THIS column may be read as a continuation of the one published last week, which dealt with the writings of three leading prose writers — Hali, Shibli and Mohammad Husain Azad. Serious questions raised with respect to their contributions to Urdu criticism remained unmentioned.

It was granted that these three prose writers were the first to attempt critical writings in Urdu, and so they deserve to be recognised as the founders of literary criticism in Urdu. Of course, their position as founding fathers of literary criticism in Urdu remains unchallenged. But at the same time it was pointed out that this contribution was lopsided.

These writers, because of their orientation towards poetry, seemed unaware of the fact that prose too is possessed of the forms of expression which make creative literature. So they, in their critical writings, dealt with poetry alone. Fiction, with its forms newly borrowed from the European tradition, failed to attract their attention.

How amazing and unfortunate that Maulana Hali, taking a cue from English poetry, was leading the movement for ‘Natural Poetry’ in Urdu, but failed to notice that a new genre of fiction known as the novel had been borrowed from English and his distinguished contemporary Deputy Nazeer Ahmad had emerged as a leading novelist. How unfortunate that he cared not to understand the literary value of novels such as Taubat-un Nasuh and was content as a critic to deal with poetry alone.

How astonishing that a new tradition of Urdu on the basis of two newly borrowed fictional forms, the novel and the short story, developed quickly in Urdu but the newly emerged Urdu critics did not care to take notice of it. Consequently, the newly emerged tradition of Urdu criticism remained limited to poetry criticism alone for a long time. It was during the later years, in the ’40s, that writers such as Professor Viqar Azeem, Mohammad Hasan Askari and Mumtaz Shirin paid attention to Urdu fiction. Now our tradition of criticism is broad enough to accommodate fiction as well in its fold.

In the case of Maulana Shibli, too, I felt that the scholars discussing him at the annual international seminar at Ghalib Institute, Delhi, referred to his works in general with particular reference to Shair-ul Ajam but chose to ignore his one critical work, Muwazna-e-Anis-o-Dabeer which had triggered a heated controversy. However, in the last session Anis Ashfaq from Lucknow tried to bring it into discussion.

In fact, the Maulana’s unsympathetic attitude towards Mirza Dabeer provoked the admirers of this popular marsiya writer. It was with this reference that a controversy flared up. And it was because of this controversy that we could not read this work in a proper way so as to be able to recognise its real worth.

Hitherto Urdu poetry appeared confined within the form of ghazal alone. Other forms of poetry existed but were treated as less developed forms as compared to the ghazal which, enjoying the presence of giants such as Mir and Ghalib, seemed to dominate the scene of Urdu poetry. But in the post-1857 scenario, ambitious souls seemed to be trying to come out of what Ghalib called ‘Tangna-e-ghazal,’ the narrow alley of ghazal, and seek a broader space for poetic expression. Hali and Azad, inspired by the form of English poem, carved out the form of nazm, calling it the vehicle of ‘Natural Poetry’.

But away from them Maulana Shibli marked a poetic genius, expressing himself in the form of musaddas and discovering new avenues for his marsiya writing. He brought it out from the con-fines of the Imambargas and paved the way for its entry into mainstream Urdu poetry. Now, as explained and critically judged by Shibli, the form of marsiya in the hands of Mir Anis seemed ele-vated to the heights where it appeared vying for a place in the great tradition of epic poetry and asking for a comparison with epics written in Greek, Sanskrit and Persian. So Muwazna, carrying Shibli’s critical judgment, is as important a critical document as Muqadma-e-Shair-au-Shairi is, or perhaps a bit more. How can one ignore it or belittle it?