Arabic · noun · Iqbal's Emblems

Qumri

क़ुमरी
said qum-ree
also written: Faakhta, qumree, turtledove, fakhta
Meaning

The turtle-dove or ring-dove, a garden bird whose cooing is read as a cry of love and longing.

Literally: turtledove, ringdove

Usage & notes

The qumri is the turtledove whose cooing is heard as ceaseless grieving, classically pictured mourning at the foot of the cypress — its grey collar read as a band of perpetual sorrow, its love bound to the tall, indifferent sarv. It is a companion-emblem to the nightingale in the garden's chorus of longing. Iqbal invokes it as another voice of devoted, captive lament within the same garden of yearning birds.