Urdu literature

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521838245.018

16 - Urdu literature

from PART III - LITERATURE

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2011

Shamsur Faruqi

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Robert Irwin

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Robert Irwin: Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

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In 1111/1700 there came to Delhi a man whose takhalluṣ (pen name) was Walῑ; his real name is a matter of dispute. Walῑ was born in 1075/1665 or 1077/1667, and almost certainly died in 1119–20/1707–8. The first account of his advent in Delhi is from the tadhkira (biographical dictionary of poets) Nikāt al-shuʿarāʾ (Finer points concerning the poets, c. 1165/1752) by Muḥammad Taqῑ Mῑr (1135–1225/1723–1810), the second from Makhzan-i nikāt (c. 1169/1756), another tadhkira, by Qāʾim Chāndpūrῑ (1137–1209/1724f.–95). This is what they say about Walῑ:

[Walῑ] is from Aurangābād. It is said that he came to Delhi too and presented himself before Miyān Shāh Gulshan and recited [before him] some verses of his own. Miyān Ṣāḥib observed, ‘There are all those Persian themes lying unused; bring them into use in your own Rēkhta; who is there to challenge you if you do this?’

In the forty-fourth regnal year of King ʿĀlamgῑr, he [Walῑ] came to Jahānābād, accompanied by … Abu al-Maʿālῑ … He used occasionally to compose a verse in Persian, praising Abu al-Maʿālῑ’s beauty. On arrival here [in Delhi], when he had the auspicious occasion to present himself before H. ad. rat Shaykh Saqd al-Lah Gulshan, may his grave be hallowed, he commanded him to compose poetry in Re¯khta, and by way of education, gave away to him the following opening verse that he composed:

Were I to set down on paper

The praises of the beloved’s beauty,

I would spontaneously

Convert the paper into the White Hand

Of Moses.

Type: Chapter
Information: The New Cambridge History of Islam , pp. 434 - 443

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521838245.018 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2010

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