Urdu literature ادبیاتِ اُردُو | |
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Urdu literature | |
By category Urdu language | |
Major figures | |
Amir Khusrau (father of Urdu literature) - Wali Dakhani (father of Urdu poetry) - Mir Taqi Mir - Ghalib - Abdul Haq (Baba-e-Urdu) | |
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 movement was a socio-political movement aimed at making Urdu (the standardized register of the Hindustani language), as the universal lingua-franca and symbol of the cultural and political identity of the Muslim communities of the Indian subcontinent during the British Raj. The movement began with the fall of the Mughal Empire in the mid-19th century, fuelled by the Aligarh movement of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. It strongly influenced the All India Muslim League and the Pakistan movement.
The Hindi-Urdu controversy arose in 1867 when the British government prepared to accept the demand of the Hindu communities of the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) and Bihar to change the Perso-Arabic script of the official language to Devanagari and adopt Hindi as the second official language on demand of Hindi activists. Muslim politician Sir Syed Ahmed Khan became the most vocal opponent of this change. [1] He viewed Urdu as the lingua franca of Muslims. Having been developed by the ruling Mughal Empire, what became known as Urdu was used as a secondary language to Persian, the official language of the Mughal court. [1] Since the decline of the Mughal dynasty, Sir Syed promoted the use of Urdu through his own writings. Under Sir Syed, the Scientific Society of Aligarh translated Western works only into Urdu. [1] Sir Syed considered Urdu to be "a common legacy of Hindus and Muslims". [2] The schools established by Sir Syed imparted education in the Urdu-medium. The demand for Hindi, led largely by Hindus was to Sir Syed an erosion of the centuries-old Muslim cultural domination of India. [3] [4] Testifying before the British-appointed education commission, Sir Syed controversially exclaimed that "Urdu was the language of gentry and of people of high social standing, whereas Hindi was to be the vulgar." [1] His remarks provoked a hostile response from Hindu leaders and advocates of Hindi. ". [5] The Hindus unified across the region to demand the recognition of Hindi. The success of the Hindi movement led Sir Syed to further advocate Urdu as the symbol of Muslim heritage and as the language of the Muslim intellectual and political class. [1] His educational and political work grew increasingly centred on and exclusively for Muslim interests. He also sought to persuade the British to give it extensive official use and patronage.
Sir Syed's call for the adoption of Urdu as the language of Indian Muslims won extensive support from the Aligarh Movement and Muslim religious activists. Muslim religious and political leaders Mohsin-ul-Mulk and Maulvi Abdul Haq developed organisations such as the Urdu Defence Association and the Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu, committed to the perpetuation of Urdu. [1] Sir Syed's protege Shibli Nomani led efforts that resulted in the adoption of Urdu as the official language of the Hyderabad State and as the medium of instruction in the Osmania University. This political campaign was criticised for making the use of Urdu a political issue that served as a wedge between Muslims and Hindus, who saw Sir Syed's advocacy as an effort to re-establish Muslim hegemony. [1] [6] To Muslims in northern and western India, Urdu became an integral part of political identity and communal separatism. The division over the use of Hindi or Urdu would further fuel communal conflict between Muslims and Hindus in India. [1] The All India Muslim League and the Jamaat-e-Islami projected Urdu as essential for the political and cultural survival of Islamic society in India. Muslim politicians like Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Liaquat Ali Khan emphasised Urdu as the symbol of Muslim heritage and political identity. The political cause of Urdu became a core issue at the heart of the Two-Nation Theory , which advocated that Muslims and Hindus were irreconcilably separate nations. Advocates of the Pakistan movement sought to make Urdu a key argument in drawing distinctions with India's Hindu-majority population. Muslim religious leaders such as Maulana Mohammad Ali, Maulana Shaukat Ali and Maulana Maududi emphasised the knowledge of Urdu as essential for ordinary and religious Muslims.
In Pakistan, Urdu has been so far, the National language and the Lingua franca, while English holds the status as one of the official languages of the state. However, this policy caused considerable political turmoil in East Bengal, which was home to Bengali-speaking population who constituted the majority of the population of Pakistan. Jinnah, most West Pakistani politicians emphasised that only Urdu would be recognised officially. This intensified the cultural and political gulf between West Pakistan and East Pakistan. The East Pakistan Awami Muslim League (the predecessor of the Awami League), established by A. K. Fazlul Huq, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1949 would lead the demand for the recognition of Bengali. Intensifying protests and strikes led by political groups, unions and students groups would lead to the imposition of martial law. The killing of protesting students by police in 1952 triggered a massive wave of protests in the province, which would come to be known as the Bengali Language Movement. Although politicians like Khawaja Nazimuddin supported the cause of Urdu, a vast majority of Bengali nationalists saw the government policy as a symbol of racial discrimination. This wedge in Pakistani society would ultimately lead to the Bangladesh Liberation War and the establishment of Bangladesh in 1971.
Independent India adopted Urdu as one of its 22 scheduled languages although its counterpart, Hindi, enjoys the status of official language. Urdu is also officially recognised by the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar and Delhi. Urdu is widely used by Indian Muslims across the country and there are a large number of Urdu-medium schools, colleges and universities, including madrassahs, the Jamia Millia Islamia and the Aligarh Muslim University. Urdu is also a part of popular culture, media and publications. Numerous Urdu language films have been produced, which include Umrao Jaan, Shatranj Ke Khiladi and Pakeezah .
Despite being given the status of a scheduled language, there have been concerns that the Urdu language has largely been on a decline in India. This decline has been attributed to reasons such as lack of promotional policies by central language regulation boards, the promulgation and preference of Urdu's counterpart Hindi as the Indian union's official language since 1950, the higher number of Hindi-speakers in India leading to the suppression of Urdu, the partition of India and Urdu's national language status in Pakistan overshadowing the language's prospects in India, as well as the lack of many schools in India teaching Urdu as a medium of instruction. [7]
Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where it is also an official language alongside English. In India, Urdu is an Eighth Schedule language, the status and cultural heritage of which are recognised by the Constitution of India; and it also has an official status in several Indian states. In Nepal, Urdu is a registered regional dialect and in South Africa it is a protected language in the constitution. It is also spoken as a minority language in Afghanistan and Bangladesh, with no official status.
Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in North India, Pakistan and the Deccan and used as the official language of India and Pakistan. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu. Thus, it is also called Hindi–Urdu. Colloquial registers of the language fall on a spectrum between these standards. In modern times, a third variety of Hindustani with significant English influences has also appeared which is sometimes called Hinglish or Urdish.
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, also spelled Sayyid Ahmad Khan, was an Indian Muslim reformer, philosopher, and educationist in nineteenth-century British India.
The All-India Muslim League (AIML) was a political party established in Dhaka in 1906 when some well-known Muslim politicians met the Viceroy of India, Lord Minto, with the goal of securing Muslim interests in British India.
The Bengali language movement was a political movement in former East Bengal in 1952 advocating the recognition of the Bengali language as a co-lingua franca of the then-Dominion of Pakistan to allow its use in government affairs, the continuation of its use as a medium of education, its use in media, currency and stamps, and to maintain its writing in the Bengali script.
Hindustani or Colloquial Hindi is one of the predominant languages of South Asia, with federal status in the republics of India and Pakistan in its standardized forms of Hindi and Urdu respectively. It is widely spoken and understood as a second language in Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Persian Gulf and as such is considered a lingua franca in the northern Indian subcontinent. It is also one of the most widely spoken languages in the world by total number of speakers. It developed in north India, principally during the Mughal Empire, when the Persian language exerted a strong influence on the Western Hindi languages of central India; this contact between the Hindu and Muslim cultures resulted in the core Indo-Aryan vocabulary of the Indian dialect of Hindi spoken in Delhi, whose earliest form is known as Old Hindi, being enriched with Persian loanwords. Rekhta, or "mixed" speech, which came to be known as Hindustani, Hindi, Hindavi, and Urdu, also locally known as Lashkari or Lashkari Zaban in long form, was thus created. This form was elevated to the status of a literary language, and after the partition of colonial India and independence this collection of dialects became the basis for modern standard Hindi and Urdu. Although these official languages are distinct registers with regards to their formal aspects, such as modern technical vocabulary, they continue to be all but indistinguishable in their vernacular form. From the colonial era onwards, Hindustani has also taken in many words from English, with an urban English-influenced variety emerging known as Hinglish.
Shibli Nomani was an Islamic scholar, poet, philosopher, historian, educational thinker, author, orator, reformer and critic of orientalists from Indian subcontinent during the British Raj. He is regarded as the father of Urdu historiography. He was also proficient in Arabic and Persian languages. Shibli was associated with two influential movements in the region, the Aligarh and the Nadwa movements. As a supporter of the Deobandi school, he believed that English language and European sciences should be incorporated into the education system. Shibli wrote several biographies of Muslim heroes, convinced that Muslims of his time could learn valuable lessons from the past. His synthesis of past and modern ideas contributed significantly to Islamic literature produced in Urdu between 1910 and 1935. Shibli established the Darul Musannefin Shibli Academy in 1914 to promote Islamic scholarship and also founded the Shibli National College in 1883. He collected much material on the life of Muhammad, and completed the first two volumes of the planned work, Sirat al-Nabi. His disciple, Sulaiman Nadvi, added to this material and wrote the remaining five volumes after Shibli's death.
Mohammad Ali Jauhar was an Indian Muslim freedom activist, a preeminent member of Indian National Congress, journalist and a poet, a leading figure of the Khilafat Movement and one of the founders of Jamia Millia Islamia.
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Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk, Munir Nawaz Jang, also known as Syed Mehdi Ali, was an Indian Muslim politician. He was a close friend of Syed Ahmed Khan, was involved in the Aligarh Movement and was one of the founders of the All India Muslim League in 1906.
The Hindi–Urdu controversy arose in 19th century colonial India out of the debate over whether Modern Standard Hindi or Standard Urdu should be chosen as a national language.
Maulvi Abdul Haq was a scholar and a linguist, who some call Baba-e-Urdu. Abdul Haq was a champion of the Urdu language and he demanded for it to be made the national language of Pakistan.
The Scientific Society of Aligarh was a literary society founded by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan at Aligarh, India. The main objectives of the society were to translate Western works on arts and science into vernacular languages and promote western education among the masses.
The Urdu Defence Association was an organisation developed by Mohsin-ul-Mulk, starting in 1900, for the advocacy of Urdu as the lingua franca of the Muslim community of India. The association is regarded as an offshoot of the Aligarh Movement.
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This bibliography of Shibli Nomani is a selected list of generally available scholarly resources related to Shibli Nomani, a poet, philosopher, historian, educational thinker, author, orator, reformer, critic of orientalists and Islamic scholar from the Indian subcontinent during the British Raj, regarded as the father of Urdu historiography. His disciple Sulaiman Nadvi wrote his biography, Hayat-e-Shibli, in 1943. This list will include his biographies, theses written on him and articles published about him in various journals, newspapers, encyclopedias, seminars, websites, etcetera in APA style.