Masnavi M1:15 — بخش ۱ - سرآغاز — در غمِ ما روزها بیگاه شد / روزها با سوزها همراه شد

In our sorrow, the days have grown untimely, The days have become companions to burning pains.

Imagery & metaphor. The poet's voice now fully merges with the reed's, speaking of a collective "our sorrow" (gham-e mā). In this state of grief, time itself becomes distorted: "the days have grown untimely" (rūzhā bīgāh shod). The normal passage of time, from morning to evening, loses its meaning. Day and night blur into a continuous experience of sorrow. The second line reinforces this by stating that the days are no longer just days; they are now "companions to burning pains" (sūzhā). Time is no longer measured by the sun, but by the intensity of the heart's burning. Each day is simply another vessel for the fire of longing.

Mystical meaning. For the lover of God, the experience of separation fundamentally alters the perception of worldly reality, including time. The ordinary concerns that structure the days of most people—work, meals, sleep—become secondary, even meaningless. The lover's inner state of gham (a deep, abiding sorrow and love-longing) and sūz (the burning pain of that longing) becomes the true measure of his existence. Time is no longer a linear progression but a deepening of a single, all-consuming state.

This is not a state of depression in the clinical sense, but a state of profound spiritual focus. The "sorrow" is a sacred one, for it is entirely directed toward the Beloved. It is a sorrow that keeps the lover awake at night in prayer and vigilant during the day against heedlessness. The "burning pains" are the purifying fire of 'ishq that consumes all other loves and concerns. The days becoming "untimely" signifies a shift from chronological time (zaman) to sacred time (waqt), a moment-to-moment awareness of one's relationship with God, where every breath is either a sigh of separation or a prayer for union.

Threads. The theme of love's sorrow distorting the lover's perception of the world is common in love poetry. Rumi here gives it a specifically mystical application, where the "untimeliness" of the days marks the lover's detachment from the temporal world (dunyā) and his attachment to the eternal Beloved.