Table Of ContentMasnavi
A S t u d y o f U r d u Romance
Anna A. Suvorova
~ /
Translated from the Russian by
M. Osama Faruqi
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ISBN O 19 579148 7
First published In Russian by Vostochnaya Llteratura Publishers,
Moscow, 1992
Printed In Pakistan at
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Published by
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my
To parents
CONTENTS
page
Dedication
V
Introduction ix
1. EARIHLY LOVE AND CELESTIAL LOVE 1
1 1
Poems about the quest for love
29
Poems about the mystery of love
2. AS POWERRJL AS DEATH 44
Through fire, water, and brass trumpets SS
85
Variations on the theme
3.
OF EARIHLY LOVE 100
The city and the world 110
Man and the world 133
4. VERBOSE LANGUAGE OF LOVE 165
176
Whims of style
194
Name of the rose
5. LOVE'S LABOUR LOSI .213
223
Diary of the pangs of the heart
248
Conduslon
Glossary 262
Bibliography 280
285
Index
,.
INTRODUCTION
How sweet are the shadowy channs
Of the nights of the gorgeous East/
How delightfully flow their hours
For those who adore the Prophet/
What a sweet bliss In their abodes,
In their enchanting gardens,
In the quiet of secure harems,
Where under the Influence of the moon
Everything is full of myste,y and tranquility
And voluptuous inspiration!
A. S. Pushkln
In the year· 711, Arab troops under the leadership of
AD
Muhammad lbn al-Qaslm crossed the border of Slndh,
marking the beginning of the Muslim conquest of India
extending over several centuries. Since those times 'Slndh
and Hind', as at times the subcontinent was called by
Muslim authors, have served as a source of Irresistible
attraction for the most Illustrious Inhabitants of the Muslim
World. Who has not sought his fortune here-whether with
sword or qalam (pen) In hand or with serrnon or verses on
his llpsl Indeed the number Is legion: erudite travellers,
Buzurg lbn Shahriyar, al-Birunl, lbn Battuta; religious leaders
and mystics, Mansur Hallaj, al-Hujwlri, Mulnuddln Chlshtl;
poets, Unsurl, Manuchehrl, Abul Faraj Ruml; artists, Mir Sayld
X INTRODUcnON
All and Abdus Salam; and generals, like Mahmud Ghamavl,
Timur, and Babur. Some came here as guests, often
uninvited; others settled In India for good, finding a second
homeland. Some left a scorched and bleeding trace In the
people's memory; legends were made about others while
they were still alive and their tombs were venerated by
Muslims and Hindus alike.
Of course, on the scales of historic justice, the burden of
Muslim military Invasions outweighed, for a long time, the
huge repositories of learning which the Arab, Persian, and
Turkish Intelligentsia brought with them. In a contem
porary's perception, the soldier's heavy footsteps drown
the poet's light steps. Let us say, for Indians of the eleventh
century, Mahmud Ghaznavl's seventeen aggressive
campaigns were In no way compensated by the depth and
objectivity of al-Blrunl's book, India, or by the asceticism of
the Muslim saint al-Hujwlrl, popularly known by the name
of Data Ganjbakhsh. But centuries rolled by, marshalling
facts In historical perspective; and when In the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries the unique Muslim culture of India
took Its final shape, It turned out that Its most Impressive
and original features are bound, not with the polltlcal and
legal Institutions Implanted 'from above', but with the
activities of those 'others' who marched over the length
and breadth of the conquered country, without heralds and
war drums, but with 'gentle, light steps'.
The ritual of conversion from Hinduism to Islam took just
the few minutes required for pronouncing the Shahadah
(the Indication of faith). However, for genuine lslamlzatlon
of the neophytes who continued to adhere to the earlier
mode of life and everyday rituals, centuries were required,
In the course of which Muslims and Hindus exercised an
active Influence on each other. As this takes place It Is
obvious that no forced conversion Into Islam (of which there
were not a few examples In the history of India) has given
as many proselytes to the Prophet's religion as the
PBUH
•
INTRODUCTION XI
inspired preaching of the sheikhs of the Chishtiyya order:
Muinuddln, Bakhtlyar Kakl, Baba Farid, Nizamuddin Auliya,
Nasiruddin Chiragh of Delhi, Muhammad Gesudaraz, etc.
The 'martyr in- the name of divine love' Hallaj's one and
only visit to Multan, In the year 905, gave birth to a whole
tradition of mystic folk poetry in Punjabi, Sindhi, and Balochi
literatures.
The civilization brought to India by immigrants from the
countries of the near and the Middle East was mainly urban.
Of course, even before the advent of Muslims, India had
developed an urban culture. Nevertheless, if the Ideal of a
religious Hindu was retirement in the evening of life from
the town Into a forest sanctuary or ashram, for Muslims of
all age groups the symbol of spiritual and social life was the
mosque and the congregatlonal prayers, possible only In
urban conditions.
The consequences of this urbanization, different In nature
to the Indian version, were quite far-reaching. Thus, It
brought about the development of a new type of urban
architecture which, In the Indian context, signified transition
from the 'sculptural concept of space to the architectural,
replacement of vertical construction by horizontal' .1 The
activation of urban life and the consolidation of the
multilingual population were conducive to the consolidation
of the status of vernaculars and local dialects, which In the
course of time, if not legally, then at least In practice,
acquired a certain parity with Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit
the official languages of religion and clerical work. Finally,
the growth of towns signified the formation of new centres
of Islamic science and art, which ensured uninterrupted
succession in the transfer of knowledge, skill, and the
professionalization of artistic and scientific work. The culture
of these centres In the true sense of the word belonged to
urbi et orb/ (the city and the world), on the one hand
gradually acquiring its 'local colour' and, on the other hand,
never losing contact with the vast Muslim World. Lahore,
xii
INTRODUCTION
Thatta, Delhi, Jaunpur, Bijapur, Golconda, Agra, Hyderabad,
and Lucknow were such crossroads of culture during various
historical periods. Some of them are flourishing even today,
others have turned Into out-of-the-way provincial places
and, of yet others, only ruins have survived.
The Islamic culture which came to India was not
monolithic; It had Incorporated In Itself not a few pre-Islamic
elements, borrowed from the people conquered by the
Arabs. None the less, Its manifest unity was ensured by
strict monotheism, the indisputable authority of the Koran
and Prophet Muhammad and also by the laws of
PBUH,
Shariat regulating various aspects of human activity and
recognized by all the sects of Islam. As far as the age-old
Indian culture is concerned, its diversity was astonishing
and beyond calculation, yielding no semblance of unity to
an alien eye. The ritual-mythological roots of this culture
were alive and continued to nourish Its phasic
heterogeneous types: archaic, folkloric, and dassical, etc.,
as If existing on one temporal plane. Numerous religlo
philosophical doctrines, esoteric and popular rituals,
developed science, polished-through-ages aesthetics, and
the extremely rich practice of applied and fine arts, which
the Muslims encountered In India, required them to support
the local cultural substratum in the course of their
proselyting and missionary activity. Thus it was that
gradually the phenomenon of syncretization started taking
shape, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, leading
subsequently to the distinctive Hindu-Muslim cultural
synthesis. All these processes affected only the urban
population, as Shariat did not interfere with the life of the
masses living in rural areas. In particular, it did not in:· any
way encroach on the varna and the caste system.
The keenest interest In the indigenous culture of India was
at first displayed by the Sufi fraternity of the Chlshtlyya. It Is
known that the founder of the order Mulnuddln (d. 1236)
used to accept Hindus as his disciples, without insisting upon
