On Monday, June 27th, I encountered my first experience with Arabic music. It was Fairuz’s حبیتک بالصیف (I loved you in the summer) and it blew me away.
For a new student of Arabic who was already spending 4-5 hours everyday outside of class in learning the language, this was a song simple enough for me to understand (with some struggle!) and to fall in love with. Since then, I’ve listened to Fairuz’s beautiful voice everyday when I wake up, at work after class, and before I fall asleep. My listening skills have come to appreciate her words and every time I listen to her I recognize just a bit more of what I have already studied. Of course, after the initial euphoria that her music brought me, I have returned to the original purpose which led me to pursue the study of Arabic- that of early and medieval Arabic poetry.
I was lucky enough to stumble across a beautiful Sudanese rendition of the Ibn Al-Farid’s قصیدۃ الخمریة (The Wine-Song). My searches on YouTube for the same did not lead anywhere, so I sat down and transcribed the verses that appear in this rendition and uploaded them on to YouTube. I recommend using the Matheson Trust website (linked in the sentence prior to the last one) to access the English translation. I am grateful that they had this online, and I hope that through my upload on YouTube more people will have the chance to appreciate the beautiful poetry of Ibn Al-Farid.
Over the last few years, I have come to dread the social media in the aftermath of a violent attack. This fear has eclipsed the fear of the violent attack itself. While violence erupts, and in some cases is caused to erupt, almost everywhere in the world, my social media circles tend to go into overdrive in one of two cases. First is the violence that happens in Pakistan. This violence is very encompassing- it could be a bomb attack, a political fistfight, an armed student militia encounter or anything else. However, even within such an inclusive category, there are exclusions. The violence against sub-nationalists groups is, for the large part, often ignored by the social media. This has, of course, changed in the last few years. Second is the violence that happens elsewhere in the world but is linked to Islam. This is violence under the cover, and through the use of, religion. This can also be violence where all the involved parties claim membership to one sect or the other of Islam, as well as violence where only one side makes such a claim. Even though these are broad categories that I have constructed based on the manifestation of violence, I think that a rigorous elucidation of categories of violence must focus not on the manifestation of violence but on the motivation behind it. The reason that I only focus on the manifestation here is because it allows me to succinctly provide the casual reader with a general idea of a topic that is mentioned frequently in this piece. In what follows, I will focus on the reactions to the first type of violence that I have identified above- that in Pakistan.
The unfortunate death of Amjad Sabri serves as a recent example for such analysis. Amjad Sabri was a popular singer of devotional music and a recognizable face for a large number of Pakistanis. His father was one of the two Sabri brothers who, together, form a duet that is undoubtedly one of the best to have ever come out of Pakistan. While it would be hard for anyone to live up to such a prestigious status, whether Amjad would have done so will now forever remain a matter of debate. Death came for him, as it does for everyone else, with little regard for his family, his career, his art or anything else. The unfairness with which death comes begs the age old question of how could a fair god be so unfair to its creatures? As news filtered through of Amjad’s assassination, social media gradually started responding in a manner that we have all become so accustomed to.
Amjad Sabri was first claimed by the Twelver Shi’ites, even though he himself does not come from such a family. Posts and images began to circulate in these spheres that highlighted Amjad’s affection for historical figures that the Twelver Shi’ite cosmology revolves around. These posts highlighted Amjad’s devotion to these figures. It was significantly above the regular veneration that an average Sunni would be expected to hold. This, of course, was endearing to the Twelver Shi’ites since their religion is predicated on a perennial struggle for recognition of (what they claim to be) a historical wrong done fourteen hundred years ago. If Amjad, as a member of the same Other that the Twelver Shi’ites define themselves in opposition to, could have affection for the dearly beloved of the Twelver Shi’ite imagination, then it serves, for the Twelver Shi’ite, to reinforce their own truth claims. These posts also claimed that Amjad was killed for his pro-Shi’ite leanings, especially because such veneration invites the scorn of religious fundamentalists like the Taliban etc. So, in claiming Amjad as one of their own, the Twelver Shi’ites were not just validating, through the Other, their own understanding of themselves and their history, but also highlighting the ever-present persecution and targeting that continues in present day Pakistan.
Of course, such a claim by the Twelver Shi’ites could not possibly go unchallenged by the Sunni majority. In what I would wager was a direct response to the actions of the Twelver Shi’ite activities on social media, posts began emerging that highlighted Amjad’s contributions to the genre of Qawwali (this, I think, ought to have been the popular Qawwali that I have talked about elsewhere) and the pluralism that the Qawwali represented. These posts claimed that the attack on Amjad was an attack on the pluralism intrinsic to Pakistan and/or Islam and was done by fundamentalists who do not wish to let this pluralism flourish. Thus, these types of posts promoted a distinct conception of society and religion and one that is under threat. In adhering to a principle of pluralism, however, such a conception does not so much as ignore, but rather whitewash completely, the claims of the persecuted minorities present in the same society. So, it responds to the allegations of violence against minorities not by saying that the violence is wrong, but by saying that the violence is not what this society does and that it comes from elements external to the society. Such a response, in turn, is criticized by the minorities as being inaccurate to the facts on the ground. This eventually turns into a back and forth with parties talking past each other rather than with each other.
Of course, given that this specific incident happened in Karachi, other political factors also come into play. For some, the responsibility lay squarely on the failure of the rangers that have been stationed in Karachi for just over two decades. For some, the responsibility lay solely on the provincial government that is formed by a party which enshrined into the constitution the non-Muslim status of the Ahmadis. As further news filtered through of the Taliban claiming the responsibility for the attack, many other came forwards and blamed the establishment that gave rise to these factions. As has been the case for much of Pakistan’s history, religion is intrinsic to the politics. Thus, as these political posts increased in number, brief commentaries on the role of religion also tagged along. Do the many incidents like this indicate the necessity of a separation between the religion and the state? Or do these incidents indicate instead a religion that has been twisted by the state and thus needs to be brought back to its original form? Of course, these questions and more, by virtue of their timing are predicated on adrenaline rather than reason. Similarly, the medium of social media that they emerge in is not necessarily conducive to a detailed and structured analysis of the issue on hand. The worst, however, is that the attention span of the social media is too short in duration. So, before one can even take stock of the right questions or figure out how, exactly, to word a question, the conversation has moved on. There is always something new to talk about and those that make the mistake of persisting on an old topic run the risk of being left behind.
Yet, this is not a new topic. Pakistan has been at this juncture- losing a committed individual to violence- before and is likely to be back here many times in the future. The conversations following such an incident do not change- they remain static and inflexible. It seems that those that engage in these conversations already have fixed notions of what to say- it is just that every new incident is simply a new opportunity to flaunt one’s opinion. This can range from sponsored hyper-nationalism to radical anarchy. It is almost irrelevant who has been targeted where, when, why and how? Indeed, it could be anyone but as long as they are someone half-recognizable, the social media will take the issue up, regurgitate the same old euphemisms and analogies, and then spit it out.
Since yesterday, I have seen the attack on Amjad heralded from an attack on Pakistan’s cultural values (to which I ask the questions that many have before me- have we defined Pakistan already that we can define its cultural values?) to an attack on specific religious point of views to an attack on art that will inevitably end it. Of course, similar proclamations have been made for many decades now. I think that such statements betray a superficial analysis of the situation at hand. Indeed, the latter is disrespectful to both the artist and the art to make such an analogy. Though art lives on because of what the artist has given it, it does not just die when the artist is taken away from it. Further, as crude as it may sound, I do not think that an artist being shot in cold blood amounts to the end of a genre. The real threat to art comes not from the violence that I described in the opening paragraph but from the ideological attitudes to art that have gradually become more prominent in our societal consciousness.
Amjad was an artist who came from an artist family. However, there are not many artists who come from non-artist families. Similarly, there are also many non-artists who leave their artist familial professions. Because of the movement of our society to a capitalistic economy, the type of individuals who pursue arts has been restricted to three. First, there is the socio-economically privileged individual who can afford to pursue arts without the pressure of having to succeed or having to worry about economic survival etc. This type of individual is thus able to focus solely on their art. Second, there is the talented individual who is peerless. This individual can be found across different social classes, including the socio-economically privileged one. The talent of this individual almost makes it irrelevant what class they come from. However, this is a rare type of talent and one that succeeds even in the face of institutional and social barriers. Third, there is the devoted individual. This individual eats and breathes art. This individual can also be found in any class. What distinguishes this individual from everyone else who claims to be devoted to art is that it is willing to be consumed by his passion for art. The commitment is independent of the class this individual hails from. It should be clear that the latter two can types can be found merged into the first one, or with each other, while also being able to stand on their own. But the theoretical refinement is a topic for another time.
Beyond these rare ideal-types, however, it is rare to find individuals who pursue arts. Thus, a kid whose talent falls just short of the rare type talent discussed above would never actually pursue arts because of the lack of encouragement (or, indeed, active discouragement) that it receives from those around it. The kid is instead diverted into the more acceptable professions of medicine, finance, law, etc. and forced to spend a life that does not quite do justice to his talents. Thus, the talent that could have been honed and sharpened and transformed into great art instead becomes a slave to the society around it. In doing so, it does not simply conform to and maintain these norms, but through its actions it reproduces them for the future generations. This is the case in not just my immediate and extended family, but also the rest of the Pakistan. My family would like to think it is educated because it can list the following, among many others, as titles that the members occupy- a doctor, a teacher, a corporate banker, an engineer, etc. Yet, what good is education if it is merely instrumental to the goal of breaking free of the class boundary? It is useless and ought not be considered education. Members of my family will die in middle-class mediocrity, having lived unfulfilled lives, and always having been too scared of committing fully and wholly to anything- whether an idea, or a love, or an art. Yet, their consciousness is shaped by the society around them and thus they are not, unfortunately, an isolated example. The entire society can said to be one that discourages breaking free of these structures- including pursuing arts. Thus, even as these members of the society wage an invisible, ideological war on arts by heralding it as being a useless pursuit, they are the first ones to throw their arms in the air and proclaim an attack on Amjad as an attack on arts. The physical attacks, like those on Amjad, do not have the power to threaten art for art is bigger than the perpetrators of this violence. The extremists will die with time, then rise again, then die again but art is permanent. It does not ebb and flow. It exists despite the attempts to eradicate it. Art will outlive this country, this society, and this religion and its god. Art is the domain of ideas and ideas cannot be fought with physically- they must be combated against on an ideological level alone. So, art can deal with guns and bombs, but it cannot deal with a consciousness that seeks to defeat it. The war against art is not the one waged by the extremists, but the one waged by this society. Every person who forces a child to give up a crayon for a stethoscope, a guitar for a calculator, and a sport for a grade is complicit in this war. It may be convenient now to simply shrug and say that scenarios do not permit us allowing our children to pursue arts, but history will show that it was only because we willingly made ourselves subservient to the scenarios that we ourselves had created.
Today I want to talk about the relationship between sex and sadness in Khurshidul Islam’s poetry. Islam is a very peculiar author. He was trained as a scholar of Urdu literature and poetry and his work is monumental within literary criticism in Urdu literature. We know that the greatest of Urdu poets, of course, are aware of the corpus of work behind them and this surfaces in their explicit references to the poets from the past generation that they perceive to have been great. Islam, however, is not just aware of the body of work but he is able to critically approach it with a variety of methodologies. Whereas a poet might only approach the work before his time from within a certain methodological framework (romanticism, formalism, post-modernism) etc, Islam was well versed in different epistemologies and made no secret of his rigid belief that a Marxist approach to literature and poetry was the best one possible.
Substantial shifts were happening within Urdu poetry as Islam was wrapping up his doctoral studies. The most vocal of these shifts was the progressive writers who want to use poetry to motivate social action. A more quieter shift (at least at the time) was the modernist breakaway from the structure of the ghazal. Islam only published three books of poetry but these books engage significantly with the themes mentioned above. Noticeably, his first two books (the second of which includes a large overlap with the first one) followed the traditional ghazal parameters with some emergence of free verse towards the end of the book. The third book was a complete breakaway and only included free verse. Remarkably, his work does not quite call for social justice. It merely confirms his own personal views of state and societal relationships. However, there is a constant theme of moral existentialism within his poetry. The closest parable from the pantheon of well-known philosophers would be that of a hybrid between Camus and Sartre. Islam laments the absurdity of human existence while also holding the human responsible for its action. For Islam, much like Sartre, the question of the existence or lack thereof of a divine being is not important. What is important is the “condemned freedom” of the humans and the repercussions it entails.
Islam’s poetry is provocative. Indeed, it is meant to be provocative much like N. M. Rashid’s is. Whereas Rashid delves deeply into a psychoanalytic examination of the self, Islam restricts himself to much simpler observations. So while Rashid talks about sex as an action with a remarkable variety of motivations (in his Intiqam, for example, the primary motivation for sex is avenging the colonial domination of the subcontinent!!!), Islam talks about the same desires from a more relatable perspective. Consider the following verse where Islam posits loneliness as the most basic, and common, motivation of desiring sex.
یہاں تو کوئی نہیں، دل تک اکیلا ہے
قبا کے بند تو کھولو، ہمارے پاس تو آو
There is no one here, even my heart is lonely,
Come near me, open the knots of your robe
Islam here deploys the traditional idioms of loneliness and a sad heart. It is not clear who he is speaking to- is it the beloved or a mere stranger? Perhaps it doesn’t even matter. While the first line shows Islam as lonely, the second depicts him as active about seeking an end to this loneliness. For Islam, the solution to this loneliness does not lie in being content with imagining the beloved as many of the earlier poets preferred to. He also does not want to stay aloof from a stranger if that is indeed who he is addressing. Islam is also not interested in cultivating an ethic of forlornness as many poets might have instead ended up doing in such a situation. He is upfront about nudity and sex as a viable, practical solution. So sex, in such a situation, is merely instrumental to ending Islam’s loneliness. It is not a form of intimacy at all- merely the means by which Islam wants to address his own lonely state.
Many questions emerge from such a reading. What kind of a sadness is Islam talking about? Is it existential sadness as he alludes elsewhere in his work or is it heartbreak? Is sex only ever a means of addressing one’s sadness and not a primal instinct? Or is it perhaps a primal instinct and one that best addresses a state of sadness? These are some of the lines of inquiry that I will try to develop over the summer as I return to his body of work. For now, I will continue with a brief summary of how his conceptualization of sex progresses through his work.
As Islam shifts to free verse, he is able to express more of what he is thinking. At this point, the loneliness he feels as well as the prevalence of sex as a means of fighting this loneliness is constructed as a wider, societal phenomenon. Consider the following poems (I apologize for the horrible translation and would thank you if you can provide a better version).
اُس گیت کی دھن ابھی تک میرے
بستر میں ہے
جو کل رات کو
کسی رنڈی نے میرے پڑوس میں
گایا تھا
The tune of the song is still in my bed
That was sung last night
By some prostitute in my neighbourhood
Here, Islam talks about the presence of a prostitute in his neighbourhood. Given what we know about Islam as a scholar, it is safe to assume that a neighbourhood like his would likely morally disapprove of prostitution. Yet, Islam insists on not just acknowledging the existence of prostitution but also the public revelation that it is a more regular occurrence than what one might concede. Alternatively, we can also say that perhaps we have no idea of the type of the neighbourhood that Islam lives in. Indeed, the only thing that the verse tells us is that it’s a neighbourhood frequented by vocal prostitutes! (If it was only the single prostitute, then Islam (or other neighbours) would have recognized who it was. The use of کسی shows that it is but one from many). This verse, in distinction to the first, posits the instrumental use of sex as a pervasive phenomenon and one that is not limited to Islam himself. In doing so, Islam is not providing excuses for his own behavior, but instead highlighting how such behavior is actually very common. What also jumps out is Islam’s own loneliness that remains unaddressed in this verse. Thus, in his loneliness, he is able to be attentive to what’s going on around him. Does this signal an acceptance, on Islam’s part, that on some nights he is consigned to loneliness because others in the vicinity are making use of the same remedy?
The last verse I want to mention is also the lengthiest.
مانا کہ تو فاحشہ ہے
مگر تو سب کو راحت
کا سامان بہم پہنچاتی
ہے، میں تیرا
احترام کرتا ہوں
تو آج مجھے بھی اپنے پاس
سلا لے، میں
تنہائی میں مرنا نہیں چاہتا
میں تیرے حق
میں دعا کروں گا
I acknowledge that you are a promiscuous woman
But you provide comfort, one without parallel, to all
For that, I respect you
Will you, today, let me sleep next to you?
I do not wish to die alone
I will say a prayer for you
Here, Islam continues with the theme of sex as instrumental to getting rid of sadness but changes how he approaches it. Instead of talking about the motivation for the act itself, he talks about the admiration he has for the person providing this service. The term فاحشہ is not how Islam views the woman in this poem- it is only the label given to her by the society that Islam is a part of. Islam makes clear his respect both in expressing his admiration for her as well as asking her to allow him to sleep with her. He is impressed by her ability to provide comfort to all with no discrimination. This equality, Islam laments elsewhere, is sorely missing from the world. The insistence by Islam that he would pray in favor of this woman is intriguing. He does not say he would advocate for her in this world likely because Islam knows that the society is unforgiving (He says elsewhere that ‘It is a pity that the society forgives the weak, but never forgives the brave’) towards those brave enough to upset it. Islam also does not concern himself with whether there is a divine or not so instead of arguing one way or the other, he agrees to pray knowing that should there be a divine, the prayer will carry some support for the woman but that if there is no divine, the act of praying would suffice as a gesture of his admiration for this woman. However, much like the earlier verses, not much is revealed about the type of sadness that Islam is undergoing. Though, for this verse, it could be because the focus is on the فاحشہ and not on the poet himself.
This has been an informal blog post- a skeleton really. I have sought to connect and link some of Islam’s work from across this three published works. I find the consistency and continuity of this thoughts remarkable. A lot of what I wrote above has been in my mind for a few months and there is lots more. I think another theme I want to explore in his work is the idea of a man squaring up to a diving being. As always, if you have any thoughts or critiques of what I wrote above, please comment or drop me an email and we can continue the discussion.
It’s been a long and busy school year. Between work and school, I have rarely had time to work on Aziz Mian at all. However, most of the ideas that first sprang on this blog have now been subsequently developed more substantively. I have also had the chance to expand beyond Aziz Mian and into the works of N. M. Rashid and Khurshidul Islam. These are two poets who I’ve mentioned previously on here as poets who inspire me as not just a poet but also as a person. Below are some pictures of works by them that I have found myself unable to stop thinking about over the last few months. I will return to these over the summer to comment. For now, I present them as they are.
Na Jao Ghar is an hour long, studio recorded performance. The main theme of this song is furqat which Platt’s defines as “…separation, disunion, abandonment; absence (of a beloved person); -distinction; distance”. Aziz Mian’s use closely resembles that of absence of a beloved. This works in tandem with the brief moment of wasl that the author/performer experiences. Platt’s defines wasl as “…meeting, union;…sexual intercourse;…” amongst others. In Urdu, the metaphor shab-e-wisal refers to the night when a Sufi achieves his Union with God. So the use of wasl can be seen as an extension of ambiguity that permeates Aziz Mian’s works. It could refer to a night of pious union with an almighty if we choose to look at it from a devotional approach. Indeed many of Aziz Mian’s laments in this song are addressed directly to a creator and his descriptions of events draws upon a strongly Abrahamic understanding of the world. However, if we look at it from the framework of popular poetry, the metaphor can refer to the beloved being a being and therefore the love becomes love for another person. What lends credibility to this is the use of certain descriptors, which beyond their use as mere tropes, help us imagine the beloved with distinct human (and therefore non-sacred) features. So, regardless of the interpretive framework we choose, we are at least able to agree upon the two dominant themes of this performance- the furqat and the wasl.
Building upon the idea of wasl, it also seems plausible that regardless of whether its ones aspiration to become One with an all mighty being or whether it something as simple as waiting for one’s object of Love, the period leading up to the wasl (regardless of the interpretive framework i.e. devotional or popular) shares a few common attributes like the act of waiting for the wasl to happen; the ritualistic preparation of one’s self before the wasl; imagining the wasl; and so forth. Indeed, the wait is crucial to the event itself precisely because if there was no wait, then the event would not hold the same importance as it does now. Aziz Mian sings din ginay jatay thay is din kay liyay (I have counted down numerous days for this day) to convey his impatience. As if this was not enough, he emphasizes further that muddat kay baad aaj mily hai shab-e-wisal, do char soo baras meri ya rab sahar na ho (After a long time have I been graced with this night of wasl, let a couple of hundred years pass, God, before the sun rises). Though the words appear decidedly desperate, it is perhaps melancholy which manages to shine through Aziz Mian’s performance. How unfortunate is the man whose beloved can only stay with him one night?
This is where, in my reading, the idea of using a devotional or a popular framework becomes an exercise in futility. The chorus of this song, na jao ghar abhi to raat hai, badal bhi kalay hain (Don’t go home yet, it’s still night and the skies are dark) is multifaceted and manages to convey meanings which can apply to both interpretive frameworks equally. So for example, the first thing that jumps out is the short duration of the wasl in that it only lasts a night. The second thing that jumps out is that the beloved is attempting to leave when the night is not even over and hence Aziz Mian’s repeated pleas to at least stay until dawn.
From a devotional framework, Aziz Mian could be implying that the long awaited wasl was so fleeting, yet final(that the Union happened within moments and now the being has transcended spatial and temporal restrictions) that the being who waited for this all his life is asking if he could at least get a second taste of it as much of the night still remains. Here, the observation that the skies are still dark could be seen as an incentive to the all-mighty where the being seeking the second wasl is saying that the all-might need not worry about being caught as no one would ever know that the pleasures of the wasl were enjoyed twice.
From a popular framework, Aziz Mian’s requests could be read as the beloved’s attempts to leave early. Aziz Mian, similar to the reading under the devotional framework, is implying that much of the night is left and could certainly be put to better use by Aziz Mian and the beloved together rather than Aziz Mian moping about on his own. Indeed, here Aziz Mian seems to use the dark skies as a veiled refrain to state that it is unsafe for the beloved to be out in the world where terrible things could happen. The beloved should see the evil intentions from which Aziz Mian seeks to protect his beloved from as being in stark contrast to the pure intentions of Aziz Mian himself.
It seems Aziz Mian’s pleas were somewhat successful as the beloved appears to have made a compromise. As Aziz Mian recounts,
Qamar kis kadhar unko jaldi thi ghar ki
Woh ghar chal diyey chandni dhaltay dhaltay
Qamar, how much of a rush were they in
That they left for home as the moonlight receded
So instead of leaving while much of the night was left, as the beloved attempted to do and instead of leaving when the night was finally over, as Aziz Mian attempted to ask the beloved to do, the beloved left as the moonlight receded while the sun had not quite come up. This allows us to see the agency that the beloved has that they were able to dictate their own terms of departure, unlike Aziz Mian’s persona in the performance which is only able request or make suggestions but is unable to control the actions of the beloved. This verse also marks a point of departure from the theme of the wasl as much of the rest of the performance focuses on the furqat before touching upon some laments towards the very end.
The idea of the beloved having a certain level of agency is fascinating. It is clear from the rest of the performance that Aziz Mian, unlike his beloved, either does not have agency (i.e can not just go and see his beloved) or is perhaps, at a very basic level, prioritizing his ethos over his love and therefore, under a restrictive ethos, is not able to pursue his beloved. Aziz Mian not having agency is not a new theme of this kind of poetry- the subject is often painted out to be at the whims of others. This is not because of any character flaws in the subject itself, but perhaps because of the subject’s acceptance of the larger forces at work which control his worldview and limit his choice. Gone are the days of Sarmadi love. Welcome to the post-colonial subject of Urdu literature where Victorian morality and middle-class ethics supersede all!
Aziz Mian’s persona makes a very conscious reference to this aspect of the modern subject. He juxtaposes his inability to affect his immediate physical surroundings with a strong reclamation of the literary sphere that it is still able to affect. Aziz Mian sings
Baharon ki khabar sun kar qafas mein roh to deta hoon
Kisi say yeh nahi kehta meray pur kaat dalay hain
When I hear the news of spring, I cry in the cage I find myself in
But I do not complain to the world that my wings have been cut off
Right after, though, he continues,
Kabhi shaakh-o-sabza-o-burg pur
Kabhi ghuncha-o-gul-o-khar pur
Mein chaman mein chahay jahan rahoon
Mera haq hai fasl-e-bahar pur
Mujhay dein na waiz ki dhamkian
Girein laakh bar yeh bijlian
Meri saltanat yehi aashiyan
Meri milkiat yehi char pur
Sometimes on the branch, or the greenery of the leaves,
Sometimes in the bunches of either flowers or thorns,
Wherever I may choose to live in the garden,
I have a right to all that blossoms in the spring,
Do not scare me with your talks of piety
Let the lightening fall a thousand times
This world is my kingdom
These wings are my property
Aziz Mian uses the above verse (penned by Jigar Muradabadi) to escape from a society principled on ideas of morality and ethics into a space where he is completely and truly free- the literary sphere. The rest of the performance is indicative of a change in the tone of the discourse of the song as it becomes increasingly critical of the beloved. This critique is significant as the subject turns on his head the ethos he had hitherto found himself restricted with and is now able to speak his mind. It is this liberation that Aziz Mian achieves which many others can only dream of. Indeed, his subject has a strong resonance with Hasan from Hasan Koozagar by N. M. Rashid who, after much introspection, also realizes the limits of the modern subject and asks rather hauntingly a line which would fit into any of Aziz Mian’s works seamlessly- tammana ki wusa’at ki kis ko khabar hai, Jahanzad? (Who really knows the depths of their desires, Jahanzad?).
On that note, I bid you farewell for a few weeks. My own act of rebellion- leaving the professional world to pursue a second undergraduate degree- commences soon and I am excited for the ride. It is ironic that I leave my work industry, a manifestation of the capitalist system we find ourselves in, for the university, which, as Althusser so poignantly termed an ideological state apparatus, serves to normalize, reinforce and ultimately uphold the entire system. It has been a pleasure to update this blog regularly over the last couple of years and to help keep alive the interest in Aziz Mian. I can think of no fitting words to finish this post than these-
This is a brief digression from a paper I am working on. In trying to analyze an evolution of the nauha, I had trouble finding its very origins. The more I dug into it the more I realized that this would be no easy task 😦 I started by looking at the oldest descriptions of matam since my expectation was that any description of matam would be incomplete without a cursory mention of the nauha. It is important to note that the use of the word nauha here refers to a dirge that is self-sufficient on its own and has a consistent theme. I am not using the word nauha to imply mere chanting of either names (like Ya Hasan, Ya Hussien) or titles (like Ya Syedi, Ya Mazloom).
In Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali’s letters (dated from somewhere between 1816 – 1828) I found the following description of a majlis. She wrote that matam “…performance concludes each day’s Mudgelluss, either of the morning or evening…” and that it was conducted to a rhythmic chanting of the names of “…Hasan and Hosein”. In another place, she describes witnessing “…sturdy men, who beat themselves simultaneously as they ejaculated the names ‘Hasan!’ ‘Hosein!’ for ten minutes and occasionally during a longer period…”. Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali’s also observed in the public processions that “…in the cavalcade is a chanter or reader of the Musseeah…one or two couplets being chanted…attended by the proprietor of the Tazia display, and his many relatives and friends, bare-footed, and without any covering on their heads; many of these persons throw chaff on their heads, expressive of grief, and whilst the Musseeah is chanted, their boisterous expressions of sorrow are painfully severe to the mere observer of the scene”.
In W. H. Sleeman’s Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official from 1844, Pinault found an extremely brief description of a Muharram procession (when compared with that of Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali’s). Sleeman simply wrote “…mournful procession of the Mohurum, when the Mahomedans are inflamed to madness by the recollection of the really affecting incidents of the massacre of the grandchildren of their prophet, and by the images of their tombs, and their sombre music…” and continued later with “…the Mahomedans, clothed in their green mourning, with gloomy downcast looks, beating their breasts, ready to kill themselves, and too anxious for an excuse to kill anybody else”. Here, it appears that Sleeman observed the procession and the music but did not necessarily see the matam being done to the tune of the religious dirges. This is consistent with Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali’s remarkably detailed recollections of the procession, where too, the chanting of the dirges does not align with the performance of the matam. This commonality in both Sleeman and her works serves to emphasize that the act of matam to a dedicated, fully fleshed nauha akin to today had not yet crystallized.
Pinault’s research of representations of Muharram in the early 1900’s also helps us with many sources, notably the work of Kipling in describing Muharram (for both fictive and non-fictive purposes) as well as the work of Campbell Oman. The accounts of both of the above mentioned authors are remarkably similar to those of Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali and W. H. Sleeman.
Hollister’s study of South Asian Shi’ism from late 1940’s does not contain the word nauha at all, and neither does Vernon Schubel’s fascinating fieldwork from Karachi in 1983 (though Schubel does mention marsiyas being blared in Shia neighbourhoods and I assume that this is actually nauhas). Rizvi’s 1986 work on the history of Twelver Shi’ism in India only devotes a single line (from more than two thick volumes!) to the nauha and calls it a creation of “…modern poets”. Pinault’s detailed study of Shi’ism in the Deccan only a couple of years later, however, treats the nauha as a staple of Indian Shi’ism (and rightly so, based on his experiences in that given space and time). Two exceptions, however, to the above trend of missing the nauha altogether are the PhD dissertation of Keith Guy which mentions the nauha in some detail as well as Regula Qureshi’s 1981 article in Ethnomusicology which distinguishes the nauha from the marsiyah. So it appears that the nauha was certainly present in its current form in 1970’s and 1980’s and if one was to use Pinault’s research on the origins of anjumans as a potential starting point, then perhaps we could confidently pin point the 1940’s as a reasonable estimate. Indeed, the following TV Schedule from BBC Lucknow in 1939 has a separate timeslot for nauhakhwani.
Two questions reside in my mind currently-
How far back, and how much more accurately, can the historian go to find a nauha resembling what it is today?
Why did the English speaking academia ignore the nauha despite its presence from 1950’s onwards to the 1980’s?
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 18th century India before being able to dream of understanding poetry and what it implied, such notions were torn apart in the late 20th 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.
On Sept 18th, 2014, a new Agha Khan Museum is set to open in Toronto. On Sept 27th and Sept 28th, it will host a performance by Fareed Ayaz, Abu Muhammad Qawwal and Brothers. Tickets are available and it is expected that the museum will generate a large audience for this event.
There are two possible reasons behind the organization of such an event. Firstly, the event is expected to be a success, insofar as the amount of tickets sold and the revenue generated for the new museum is concerned. Alternatively, it may also be that this event is more of a repute-building scenario. It may only break even or incurs a monetary loss but it can help cement the new museum’s reputation as a connoisseur of traditional performing arts. Regardless of the end result, what is obvious is the commodification of an ancient ritual to achieve a desired result. The ‘Qawwali’ is being posited as a means to a commercial end and this, I argue in the piece below, is antithetical to the nature of the ‘Qawwali’ itself.
To make my case, a short history of the popular ‘Qawwali’ is in order. Historically, it is best defined as classical, devotional music in South Asia that transcends religious identities. Though its origins are attributed to the Sufi school of thought within Islam, it also built up a steady following of people with varying sectarian affiliations from within Islam itself. The plurality of its followers, synchronized use of percussion instruments and the metaphorical use of imagery in its lyrics worked in harmony to induce ecstasy (haal) within the group of listeners present at such a performance (Qureshi 1972).
Up until the early 20th century, Qawwali performances were largely restricted to Sufi saint shrines. Such gatherings were typically performed on a Thursday night and followed a prescribed order. The Qawwali reciters were hereditary singers associated with the shrine. In most cases, they traced a direct lineage to the saint whose shrine they now looked after. This not only created a familiarity between the shrine, its patrons and the audience, it also contributed to the private nature of such an event. The lyrics of the Qawwali were based on the works of Sufi saints of the past- Nizamuddin Auliya and Amir Khusraw are two famous names whose poetry was regularly evoked in these performances.
The explosion of access and information in late 19th and early 20th century resulted in the Qawwali being lifted from the private, secluded sphere of the shrine to the public, open sphere. Qawwali began to emerge in private gatherings, concerts, and musical recordings. Today it is publicly accessible through digital media. In doing so, the populist Qawwali lost its mystical character that relied in large parts on the spatiotemporal atmosphere within which a Qawwali was sung. There is no shrine, its patrons or a loyal audience in global performances as performers may globetrot within short amounts of time. If performing art is indeed a mutual relationship between the performer and the audience, then there is a distinct alienation within the populist Qawwali when compared to the historical Qawwali.
In this new form of the Qawwali, a popular Qawwali, we witness a mere appreciation of the transcendent, and not an active engagement with it. The Qawwali audience today- at home, concerts, and gatherings- does not seek to achieve ecstasy. They are drawn to the Qawwali by its mystique and its history. This amounts to an appreciation of the Qawwali, rather than an active engagement with it. This poses an interesting hypothesis.
The historical Qawwali was predicated on inducing in its audience a spiritual trance. The populist Qawwali has become a means to merely appreciate the potential present within it to induce in people a spiritual trance. The historical Qawwali thus focused on a complete submersion of one’s self into the mystical world. This focus on a transcendent experience also manifests itself in the lyrics of the works of Nizamuddin Auliya and Amir Khusraw. In keeping true to the Sufi doctrine, special emphasis is paid to the equality of mankind. Sectarian and religious identities are often dismissed as a mere pretence and the inadequateness of self is highlighted repeatedly.
The populist Qawwali, paradoxically, highlights sectarian affiliations. The mere mention of some early Islamic figures like Ali, Hussain, Omar and Usman is enough for it to be labeled either a Sunni or a Shia Qawwali! The public exposure of the populist Qawwali has also resulted in lyrics reflective of the sectarian tensions prevalent in the socio-cultural conditions under which it is composed and performed. These Qawwali’s thus become a discourse which, when analyzed contextually, can serve as an additional source of histiography.
However, it is also important to note that it is not the case that the populist Qawwali has completely eroded the historical Qawwali. In many shrines in India and Pakistan, the historical Qawwali still exists as a weekly ritual. It is also interesting to note that these historical Qawwal’s consider Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, for example, as a great singer but not a great Qawwal. They argue that a populist Qawwali defeats the very purpose of Qawwali if it is performed explicitly for commercial reasons.
I have sought to highlight and distinguish that what we consider Qawwali today is only a populist Qawwali and the true form itself. It is fundamentally different from what used to be considered a Qawwali in times gone by. This difference in its very nature is the result of a loss of number of factors- the populist Qawwali is not spatially related to the environment it is performed under; it does not enjoy a familiarity with its audience unlike the Qawwali’s performed at shrines; it is also easier to label and categorize it in a sectarian manner unlike the historical Qawwali which continuously highlighted the wahaddat-ul-wujood, or the Unity of Being, as a core belief.
The Agha Khan Museum, using the populist Qawwali as a commodity, are however not novel in what they are doing. As mentioned above, such a use can be traced back to, and coincides with, the explosion of access and information in South Asia. It is not that the Agha Khan Museum is solely complicit of this defacing of the historical Qawwali, only that it is following the same trend that hundreds of radio stations, recording labels, television channels and other museums to name a few have followed blindly. I hope that the above highlighted differences are acknowledged within academic discourse, if not public discourse, in order to better chart the moment of departure of the populist Qawwali from the historical Qawwali.
One cannot understand Aziz Mian without understanding the history of Urdu poetry. Aziz Mian composed his work against, and in response to, a certain backdrop of normative prose. His break away from the norm cannot be truly appreciated without having a grasp of what the norm was and how it came to be constituted. The norm in Urdu prose has changed thrice within the last two centuries and can be crudely divided into three periods. The first age is that of the ghazal and it lasted up until the 1860’s. It was succeeded by the age of the nazm which last until the 1940’s. The present age is that of an azad nazm. The differences between the three are quite varied.
The ghazal follows a rigorous structure and each sher within the ghazal can also stand independently without the ghazal. It is as elaborate as it is ornate and requires extensive knowledge of not just Urdu vocabulary, but also a fair degree of mythology, religion and history. Some prominent poets in this genre include Mir, Dard, and Sauda.
Following the humiliation of 1857’s ill-fated rebellion, some Muslims concerned themselves with the task of reviving their society from the ‘backwardness’ it found itself in. The ghazal became an object of their derision and they invested significant time and resources in overwhelming what they considered a decadent activity. This group gave birth to the nazm. The nazm is much shorter in length and does not follow a rigorous structure. Most importantly, however, it carries a social or a moral message thus giving its text a purpose. This result-oriented approach differs significantly from the ghazal which is premised on desires, regrets, and fantasies. The nazm is associated with the likes of Hali and Iqbal.
While the nazm was much less rigorous than the ghazal, it was still limited by requirements of rhymes, syllables and balance. The azad nazm, in keeping with the literary trends globally, broke completely free of these requirements. Urdu poetry, in this age, became free. The lack of structure allowed it to introduce topics which had hitherto been inadmissible- questions of self, sexuality, society became more prominent. Some of the poets associated with this movement include Faiz, Miraji and N M Rashid.
This is not to say that the above ages were exclusive of each other. Poets like Faiz also wrote ghazals as well as nazms though he is predominantly an azad nazm poet. These ages merely signify that the dominant literature produced within these eras conformed to a certain norm. The nazm would have been inconceivable in the royal courts of Oudh, while the azad nazm poets would have certainly been denounced with blasphemy not for their contents but for their lack of respect for the existing structure!
Poetry is deeply impacted by the society it is composed under and reflects this impact. Aziz Mian, then, composing his work in 1960’s and the 1970’s, belongs to an age firmly entrenched in the azad nazm era. His brilliance lay in invoking the contents of the azad nazm within the structure of a ghazal and distinguishes him from many poets before him.
Iqbal, for example, authored an extensive collection of nazms. Though he did momentarily break free from the religious theme so common in his work when he wrote Shikwa, the inherent limitation in his work became obvious when he also wrote Jawab e Shikwa. It was clear that Iqbal was under the influence of a reformist school of thought as is also evident in much of his other work in Urdu.
Aziz Mian, by contrast, has no such barriers. His work is reminiscent of Mir in that it is equally bold in its proclamations of love and beauty and outrageously contemptuous of any structuralised religion. Consider, for example, Aziz Mian’s questioning of a religious priest in the following verse
Aray yeh janab e shaikh ka falsafa
Jo samajh mein meri na aa saka
Jo wahan piyo toh halal hai
Jo yahan piyo toh haram hai
O, this philosophy of Mr. Priests’
I’ve never quite been able to grasp
Drinking is permissible over there
Drinking is not permissible over here
Aziz Mian is seen here questioning the widely propagated belief that an Islamic conception of paradise contains a river which is tastier than the tastiest wine. As the believers are often reminded, abstaining from alcohol in this life would help their cause to get into heaven. Aziz Mian, as exemplified by the verse, is perplexed why a divine being would create two different worlds and impose restrictions on the constituents of one but not the other. This goes against the very nature of a just and equal being and is thus contradictory. Aziz Mian does not limit himself to the question of wine, he also questions the idea of the virgins.
Hooron ka aitbar karey kaun hashr tak
Matti ki bhi milay to rawan hay shabab mein
Who is to trust heavenly women in the hereafter?
I will start with some regular ones in my youth
This verse is even more provocative than the previous one. Here, Aziz Mian is not only questioning the validity of a concept which is even more widely prevalent (that of believing men being rewarded with heavenly women beings) but he is also attacking the concept of abstinence. Aziz Mian does not understand why a diving being would create beauty and then advise his other creation to not appreciate it? This verse, more than the last, attacks not just a religious orthodoxy but also challenges the poets associated with the nazm.
It is no debate that Aziz Mian’s verse above would have been equally in place next to any of ones from the age of the ghazal. It is also likely that the contents of his verses above are in place with some of those created in the azad nazm era. However, both the content and its presentations are irksome and undesirable to the likes of Hali and Iqbal. They would’ve considered Aziz Mian simply another despicable poet to be refrained from.
Yet, where the reformists found contempt and moral decline, I find thinking and critical evaluation from a poet not appreciated enough for his work. To be clear, Aziz Mian’s personal beliefs in a divine being are never in doubt. It is his belief in his fellow men that he is always questioning.
The aim of the reformists was to ‘rescue’ a society from ‘moral decline’. This is no different than the neoliberal rhetoric espoused elsewhere in the present day. What is rescue? What constitutes moral decline? What is the benchmark? These are the questions that we find in Aziz Mian’s works where he poses these and forces us to think. It is for this reason, if not any other, that Aziz Mian must be studied. His work, just like him, has more to offer us than we have ever understood.
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