Fa’iz: A poet of sensuous female bueaty

Fa’iz, the first poet to write in Urdu from North India, got his rather slim volume of verses compiled in 1714. This contemporary of Wali Dakkani distinguished from what later became the mainstream of Urdu poetry, not only in his choice of subject, but also in his use of local, non-literary images, words and rhythm. Though he belonged to the aristocracy, a dominant theme in his poetry is the sensuous beauty of women appeared in public. He has written about girls who assemble at wells to draw water, who go to the Nagambodh ghat for a holy dip, who sell fruits in the lanes, and at stalls sell biras of pan. For his short poems as well as ghazals, he chose the convention of sarapa, in which the jewellery and costume worn by the girl on different parts of her body are described. ‘In Praise of the Woman Bhang-seller of Dargah Qutub’ is mainly a description of the beauty of this ‘low-born’ woman. The narrative, the atmosphere and the moral at the end of the poem are invented, largely, to provide a background to the portrait of the beautiful girl.

[M Waseem’s introduction to ‘Muslim Festivals in India and other Essays’ of Garcin de Tassy,OUP, New Delhi, 1997].

An invaluable addition to the Oriental Studies

Umda Muntakhaba , also known as Tazkira al Sho’ara-i-Urdu or Tazkira Suroor is one of the major sources on the history of early poetic traditions of Urdu. Khwaja Ahmad Farouqui (d: 1995), a renowned Urdu critic and scholar, edited Umda Munt Tazkira Al Sho’ara-i-Urdu akhaba and Delhi University, Delhi has published the same in 1961. According to him, only three manuscripts of Tazkira al Sho’ara-i-Urdu exist in the world: in Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; in India Office Library London on which Farouqui has worked because he considered it the best among the then existing three manuscripts, and in the library of Anjuma Taraqqi-i-Urdu Pakistan which was discovered by Maulvi Abdul Haq. Taufiq Ahmad Qadri Chishti of Amroha has recently discovered a new manuscript of Tazkira al Sho’ara-i-Urdu, the fourth one in this series. Chishti has been known in the Urdu literary circle since 1969 when he had discovered a manuscript of Diwan-i-Ghalib in the hand-writing of Ghalib himself.

Chishti has bought the calligraphed manuscript of Tazkira on June 19, 2008 at 6. 30 a.m. in Kanpur. It has 276 sheets which amount to 552 pages. Each page has 15 lines. It is calligraphed in ordinary Nasta’liq but in bold style (Khatt-i-Jali). The manuscript is in good shape and is also free from any spot of ink. Its size is 12 x 8. The name of its calligrapher is Pandit Bholanath Aashiq who completed the task of copying the manuscript on Friday, Zi al Hijja 22 but he has not mentioned the year. Chishti thinks that the year was 1224 Hijri. Pandit Bholanath had copied the manuscript in 1224 Hijri in the presence of the author of Tazkira. Its paper is hand-made and apricot in colour. The ink used by the calligrapher is of two colours : black and shankarni.

According to the newly discovered manuscript of Tazkira, its author has started writing this biographical dictionary of Urdu poets when he was 50 and he passed away in 1834, at the age of 80.

(Based on the information furnished in a letter to editor by Taufiq Ahmad Qadri Chishti of Amroha, published in Roznama Rashtriya Sahara Urdu, Delhi on August 15, 2008.)

Woman qazi creates history in Lucknow

Lucknow: A Planning Commission member and an expert on Islamic studies on Tuesday night created history by becoming the first woman to act as a ‘qazi’ and solemnise a ‘nikah’ ceremony here.

Sayeda Hamid flew in from New Delhi to perform the nikah (Islamic marriage ceremony) of Imran Naeem, Ph.D. scholar from AMU, and Naesh Hasan, founder member of a social organisation, Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan in the presence of eminent citizens at a city hotel.

The introduction as well as the vows were read in English giving the function a different hue than traditional rituals. Four women stood up as witnesses.

Although there has been no precedent of women conducting a nikah in recent Muslim history, they are known to have attained the position of qazi and mufti in times of the Prophet.

“The response from our families and local religious leaders has been positive,” said Ms. Hasan.

“We speak of progress but leave all the important jobs to menfolk. Religious duties have nearly solely been a male premise, not only in Islam but also in other religions.”

The nikah took place according to the tenets of Islam, her family members said. — PTI. http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/13/stories/2008081360251400.htm

Garcin de Tassy: An Urduphile French Orientalist

Below is a brief sketch of Garcin de Tassy, an Urduphile French Indologist. It is a liberal reproduction from the introduction written by M Waseem (1935-2001) to ‘Muslim Festivals in India and other Essays’ (OUP, New Delhi, 1997). This OUP paperback is Waseem’s translation of de Tassy’s monograph Memoire sur des particlularites de la relgion musulmane dans I’Inde,d’apres les ouvrages hindoustani and a couple of other essays. Though I am aware of the name of Garcin de Tassy for last a decade and also had a vague idea of his contribution to the scholarship on the evolution of Urdu language and literature, his academic interest in the lived Islam of South Asian region is a discovery for me. Interestingly enough, I did not know how to spell Garcin de Tassy’s name correctly in Roman script till a while ago as I learnt about him through writings in Urdu. Through this profile of de Tassy, I would like to share my excitement and delight at the moment, with netizens and readers of my blog, in particular.

Not much is known about the personal life of Garcin de Tassy (1794-1878), who was the son of a merchant in Marseilles–––a Mediterranean port with ancient contacts with Arabs. In 1817, he came to Paris, where the well-known Orientalist, Silvestre de Sacy (1763-1824), encouraged him to learn the ‘Islamic languages’, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Urdu. ‘Indianism’, specialized interest in Indian languages and literatures, had developed in France in the eighteenth century, one of its pioneers being Anquetil Duperron (1731-1805), who was in India for five years and introduced the Upanishads to Europe with his Latin version of the Sanskrit classic. Like many other French Orientalists, de Tassy was self-taught, an autodidacte; he learnt Urdu through John Gilchrist’s (1759-1841) Urdu grammar. (De Sassy had also written a book on Urdu grammar.) Through the good offices of de Sacy a Chair in Urdu was established in the Ecole des Langues Orientales Vivantes in 1828, a post which de Tassy occupied till his death. The chair was then abolished for want of students, many of whom were English boys, who were interested in the language in order to seek fortune in India. Louis Mathieu Langles (1763-1824), whose edition of Chardin, de Tassy quotes quite often in the Memoir [Memoire sur des particlularites de la relgion musulmane dans I’Inde,d’apres les ouvrages hindoustani (Paris, 1831)] , became the founder-director of the Ecole (established 1795) where de Tassy taught. Jean Chardin was incidentally, a traveler, who had visited India and Persia. Since Langles was Protestant, a fact repeatedly mentioned by de Tassy, he feared persecution in France, and so spent the remaining part of his life in England where he worked for the Dutch East India Company.

Most of de Tassy’s writings were published in journals, very little was reprinted and even less translated, that is why his works are not easily available. However, a look at the bibliography of his writings would show that his main interest was Islam and Islamic literatures, and naturally enough there is a constant comparison in his writings with Roman Catholicism and Western literatures. From a certain point of view de Tassy’s most important contribution to scholarship in this area was the Annual Inaugural lectures which he delivered in the first week of each December from 1850 to 1877. They record not only his intellectual growth and the focusing of his interests, but also take notice of all important books published in India and the changing climate in which Urdu was developing, particularly in the light of the growing antagonism from supporters of Hindi.

He was interested in Islam as it was actually practiced in various countries, and in how it compared with the teachings of the Quran. Secondly, he insisted that the fullness of a culture could be understood not through an Orientalist’s or official’s or traveller’s observations, but only through the nuances coded in the idiom of that language.

Unfortunately, there was very limited material for such an approach…De Tassy could not visit India, perhaps on account of lack of financial resources, but he succeeded remarkably because of his imaginative, yet honest and very practical approach to the subject.

De Tassy is full of admiration of the Urdu peots he knew; he was not aware of Ghalib, then. But these peots were hardly of any help to him in his research…

De Tassy is regarded as a sincere and consistent benefactor (mohsin) of Urdu; he had no political axe to grind; he started writing long after the French had ceased to have imperialist interest in India. Ironically, however, de Tassy had to depend upon material supplied by the Fort William College, established on the first anniversary of the Battle of Serangapatnam, which was believed to have sealed the fate of the French in India. Secondly, his scholarship was used mainly by the British.

The Prophet speaks to me personally: Claims Mohammad Bello Abubakar

Andrew Walker of BBW News reports from Bida, Nigeria about Mohammed Bello Abubakar, an 84 years old Nigerian Muslim, who has 86 wives and who claims that the prophet Muhammad speaks to him personally and shares Bello Abubakar his prophetic experiences in details. Read about this interesting believer of Islam:

Nigerian Mohammed Bello Abubakar, 84, has advised other men not to follow his example and marry 86 women. The former teacher and Muslim preacher, who lives in Niger State with his wives and at least 170 children, says he is able to cope only with the help of God. “A man with 10 wives would collapse and die, but my own power is given by Allah. That is why I have been able to control 86 of them,” he told the BBC.

He says his wives have sought him out because of his reputation as a healer. “I don’t go looking for them, they come to me. I will consider the fact that God has asked me to do it and I will just marry them.”

But such claims have alienated the Islamic authorities in Nigeria, who have branded his family a cult. Most Muslim scholars agree that a man is allowed to have four wives, as long as he can treat them equally. But Mr Bello Abubakar says there is no punishment stated in the Koran for having more than four wives. “To my understanding the Koran does not place a limit and it is up to what your own power, your own endowment and ability allows,” he says. “God did not say what the punishment should be for a man who has more than four wives, but he was specific about the punishment for fornication and adultery.”

As Mr Bello Abubakar emerged from his compound to speak to the BBC, his wives and children broke out into a praise song. Most of his wives are less than a quarter of his age – and many are younger than some of his own children. The wives the BBC spoke to say they met Mr Bello Abubakar when they went to him to seek help for various illnesses, which they say he cured. “As soon as I met him the headache was gone,” says Sharifat Bello Abubakar, who was 25 at the time and Mr Bello Abubakar 74. “God told me it was time to be his wife. Praise be to God I am his wife now.”

Ganiat Mohammed Bello has been married to the man everyone calls “Baba” for 20 years. When she was in secondary school her mother took her for a consultation with Mr Bello Abubakar and he proposed afterwards. “I said I couldn’t marry an older man, but he said it was directly an order from God,” she says. She married another man but they divorced and she returned to Mr Bello Abubakar. “I am now the happiest woman on earth. When you marry a man with 86 wives you know he knows how to look after them,” she said.

Mr Bello Abubakar and his wives do not work and he has no visible means of supporting such a large family. He refuses to say how he makes enough money to pay for the huge cost of feeding and clothing so many people. Every mealtime they cook three 12kg bags of rice which all adds up to $915 (£457) every day. “It’s all from God,” he says. Other residents of Bida, the village where he lives in the northern Nigerian state, say they do not know how he supports the family. According to one of his wives, Mr Bello Abubakar sometimes asks his children to go and beg for 200 naira ($1.69, £0.87), which if they all did so would bring in about $290 (£149).

Most of his wives live in a squalid, unfinished house in Bida; others live in his house in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. He refuses to allow any of his family or other devotees to take medicine and says he does not believe that malaria exists. “As you sit here if you have any illness I can see it and just remove it,” he says. But not everyone can be cured and one of his wives, Hafsat Bello Mohammed, says two of her children have died. “They were sick and we told God and God said their time has come.”

She says that most of the wives see Mr Bello Abubakar as next in line from the Prophet Muhammad. Indeed, he claims the Prophet Muhammad speaks to him personally and gives detailed descriptions of his experiences. It is a serious claim for a Muslim to make. “This is heresy, he is a heretic,” says Ustaz Abubakar Siddique, an imam of Abuja’s Central Mosque.

Gay relationships comparable to marriage: Says Archbishop

London: The world-wide Anglican Communion may be faced with a new row over liberal attitude towards homosexuality following a claim by Britain’s top bishop that active homosexual relationships are “comparable to marriage” in the eyes of God.

“I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness,” said Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

The controversial view, described by the top bishop as his “definitive conclusion” reached after 20 years of study and prayer, will infuriate the conservatives who boycotted the recent Lambeth Conference in the United Kingdom in protest at the presence of liberals who elected Anglicanism’s first openly gay bishop.

Written eight years ago when Williams was the Archbishop of Wales, the private correspondence described his belief that Biblical passages criticising homosexual sex were not aimed at people who were gay by nature.

The contents of the letters, which were reported by The Times newspaper, were seen by the British daily.

At the Lambeth Conference, which closed on Sunday, the Archbishop recommitted the Anglican Communion to its orthodox position that homosexual practice is incompatible with scripture.

According to the London-based daily, the news threatens to reopen bitter divisions over ordaining gay priests, which pushed the Anglican Communion towards a split at the conference.

The controversial view of Archbishop Williams will also be perceived as an attack at conservative Anglican leaders who have since claimed that the Church is split following the consecration of Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire.[For details, visit: http://sify.com/news/international/fullstory.php?id=14736187

Main story at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4473814.ece

The Saint of a Steel City

Muhammad Ali Shah Khadim is the present mujawir of the shrine situated in the north-east portion of City Park, a space meant for recreation of the city-dwellers. He is 70 and has got his retirement in 2001 from a job he was doing in CRM of Bokaro Steel Plant (BSP).His family has been looking after the shrine for last six generations.

The shrine which is said to be 700 years old, belongs to Hazrat Maulana Syed Shah Khundkar Chishti (Rahmatullah Alaih). He was regarded as one of the seventy sahaba (companions) of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti who came along with him to India, from Arabia. Khundkar Baba, as he is mentioned in the common parlance of the Bokaroites,engaged the masses in through the ritual of ‘peeri-muridi‘. He had thousands of of followers and disciples across the region. Before his demise, he had given two pieces of diamonds to two of his disciples and exhorted them to distribute them among the murids after his dead and diamonds would suffice to continue the kam (peeri-muridi). One of the duo was blind by one eye while the other had no physical deformity.

Two years before his demise, Kundhkar Baba announced : ” I will be buried in a qabristan which will start spilling fresh blood (taza khoon) after my death”. He walked into eternal light in the Hazaribagh district of present Jharkhand. It was reported to his disciples that qabristan of the Jolhabad village had shown the symptom. They brought his janaza to the Jolhabad qabristan where they had reached on the 26th of Ramazan after the sunset. There is no information how long the journey from Hazaribagh to here took. He was buried here.

After the completion of the burial ceremony, one of the recipients of the diamonds produced his diamond and narrated the will of the Baba to the present crowd. In contrast, the other recipient of the diamond who was blind by one eye, left for his home without producing his share of the diamond. As soon as he went about forty yards away from the burial site, a snake and a lion appeared to him. Having been terrified, he started screaming. People came to his rescue and he too produced his diamond and narrated to them the saint’s will. Both diamonds at that time had the value of two lakhs in the contemporary currency. The amount was spent to meet the expense of the burial feast.

In 1960s, when the township area to provide residential accommodation to the employees of Bokaro Steel Plant was planned, the qabristan of the Jolhaband village, which had the shrine of Khundkar Baba, was also allocated to the construction of Sector 2 of Bokaro Steel City. Construction workers tried a lot to demolish the shrine but failed to do so. In the process, chains of a bulldozer broke into pieces. Front portion of another bulldozer partly sank into the earth. One person started bleeding from his mouth while trying to raze the shrine to the ground. He was hurriedly rushed to the hospital but of no avail. The physician advised him to go back and repent his act in front of the shrine. The offender got cured only when he came back to the shrine and invoked the intervention of Khundkar Baba.

At one midnight after the event, reports the mujawir, Baba appeared to Colonel Yadav, the first Managing Director of Bokaro Steel Limited and asked : ” Have you come here to fight with me or to erect the plant and establish the township?”. Yadav replied : ” To erect the plant and establish the township”. Then Baba asked him to use the qabristan land to develop a park for the recreation of the city-dwellers. As Baba was on the horse, he showed Yadav the future boundary of the park while riding on the horse. When he reached to the east near a point where stands today a stone-mark of City Park, it was time for the sun-rise and Baba disappeared with the first ray of the Sun.

Colonel Yadav obeyed, informs Muhammad Shah Khadim, what Baba said to him and he kept the shrine intact within the City Park. The shrine was surrounded by the qabristan in the North and the West while it had Karbala towards the South. The space to its East was open. It is interesting to note that Jolhabad, except one Muslim household, was a predominantly ‘Gawala’ village. Hence, most of the devoteed of Baba happended to be from this strata of the society. The village has been relocated to near the Balidih under the displacement and rehabilitation scheme. The needy people, cutting across all religious groups and social classes, visit the shrine nowadays and get their cherished desire fulfill.

The 26th of Ramazan every year marks a splendid celebration of the urs of Baba Khundkar Shah. The celebration includes all forms of veneration, except ‘qawwali’. If someone tries to perform the latter, his throat gets upset (kharab).

In March 2002, a devotee had donated some construction material to repair the broken walls of the shrine. When the construction-work started, 6 personnels from Nagar Sewa Bhawan came to the shrine along with General Manager (GM) and he asked the mujawir to stop the work. The latter asked the GM: ” Who is more powerful : Bokaro Steel Limited (BSL) or Baba?”. The GM first replied: ” BSL”. The mujawir held his hand and asked the GM to come inside the shrine and repeat his word. As the GM walked three yards towards the shrine, he started shivering. Then, he , along with his men, went back, with the promise that he would do some modifications in the deign of the shrine but he never showed up again. The construction then continued till completion, without any further hindrance.

Describing the pond beside which the shrine is situated , the mujawir recalled that it was earlier much larger and had 20 feet deep water. Due to karamaat of the Baba, the pond used to be full of fish.