A
beginner's guide to the different Urdu Poetry Forms. Here you will find brief
descriptions of each form. The most well known and popular form is the ghazal.
For a more detailed description, please check the article archive. Some
commonly used terms in Urdu poetry are defined in the glossary.If you have any
suggestions about this page, please e-mail them to me at urdupress@yahoo.com.
Introduction
to various Forms of Urdu Poetry
|
Ghazal (pronounced
as "ghuzzle"): Ghazal is a
collection of couplets (shers or ashaar) which follow the rules of 'matla',
'maqta', 'bahar', 'qafiya' and 'radeef'. The couplets are complete in
themselves. All the couplets of a ghazal must be of the same bahar, end in the same words(radeef) and have the same
rhyming pattern (qaafiyaa).
Every ghazal MUST have a matla.
A ghazal may or may not have a maqta but
if it does, it has to be the last sher of the ghazal.
Ghazals which do not have a radeef are called Gair-muraddaf ghazals. In such
cases, the rule of qafiya is strictly followed. These type of ghazals are
very rare. Ghazals with the same radeef are called hamradeef ghazals.The ghazal (Arabic/Pashto/Malay/Persian/Urdu: غزل; Hindi: ग़ज़ल, Punjabi, Nepali, Turkish gazel, Bengali,
Gujarati is a poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain,
with each line sharing the same meter. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic
expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in
spite of that pain. The form is ancient, originating in 6th-century Arabic
verse. It is derived from the Arabian panegyric Qaida.
The structural requirements of the ghazal are similar in stringency to those
of the Petrarch an sonnet. In style and content it
is a genre that has proved capable of an extraordinary variety of expression
around its central themes of love and separation. It is one of the principal
poetic forms which the Indo-Perso-Arabic civilization offered to the eastern
Islamic world.
The ghazal spread into South Asia in the 12th century due to the
influence of Sufi mystics and the courts of the new
Islamic Sultanate.
Although the ghazal is most prominently a form of Dari poetry and Urdu poetry,
today it is found in the poetry of many languages of the Indian
sub-continent.
Ghazals were written by the Persian mystics and poets Rumi (13th century) and Hafiz(14th
century), the Azeri poet Fuzûlî (16th century), as well as Mirza
Ghalib (1797–1869)
and Muhammad
Iqbal (1877–1938),
both of whom wrote ghazals in Persian and Urdu, and the Bengali poet Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976). Through the influence
of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), the ghazal became very
popular in Germany during the 19th century; the form
was used extensively by Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866) and August von Platen (1796–1835). The Indian
American poet Agha Shahid
Ali was a proponent
of the form, both in English and in other languages; he edited a volume of
"real ghazals in English".
It is common in ghazals for the poet's
name to be featured in the last verse (a convention known as takhallus).
Pronunciation
The Arabic word ġazal is pronounced [ˈɣazal],
roughly like the English word guzzle,
but with the ġ pronounced without a
complete closure between the tongue and the soft palate. In India, the
name sounds exotic, as the voiced velar fricative (ġ sound) is not found
in native Indo-Aryan words. This phoneme is often replaced by average
Indo-Aryan and Dravidian speakers with the voiced velar stop /g/ or the murmured velar stop /gʰ/. In English, the word is pronounced /ˈɡʌzəl/ or /ˈɡæzæl/.Themes
Illicit unattainable love The ghazal not only has a specific
form, but traditionally deals with just one subject: love, specifically an
illicit and unattainable love. Ghazals from the Indian sub-continent have an
influence of Islamic Mysticism and the subject of love can usually
be interpreted for a higher being or for a mortal beloved. The love is always
viewed as something that will complete a human being, and if attained will
lift him or her into the ranks of the wise, or will bring satisfaction to the
soul of the poet. Traditional ghazal love may or may not have an explicit
element of sexual desire in it, and the love may be spiritual. The love may
be directed to either a man or a woman.
The ghazal is always written from the
point of view of the unrequited love whose beloved is portrayed as
unattainable. Most often either the beloved does not return the poet's love
or returns it without sincerity, or else the societal circumstances do not
allow it. The lover is aware and resigned to this fate but continues loving
nonetheless; the lyrical impetus of the poem derives from this tension.
Representations of the lover's powerlessness to resist his feelings often include
lyrically exaggerated violence. The beloved's power to captivate the speaker
may be represented in extended metaphors about the "arrows of his
eyes", or by referring to the beloved as an assassin or a killer. Take
for example the following couplets from Amir Khusro's
Persian ghazal Nami danam
chi manzil buud shab:
nemidanam
che manzel bood shab jayi ke man boodam;
be har soo raghse besmel bood shab jayi ke man boodam. pari peykar negari sarv ghadi laleh rokhsari; sarapa afat-e del bood shab jayi ke man boodam. I wonder what was the place where I was last night, All around me were half-slaughtered victims of love, tossing about in agony. There was a nymph-like beloved with cypress-like form and tulip-like face, Ruthlessly playing havoc with the hearts of the lovers.
In the context of Sufism
It is not possible to get a full
understanding of ghazal poetry without at least being familiar with some
concepts of Sufism Many of the
major historical ghazal poets were either avowed Sufis themselves (like Rumi or Hafiz),
or were sympathizers with Sufi ideas. Most ghazals can be viewed in a
spiritual context, with the Beloved being a metaphor for God, or the poet's
spiritual master. It is the intense Divine Love of sufism that serves as a
model for all the forms of love found in ghazal poetry.
Most ghazal scholars today recognize
that some ghazal couplets are exclusively about Divine Love (ishq-e-haqiqi),
others are about "earthly love" (ishq-e-majazi), but many of them
can be interpreted in either context.
Traditionally invoking melancholy,
love, longing, and metaphysical questions, ghazals are often sung by Iranian,
Afghan, Pakistani, and Indian musicians. The form has roots in
seventh-century Arabia, and gained prominence in the thirteenth- and
fourteenth-century thanks to such Persian poets as Rumi and Hafiz and later
due to Indian poets such as Mirza
Ghalib. In the eighteenth-century, the ghazal was used by poets
writing in Urdu, a mix of the medieval languages of Northern India, including
Persian. Among these poets, Ghalib is the recognized master.
Important
poets of Urdu ghazal
In Urdu, some important and respected
ghazal poets are: Khwaja Haidar Ali Aatish, Jan Nisar
Akhtar, Daagh, Khwaja Mir
Dard, Jaun Elia, Hafeez Hoshiarpuri, Faiz Ahmad
Faiz, Ahmad Faraz, Mirza
Ghalib, Firaq
Gorakhpuri, Muhammad
Iqbal, Qamar
Jalalabadi,Shakeb Jalali, Nasir Kazmi, Sahir
Ludhianvi, Mir Taqi
Mir, Hasrat
Mohani, Makhdoom Mohiuddin, Momin Khan
Momin, Jigar
Moradabadi, Munir Niazi, Mirza Rafi
Sauda, Qateel
Shifai, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Wali Mohammed Wali and Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq.
Translations and performance of classical ghazal Enormous
collections of ghazal have been created by hundreds of well-known poets over
the past thousand years in Persian, Turkish, and Urdu, as well as in the
Central Asian Turkic languages. Ghazal poems are performed in Uzbek-Tajik Shashmakom,
TurkishMakam,
Persian Dastgah and Uyghur Muqam. There
are many published translations from Persian and Turkish by Annemarie Schimmel, Arthur John Arberry, and many others.
Ghazal "Gayaki", the art of
singing or performing the ghazal in Indian classical tradition, is very old.
Singers like Ustad Barkat Ali and many other singers in the past used to
practice it, but due to the lack of historical records, many names are
anonymous. It was withBegum Akhtar, and later on Ustad Mehdi
Hassan, that classical rendering of ghazals became popular amongst
the masses. The categorization of ghazal singing as a form of "light
classical" music is a misconception. Classical ghazals are difficult to
render because of the varying moods of the "shers" or couplets in
the ghazal. Ustad Amanat Ali Khan, Begum Akhtar,
Mehdi Hassan, Jagjit
Singh, Farida
Khanum and Ustad Ghulam Ali are popular classical ghazal
singers.
Popularity:
Understanding the complex lyrics of ghazals required education typically
available only to the upper classes. The traditional classicalrāgas in which the lyrics were rendered
were also difficult to understand. The ghazal has undergone some
simplification in terms of words and phrasings, which helps it to reach a
larger audience around the world. Most of the ghazals are now sung in styles
that are not limited to khayāl, thumri, rāga, tāla and other classical and light
classical genres. However, these forms of the ghazal are looked down on by
purists of the Indian Classical tradition. In Pakistan Noor Jehan, Iqbal Bano, Farida
Khanum, Ghulam Ali, Ahmed
Rushdi,Ustad Amanat Ali Khan and Mehdi
Hassan are known for
ghazal renditions. Singers like Jagjit Singh (who first used a guitar in ghazals), Ahmed and Mohammed Hussain, Hariharan, Mohammad
Rafi, Pankaj
Udhas and many
others have been able to give a new shape to the ghazal by incorporating
elements of Western music.
In India, in addition to Urdu/Hindi,
ghazals have been very popular in the Gujarati language.
For around a century, starting with Balashankar Kantharia, there have been
many notable Gujarati ghazal writers like Barkat Virani 'Befaam', Aasim
Randeri, Shunya Palanpuri, Amrut 'Ghayal', Khalil Dhantejvi and many more.
Some of the notable ghazals of these prominent writers have been sung by
Bollywood playback singer Manhar Udhas (the elder brother of noted Ghazal
singer Pankaj Udhas).
Renowned ghazal singer, and pioneer of
Telugu ghazals, Dr Ghazal Srinivas popularized the ghazal in Telugu language.
Srinivas also introduced ghazal singing in Kannada language, and ghazals in
Kannada language were written by Markandapuram Srinivas.
First true-to-form Bangla (Bengali)
ghazal are published in "gajaler aayanaay" by Bratish Dashgupta.
The Canadian classical ghazal singer Cassius
Khan has the unusual
talent of singing in the recitation style whilst accompanying himself on the tabla.
In English
After nearly a century of "false
starts" that is, early experiments by James Clarence Mangan, James Elroy Flecker, Rich, Phyllis, etc., many of which
did not adhere wholly or in part to the traditional principles of the form,
experiments dubbed as "the bastard ghazal"[3] — the ghazal finally began to be
recognized as a viable closed form in English-language poetry sometime in the
early to mid-1990s. This came about largely as a result of serious,
true-to-form examples being published by noted American poets John
Hollander, W. S.
Merwin and Elise
Paschen, as well as by Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali, who
had been teaching and spreading word of the ghazal at American universities
over the previous two decades.
In 1996, Ali compiled and edited the
world's first anthology of English-language ghazals, published by Wesleyan University Press in 2000 as Ravishing DisUnities: Real
Ghazals in English. (Fewer than one in ten of the ghazals collected in Real Ghazals in Englishobserve
the constraints of the form.)
A ghazal is composed of couplets, five
or more. The couplets may have nothing to do with one another, except for the
formal unity derived from a strict rhyme and rhythm pattern.
A
ghazal in English that observes the traditional restrictions of the form:
Where
are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight?
Whom else from rapture’s road will you expel tonight? Those “Fabrics of Cashmere—” “to make Me beautiful—” “Trinket”— to gem– “Me to adorn– How– tell”— tonight? I beg for haven: Prisons, let open your gates– A refugee from Belief seeks a cell tonight. God’s vintage loneliness has turned to vinegar– All the archangels– their wings frozen– fell tonight. Lord, cried out the idols, Don’t let us be broken Only we can convert the infidel tonight. Mughal ceilings, let your mirrored convexities multiply me at once under your spell tonight. He’s freed some fire from ice in pity for Heaven. He’s left open– for God– the doors of Hell tonight. In the heart’s veined temple, all statues have been smashed No priest in saffron’s left to toll its knell tonight God, limit these punishments, there’s still Judgment Day– I’m a mere sinner, I’m no infidel tonight. Executioners near the woman at the window. Damn you, Elijah, I’ll bless Jezebel tonight. The hunt is over, and I hear the Call to Prayer fade into that of the wounded gazelle tonight. My rivals for your love– you’ve invited them all? This is mere insult, this is no farewell tonight. And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight. Agha Shahid Ali
Ghazals composed in English by notable
poets
Agha
Shahid Ali, "Ghazal ('...exiles')"
Robert Bly, The Night Abraham Called to the
Stars and My Sentence Was a Thousand Years
of Joy
Francis
Brabazon, In Dust
I Sing (Beguine Library,
1974).
Lorna
Crozier, "Bones in Their Wings"
Judith Fitzgerald, Twenty-Six Ways Out of This World (Oberon), 1999.
Thomas
Hardy, "The Mother Mourns"
Jim
Harrison, Outlyer
and Ghazals (Touchstone),
1971
John
Hollander, "Ghazal On Ghazals"
Galway
Kinnell, "Sheffield Ghazal 4: Driving West",
"Sheffield Ghazal 5: Passing the Cemetery" (Mariner Books), 2001
Maxine
Kumin, "On the Table"
Marilyn
Krysl, "Ghazals for the Turn of the Century"
Edward
Lowbury, "A Ghazel (for Pauline)" (1968);
"Prometheus: a ghazel" (1976); "Remembering Nine (a ghazel for
Peter Russell)" (1981)
W. S.
Merwin, "The Causeway"
William Matthews, "Guzzle",
"Drizzle"
Elise
Paschen, "Sam's Ghazal"
Robert
Pinsky, "The Hall"
Spencer
Reece, Florida
Ghazals
Adrienne
Rich, Ghazals:
Homage to Ghalib
John Thompson, "Stilt Jack"
(Anansi), 1978.
Andrew D. Chumbley, "Qutub"
(Xoanon), 1995.
Natasha Trethewey, "Miscegenation",
2006.
Phyllis
Webb, Water and
Light: Ghazals and Anti Ghazals (Coach
House), 1984.
John Edgar Wideman, "Lost
Letter"
Rob Winger,
"The Chimney Stone" (Nightwood Editions), 2010
Sukhdarshan Dhaliwal, "Ghazals at
Twilight" (SD Publications), 2009
Ghazal
singers
Some
notable ghazal singers are:
Many Indian and Pakistani film singers are famous for singing ghazals.
These include:
Some Malay singers are famous for ghazals. These
include:
FardA
composition consisting of only one sher.; Farḍ (Arabicor farīḍah is an Islamic term which denotes a religious duty
commanded by Allah (God). The word is also used in Persian, Turkish,
and Urdu (spelled farz) in the same meaning.
Fard or its synonym wājib is one of the five types of Ahkam into which Fiqh categorizes acts of every Muslim.
The Hanafi Fiqh however makes a distinction
between Wajib and Fard, the latter being
obligatory and the former merely necessary. In Indonesian, wajib also meansobligatory, since
the word is derived from Arabic.
The Fiqh distinguishes
two sorts of duties:
individual duty or fard
al-'ayn relates to tasks every Muslim is
required to perform, such as daily prayer (salah),
or the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime (hajj).
Sufficiency duty or fard
al-kifāya is a duty which is imposed on the whole community of
believers (ummah).
The classic example for it is janaza:
the individual is not required to perform it as long as a sufficient number
of community members fulfill it.
Ahkam: Ahkam,
commandments, of which fard are a type
Mustahabb,
recommended but not required
Other
religions
Mitzvah (somewhat similar Jewish concept)
Dharma (Hindu/Buddhist/Sikh term that can
be used to mean "duty" or "obligation", although there
are also other meanings)
Dao (Chinese, meaning the
"way" or "path")
Hamd; Poem written in
praise of God.A Hamd (Arabicis
a poem or song in praise of Allah. A hamd
is usually written in Arabic, Persian, Punjabi,
or Urdu. The word
"hamd" comes from the Qur'an,
which Muslims believe to be Allah's Word;
its English translation is "Praise".
Hamds are sung and recited all over
the Muslim world, from Indonesia to Morocco.
A Qawwali performance usually includes at least
one hamd, which is traditionally the first song in the performance.
Some well-known hamd singers are Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sabri
Brothers, and Qari Waheed Zafar.
Modern English
language singers of
hamd include Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens), Sami Yusuf and Nusrullah Khan Noori.
Hazal; Humourous poetry, also known as 'mazaahiyaa'
or 'mazaakiyaa' shaayari. Some examples of humourous Urdu poetry can be
viewed here.
Hijv; A satirical poem written to condemn or abuse
a person. This type of poetry is considered inferior and generally avoided by
reputed poets. The opposite of a hijv is a madah which is written in praise
of patrons.
Madah; Poem written in praise of royalty, patrons, etc. Madah Sindhi
is the Sindhi transformation of the Arabic word Madh literally means praise.In Islamic
traditions Madh is praise or laud which is uttered for the Prophet and his
noble companions or any saint or dervish, not out of egotistic wishes or
worldly desire but out of pure heartfelt love and piety. The use of the word
is restricted to above mentioned group of persons.
From old times,Madah and Manajat along with Maulud are recited during the two Muslim
festivals,the saints' days,the festive days in Rajab, on
fridays' or Yarhin(the
eleventh i.e. 11th Day of Rabi-ath-Thani,Abdul Qadir Ghilani's memorial day)
and at other occasions. The first poet whose Madah is preserved is Jaman Charan(d.1738),whose
short prayer has become proverbial in the country.The Madah by this poet is
addressed to Pir Piran Badshah(Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani) who is venerated in Sindh, Pakistan perhaps even more than any other
Muslim areas.
Manqabat;
A poem written in praise of members of the family of the holy Prophet:A Manqabat is
a Sufi devotional poem, in praise of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the son-in-law of Muhammad,
or of any Sufi saint.In Qawwali,
manqabats are sung to music. The most well known of the qawwali manqabats is
"Man Kunto Maula", written by Amir
Khusrau in praise of Ali. This manqabat has
been performed by many famous singers and qawwals including Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sabri
Brothers, Aziz Mian, Abida
Parveen, Fareed Ayaz and Qawwal
Bahauddin.
Marsiya; An elegy written to mourn the death of a
great man or a dearly loved person. In its stricter sense, traditionally
accepted in Urdu, a marsiya is an elegy written specifically in honour of the
martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Husain and his comrades at Karbala. It describes the
battle fought on the plains of Karbala by Hazrat Imam Husain against the army
of Yazid. The most well known writers of Marsiya in Urdu are Mir baber Ali
Anees and Salamat Ali Dabir. Sub-parts of the marsiya are called Nauha and
Soz.
The word ‘Marsiya’ is derived from the
Arabic word ‘Risa’, meaning a great tragedy or lamentation for a departed
soul.
Marsiya (or elegy), is nearly always on the death of Hasan and Hussein and their families, but
occasionally on the death of relatives and friends. It is usually in
six-lined stanzas with the rhymeaaaabb. The recitation of these elegies in the first
ten days of Muharram is
one of the greatest event in Muslim life. A fully developed marsiya is always
an epic. This form found a specially congenial
soil in Lucknow, chiefly because
it was one of the centres of Shia Muslim communities in Indian
sub-continent, which regarded it an act of piety and religious duty to
eulogies and bemoan the martyrs of the battle of Karbala.
The form reached its peak in the writing of Mir Babar Ali Anis.
Marsia is a poem written to commemorate the martyrdom of Ahl al-Bayt, Imam Hussain and Battle of Karbala.
It is usually a poem of mourning. and Even a short poem written to mourn the
death of a friend can be called marsia. Lord Alfred
Tennyson's poem 'In Memoriam' can rightly be called marsia. The
sub-parts of marsia are called noha and soz which
means lamentation and burning of (heart) respectively.
The famous marsia writers
in Urdu are Mir Babar Ali Anis,
Mir Moonis, Salamat Ali Dabeer, Mir
Zameer Ali Haider Tabatabai.
Mir Babar Ali Anis a
renowned Urdu poet composed salāms, elegies, nauhas, quatrains. While the
length of elegy initially had no more than forty or fifty stanzas, it now was
beyond one hundred fifty or even longer than two hundred stanzas or bunds, as
each unit of marsia in musaddas format is known. Mir Anis has drawn upon the
vocabulary of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu/Hindi/Awadhi in such a good measure
that he symbolizes the full spectrum of the cultural mosaic that Urdu has
come to be.
Muharram and Mir Anis have become
synonymous among Urdu lovers of the Indo-Pak subcontinent.
The first major and still current
critical articulation about Mir Anis was Muazna-e-Anis-o-Dabir (1907)
written by Shibli Nomani in
which he said "the poetic qualities and merits of Anis are not matched
by any other poet".
Masnavi (pronounced
"mus-na-vee"); A long narrative poem - much longer than the ghazal - embodying
religious, romantic or didatic stories. It is written in rhyming couplets,
with each couplet having a different rhyme and radeef. The most famous
masnavis are Masnavi-e-Rumi in Persian, Shah Namah of Firdausi, and
Zehar-e-Ishq in Urdu.
The title Masnavi-I Ma'navi means
"Rhyming Couplets of Profound Spiritual Meaning." The Masnavi is a
poetic collection of rambling anecdotes and stories derived from theQuran, hadith sources,
and everyday tales. Stories are told to illustrate a point and each moral is
discussed in detail. It incorporates a variety of Islamic wisdom but
primarily focuses on emphasizing inward personal Sufi interpretation. This
work by Rumi is referred to as a “sober” Sufi text. It reasonably presents the
various dimensions of Sufi spiritual life and advises disciples on their
spiritual paths. “More generally, it is aimed at anyone who has time to sit
down and ponder the meaning of life and existence.”[4]
Creation of the Masnavi
The Masnavi was a
Sufi masterpiece started during the final years of Rumi’s life. He began
dictating the first book around the age of 54 around the year 1258 and
continued composing verses until his death in 1273. The sixth and final book
would remain incomplete.[5]
It is documented that Rumi began
dictating the verses of the Masnavi at the request of his
treasured disciple, Husam al-Din Chalabi, who observed that many of Rumi’s
followers dutifully read the works of Sana’i and ‘Attar. Thus, Rumi began
creating a work in the didactic style of Sana’i and ‘Attar to complement his
other poetry. These men met regularly in meetings where Rumi would deliver
the verses and Chalabi would record it and recite back to him. During the
final years of Rumi’s life, the Masnavi was being created.[6]
Each book consists of about 4,000
verses and contains its own prose introduction and prologue. Considering
there are no epilogues, one must read the proceeding volumes to fully benefit
from the wisdom presented by Rumi. Some scholars suggest that in addition to
the incomplete work of Book 6, there might be a seventh volume.[7]
Themes in the Masnavi
The six books of the Masnavi can be
divided into three groups of two because each pair is linked by a common
theme:
Books 1 and 2: They “are principally
concerned with the nafs, the lower carnal self, and its
self-deception and evil tendencies.”
Books 3 and 4: These books share the
principal themes of Reason and Knowledge. These two themes are personified by
Rumi in the Biblical and Quranic figure of the Prophet Moses.
Books 5 and 6: These last two books
are joined by the universal ideal that man must deny his physical earthly
existence to understand God’s existence.
In addition to the reoccurring themes
presented in each book, Rumi includes multiple points of view or voices that
continually invite his readers to fall into “imaginative enchantment.” There
are seven principal voices that Rumi uses in his writing:
The Authorial Voice – Each passage
reflects the authority of the majestic Sufi teacher narrating the story. This
voice generally appears when it addresses You, God, and you,
of all humankind.
The Story-telling Voice – The primary
story is occasionally interrupted by side stories that help clarify a point
being made in the original statement. Rumi sometimes takes hundreds of lines
to make a point because he is constantly interrupting himself.
The Analogical Voice – This voice
interrupts the flow of the narration because it entertains an analogy which
is used to explain a statement made in the previous verse. Rumi’s Masnavi is
filled with analogies.
The Voice of Speech and Dialogue of
Characters – Rumi conveys many of his stories through dialogue and speeches
presented by his characters.
The Moral Reflection – Rumi supports
his voice of morality by including quotations from the Quran and various
hadith stories of events in the life of the Prophet Mohammed.
The Spiritual Discourse – The
Spiritual Discourse resembles the Analogical Voice where Rumi always includes
a moral reflection on the wisdom revealed.
Hiatus – Rumi occasionally questions
the wisdom conveyed though the verses. “Sometimes Rumi says that he cannot
say more because of the reader’s incapacity to understand.”
Style of Rumi's Masnavi
Book one of the Masnavi must
be read in order to understand the other five volumes. It is a poetic art
where Rumi layers his writing. For example, he begins a story, then moves on
to a story within that story, and again moves to another within that one.
Through this composition style, the poet’s personal voice comes through to
his audience. The Masnavi has no framed plot. Its tone includes a variety of
scenes. It includes popular stories from the local bazaar to fables and tales
from Rumi’s time. It also includes quotations from the Quran and from hadith
accounts from the time of Mohammed.
Although there is no constant frame,
style, or plot, Rumi generally follows a certain writing pattern that flows
in the following order.
Munaajaat; A lyrical poem written as a prayer to God:
The word Munajat in Arabic is sometimes confused with the Urdu word munajat
meaning a recital or aQasida. This Munajat is often recited in praise of the
Ahlul bayt (a). However the word Munajat in Arabic means secret conversation
or confidential talk. It comes from the word Najwa Allah says in the Holy
Quran:
There is no
secret conversation between three people except that he is the fourth of them
nor (between) five but He is the sixth of them, nor less than that nor more
but He is with them wheresoever they are: then He will inform them of what
they did on the Day of resurrection: surely Allah is aware of all
things.(58.7)
for the
belivers who love Allah, the Munajat is a form of communication with their
Lord which gives peace and solace to the hearts. Many Imams have Munajat which
have been compiled in different books. An example is As-Saheefa as- Sajjadiyyah which has 15 whispered
prayers from Imam Zaynul' Abidin.
Musaddas;
A poem in which each unit consists of 6 lines. The most well known poet of
this style of writing was Maulana Altaf Husain Hali; Musaddas is a genre of Urdu poetry in which each unit consists of 6 lines-sestain- (misra).
Famous early writers employing this form are Mir Anis and Dabeer. Maulana Altaf Husain Hali and Waheed Akhtar are
other well-known poets to find expression in this form of poetry.
Particularly iconic is Hali's Madd-o-Jazr-e-Islam as an exemplary of this
form.
Naat; A poem written in praise of the holy Prophet; A Na`at is a poetry –
sung without musical instruments – that specifically praises the Islamic
prophet Muhammad. The practice is popular in South Asia (Pakistan andIndia), commonly in Urdu or Punjabi language. People who
recite Naat are known as Naat Khawan or
Sana'a-Khua'an.
t is difficult to trace the history of
Na'at Khawani since no authenticated record of when it was initiated can be
found. On a more regularized basis, Muhammad's companion Hassan ibn Thabit started this work He was
also known as Shair-e-Darbaar-e-Risalat.
Even before accepting Islam he was a poet, but after embracing Islam he gave
a new turn to his poetry and started writing Na'ats in honor of Muhammad. He
was famous for his poetry that defended Muhammad in response to rival poets
that attacked him and his religion. Therefore Hassan is known as the first Sana-Khawaan (Naat reciter) of that time. After
that many a poet followed this trend and totally dedicated themselves to
writing Naats.
Islamic poetry is rich in the praise
of Muhammad. Rarely has there been any Muslim poet who has not written about him. This
is mainly inspired from the Islamic Hadith that each act of veneration will
result in ten blessings of God on the person who venerates
Commonly the term Naat-Shareef (Exalted Poetry) is reserved and
used for poetry in the praise of Muhammad written in Bengali, Urdu,English, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Punjabi and Sindhi Language.
In the Arabic language, Naat is usually
referred as Madih (praise), or simply as Nasheed
(poetry) or Anasheed (plural). The latter two terms can
describe any type of religious poetry.
Anasheed or Naat usually is not
accompanied by musical instruments. However some scholars have allowed the
use of the daf (small drum). Usually poetry that is
accompanied by musical instruments is called Ghinaa (music).
Nazm; In a broad sense, nazm is a term used to
define all kinds of Urdu poetry which do not fall into any other category.
However, in a literary sense, a nazm is a well organized, logically evolving
poem where each individual verse serves the need of the central concept or
theme of the poem. Though a nazm is traditionally written in rhymed verse,
there are many examples of nazms written in unrhymed verse, or even in free
verse.
Nazm is a major part of
the Urdu poetry, that is normally
written in rhymed verse and also in modern prose style poems. Nazm is
a significant genre of Urdu poetry; the other one is
known as Ghazal (Urdu
Following are the various different forms of Nazm:
Prominent
Urdu Nazm Poets
The important poets of Nazm are: Nazeer Akbarabadi, Sir Allama
Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, Altaf Hussain Hali, Josh
Malihabadi, Firaq
Gorakhpuri, Akhtarul Iman, Noon Meem
Rashid, Majeed Amjad, Faiz Ahmad
Faiz, Ali Sardar Jafri and Kaifi Azmi.
Qasida (pronounced "quh-see-daa");A
panygeric, or poem written in praise of a king or a nobleman, or a
benefactor. As in a ghazal, the opening couplet of a qasida, is a rhyming
couplet, and its rhyme is repeated in the second line of each succeeding
verse. The opening part of the qasida, where the poet may talk in general
about love and beauty, man or nature, life or death, is called the 'tashbib' or
'tamheed'.
Interestingly, the ghazal
has evolved from the qasida. Over time, the tashbib got detached and
developed into what we today know as Gazal. A qasida is usually quite long,
sometimes running into mor than a 100 couplets. A Gazal is seldom more than
12 couplets long, averaging about 7 couplets.
Qataa; A poem consisting of four lines, in the form of two shers.
However, unlike shers in a ghazal, the subject of the two shers is the same.
It is believed that the qataa was invented for occasions when poets felt that
they were unable to express their thoughts completely and satisfactorily in a
single sher
The qaṣīdaᵗ (also spelled qaṣīda; in Arabic
plural qasā'id,
in Persian
or chakameh, in Turkish: kaside),
is a form of lyric poetry that
originated in preIslamic Arabia.
Well known qasā'id include
the Qasida Burda ("Poem
of the Mantle") by Imam al-Busiri and Ibn Arabi's
classic collection "The Interpreter of Desires".
The classic form of qasida maintains a
single elaborate metre throughout
the poem, and every line rhymes. It typically runs more than fifty lines, and
some times more than a hundred. It was adopted by Persian poets,
where it developed to be some times longer than a hundred lines.
Qasida means
"intention" and the genre found use as a petition to a patron.
A qasida has a single presiding subject, logically developed
and concluded. Often it is a panegyric,
written in praise of a king or a nobleman, a genre known as madīḥ, meaning
"praise".
In his ninth century "Book of
Poetry and Poets" (Kitab al-shi'r wa-al-shu'ara') the Arabian
writer ibn Qutaybah describes the (Arabic)qasida as
formed of three parts.
A nostalgic opening in which the poet
reflects on what has passed, known as nasib. A common concept is
the pursuit by the poet of the caravan of his beloved: by the time he reaches
their camp-site they have already moved on.
A release or disengagement, the takhallus,
often achieved by describing his transition from the nostalgia of the nasib to
the second section, the travel section or rahil, in which the
poet contemplates the harshness of the land and life away from the tribe.
The message of the poem, which can
take several forms: praise of the tribe (fakhr), satire about other
tribes (hija) or some moral maxim (hikam).
While many poets have intentionally or
unintentionally deviated from this plan it is recognisable in many.
After the 10th century Iranians
developed the qasida immensely and used it for other purposes. For
example, Naser Khosro used it extensively for
philosophical, theological, and ethical purposes, while Avicenna also
used it to express philosophical ideas. It may be a spring poem (Persian baharieh)
or autumn poem (Persian khazanieh). The opening is usually description
of a natural event; the seasons, a natural landscape or an imaginary
sweetheart. In the takhallos poets usually address
themselves by their pen-name. Then the last section is the main purpose of
the poet in writing the poem.Persian exponents
include;
Farrokhi
Sistani, the court poet of Mahmoud
Ghaznavi (11th century), especially his 'Hunting Scene' (in
Persian.
Masud Sa'd Salman (12th century) who was
wrongfully imprisoned on the suspicion of treason Anvari
Abiverdi, (12th century) especially his petition for help against
the invasion of Mongols
Khaghani hervani (12th
century) and in the 20th century, Mohammad Taghi Bahar with his
innovations in using the qasida for political purposes.
From the 14th century CE Persian poets
became more interested in ghazal and
the qasida declined. The ghazal developed
from the first part of qasida in which poets praised their
sweethearts. Mystic poets and sufis used the ghazal for mystical purposes.
Qasida in Urdu poetry is often panegyric, sometimes a satire, sometimes dealing
with an important event. As a rule it is longer than theghazal but
follows the same system of rhyme.
Qawaalli; Traditionally a devotional song expressing love and oneness
with God sung by a group of people to the accompaniment of musical
instruments. Nowadays, qawaallis cover popular topics like love and wine.
Qawwali Nastalīq Gurmukhī Devanāgarī Eastern Nagari is a form of Sufi devotional
music popular in South Asia,
particularly in the Punjab and Sindh regions of Pakistan, Hyderabad, Delhi and other parts of India. It is
a musical tradition that stretches back more than 700 years.
Originally performed mainly at Sufi
shrines or dargahs throughout South Asia,
it has also gained mainstream popularity. Qawwali music received
international exposure through the work of the late Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, largely due to
several releases on the Real World label, followed by live appearances
at Womad festivals. Other famous Qawwali
singers include Pakistan's Sabri
Brothers, Bahauddin Qutbuddin and Aziz Mian.
The roots of Qawwali can be traced
back to 8th century Persia (today's Iran and Afghanistan).
During the first major migration from Persia, in the 11th century, the
musical tradition of Semamigrated to South Asia,
Turkey and Uzbekistan. Amir Khusro
Dehelvi of the Chisti order of Sufis is credited with fusing the Persian and Indian musical traditions to create Qawwali
as we know it today in the late 13th century in India. [1]The
word Sama is often still used in Central Asia
and Turkey to refer to forms very similar to Qawwali, and in India, Pakistan
and Bangladesh, the formal name used for a session of Qawwali is Mehfil-e-Sama.
Qaul is an "utterance (of the
prophet)", Qawwāl is someone who often repeats (sings) a Qaul, Qawwāli
is what a Qawwāl sings.
The songs which constitute the qawwali
repertoire are mostly in Urdu and Punjabi (almost
equally divided between the two), although there are several songs in Persian, Brajbhashaand Saraiki
There is also qawwali in some regional languages but the regional language
tradition is relatively obscure. Also, the sound of the regional language
qawwali can be totally different from that of mainstream qawwali. This is
certainly true of Chhote Babu Qawwal, whose sound is much closer to Baul music than to
the qawwali of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, for example.
The poetry is implicitly understood to
be spiritual in its meaning, even though the lyrics can sometimes sound
wildly secular, or outright hedonistic. The central themes of qawwali are
love, devotion and longing (of man for the Divine).
Qawwalis are classified by their
content into several categories:
A hamd for praise,
is a song in praise of Allah. Traditionally, a qawwali performance starts with a
hamd.
A naat for
description, is a song in praise of the Prophet Muhammad.
The opening hamd is traditionally followed by a naat.
A manqabat plural
manaqib, which means characteristics) is a song in praise of either Imam Ali or
one of the Sufi saints. Manaqib in praise of Ali are sung at both Sunni and Shi'a gatherings.
If one is sung, it will follow right after the naat. There is usually at
least one manqabat in a traditional programme.
A marsiya Arabic
for lamentation for a dead person, is a lamentation over the death of much of
Imam Husayn's family in the Battle of Karbala. This would typically be
sung only at a Shi'a concert.
A ghazal
for love song, is a song that sounds secular on the face of it. There are two
extended metaphors that run through ghazals the joys of drinking and the
agony of separation from the beloved. These songs feature exquisite poetry,
and can certainly be taken at face value, and enjoyed at that level. In
fact, in Pakistan and India, ghazal is also a separate, distinct musical
genre in which many of the same songs are performed in a different musical
style, and in a secular context. In the context of that genre, the songs are
usually taken at face value, and no deeper meaning is necessarily implied.
But in the context of qawwali, these songs of intoxication and yearning use
secular metaphors to poignantly express the soul's longing for union with the
Divine, and its joy in loving the Divine. In the songs of intoxication,
"wine" represents "knowledge of the Divine", the
"cupbearer" (saaqi) is God or a spiritual guide, the
"tavern" is the metaphorical place where the soul may (or may not)
be fortunate enough to attain spiritual enlightenment. (The
"tavern" is emphatically not a conventional house of worship. Rather, it is taken to
be the spiritual context within which the soul exists.)
Intoxication is attaining spiritual knowledge, or being filled with the joy
of loving the Divine. In the songs of yearning, the soul, having been
abandoned in this world by that cruel and cavalier lover, God, sings of the
agony of separation, and the depth of its yearning for reunion.
A kafi is a poem
in Punjabi, Seraiki or Sindhi,
which is in the unique style of poets such as Shah
Hussain, Bulleh Shah and Sachal
Sarmast. Two of the more well-known Kafis include Ni Main
Jana Jogi De Naal and Mera Piya Ghar Aaya.
A munadjaat for a
conversation in the night or a form of prayer is a song where the singer
displays his thanks to Allah through a variety of linguistic techniques. It is
often sung in Persian, with Mawlana Jalāl-ad-Dīn Rumi credited as its author.
A group of qawwali musicians, called a party (or Humnawa in Urdu), typically
consists of eight or nine men including a lead singer, one or two side
singers, one or two harmoniums (which may be played by the lead
singer, side singer or someone else), and percussion. If there is only one
percussionist, he plays the tabla and dholak,
usually the tabla with the dominant hand and the dholak with the other one
(i.e. a left-handed percussionist would play the tabla with his left hand).
Often there will be two percussionists, in which case one might play the
tabla and the other the dholak. There is also a chorus of four or five men
who repeat key verses, and who aid and abet percussion by hand-clapping.
The performers sit cross-legged on the
ground in two rows the lead singer, side singers and harmonium players in the
front row, and the chorus and percussionists in the back row.
Before the fairly recent introduction
of the harmonium, qawwalis were usually accompanied by the sarangi.
The sarangi had to be retuned between songs; the harmonium didn't, and was
soon preferred.
Women used to be excluded from
traditional Muslim music, since they are traditionally prohibited from
singing in the presence of men. These traditions have changed, however, as is
evident by the popularity (and acceptance) of female singers such as Abida
Parveen. However, qawwali has remained an exclusively male
business. There are still no mainstream female qawwals. Although Abida
Parveen performs many songs that are in the traditional qawwali repertoire,
she does not perform them in the traditional qawwali style. Typically missing
is the chorus which repeats key verses, as well as the handclapping.
Songs
are usually between 15 to 30 minutes long. However, the longest commercially
released qawwali runs slightly over 115 minutes (Hashr Ke Roz Yeh Poochhunga
by Aziz Mian
Qawwal). The qawwali maestro Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has at least
two songs that are more than 60 minutes long.
Qawwalis
tend to begin gently and build steadily to a very high energy level in order
to induce hypnotic states both among the musicians and within the audience.
Songs are usually arranged as follows:
They
start with an instrumental prelude where the main melody is played on the
harmonium, accompanied by the tabla, and which may include improvised
variations of the melody.
Then
comes the alap,
a long tonal improvised melody during which the singers intone different long
notes, in the raga of
the song to be played.
The
lead singer begins to sing some preamble verses which are typically not part
of the main song, although thematically related to it. These are sung
unrhythmically, improvised following the raga, and accompanied only by the
harmonium. After the lead singer sings a verse, one of the side singers will
repeat the verse, perhaps with his own improvisation. A few or many verses
will be sung in this way, leading into the main song.
As
the main song begins, the tabla, dholak and clapping begin. All members join in
the singing of the verses that constitute the refrain. The lyrics of the main
verses are never improvised; in fact, these are often traditional songs sung
by many groups, especially within the same lineage. However, the tunes are
subtly improvised within the framework of the main melody. As the song
proceeds, the lead singer or one of the side singers may break out into an
alap. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan also popularized
the interjection ofsargam singing
at this point. The song usually builds in tempo and passion, with each singer
trying to outdo the other in terms of vocal acrobatics. Some singers may do long
periods of sargam improvisation, especially alternating improvisations with a
student singer. The songs usually end suddenly.
The
singing style of qawwali is different from Western singing styles in many
ways. For example, in words beginning with an "m", Western singers
are apt to stress the vowel following the "m" rather than the
"m" itself, whereas in qawwali, the "m" will usually be
held, producing a muted tone. Also in qawwali, there is no distinction
between what is known as the chest voice and
the neck voice (the
different areas that sound will resonate in depending on the frequency sung).
Rather, qawwals sing very loudly and forcefully, which allows them to extend
their chest voice to much higher frequencies than those used in Western
singing, even though this usually causes a more noisy or strained sound than
would be acceptable in the West.
Instrumental:
This is supposed to be the announcement of the arrival of Moinuddin Chishti, as Sufi believes their
saints are free of time-space. Also that Nabi, Siddiq, Shaheed,
and Saleh category
of faithfuls are never dead, just gone into some other state from where they
visit whenever they are mentioned, especially if there is a function in their
honor.
Manqabat Ali
Manqabats
in praise of Sufi saints
Manqabat
Shaikh: Praise of the Shaikh/Pir if the performance is at an Urs celebration
Rang
or Badhawa: If it is an Urs performance, then it is usually Rang, a poem
by Amir Khusro.
The audience is often asked to stand when the Rang is sung. If it is the
Shaikh's birthday, it is usually the Badhawa.
Badar Ali
Khan, aka Badar Miandad
Current
qawwals
Rubayi (pronounced
"ru-baa-ee"); A self-sufficient
quartrain, rhyming (a, a, b, a) and dealing generally with a single idea,
which is customarily introduced and developed with the aid of similes in the
first three lines, and concluded, with concentrated effort and impact, in the
fourth line.The most well known rubaayis in Persian were written by Omar
Khayyam. In Urdu, some of the most well known practitioners of this form were
Firaq, Josh and Yagna Yaas Changezi.
Ruba'iyat, a collection of Ruba'i (a
form of Persian poetry). The best-known example of such a collection is
the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, to the extent
that Rubaiyat is often used as a short name for this
particular collection. There are also rubaiyats by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi-Rumi.
Among modern Iranian poets, the rubaiyat of Hossein Ghods-Nakhai have been
translated into various languages.
Rubayat,
Iran, a village in South Khorasan Province
Rubáiyát: Elektra's 40th
Anniversary, a 1990 compilation album released by Elektra
Records
Rubaiyat
Haque (born 1987), Bangladeshi cricketer
Salaam; A salutory poem written in praise of the holy
Prophet. It can also be a poem describing the incidents of Karbala. It is
recited standing up.
Salaam has delighted
audiences for years with its expansive repertoire of Middle Eastern and North
African music. Salaam is true to the traditions, informing
the uninitiated, and evoking nostalgia in listeners who are familiar with the
art form. What sets Salaam apart is
the versatility of its musicians, whose deep knowledge of Eastern and Western
styles gives them the flexibility to move effortlessly between genres. The sound, while rooted in maqam
(the modal system used throughout the Middle East), infuses tasteful forays
into jazz, rock, blues, classical and avant garde. Salaam, whose name means "peace" in Arabic, is a
musical ambassador for peaceful coexistence.
Seharaa; A song sung at the time of tying the seharaa
during the wedding ceremony. It is usually in praise of the bride/groom and
their relatives.
Seharaa Poems. These
are examples of Seharaa poems (scroll below) written by PoetrySoup members. Poetry
Soup is a great resource for examples of Seharaa poems or Seharaa poetry.
These examples illustrate what Seharaa poems looks like and its form. There
is also a link (below) to the definition where you can discuss Seharaa poems.
Below are the
all-time best Seharaa poems
written by Poets on Poetry Soup. These top poems in list format are the best
examples of Seharaa poems written by Poetry Soup members
A song sung at the
time of tying the Seharaa during the wedding ceremony. It is usually in
praise of the bride/groom and their relatives. A comment
has not been posted for this poem. Be the first to comment. The forms for these poems have been selected by the poet. Often poems
are assigned the wrong form. Please confirm the accuracy of the poetic form
before referencing the poem.
Vaasokht; A poem describing the displeasure and carelessness of a
lover. Vaasokht Poems. These are examples of Vaasokht poems
(scroll below) written by Poetry Soup members. Poetry Soup is a great
resource for examples of Vaasokht poems or Vaasokht poetry. These examples
illustrate what Vaasokht poems looks like and its form. There is also a link
(below) to the definition where you can discuss Vaasokht poems. Below are the
all-time best Vaasokht poems
written by Poets on Poetry Soup? These top poems in list format are the best
examples of Vaasokht poems written by Poetry Soup members, The forms for
these poems have been selected by the poet. Often poems are assigned the
wrong form. Please confirm the accuracy of the poetic form before referencing
the poem.
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