Read Book Online : http://www.archive.org/stream/ShamsSirajAfifsTarikh-iFirozShahi/Tarikh-iFirozShahi_1891CalcuttaEd#page/n3/mode/2up

Download pdf Book : http://ia700209.us.archive.org/13/items/ShamsSirajAfifsTarikh-iFirozShahi/Tarikh-iFirozShahi_1891CalcuttaEd.pdf

@RBSI: Now you are forcing me to learn Urdu. I wish I had met you a hundred years ago.

Never too late for a Polymath like you...Shekar. : )

Amita, I dread going to any online university. I may have to wear a tag. The Americans I think have run cattle for too long. They think they can brand and collar anything and everything. But maybe I will take the risk. Thanks.

Shekhar you'll enjoy learning it.It is India's most priceless living heritage.....khalis Hindustani to the core.Probably the world's most refined laguage.

Amita and Gentlemen: I got news for you. The book ("Tarikh-e Firuz Shahi") reproduced above is not in Urdu; it is in Persian!

Jo yeh kahe ki rekhta kyonkar ho rashq-e-Farsi Gufta-e-Ghalib parh kar ussay sunayien ki yunh

I have a copy of the book "Sakeenat-ul-Auliya" written by Prince Dara Shikoh published in Lahore, but have not searched for his writings on-line. Avi: I might mention that a program to celebrate the (approx) four-hundredth birthday of Dara Shikoh at Humayun's tomb is in the making. The tentative date set is in the beginning of April 2012.

Digvijay: What is the origin of the word 'rekhta' that was used repeatedly by Mirza Ghalib for 'urdu'?

wow, what a mehfil!!!!!1thanx amita soooo much. i love mughal history.

Urdu was a new language which had blossomed in the Deccan but had come to the Persian loving Delhi much before Ghalib.In due course Ghalib became her greatest embellisher.Mughal empire attracted the world's best talent and goods available at that time on the planet from the old world.It needs no reminding that Urdu is a product primarily of Indo-Persian interaction consequent upon the arrival of Muslims in India. Amir Khusro (1253-1325) is it's earliest exponent. The army became a motley crowd of various martial classes of Indians, Turks, Uzbegs, Tajiks, Persians, Abyssinians, Mongols,Arabs, Afghans and suchlike and they of course required a language to converse in. The armies of the Adil Shahi dynasty in the Deccan was no exception. It was a period of awesome synthesis and cross-fertilisation of ideas that changed India forever. Mohd. Quli Qutub Shah is the founding father of Urdu poetry and he has left behind a voluminous collection (50,000) of varied verse. In his poetry Hindi and and Persian do not stand shyly apart, but have already ,merged, resulting in the formation of a new poetic language to be christened as REKHTA.His language is a rich blend of Persian, Hindi, Sanskrit,Arabic, Deccany and marks a considerable improvement on the language of Amir Khusro. With the shifting of the centre of cultural and poetic activity from Deccan to Delhi ,Persian influence on Urdu became more assertive.Under it's influence the local Hindi diction shed it's rusticity, got spruced up, so as to become a worthy mate to it's Persian counterpart with which it was henceforth interlaced. Nearly all Urdu poets take pride in adopting Persian modes and motifs, borrowing Persian figures of speech and Persian vocabulary and in certain places complete lines and couplets of Persian verse for weight. From Persian grammar came the use of izafat (-e-) to join a noun either with it's adjective or with it's possessive . This single device of izafat accounts in a large measure for the economy and compression of Urdu verse. The practice of writing Persianised Urdu begun under the Mughals continued till the time of the British rule when Urdu attained the status of a lingua franca in the North. Partition made ot suffer a great set-back and there was a sudden drop in it;s popularity and currency. Realising the need for simplifying the language notably Firaq Nasir Kazmi or Bani attempted to wean Urdu away from the apron strings of Persian and drew it closer to Hindi. Notwithstanding the decline of Urdu-knowing people in India there is in no decline in the popularity of the Ghazal. if anything it has gained in popularity.In fact the influence of the ghazal is spreading and besides Urdu, many other Indian languages including Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati, Sindhi and Kashmiri have also adopted the convention of the ghazal which speaks volumes for the inherent strength of this poetic form.

@ DSK Wasn't Ghalib's writing more in Persian than Urdu? Also , add English to the languages in which ghazals are being written!! Recently introduced to a collection of English ghazals...cant say i like it. Nice potted history of some Indian languages. I assume it is because you are talking in a particular context that you have ignored the other non Persian inputs and influences on Hindi.

Asad: Very interesting! Thanks for this info. I have been curious about Dara Shikoh for some time now, and am especially interested in having a look at his Majma-ul-Bahrain. Perhaps it is out there somewhere online... Sumedha: Ghazals in English? That's quite a linguistic experiment!

@ AG Shall I send you some? Maybe I will paste some here...:)

@Sumedha: Initially yes you are right.Generations of Ghalib's ancestors were soldiers and strangers to poetry. He however had an inborn talent for poetry which he displayed even in boyhood.His early poetry is fanciful and obscure modelled on the style of Bedil a 17th century Persian poet of Indian origin. When as a child Ghalib was taken to Mir Taqi Mir for the latter's advise and blessings , the older poet is said to have remarked"If the boy gets an able mentor he'll become a good poet or else he will drift into senseless prattling" He never had a mentor other than his sound judgement and poetic sensibility which enabled him to outgrow his early infatuation for a deliberately difficult style and develop into a true poet , notable for his profundity of thought and a distinct , sophesticated style. His poetry has a vast compass. There is hardly any situation or state of mind which he has not touched upon. Consequently he is the most quotable of all Urdu poets.Master of the condensed style and specialist of the poetry of suggestion. Hindwi , Hindustani or Hindi as we know it today has had without doubt an influence of several foreign languages as well .Most recent notable influence is that of English which has given us 'Hinglish' !!

And I thought we were going to talk about Firoz Shah Tughlaq or at least Tughlaqs.

Avi: There is no doubt that Dara was intellectually inclined and was liberal in his outlook, but his writing skills were not that great. You might be interested in reading about his Sufi mystic friend Sarmad 'Shaheed' - a convert from Judaism to Islam - who was beheaded by Emperor Aurangzeb for siding with Dara on bogus, trumped up charges. His grave is located right next to the Jama Masjid in Delhi and is revered by everyone. Sarmad left a book of Persian verses that have been translated into English (I believe from Shantiniketan).

SVO: Thanks! That would be nice. Asad: Indeed. I have seen some of Sarmad's poetry in English. My reading knowledge of Persian is not bad, so it would be interesting to read the original text. And I was not aware of the location of Sarmad's tomb. Thanks for adding this info!

Sarmad is revered as a great Sufi saint by all of us who are on the path of tasawwuf. @Asad uncle: You forgot to mention the name of Miyan Meer who was the Sufi master of Dara Shikoh and to whom his religious beliefs can be arttributed.The Mahabharata and Ramayana were translaterd into Persian and Arabic under the auspices of Dara Shikoh. The Quran was also translated into Sanskrit.The translated versions of the great Hindu epics can be found today in the Hamid Manzil library of the nawabs of Rampur.

Digvijay: Thank you. I am aware of the works of Dara Shikoh. In fact, his work 'Sakeenat-ul-Auliya' is about the sufi saint Miyan Mir (who was widely respected so that he was invited to lay the foundation stone of the Golden Temple at Amritsar). I mentioned only Sarmad because I liked his political outlook (against a tyrant), his intellect and individuality, and because he may be of special interest to Avi Gold. As it turns out, Avi already knows much about him! In addition, RBSI has been silent about Sarmad Shaheed. I wonder why?

The generous grant to build the golden temple came from Akbar while it's foundation was laid by the Sufi Shaykh Miyan Meer.Sikhism was a grand attempt at synthesis of the two religions and rid Hinduism of it's excesssive ritualism and idol worship. Partition and the turmoil which it brought in it's wake alienated Sikhism from Islam forever and the anti-sikh riots of Delhi made Sikhs shed their Hindu identity as well.(The incidence of Sikh married women wearing Bindis has all but vanished) It is said that Shahjahan wanted a momin (devout muslim) to lay the 'sang-e-taamir' of the Jama Masjid in Delhi, one who had never missed a namaz ever .When none was found in the realm he himself laid the foundation stone. And yes I wish too that a thread is floated by RBSI on Sufism or a Sufi saint.

Digvijay, Taling about anti-sikh riots or what I'd term it as Hindu-Sikh riots happened before Indira Gandhi's assassination too, thanks to Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale but was limited to Punjab. That happened in 1982, but at my home they have been going on since 1972. (My wife is a Sardarni Saheba). :))

@Subbiah: :)