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The Satirical Verse of Akbar Ilāhābādī (1846–1921)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Ralph Russell  and
Khurshidul Islam
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Extract

Akbar Ilāhābādī—Akbar of Allahabad— has been the victim of much injustice at the hands of scholars, both in the West and in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent that was his homeland. The reason is a simple one. Akbar's fame is based—and quite properly based—upon his humorous verse; and scholars tend to be rather solemn people who may enjoy reading humorous verse in the brief periods of recreation which they allow themselves, but to whom the thought simply does not occur that a man may express in humorous verse ideas just as significant, and basically just as serious, as, let us say, a man who writes a voluminous commentary on holy writ.

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Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , January 1974 , pp. 1 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

1 A full study of Akbar is long overdue, and a good deal of material for such a study is available in the various collections of his letters and the reminiscences of him by, among others, ‘Abdul Mājid Daryābādi, Khwāja Hasan Nizāmī, Tālib Ilāhābādī, and Qamar ud Din Ahmad. The present article deals only with his topical verse, and excludes the bulk of his ghazal poetry; this too would repay serious study. Akbar, like his older contemporary Hāli, is one of those poets whose achievement in the ghazal has been overshadowed by the greater popularity of their other verse.

2 Kulliyāt, Part III, no. 1064. The editing of the Kulliyāt leaves much to be desired. Some attempt at dating has been made in Part I, but only within very broad limits. In general, all four parts seem to include verse of all periods, Parts II and III being, in effect, substantial supplements to Part I, presenting verse that had been missed when Part I was compiled. Part IV, however, seems to comprise mainly the verse of Akbar's last years. It is possible that some of the verses included were not published during his life-time, but, if so, this is not indicated. The footnotes are quite often incorrect. In Parts I and III, the poems are numbered: in Parts II and IV they are not. References are given thus: II, 54, 3 means Part II, page 54, line 3, and references to Part IV are given in the same way. But I, 70, 4 means Part I, number 70 (not page 70) line 4; and similarly with Part III.

3 Spear, Percival, Twilight of the Mughuls, Cambridge University Press, 1951, p. 1.Google Scholar

4 The old Mughal aristocracy would thus stand in the same relation to the British (though I do not think Sir Sayyid would have drawn this parallel) as the old Rajput aristocracy had stood to the Mughals in the days of the Empire's prime.

5 Macaulay's Speeches, a selection, ed. Young, G. M., Oxford University Press. World's Classics ed., 1935, p. 359.Google Scholar

6 Quoted (in Urdu) in Addresses and Speeches Relating to the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh,… 1875–1898, [ed.] by Nawab, Mohsin-ul-Mulk, Institute Press, Aligarh, 1898, Tamhid, pp. 1, 2.Google Scholar

7 Urdu text in Musāfirān i Landan, ed. Shaikh, Muhammad Ismā'il Pānipati, Majlis, i Taraqqi i Adab, Lahore, 1961, pp. 183–4.Google Scholar English translation quoted from Graham, G. F. I., The Life and Work of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, K.C.S.I., London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1909 ed., pp. 125–6.Google Scholar

8 Addresses and Speeches (cf. note 6), pp. 74–81.

9 Ahmad, Sayyid Tufail, Musalmānon kā Raushan Mustaqbil, 5th ed., Delhi, 1945, p. 207.Google Scholar

10 I, 1076, and cf. (e.g.) III, 1242, I and 1061, 3.

11 II, 48, 4.

12 I, 125, couplets 1, 2, 4, 6, and 9. Cf. also (e.g.) IV, 30, 4.

13 I, 35.

14 III, 578, 2.

15 I, 868. He makes a similar point in III, 1357, about Englishman who go home to England when they retire instead of staying on in India.

16 I, 53.

17 I, 1099.

18 I, 1037, 2.

19 I, 124, 1.

20 III, 580.

21 I, 54, 10.

22 III, 1402.

23 IV, 97, 1–2.

24 II, 90, last line.

25 I, 593.

26 Line 34.

27 I, 179, 4.

28 I, 115, 3.

29 II, 79, 13–14.

30 III, 1218, 6.

31 III, 1333.

32 I, 245, 2 and cf. I, 534, 2.

33 I, 74, 2.

34 III, 28, I.

35 II, 91, 10.

36 II, 91, 5.

37 I, 194, 2.

38 I, 265, 14.

39 IV, 52, 14.

40 I, 915.

41 I, 279, 8.

42 I, 104, 14.

43 III, 1437.

44 II, 94, 3–4.

45 India, Pakistan and the West, 4th ed., Oxford University Press, 1967, p. 81.Google ScholarPubMed

46 III, 1438.

47 III, 866, 4.

48 III, 626.

49 IV, 53, 19.

50 I, 299, 6.

51 I, 1097.

52 I, 674.

53 I, 922.

54 I, 622, 1–7.

55 Ahmad, Nazir, Mau'iza-i-Hasna, Delhi, 1308 A.H. [A.D. 1890/1] letter 99, p. 175. The book was first published in 1887.Google Scholar

56 I, 623.

57 I, 152.

58 I, 638.

59 II, 86, 6–7. Many more verses could be quoted. II, 75, 8–19—a poem of eleven couplets—gives a long list of all the things that can be allowed provided that religious obligations are observed. Cf. also II, 23, 13; 80, 13–14 and 21; and 83, 15.

60 I, 99, 1.

61 I, 640.

62 III, 772.

63 II, 46, 3.

64 III, 728, 1.

65 III, 447, 1.

66 I, 463.

67 I, 923, 1.

68 I, 260, 5–6.

69 I, 928.

70 I, 623, 14–16.

71 II, 59, 9–10. And compare note 73 below.

72 II, 82, 3–4.

73 I, 67. ‘Shaikh’ here carries the connotation which I explain in the text. I should add that it does not always mean quite that. It can be used of any Muslim leader, in the political as well as in the religious field, who claims more importance and authority than the poet thinks he deserves. This is the sense in the line quoted earlier (see ref. 71). Below (at ref. 81) it has no pejorative sense at all, but means simply the Muslim elder who imparts religious instruction to the young.

74 I, 594.

75 Line 23.

76 I, 755.

77 II, 66, 6:

78 II, 78, 18.

79 II, 71, 9.

80 II, 64, 19.

81 II, 51, 5–6. And compare note 73 above.

82 I, 579.

83 I, 151, 3:

84 I, 179, 2.

85 I, 907.

86 I, 656, last line.

87 I, 1008, last line.

88 III, 1217.

89 III, 1314.

90 I, 1192.

91 II, 69, 7–10.

92 III, 1212, 2.

93 II, 35, 15.

94 III, 539.

95 II, 90, 10.

96 III, 1210, 1.

97 III, 28, 2.

98 II, 62, 7.

99 II, 66, 5.

100 I, 243, 3.

101 III, 1120, 2.

102 III, 733, 5.

103 I, 875, 1.

104 II, 98, 5.

105 IV, 53, 9.

106 II, 10, 3.

107 I, 1062, 4.

108 III, 1129.

109 III, 996, 3.

110 II, 55, last line.

111 III, 1335.

112 III, 1349.

113 II, 70, 15.

114 III, 963, 2.

115 IV, 18, 1.

116 II, 89, 19.

117 III, 1430.

118 I, 765.

119 II, 37, 20.

120 IV, 32, 9.

121 I, 578.

122 The exact words (translated from Urdu) are ‘If Sir Sayyid Aḥhmad Khān and Avadh Punch had not existed, Sayyid Akbar Husain Sāhib too would not have been a poet.’ Avadh Punch was the humorous periodical in which Akbar published much of his verse. Sayyid Akbar Husain was Akbar's full name. The words are those of Muhammad Yahyā Tanhā, as quoted by Muḥammad, Shaikh Ikrām, in Mauj i Kausar, 5th edition, 1963, Ferozsons Ltd., Lahore, etc., p. 213.Google Scholar We cannot find the passage in Tanhā's, Siyar ul Musannifīn, and in his Mirāt ush Shu'arā, Vol. II, Shaikh Mubārak'Alī, Lahore, n.d. [1950], pp. 60–1, his statement is a much more qualified one.Google Scholar Perhaps this was an earlier, and more rash, version of the judgment expressed there. The words quoted by Ikrām are in any case a fair summary of the fairly widely held view of Akbar' ‘negativeness’.

123 Ahmad, Aziz, An Intellectual History of Islam in India, Edinburgh University Press, 1969, p. 105.Google Scholar His earlier assessment, in his Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, 1857–1964, Oxford University Press, 1967, pp. 101–2 is rather less sweeping.Google Scholar

124 Cf. Davis, H. W. C., Medieval Europe, Williams & Norgate, London, n.d., p. 23.Google Scholar

125 I, 23, 1.

126 III, 462.

127 I, 152, 2.

128 I, 90, 3.

129 II, 48, 20.

130 II, 47, 14.

131 IV, 3, 6. And compare II, 54, 16.

132 II, 79, 16.

133 II, 85, 15.

134 II, 79, 4.

135 II, 59, 7–8.

136 I, 893, 3.

137 I, 516.

138 I, 1155.

139 E.g. I, 1149, 2; and 1159.

140 I, 1111.

141 IV, 52, 16.

142 Indian Muslim tradition was that the earth rests on the horns of a cow. Cf. (e.g.) Anīs, Mīr, marsiya beginning jab qat'a kī musāfat i shab āftāb ne, stanza 167 in Rizvi's, Mas'ūd Hasan text in Rūhh i Anīs, second edition, Kitāb Nagar, Lucknow, 1956, p. 253, and footnote 3.Google Scholar

143 III, 1421.

144 Ahmad, Qamar ud Din, Bazm-i-Akbar. Anjuman-i-Taraqqi-i-Urdū, Delhi, second edition, 1944, pp. 15–17.Google Scholar

145 I, 948, 1.

146 II, 61, 5–6.

147 II, 87, 16.

148 I, 1135, 2.

149 III, 1190.

150 III, 1455.

151 III, 364, 2.

152 II, 26, 14, and I, 534, 1.

153 II, 26, 17–18.

154 I, 124, 2.

155 II, 26, 18.

156 I, 844.

157 I, 240, 7.

158 I, 1059.

159 II, 96, 5.

160 II, 37, 10.

161 I, 576.

162 I, 201, 2.

163 II, 92, 13.

164 I, 1143.

165 I, 54, 12–14.

166 II, 52, 3–4.

167 II, 87, 7–9.

168 I, 644, 2. Cf. II, 63, 9.

169 I, 644, 3.

170 II, 31, 2.

171 I, 687, 60.

172 II, 26, 15.

173 III, 819.

174 IV, 47, 21.

175 III, 540, 1.

176 I, 813. And cf. I, 1205, 4.

177 I, 875, 2.

178 II, 108, 17.

179 III, 1068.

180 I, 975.

181 I, 739.

182 I, 617, 3.

183 I, 790.

184 III, 1420.

185 II, 57, 14–15.

186 IV, 64, 11.

187 IV, 48, 4.

188 IV, 91, 10–11.

189 IV, 48, 3.

190 IV, 46, 1.

191 IV, 40, 7.

192 IV, 42, 4–5.

193 IV, 51, 7–8. Cf. also his despondent reflections on the shooting at Amritsar, IV, 78, 5–6 and 96, 8–11.

194 I, 166, 10.

195 The most celebrated is I, 1030, in which he complains of having to drink piped water and read printed type. Cf. also his complaint against electric light, IV, 65, 16.

196 Cf. (e.g.) II, 83, 4–5, and the complete poem (13 couplets), I, 247.