Persian · noun · The Heart & the Body

Tabaahi

तबाही
said ta-baa-hee
also written: tabahi, tabaahee
Meaning

Ruin and devastation, the wreck of a life or heart laid waste by sorrow or passion.

Literally: destruction, ruin

Usage & notes

This sense names the lover's ruin — the willing self-destruction that love demands and the true lover embraces, the wasting of reputation, peace, and self for the beloved. The ghazal does not mourn this ruin so much as wear it proudly: to be undone by love is the lover's vocation and his glory. In the mystical reading the ruin of the false self (the ego that says 'I') is the very gate to union — one must be destroyed to be made whole.