GUL-I-RA’ANA (1923) and She’ar-ul-Hind (1925) are two histories of Urdu poetry penned in the first quarter of the 20th century and are often discussed, even a century after they first appeared.
These works were considered very significant at the time of their publication and ran into several editions as literary historiography in Urdu had barely begun in 1880 with Muhammad Husain Azad’s Aab-i-Hayat’. Dr Gian Chand Jain has very adeptly analysed these two works in his voluminous work Urdu Ki Adabi Tareekhen (Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu, Karachi, 2000), but one is surprised to read a scholar of Gian Chand’s stature say that after Aab-i-Hayat no histories of Urdu literature were written until Gul-i-Ra’ana and She’ar-ul-Hind were published. Perhaps Dr Jain did not consider Safeer Bilgirami’s two-volume Tazkira-i-Jalwa-i-Khizr (1884) a literary history.
But still, the importance of these two works cannot be overemphasised for certain reasons: firstly, they make two important milestones in Urdu’s literary historiography and inspired other scholars to write history of Urdu literature on comparatively modern lines, unlike tazkiras. Secondly, they are not only way above the old-fashioned tazkiras of Urdu poetry that gave scanty life sketches of poets and just a few sample verses, with occasional, brief critical views, but also proffer some invaluable insight on certain aspects of Urdu poetry.
Gul-i-Ra’ana, consists of two volumes and is largely based on Azad’s Aab-i-Hayat, but it does not spare Azad for his misconceptions, exaggerations and downright concoctions, something quite rare in those days. Hence, it paved way for Qazi Abdul Wadood and Abid Peshawari who later on corrected many unintentional and several somewhat deliberate misstatements of Azad’s.
Gul-i-Ra’ana was written by Maulana Hakeem Syed Abdul Hai. He was born in Raebareli, UP, on Dec 22, 1869. He had served Nadvat-ul-Ulema, a religious educational institute at Lucknow, for quite some time. He has to his credit several Urdu books, of which Gul-i-Ra’ana is well-known. But Maulana Abdul Hai is more known as a scholar of Arabic in Arab world and his monumental work Nuzhat-ul-Khawatir was published from Lebanon.
Nuzhat-ul-Khawatir is an eight-volume biographical dictionary of Muslims of the Indo-Pak subcontinent. Written in Arabic, it is often dubbed as the encyclopaedia of over 4,500 prominent Muslim personalities of the subcontinent that have left their mark during the last 14 centuries or so. Though it could not escape criticism for its shortcomings and some Islamic scholars have mentioned a tilt towards a specific school of thought, Abdul Hai’s work is considered among the authentic books on the topic. Abdul Hai died in Lucknow on Feb 2, 1923.
She’ar-ul-Hind, often criticised for being a critical work rather than a true history of literature, pioneered an idea that still lingers on in Urdu’s critical and research works: categorising Urdu poetry on the basis of Delhi School and Lucknow School. Albeit challenged by critics like Ali Jawwad Zaidi, citing examples from poetry of both the so-called literary schools to prove that certain literary characteristics are common to both of them, the notion stuck on Urdu litterateurs.
Till today scholars and students of Urdu literature somehow cannot take this notion off their mind. Yes, there are certain qualities that are quite noteworthy in the poetry of these schools but, on the other hand, on both sides one can find examples of qualities of the other school as well.
She’ar-ul-Hind proved so efficacious that two expansive and much celebrated research works on these schools were done and published, namely, Lakhnav Ka Dabistan-i-Shaeri and Dilli Ka Dabistan-i-Shaeri.
She’ar-ul-Hind was written by Maulana Abdus Salam Nadvi. Born on Feb 16, 1883, in district of Azamgarh, he penned many books on literature and especially on Islamic history. At Nadvat-ul-Ulema, he taught Arabic and served as editor of An-Nadva, Later on, he moved to Azamgrah to join Dar-ul-Musannifeen. Abdus Salam Nadvi died in Lucknow on Oct 4, 1956.
She’ar-ul-Hind was criticised for several of its aspects, but it offers a balanced view of some famous literary feuds, such as skirmishes between Mushafi and Insha.
A positive aspect of the book is that author Abdus Salam had consulted many works and has acknowledged the sources from which he had benefitted, including Tazkira-i-Jalwa-e-Khizr. In those days, many of Urdu’s tazkiras had not been published or edited but he has referred many of them.
Interestingly, all four earliest histories of Urdu literature, namely, Aab-i-Hayat, Tazkira-i-Jalwa-i-Khizr, Gul-i-Ra’ana and She’ar-ul-Hind do not take Urdu prose into account and they mainly discuss Urdu poetry. But latter-day literary histories, such as Dastan-i-Tareekh-i-Urdu’ by Hamid Hasan Qadri, compensated for the lacuna.
Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2023
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