But

Idol; a figure of the beloved so beautiful as to be worshipped, and a symbol of beauty in the ghazal.

Literally: idol, statue; the beautiful beloved

But is the idol — and in love poetry, the beloved as an object of worship, beauty before which the lover kneels. The ghazal delights in the scandal of it: the lover is a but-parast, an idol-worshipper, and the beloved's lane is a temple. Iqbal uses the tension knowingly — the but can be the snare that halts the seeker at a beautiful surface, or a form through which the Formless lets itself be loved; the test is whether one stops at the idol or reads it as a sign.