The ghazal is a form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. Ghazals often deal with topics of spiritual and romantic love and may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation from the beloved and the beauty of love in spite of that pain.
Urdu poetry is a tradition of poetry and has many different forms. Today, it is an important part of the culture of India and Pakistan. According to Naseer Turabi, there are five major poets of Urdu: Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Ghalib, Mir Anees, Muhammad Iqbal and Josh Malihabadi. The language of Urdu reached its pinnacle under the British Raj, and it received official status. All famous writers of Urdu language including Ghalib and Iqbal were given British scholarships. Following the Partition of India in 1947, it found major poets and scholars were divided along the nationalistic lines. However, Urdu poetry is cherished in both the nations. Both the Muslims and Hindus from across the border continue the tradition.
Urdu literature comprises the literary works, written in the Urdu language. While it tends to be dominated by poetry, especially the verse forms of the ghazal and nazm, it has expanded into other styles of writing, including that of the short story, or afsana. Urdu literature is popular mostly in Pakistan, where Urdu is the national language, and in India, where it is an Eighth Schedule language.
A baḥr means a meter in Arabic, Persian, Turkic and Urdu poetry. Essentially, bahr is a specific pattern, combining the arkaan of Urdu prosody that define the "length" of a sher. However, generally bahr is categorized in three classes: Short, medium, long, depending upon the length of the sher of the ghazal.
Momin Khan Momin was a late Mughal era poet known for his Urdu ghazals. A lesser-known contemporary of Ghalib and Zauq, he used "Momin" as his pen name. His grave is located in the Mehdiyan cemetery in Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi.
Mir Muhammad Taqi, known as Mir Taqi Mir, was an Urdu poet of the 18th century Mughal India and one of the pioneers who gave shape to the Urdu language itself. He was one of the principal poets of the Delhi School of the Urdu ghazal and is often remembered as one of the best poets of the Urdu language. His pen name (takhallus) was Mir. He spent the latter part of his life in the court of Asaf-ud-Daulah in Lucknow.
Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan (1797–1869), also known as Mirza Ghalib, was an Indian poet. He was popularly known by the pen names Ghalib and Asad. His honorific was Dabir-ul-Mulk, Najm-ud-Daula. During his lifetime, the already declining Mughal Empire was eclipsed and displaced by the British East India Company rule and finally deposed following the defeat of the Indian Rebellion of 1857; these are described through his work.
Shan-ul-Haq Haqqee, Sitara-e-Imtiaz, Tamgha-e-Quaid-i-Azam, was an Urdu poet, writer, journalist, broadcaster, translator, critic, researcher, linguist and lexicographer of Pakistan.
Mirza Ghalib is a 1954 Indian Hindi and Urdu language biographical film, directed by Sohrab Modi. Based on the life of well-known poet Mirza Ghalib, the film was acclaimed upon release. It stars Bharat Bhushan as Ghalib and Suraiya as his tawaif lover, Moti Begum. The film won the President's Gold Medal for the All India Best Feature Film and the President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Hindi in the 2nd National Film Awards for 1954. The film is also considered as one of Suraiya's best performance.
Rekhta was an early form of the Hindustani language. This style evolved in both the Perso-Arabic and Devanagari scripts and is considered an early form of Modern Standard Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi. According to the Pakistani linguist and historian Tariq Rehman, Rekhta was a highly Persianized register of Hindustani, exclusively used by poets. It was not only the vocabulary that was Persianized, but also the poetic metaphors, inspired by Indian landscapes and seasons, were abandoned in favor of the Persian ones i.e. bahaar (spring) replacing barsaat.
Koath is a notified area in Rohtas district in the Indian state of Bihar.
Gopi Chand Narang was an Indian theorist, literary critic, and scholar who wrote in Urdu and English. His Urdu literary criticism incorporated a range of modern theoretical frameworks including stylistics, structuralism, post-structuralism, and Eastern poetics.
Syed Ali Jawad Zaidi was an Indian Urdu poet, scholar, and author of over 80 books in several languages. He was also an Indian independence activist, lawyer and later, a civil servant, but is best known for his work in Urdu literature.
Malik Ram Baveja (1906–1993) was a renowned Urdu, Persian and Arabic scholar from India. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983 for his monumental work Tazkirah-e-Muasireen.
Abdul Qavi Desnavi was an Indian Urdu language writer, critic, bibliographer and linguist. He wrote many books on Urdu literature. His works included about Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Mirza Ghalib and Allama Muhammad Iqbal. He was awarded with several awards for his literary works.
Ghalib ki Haveli is a haveli in Gali Qasim Jan, Ballimaran, in the Chandni Chowk neighbourhood of Old Delhi. It was the residence of the 19th-century Indian poet Ghalib and is now a heritage site. Its Mughal architecture reflects the period when the Mughal era was on the decline in India.
Kalidas Gupta Riza (1925–2001) was an Indian writer and authority on the writings of the Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib. He authored several books on Ghalib. A recipient of the Ghalib Award in 1987, he was honored by the government of India in 2001 with the fourth-highest Indian civilian award of Padma Shri. Riza's edition of Ghalib's DiwanDiwan-e-'Raza, published in 1995, supplanted Imtiaz Ali 'Arshi''s 1958 version as the most comprehensive and chronologically correct edition of Ghalib's Urdu poetry.
Kalim Aajiz was an Indian writer of Urdu literature and a poet. He was an academic and chairman of the Urdu Advisory Committee of the Government of Bihar. He was a recipient of the fourth highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Shri from the Government of India in 1989.
The Urdu ghazal is a literary form of the ghazal-poetry unique to the Indian subcontinent, written in the Urdu standard of the Hindostani language. It is commonly asserted that the ghazal spread to South Asia from the influence of Sufi mystics in the Delhi Sultanate.
Imtiaz AliArshi was an Indian research scholar best known as an authority on the works of Mirza Ghalib. He published works on Ghalib, Maktiba-e-Ghalib (1937), Intikhab-e-Ghalib (1943), culminating in his edition of Ghalib's Diwan titled Nuskha-e-Arshi published in 1958. Arshi was awarded the 1961 Sahitya Akademi Award winners for Urdu for the Diwan.
