictment of them that also turns on imagery of fire.
The verse is built on the wordplay of fire: 'fire-worshipper',
'hot-headed', 'spark-scattering'. But of course, if the lover's burning hot
sighs scatter sparks in all directions, the source of the fire must be an
inward one. And since the lover eagerly pursues his 'worship' of this inner
fire, he must be absorbed in cultivating the fiery wounds of passion in his
heart; in {19,1}, he actually uses his fingernails
to claw these wounds open and keep them from healing. So behind the wordplay
there's even a literal sense in which the lover can rightly be described as
a 'fire-worshipper'. For after all, the verse never claims that in this particular
case the 'people of the world' are wrong.
Nazm:
That is, the way in which people devote themselves to worshipping fire-- with that same relish and ardor I am always hot-headedly eager to make fiery laments. (56)
== Nazm page 56