Comparison of Chapter 7, Poems 19 and 20

Farid al-Din Attar employs a structural chaining technique between Poem 19 and Poem 20 of Chapter 7 in the Mokhtar Nameh. The second hemistiches of Poem 19's two verses (describing Jamshid falling into the bathhouse furnace, and the sun falling into an aperture) are repurposed as the first hemistiches of Poem 20's verses.

While Poem 19 uses these metaphors to contrast the soul's majestic spiritual origin with its descent into the temporary physical body, Poem 20 builds on the same imagery to emphasize the transience of worldly glory and the ultimate emptiness of the physical form (the 'empty casket') once the soul departs. This chaining structurally and conceptually links the soul's physical confinement with its inevitable departure and the dissolution of worldly permanence.