Saba – The Eternal Messenger of the Heart

There is something tragically human about a man speaking to the wind. It is the final act of someone who has nothing left, no messengers, no letters, no paths; only breath. When he whispers “In nalti ya reeh as-saba, yauman ila ard il-haram, balligh salaami raudatan, feehi an-nabi yul-mohtaram,” he is not composing a verse; he is sending his soul to travel where his body cannot go.  “O gentle breeze, if one day you pass through the sacred land, carry my greetings to that blessed garden where rests the most honoured Prophet.”

It is said that these words were spoken by Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, the son of Imam Husayn ibn Ali, after the tragedy of Karbala. The battlefield had fallen silent, yet grief still echoed in the desert wind. He was taken captive, his body frail, his heart heavy with sorrow. In that stillness of pain, he turned his gaze toward Madinah, the city of his grandfather, the Prophet Muhammad. The path was closed, his feet bound, but his longing could not be chained. He found in the dawn breeze a messenger; a traveler that could go where he could not.

There is a silence inside these lines that speaks louder than words. The wind became the bridge between his captivity and his freedom, between loss and remembrance. That is why Saba is not merely a breeze; it is a soul in motion, a messenger for the wordless heart.

When Mirza Ghalib wrote,

“Ae Baad-e-Saba itna to mere yaar ko kehna,

Wo nain milaaye hue, kis haal mein hain hum,”

he was speaking to the same unseen witness. The tone is weary, the faith unbroken. He trusts that the wind—light, loyal, limitless—will carry his message to the one he cannot reach.

And in the voice of Kishore Kumar, centuries later, the same wind still moved.

“Mere sanam ke dar se agar Baad-e-Saba ho tera guzar,

Kehna sitamgar kuch hai khabar.”

The pain is the same, the language has only changed its form. The lover is gone, but his words still drift on the wind, like the dust of old love letters.

Continually; Faiz Ahmad Faiz probably my favorite urdu poet wrote

“Ae Baad-e-Saba, rukh-e-yaar dekhna,

Kya woh bhi udaas hai, jaise hum udaas hain.”

O breeze of dawn, look upon my beloved’s face—

Is she too lost in sorrow, as I am in mine?

Here, the breeze becomes a companion of grief. It travels across borders of oppression and silence. For Faiz, it carries the scent of resistance and the sighs of those who wait for freedom.

In another poem from Dast-e-Saba, he writes:

“Ae Baad-e-Saba, kab se hai teri talaash,

Tu hi to laati thi khushboo watan ki.”

O breeze of dawn, I have long been searching for you—

It was you who once carried the fragrance of my homeland.

Across time and faith, Saba has remained unchanged. It carries the fragrance of devotion and the dust of love alike. It touches prophets and poets, saints and lovers. It belongs to anyone who has ever waited in silence and still believed that their voice, somehow, will find its way.

In the end, when I want my own breath to fade, when I finally lose will to live, I too shall speak to the wind. I will not ask it to carry sorrow, but remembrance. I will ask it to travel beyond my stillness and touch what I loved.

اے بادِ صبا، میرا پیامِ محبت گنگا کے آب تک پہنچا دینا۔

Ae Baad-e-Saba, mera payaam-e muhabbat Ganga ke aab-e Kaashi tak pahunchaa dena.

O breeze of dawn, carry my message of love to the waters of the Ganga in Kashi. Tell her I remembered, even as breath left my body.