Anonymity in Poetry and the Role of the Critic

Aati hai usi mauj say durya mein rawani

Jis mauj ki taqdeer mein saahil nahi hota

 The river flows only because of the wave

That is not destined to ever reach the ocean

-Khurshidul Islam

Khurshidul Islam was a literary critic and a poet. His couplet above is, in my opinion, one of his best contributions to Urdu poetry. Islam’s understanding of literary history enabled him to see Urdu poetic literature from a lens markedly different than those of his peers (with the exception of an equally brilliant critic, Mohammed Hasan Askari). The couplet is, at the same time, analogous to Islam’s personal political beliefs (he was a staunch Marxist) as well as being a succinct description of the knowledge he held about Urdu poetry. The latter statement needs a bit of a clarification. Two most recognizable names in Urdu poetry are Mir and Ghalib and anyone who has ever had anything to do with Urdu is likely to be aware of these two figures. From here, depending on other factor likes geography, time, subjects and genre, many other poets also make their respective marks. Yet, the history of Urdu poetry is not limited to these few names that are recognizable. It has a vast body of work and a rich poetic history. Though every publication in Urdu poetry contributes towards shaping the language in one way or the other, not every poet is recognized for their impact on the language. In fact, many of the couplets espoused in everyday Pakistan cannot be traced back to their respective authors precisely because it would be the equivalent of trying to find a needle in a haystack. This important insight of Islam is applicable to written literary works. Today, I would like to attempt to elaborate upon it with respect to the appearance of the written literary works in the performances/recitations of Ghazals/Qawwali’s and attempt to answer what the role of the critic should be in regards to this anonymity?

Islam’s couplet recognizes the element of anonymity as integral to the literature. I would build on his argument and add that not only is anonymity integral, but the question of access to written literary works also surfaces. The verses remain anonymous not because there is no interest, but because many of those interested do not have access to the works. Access alone to written literature requires a privileged socio-economic status. Deciphering the literary works requires further socio-cultural capital in addition to the socio-economic access. Indeed, devoting an entire life to study of literature in today’s world is simply not possible without the reliance on adequate resources to sustain a living. This is a pity of our times and one that Islam often lamented. Yet, he also lived and wrote at the onset of the digital age. Audio recordings had started to become common, the radio was widespread and the affluent in South Asia had acquired some bulky televisions. One of the effects of these changes was to take the works and spread them far and wide in spoken form. Many of the verses penned by various poets were picked up by singers and performers and presented to the wider audience through ghazals and qawwalis.

Couplets do not create words- they just rearrange existing words to create new meaning. When singers and qawwals started to take the written poetry and express it in their performances, they often did so by taking bits and parts of a poet’s words and adding it to works by other poets in order to create new meaning. Effectively, then, the same couplet could have different meanings simply because of the different contexts it was used in by both the poet and the singer. If poetry is merely a reorganization of words to express an existing sentiment differently, then one could claim that singers and performers too were simply being poetic in this process.

One good thing to come out of these new renditions of old poetic thought was the access they provided to a wider audience. Whereas one would have had to be able to read and write at a certain level in 18^th century India before being able to dream of understanding poetry and what it implied, such notions were torn apart in the late 20^th century. The works of many poets flooded the public through the avenue of the singers and the public grasped it with both hands, thus shredding the concept of ‘refined taste’ that had previously been espoused as a requisite to appreciate such poetry. In this light, the singers did a service to both the language and the people without perhaps even recognizing what they were doing!

Yet, for all the access they now provided, they also added to, and took away from, the anonymity that Islam had commented upon. Much of the poetry that was breathed into popular society by the singers added to the collective familiarity of the public with literary works. So on that level, it reduced the issue of anonymity by introducing existing poems to an audience that appreciated and welcomed them. However, at the same time, precisely because it was the singers who had introduced this poetry to the public, and not the original poets, many of the verses were wrongly attributed to the singers instead of the poets as the source was not easily traceable.

Students of Urdu would know that the very idea of a takhallus (pen name) is to distinguish one’s work from others. Yet, the takhallus is limited by its own traditional implementation (can only occur once in a work) and therefore the rest of the work can be easily planted from one place to another. Similarly, the very idea of a takhallus went downhill from the introduction of the nazm and almost disappeared with the idea of the azad nazm. Many poets are also distinguishable by style, though that requires an intimate familiarity with both their work and the extended literature in the field. So if there is no way to definitely identify the work of a poet, what is the responsibility of the critic (if any) to ensure that the correct poet is identified?

This issue is complex because singers were not uniform in their use of Urdu poetry. For example, they might occasionally take only a line from a poets work and compose the rest of the lyrics themselves, or they might take chunks of poetry on the same topic from different authors and weave it together. Often, the singers would also leave the original poets’ takhallus but many a times they would replace it with their own.

Consider Aziz Mian’s Aasman say utara gaya which is compilation of the works of Iqbal, Josh, Ghalib, Jigar, Hairat and Zauq. Aziz Mian takes the work of diverse range of poets and pieces together a narrative where he implores a divine being to recognize the greatness of man. The seamlessness of his narrative is so impeccable that one can be forgiven for thinking that it is but the creation of a single mind. This is both a testament to the works of the writer which were indeed steeped so much in the same tradition that they flow from and with each other but also a testament to the mind of Aziz Mian who was able to pick and weave them together.

For a different case altogether, that of the singer removing the takhallus of the poet, consider the below sung by Aziz Mian.

Leh woh najaf ki samt say aanay lagi sada
Ay muthrib e haseen meri anjuman mein aa
Aa,aa, jhoom kar zara naghmat e noh suna
Saaqi mera salaam e adab lay kay mein chala
Maula e kainat aur awaaz deh mujhay
Ay jibrael, taqat e parvaz deh mujhay

Now contrast this with what the original poet Josh Malihabadi wrote

In this case, it is clear that Aziz Mian takes out Josh’s takhallus (the whole first half of the second line) and simply replaces it some words of his own. There are also a couple of other minor changes (only one jhoom in Aziz Mian’s third line contrasted with the two in Josh’s; Aziz Mian uses taqat e parvaz whereas Josh writes quowwat e parvaz). The question in this scenario is this- if this quote is being attributed to Aziz Mian, should the critic make a concentrated effort to ensure this is attributed to Josh? Or should the critic take solace in the verse being available to the public to marvel at, instead of being confined to certain privileged circles? That is the critics’ dilemma.

An example of an instance where Aziz Mian simply uses a couplet with takhallus of a poet is the below from Jigar Muradabadi’s work (couplet at the bottom of the page).

 

Aziz Mian sang exactly what Jigar wrote in the last couplet above-

Numayan hui subah piri Jigar,

Bus, ab dastan mukhtasir hogayi

In such a situation, he very openly credits the poet. So, in this case, where the verse despite being credited is not acknowledged to the original poet, what must the critic do? Should the critic be content with the singer leaving the takhallus as it is? Or should the critic make more of an effort to document such instances?

Or perhaps, as I often argue with myself, the critic should not be concerned with the author to begin with. The critic is a critic of the work of the author, not of the author itself. So knowing who authored it is irrelevant. If a singer is quoting a verse, the critics concern should not be what the verse meant in its original context but what the verse means as it is being used by the singer. A critic is concerned with meaning, and should concentrate on what the meaning is today, not what it was or should have been. Thus, the critic should be concerned with the aesthetic use of words and its implications. Working within such parameters means that the critic has no room, or indeed no use, for either the author or the singer. (This point of view is also reflected by the work of Frances Pritchett and Shamsur Rehman Faruqi)

But, at other times, I find the above point of view extremely narrow and counter intuitive to the work of the critic. A critic is a critic of poetry, but poetry must be produced somewhere. And poetry composed in a society can only reflect what is present in the society (it cannot explain what it does not know). In this interpretive vein, the author or the singer is the crucial link between a poetic work and society. It is the experience of the author or the singer that takes life from the society and gives it to the poetry. Therefore, in this tradition, the author is perhaps more important than the work itself and therefore every effort must be made to identify him. (This point of view is reflected by the work of Khurshidul Islam himself and Ralph Russell)

I started this piece with Islam, a brilliant critic, and his reference to anonymity. I have sought to introduce some ideas to add to his reference and I hope to build on them in the coming few years. Literature and time both are always changing. But I do not believe that any theory of literature ever becomes outdated. Islam is as pertinent today as he was in his prime a few decades ago and I have no doubt that he will continue to be as pertinent in the years to come.

A critical look at ‘Reclaim Your Mosque’

The aftermath of the Peshawar attack has been disappointing. It is not the Talban apologists, and nor is it the spineless response of the government. I am talking about the calls for retributive violence by members of the media, the political apparatus and general public. The insatiable thirst to see some vengeance is not dissimilar, for example, to the sentiment expressed by the Twelver Shia minority in the wake of Abbas Town earlier last year. Yet one must pause and question whether violence ought to be answered with violence. This debate has been ongoing for centuries past, and will continue into the centuries to come. I subscribe to a point of view where violence is never the answer.

In the case of Pakistan, an important distinction must be made before we progress- for some, morality is independent of religion but for most it is derived from religion. The latter is based on my personal interactions, both formal and informal, with members of the Pakistani public. Therefore, my point of view that violence cannot be answered with violence should not be used on its own because it does not consider religion at all. To do justice to an analysis of the problem of extremism, being committed in the name of Islam, facing Pakistan, our line of inquiry should be whether Islam, as a religion, has a definitive answer to the question of violence. However, that question in itself is also problematic- having a definitive answer within Islam would imply that there is a correct answer with no room for any other interpretations. Such a situation would clearly go against the presence of the many hundreds of sects that differ on a lot of aspects within religion.

Arising out of the acceptance that various groups can interpret religion differently, there was a civil protest organized in front of Lal Masjid following the Peshawar attacks. Jibran Nasir, who must be commended for his efforts to speak for the minorities all over Pakistan, has been at the forefront of this campaign. The campaign’s tagline- Reclaim Your Mosques- is self-explanatory. The civil society is exhorting itself to confront the ‘extremists’ that are in charge of these mosques and to reclaim the mosque for itself. Precisely because this is an initiative led by the civil society, I see within this protest a space for discussion regarding the proposed agenda. The campaign objective of ‘reclaim’ insinuates that it was once under the control of those who are no longer in control of it today; the term ‘your’ implies that the mosque does not belong to those who currently control it; the term ‘mosques’ refers to the plurality of this campaign even though the protest is occurring at a specific, geographic location.

To critically analyze this objective, we must be able to define what a mosque is, what extremists are and how the mosque ended up with them. We should also be able to go a step ahead and show why mosque should belong to the protestors, if at all, and not the extremists. Once the parameters for the discussion have been defined, a constructive debate on the topic can take place.

I define the idea of mosque as a congregational institution within Islam- it serves primarily as a religious and a social institution (and sometimes political[1]). Its influence is non-territorial in nature and it influences both the public and the private lives of a majority of those who adhere to the many sects within Islam. The extremists, in this case, are defined as those who condone the perpetrators of the Peshawar incident. Though the protest here is geographically limited to the Lal Masjid in Islamabad, it is fair to say that the Lal Masjid is simply a proxy for any other mosque in the country that has also been under the control of ‘extremists’. The protestors are arguing that the hate and vitriol being preached within these mosques is antithetical to the teachings of Islam- namely peace and respect for human life. Therefore, as the mosque is being used to disseminate teachings contradictory to Islam, the mosque must be reclaimed in order to address this issue of extremism as extremism has no place within Islam.

The core premise of this debate of what is and what is not a teaching of Islam is largely a question of interpretation. It is here that we need to highlight a false premise that has often been overlooked not only in mainstream media, but also academic study of Islam. This is the idea of the Muslim. Followers of Islam are often referred to as Muslims but this is a problematic definition of Muslim identity because no such consensus over who a Muslim is has existed since the death of Mohammed. To elaborate, as long as Mohammed was alive, he served as both a religious and political leader for his followers. Since he was the final authority, opposing his teachings (or those he conveyed on behalf of a higher divine being) would have meant opposing him (or the higher being he conveyed messages on behalf of). The concentration of both religious and political authority into Mohammed, and the acceptance of this authority by his followers, was a critical component of being a Muslim.

Immediately following his death, and we are talking about less than twenty four hours here, the community that had existed as one under Mohammed already had competing claims for leadership within it. These were based on association (the claim by Ansars of Medina), based on ethnic allegiance (the claim by the Quraysh of Mecca) and a further claim yet based on blood (the claim by Ali). Thus, though the Caliphate emerged as an eventual successor to Mohammed’s political leadership, the very act of it emerging above other claims points towards a division between who was considered a legitimate religious and political authority within Islam. The sects within Islam did not emerge much later (as popular historical narrative suggests) but were inherent to it following the vacuum left by Mohammed.

Different sects subscribe to different religious and political authorities, and because of the lack of a central authority post-Mohammed accepted by all sects, we must be careful to highlight that there is no single Muslim identity because it has not existed since Mohammed’s death. All that has existed have been different groups, with different ideologies, at different times and though we may now retrospectively identify them with labels, it is not to suggest that those groups, at that time, identified with the same labels that we’ve ascribed to them today.

All these different groups, across time and space, share in common with each other the same religious text that they share with both the protestors and the extremists involved in the Lal Masjid protest. The problem here is that the religious text, the Quran, is an open-ended text and is thus interpreted and justified in many differing ways. For example, two main competing forms of political authority within Islamic sects are the Caliphate and the Imamate. The supporters of these respective modes use the same Quran to justify their own belief and to reject their opponents! Similarly, the same Quran is used by the extremists to support the violence they carry out in the name of a divine being and the same Quran is being used by the protestors to argue that what the extremists are doing is wrong and unacceptable.

Precisely because the interpretation of this religious text is open-ended, there cannot be a right or a wrong answer. Just like one cannot declare either the Caliphate or the Imamate as being right and the other one wrong (yet both groups always do declare the other one wrong, or inferior), one cannot declare violence to either be wrong or be right within Islam. It can be argued that it is certainly not the norm across those who subscribe to Islamic thought, with a majority of the believers in Islamic ideals being non-violent in their daily lives but whether this orthodoxy can translate into orthopraxy is a contentious issue. If the religious norms are considered to be correct, then the Twelver Shias for example would be considered deviant and outside the fold of Islam. The beliefs and actions of the majority cannot be an absolute interpretation of an ideal- whether it is a question of political authority or of violence.

Coming back to Lal Masjid, it is clear that both the protestors and the extremists are guilty of the fallacy we have highlighted above insofar as they seek to declare each other from outside the fold of Islam. This entails them knowing precisely what Islam is- a task that is not possible due to the open-ended nature of its religious scripture. This ambiguity within Islam, coupled with its tendency to justify violence within specific context as well the idea of a mosque creates a more complicated problem. As elaborated upon below, the Quran is not a violent book but it does carry violence within certain contexts. The mosque gives a space to those who wish to preach a certain type of Islam- this could be the ‘extremists’ who preach a violent Islam or this could be the ‘protestors’ who wish to preach a more cosmopolitan and tolerant Islam. Yet, as we have questioned throughout this piece, does one of these groups deserve it over the other especially when they are guilty of a similar ideological fallacy of laying claim to a correct interpretation of an open-ended text. (An important question arising out of this could be what is the role of geography in a mosque’s tendency to produce, reproduce or subvert extremist thought? Does politics play into it?)

It is a fact that Islam justifies violence within certain contexts of war. Like many other religious commandments, this one too is often appropriated without adequate context. Many a militant groups have sought to declare war on their opponents; colonialism, imperialism, atheism etc. are some of the more common targets in recent history. The declarations of war by the militant groups has also often been disputed vehemently and strongly by the members of the religious community who argue that the conditions of war are not sufficiently satisfied and thus those appropriating divine scripture for violence are blatantly violating the sanctity of life which is prescribed in the Quran. This debate, too, like the one highlighted earlier in the piece, is dependent on the interpretation of religion. While the interpretation is certainly arguable, what is not arguable is the presence of violence within Islamic thought.

A mosque, like most other institutions, relies on hierarchy. Given that it caters to a religious community, the hierarchy within a mosque is also based on religion. The very idea of the mosque, in a society, creates an exclusivist aura as it differentiates those who go to the mosque from those who don’t. The extremism that is being protested against is simply a more intense manifestation of the sentiment of those who go to the mosque towards those who do not. If this were not true, there would not have been an implicit acceptance of the vitriol being preached within it. Granted the mosque does not exist in a bubble and Lal Masjid is certainly a strategic player insofar its relationships with the Intelligence and the Army are concerned, yet we must not overlook the fact that the acceptance of these ideas does exist at some level. If not the immediate congregation, perhaps it exists in the minds of those that call the shots from with the Intelligence and the Army. Eliminating extremism cannot be achieved by a superficial change in the ownership of the mosque because the mosque fosters the violent tendencies within Islamic thought by helping construct a visible binary between those who attend it and those who do not.

Combining the three points we have discussed above- the ambiguity of Islamic thought and its open ended nature; the justification of violence within certain contexts which often gets appropriated and the construction of a public binary between those who go to the mosque and those who do not we get a potentially troubling brew. The mosque, by its very presence, deepens the divide that the protestors are seeking to eliminate and that the extremists are seeking to widen. My misgivings arise from the definitions being taken for granted by the mainstream media as well as academia, especially the term Muslim. It is for this reason that I am critical of the campaign objective (that is, reclaim your mosque). However, I must make it clear, that disagreeing with the objective does not mean I disagree with the campaign itself. To me, civil society is the only institution that can counter the extremism running havoc in Pakistan and this is why I fully support the civil society’s right to protest and highlight this issue today, even though, in my personal opinion, the current proposed objective may only be a short-term measure with no relevance whatsoever in the long run.

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[1] This is largely dependent on the sect that one tends to subscribe to. For example, the Twelver Shias consider their Imams to be political as well as social and religious leaders and subsequently their congregations tend to reflect this amalgamation. Shia historical narratives consider the Imam as a culmination of all three roles. This is in contrast with the Sunni dynasties throughout history (for example, the Ummayyads or the Abbasids) where even though the mosque served as religious institution, political power was effectively wielded by the court of the incumbent king.