In mahmā taʾmurī al-qalba yafʿal, the heart is treated as though it were an agent capable of hearing a command and obeying. This is close to personification: a bodily organ is described through deliberate human action.
Read alongside qātilī, the image forms a paradox of feeling. The beloved’s love causes suffering, yet the heart remains unable to resist her orders. The poet compresses that contradiction into a single rhetorical question.
The heart is not being discussed as an anatomical organ; it represents desire, emotional commitment, and inclination. A physical noun acquires a psychological meaning through the poem’s imagery.