The ghazal is all about layered meaning, selective revelation, and emotional precision — just like a well-architected system.

A ghazal (غزل) is a classical Persian poetic form — rich, emotional, and deeply structured. It’s a series of couplets (usually 5–15), where:

• 💫 Each couplet is self-contained, like a standalone thought
• 🌀 They all end with the same refrain (a repeating word or phrase)
• 🧠 The poet’s name appears in the final couplet, known as the maqta

Think of it as a dance between longing and clarity, mysticism and metaphor .

The beauty of a ghazal lies in its fragmented wholeness: each couplet is like a drop of truth in its own glass.

You don’t expose everything.
You protect what’s sacred.
You build with rhythm and intentionality.
And sometimes, what looks like love… is really strategy.

A preamble

In Persian culture, poetry is not just art — it’s architecture. A ghazal isn’t simply a poem; it’s a structure, carefully crafted to reveal only what it intends, with rhythm, repetition, and restraint. And in many ways, the work I do in cybersecurity follows the same philosophy.

I’ve built a career designing secure systems, hardening digital environments, and building operational frameworks grounded in the principle of Zero Trust — a model where nothing is assumed safe, and everything must be verified. Every user, device, and action is met with a simple question: should this be allowed?

But Zero Trust isn’t just a technical framework. It’s also cultural. It reflects a shift in mindset — from openness by default to intention by design. It mirrors how we live, how we lead, and how we protect what matters most.

In my Persian heritage, we protect things that are sacred — knowledge, reputation, family, history. We do not hand over our archives or our stories lightly. And this same intentionality now applies to how we secure the digital world.

So when I say “From ghazals to gateways — all access is conditional,” I’m making a statement not only about architecture, but about identity. I believe in structured openness. In layered beauty. In selective trust.

هر آن کسی که در این حلقه نیست زنده به عشق
بر او نمرده به فتوای من نماز کنید— حافظ (Hafez)

“Whoever is not in this circle of love — though they seem alive, by my ruling they are dead. Offer funeral prayer for them.”

In our world, love might look like vigilance. It might look like the unseen labor of defense. If you love your data, your users, your people — you guard them.

With protocols, yes. But also with poetry.

“All Access Is Conditional”

(a modern security poem in ghazal form)

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In this realm of cloud and claim, all access is conditional
The lover may knock, but still — permission is provisional

—

The gate is silent, the ID speaks, its posture holds the key
From signal comes salvation — detection is intuitional

—

Trust no device, no sign-in time, unless the risk aligns
The dance of context and control is wholly intuitional

—

Her token glowed, yet prompts appeared — a second factor asked
The veil may lift, but only when the bond is traditional

—

No open ports, no phantom guests, no silent lateral flow
My realm is built on principle, protection constitutional

—

From Persia’s gardens to Azure clouds, the guardians still remain
Their watchful eyes in every log — the shield is unadditional

—

And Mona writes, like Hafez would, of XDR and fate
To love the user is to test — the trust must be conditional**