Urdu literature ادبیاتِ اُردُو | |
---|---|
Urdu literature | |
By category Urdu language Rekhta | |
Major figures | |
Amir Khusrau (father of Urdu literature) - Wali Dakhani (father of Urdu poetry) - Mir Taqi Mir - Ghalib - Abdul Haq (Baba-e-Urdu) - Muhammad Iqbal | |
Urdu writers | |
Writers – Novelists – Poets | |
Forms | |
Ghazal – Fiction | |
Institutions | |
Anjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu Urdu movement Literary Prizes | |
Related Portals Literature Portal Pakistan Portal | |
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. [1]
A ghazal is composed of ashaar, which are similar to couplets, that rhyme in a pattern of AA BA CA DA EA (and so on), with each individual she'r (couplet) typically presenting a complete idea not necessarily related to the rest of the poem. [2] They are often described as being individual pearls that make up a united necklace.
Classically, the ghazal inhabits the consciousness of a passionate, desperate lover, wherein deeper reflections of life are found in the audience's awareness of what some commentators and historians call "The Ghazal Universe", which can be described as a store of characters, settings, and other tropes the genre employs to create meaning. [3]
A ghazal is composed of five or more ashaar (singular she'r), which are complete texts even when pulled from the rest of the ghazal. [4] In the vast majority of ghazals, there is not logical connection or flow between ashaar in terms of content or theme. [5]
They are often described as couplets by Western audiences and critics, yet using the word "couplet" to describe a she'r is not entirely accurate, as ghazals do not have the rhyme scheme of couplets, nor are they a Western poetic form. [6]
A she'r will often contains what Agha Shahid Ali described as "voltas" or "turns" from the first misra (line) to the second, where the intention of the poet is to surprise the reader or invert expectations. [7]
The matla is the first she'r of a ghazal. [4] In this she'r, the poet established the radif, qaafiya, and beher (meter) that the rest of the ghazal will follow. [8]
The maqta is the final she'r of a ghazal, where the poet will often include their Takhallus. [9] These ashaar tend to be more personal by the poet referring to themselves, diverting from the ghazal's universal and self-transcendent qualities. [9]
Meter is considered intrinsic to the craft, with some classical poets being mocked for crafting meter incorrectly. [10] Meter for Urdu is completely unlike meter in English poetry, as scansion of an Urdu ghazal is based upon rules in Arabic scansion. [11] The distinction between long and short syllables is not based on vowel length, like it is in English poetry scansion. [10] Instead, a long syllable generally contains two letters, while a short syllable generally contains one. [10]
There are many special rules that poets employ, such as the do chashmi he character, which denotes aspiration in the Nastaliq script, being metrically invisible. [10]
Metrical feet (rukn) are represented by mnemonic words called afaail, which both emulate and name the metrical foot. [12] For example, maf'uulan denotes three long syllables in a metrical foot, while fa'lun denotes two long syllables. [12]
The Urdu ghazal makes use of two main rhymes: the radif and qaafiya. [9] The radif is a repeating refrain consisting of a single word or short phrase that ends every second line in the ghazal. [9] However, in the matla, the first she'r of a ghazal, the radif will end both lines of the she'r. [8]
The qaafiya is a rhyming syllable that precedes the radif. [8]
In this ghazal by Mir Taqi Mir, the qaafiya is bolded and the radif is underlined:
hastī apnī habābkī sī hai
ye numā.ish sarābkī sī hai
nāzukī us ke lab kī kyā kahiye
pañkhuḌī ik gulābkī sī hai
chashm-e-dil khol is bhī aalam par
yaañ kī auqāt ḳhvābkī sī hai
baar baar us ke dar pe jaatā huuñ
hālat ab iztirābkī sī hai
nuqta-e-ḳhāl se tirā abrū
bait ik intiḳhābkī sī hai [13]
Literature written in Hindi-Urdu was not common prior to the 1700s. [14] In North India, rich literary cultures existed in Awadhi and Brajbhasha, with earliest Awadhi texts dating to the 14th century. [15] In Delhi, poets wrote in Persian, while Rekhta/Hindvi (what is now recognizable as Hindi-Urdu) did not have the same literary recognition. [16]
In the 17th century, Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, the founder of Hyderabad, composed ghazal in Persian, Urdu, and Telugu. [17] He also began a tradition of arts patronage and promoted Hyderabad as a literary city of Urdu in Southern India. [17]
Critic and Scholar Shamsur Rahman Faruqi notes that one story claims the poet Wali was one of the first to draw from the store of Persian literary culture to write ghazal in Hindi-Urdu. [14]
The poet Mir Taqi Mir is often lauded as ushering in a "Golden Age" of Urdu ghazal poetry in the early 18th century by mastering the blend of Persian influences with the common and idiomatic Urdu. [18] Another classical poet, Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda is notable for his poetry being socially aware, and sometimes even satirical. [19]
During this era, poets made a living by attracting the financial patronage of the courts. [19] The Oudh State gained a reputation for being one of the most generous, leading to many poets flocking to Lucknow, Farrukhabad, and Faizabad. [19]
In Delhi, the Red Fort served as both a location where mushaira were hosted, and as an institution that provided patronage to poets such as Ghalib, Zauq, Dagh, and Momin. [20]
The literary establishment of Delhi was split by the Indian Rebellion of 1857, as Ustad Zauq and Maulvi Muhammad Baqar supported the uprising, believing it would restore the Mughal Court to glory. [21] Both were later hung by the British for treason. [21]
The last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, wrote this verse while imprisoned by the British after the uprising ended:
Sabhi jagah matam-e-sakht hai, kaho kaisi gardish-e-bakht hai
Na wo taj hai na wo takht hai na wo shah hai na dayar hai
Everywhere there is the lament and wails of mourning, how terrible is the turn of fate
Neither the crown, nor the throne, nor the emperor or the kingdom remains [22]
In the aftermath of the rebellion, the old institutions of patronage, ustads, and mushaira ended. [6]
In the late 19th century, reform movements of Urdu's literary landscape were influenced by the impacts of British colonialism. [23] One notable leader in the modernist Islamic reform movement was Altaf Hussain Hali, who believed the ghazal to be outdated and limited in its particular rules of craft. [24] Syed Ahmad Khan argued that Urdu literature should be remodeled after the English forms and conventions. While the classical ghazal embraced ambiguity, emotional hyperbole, and wordplay, the Aligarh Movement proposed that literature should be simple, clear, and modern. [25]
One of the largest organizations dedicated to preserving the Urdu ghazal is Rekhta Foundation, which has digitized over 90,000 Urdu literary works, including ghazal.[ citation needed ] For the past five years, it has hosted the annual event Jashn-e-Rekhta. [26]
Bollywood has also adapted the Urdu ghazal for movie audience, creating a sub-genre called Filmi-ghazal. [27] Movies such as Umrao Jaan (1981 film) and The Chess Players (film) have also portrayed the cultural decadence associated with ghazal. [28]
Women writers also began to receive recognition for writing ghazal after carving space for themselves during the 1940s in the masculine, male-dominated mushaira. [29] Writers such as Fahmida Riaz and Kishwar Naheed have expanded the ghazal to explore feminist perspectives and speak on issues in society. [30]
The Urdu ghazal can be sung with music in the Sufi Qawalli tradition, which is popular in South Asia. [31] They are also commonly sung outside of Sufi shrines called Dargah. Another way to recite ghazal is tarannum, which is a mix of heightened speaking and low-key singing, often described as chanting. [11]
Ghazal are traditionally performed at Mushaira, literary events that were historically held in the Mughal Courts, but in current times can be anywhere. At a mushaira, the order of poets who read their poems is in order from novice to master. [32] The Mushaira is also considered to be a professional workshop, where poets can improve their ghazal after seeing how the audience reacts to certain parts. [20]
A group of poets and poetry admirers is called a Mehfil that historically and culturally gathers around like an audience to listen to the poet and to show appreciation to the performance.
The Urdu ghazal makes use of a store of common characters, settings, images, and metaphors that inform both readers and poets of how to navigate the aforementioned ghazal universe. [33] These tropes have been cultivated for hundreds of years and are meant to deeply resonate with listeners of the ghazal, invoking their expectations of meaning. [33]
Because the ghazal's ashaar are only two lines long, a reader's understanding comes not just from reading a singular she'r, but also from considering that she'r in the context of its relation to pre-established ideas in the ghazal tradition. [4] Readers commonly navigate new she'r by comparing them to other she'r and reflecting upon similarities or divergences. [4]
The characters of the ghazal create expectations within the audience of how the speaker and addressees of the ghazal might act. [20] [33] The central characters are implicated in the classic love situation of the lover pursuing the beloved, while the other secondary characters mostly add to the lover's troubles. [34]
There are common settings wherein ghazals take place that usually shape the circumstances of the ghazal's meaning. [20]
Hoon garmi-i-nishat-i-tasavvur se naghma sanj
Main andalib-i-gulshan-i-na afridah hoon
- Ghalib
I sing from the warmth of the passionate joy of thought
I am the bulbul of a garden not yet created [36]
The ghazal is notable for its exaggerated, far-fetched, and elevated imagery with highly figurative language. [38]
ġham-e-hastī kā 'asad' kis se ho juz marg ilaaj sham.a har rañg meñ jaltī hai sahar hote tak Asad, what can cure the grief of existence, except dying? The candle is obliged to burn before extinguishing at dawn.
A common theme of the ghazal is of the tortured ('ashiq) pursuing an indifferent or cruel beloved (mehboob). [23] The gender of both the speaker and the addressee of a ghazal can be heterosexual, homoerotic, or fluid and indeterminate. [14] Through this ambiguity of personhood, the beloved is an ideal of love where deeper reflections of life, death, and god can be expressed. [14]
Therefore, love in the ghazal is not only that of factual human love affairs (ishq-e-mijazi), but also of a divine union and mystical transcendence (ishq-e-haqaqi). [23]
Sufi thought first entered the ghazal genre in the Persian language before eventually entering in Urdu as well. [40] In the ghazal, themes of love and union with a lover simultaneously refer to union with the divine in a mystical Islamic tradition. [23] Love for a Sufi is the presence of God, not the presence of physical passion. [40] Many poets have written she'r which parody orthodox religious puritans, as in this she'r of Ghalib: [40]
What! the Waiz standing aface the tavern door!
But, believe me, Ghalib, I did see him stealing in as I departed
kahāñ mai-ḳhāne kā darvāza 'ġhālib' aur kahāñ vaa.iz
par itnā jānte haiñ kal vo jaatā thā ki ham nikle
In this motif of the ghazal, the poets are often indifferent to their own implication of running into the religious figures at the tavern. [40]
Another motif present in the ghazal is unbounded love for the beloved and destruction of self that is parallel to the Sufi practice of fana. [40]
The ghazal as a genre embraces the concealment or rejection of one's love, viewing this as an intensification of feeling. [40] The poet will often depict their self in positions of destitution with tattered clothing, or with stones being thrown at them. [40] A key theme is that the beloved and lover are never united. [40]
In this she'r by Ghalib, he invokes eternal longing and pain from the story of Layla and Majnun: [40]
maiñ ne majnūñ pe laḌakpan meñ 'asad'
sañg uThāyā thā ki sar yaad aayā
Even as I, a young lad, picked up a stone to cast at Majnun
The vision of my own bleeding head as I would grow up passed before my eyes [and the stone dropped from my hand
-Ghalib
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 (d.1810), Mirza Ghalib, Mir Anees (d.1874), Muhammad Iqbal and Josh Malihabadi (d.1982). 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.
Mir Babar Ali Anees, also known as Mir Anees was an Indian Urdu poet. He used his pen-name (takhallus) of Anees in poetry. Anees used Persian, Urdu, Arabic, and Sanskrit words in his poetry. Anis wrote prolonged Marsias, which was a custom of his times, but nowadays only selected sections are narrated even in religious ceremonies. He died in 1291 Hijra, corresponding with 1874 CE.
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.
In Persian, Turkic and Urdu poetry, the maqta' is the final bayt, or couplet, of a ghazal. In this sense, it is the opposite of the matla'. The poet's takhallus, or pen name, is usually employed in the maqta', often in very creative ways.
In Persian, Turkic, Hindustani and Punjabi, the word takhallus means a pen name. Pen names were widely adopted by Persian, Turkic, Urdu and Punjabi poets.
Shabkhoon was an Urdu literary magazine started in June 1966 in Allahabad, India. The magazine was founded and edited by poet and author Shamsur Rahman Faruqi who used to work on it along with his job at the Indian Postal Service. The journal covered the modernist (jadidiyat) voice in Urdu literature at a time when the literary scene was dominated by progressive literature and was hailed as "the harbinger of modernism in Urdu". The Magazine was calligraphed by a scribe (katib) Salimullah Naiyer. Forty years after being started, the journal was published for the last time in June 2006. Though it was popular, it ceased publication owing to editor Shamsur Rahman Faruqi's failing health.
A shayar is a poet who composes sher or couplet in Urdu poetry. A shayar is someone who writes ghazals, nazms using the Urdu, Hindi & Bangla language.
In Islamic cultures of the Middle East, North Africa, Sicily and South Asia, a Diwan is a collection of poems by one author, usually excluding his or her long poems (mathnawī).
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.
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.
Bashir Badr is an Indian poet. He was teaching Urdu in Aligarh Muslim University. He primarily writes in Urdu language particularly ghazals. He also wrote a couplet titled Dushmani Jam Kar Karo in 1972 during Shimla Agreement that revolves around the partition of India. Badr's most of unpublished literary work, including uncertain poems was lost during the 1987 Meerut communal riots, and later he moved to Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
Muqtida Hasan Nida Fazli, known as Nida Fazli, was a prominent Indian Urdu and Hindi poet, lyricist and dialogue writer. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2013 by the government of India for his contribution to literature.
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi was an Indian Urdu language poet, author, critic, and theorist. He is known for ushering modernism to Urdu literature. He formulated fresh models of literary appreciation that combined Western principles of literary criticism and subsequently applied them to Urdu literature after adapting them to address literary aesthetics native to Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. Some of his notable works included Sher-e-Shor Angez (1996), Ka’i Chand The Sar-e Asman (2006), The Mirror of Beauty (2013), and The Sun that Rose from the Earth (2014). He was also the editor and publisher of the Urdu literary magazine Shabkhoon.
Wali Muhammad Wali (1667–1707), also known as Wali Dakhani, Wali Gujarati, and Wali Aurangabadi, was a classical Urdu poet from India.
Mirza Salaamat Ali Dabeer, (29 August 1803 – 6 March 1875) was an Urdu poet who excelled and perfected the art of Marsiya writing. He is considered the leading exponent of Marsiya Nigari or marsiya writing along with Mir Anees.
Mohsin Zaidi was an Indian Urdu poet who used the pen name 'Mohsin'. He is best known as a writer of ghazals, who expressed new ideas with this traditional form.
Syed Taqi Hassan Abedi is an Indian-Canadian physician who is also poet and scholar of the Urdu language.
Rekhta is an Indiamerary web portal started by Rekhta Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the Urdu literature. The Rekhta Library Project, its books preservation initiative, has successfully digitized approximately 200,000 books over a span of ten years. These books primarily consist of Urdu, Hindi and Persian literature and encompass a wide range of genres, including biographies of poets, Urdu poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The collection originates from public and research libraries in the Indian subcontinent. It serves content in multiple scripts such as Devanagari, Roman and, primarily, Nastaliq. It hosts books from centuries earlier and is recognized as the largest website in the world for the preservation of Urdu literature.
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