Finally, a brief note on the dominant poetic forms in subcontinental Muslim linguistic and literary cultures may be helpful in understanding the aesthetic dynamics of the works represented in this anthology. To begin with, ghazal and nazm are the two broad divisions of classical Urdu poetry, ghazal being, traditionally, the more popular of the two. This distinction is preserved in other Pakistani language traditions as well. A ghazal is composed of a series of couplets, generally between five and twelve, with a rhyme scheme of AA, BA, CA, DA, and so on. The rhyme scheme has two parts, qafia and radif, which may be translated as rhyme and end rhyme (or rhyme phrase). Both are maintained strictly throughout the ghazal. It is important to note that every couplet is autonomous in a ghazal and constitutes a theme in itself that sometimes may, but generally is not, continued in the following couplets. This allows the poet considerable freedom, and there are instances where the person being addressed may not be the same throughout the poem. Even the mood may change dramatically from couplet to couplet. The ghazal, then, is distinguished by the disunity of its content, a feature that Western readers find disorienting unless they are aware of it as a convention integral to the form. What provides unity to the ghazal is its form, i.e., the meter and the rhyming pattern, its qafia and radif.
A nazm is a rhymed poem of any length and follows a strict meter. It has a definite rhyme scheme, though usually more varied than the repetitive double rhyming structure of the ghazal. A nazm may be lyrical, narrative, or dramatic, but unlike the ghazal, it does have unity of theme and content. A nazm that does not follow a strict meter nor rely on rhyme—or contain a regular rhyme scheme—is known as azad nazm, akin to free verse in English.
Other forms of poetry prevalent in the Arabic and Indo-Iranian traditions that are reflected in Pakistani linguistic and literary cultures include kafi (a short devotional poem), qita (a short poem within or independent of a ghazal), rubai (an independent poem of four lines, a quatrain), qawwali (based on qaul, a famous saying, generally from Hadith, having its origin in ninth century Baghdad—qawwals are those who recite the qauls), qasida (a eulogy or panegyric in rhymed couplets), sufi (also known as sufiana kalam—literally, mystical speech), marsiya (elegy, generally in commemoration of Imam Husain’s martyrdom at Karbala), and the masnavi (a narrative poem in rhymed couplets). Those peculiar to the Indo-Iranian culture include bol (sayings, proverbs), doha (rhymed couplets), geet (song of love, devotion, or pain of separation), thumri (a semiclassical song genre in the woman’s voice), though ghazal, nazm, qawwali, and sufiana kalam are all extremely popular in Pakistan. It is also significant that the gender of the poetic persona and the addressee in many of these forms may often be indeterminate or may be any one of the following pairings: male to male, female to male, male to female, and female to female.
In conclusion, I would like to acknowledge here the debt I owe to the many wonderful translators, literary critics, and commentators whose work has given me such enjoyment over the years and from whom I have learned much to help me shape my own views about translating poetry. I am also grateful for the support of my department faculty at Agnes Scott College. Their generosity of spirit has redefined for me the inestimable worth of cherished colleagues. Nor could this work have been accomplished without the patience, flexibility, and understanding with which Ivar Nelson, former director of Eastern Washington University Press, helped me negotiate my way. His encouragement kept me going even when my spirit flagged sometimes. Christopher Howell, senior editor at the Press and himself a poet, provided a gifted second sight. His suggestions were always helpful, often more widely than the context in which they were made. That said, it was Pamela Holway, managing editor of Eastern Washington Press, whose rigorous scrutiny of the translations and meticulous editorial comments, questions, and suggestions helped guide this work to its present form. My deepest thanks to her for the professional excellence she brought to her work. She has been an inspiration in many ways. I also wish to thank Dalkey Archive Press for bringing this labor to publication.
I would be seriously remiss if I did not mention the patience and self-denial of my family during the time I worked on this anthology. As always, it was the love and care of my wife, Maryam, that sustained me throughout. I only hope that what I have to offer here is not entirely unworthy of all the goodwill, affection, and accommodation extended to me by friends, colleagues, and family alike.
WAQAS KHWAJA
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bahu, Sultan. Death Before Dying: The Sufi Poems of Sultan Bahu. Translated by Jamal Elias. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Barnstone, Tony. “The Poem Behind the Poem: Literary Translation as American Poetry.” In The Poem Behind the Poem: Translating Asian Poetry, edited by Frank Stewart, 1–16. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2004.
Barnstone, Willis. “How I Strayed into Asian Poetry.” In The Poem Behind the Poem: Translating Asian Poetry, edited by Frank Stewart, 28–38. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2004.
Faiz, Ahmed Faiz. The Rebel’s Silhouette: Selected Poems. Translated by Agha Shahid Ali. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991.
—. The True Subject: Selected Poems of Faiz Ahmad Faiz. Translated by Naomi Lazard. Lahore: Vanguard Books, 1988.
Frank, Bernhard, trans. Modern Hebrew Poetry. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1980.
Franklin, Michael J. “Accessing India: Orientalism, Anti-‘Indianism,’ and the Rhetoric of Jones and Burke.” In Romanticism and Colonialism: Writing and Empire, 1780–1830, edited by Tim Fulford and Peter J. Kitson, 48–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Fulford, Tim, and Peter J. Kitson, eds. Romanticism and Colonialism: Writing and Empire, 1780–1830. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Ghalib, Mirza. The Seeing Eye: Selections from the Urdu and Persian Ghazals of Ghalib. Translated by Ralph Russell. Islamabad, Pakistan: Alhamra Publishers, 2003.
Grosjean, Ok-Koo Kang. “The Way of Translation.” In The Poem Behind the Poem: Translating Asian Poetry, edited by Frank Stewart, 62–75. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2004.
Habib, M.A.R., ed. and trans. An Anthology of Modern Urdu Poetry, in English Translation with Urdu Text. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2003.
Iqbal, Allama Muhammad. Poems from Iqbal: Renderings in English Verse with Comparative Urdu Text. Translated by Victor Kiernan. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Jamal, Mahmood, ed. The Penguin Book of Modern Urdu Poetry. New York: Penguin, 1986.
Jones, Sir William. Poems, Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages, to Which Are Added Two Essays: I. On the Poetry of the Eastern Nations; II. On the Arts, Commonly Called Imitative. Second edition. London: W. Bowyer and J. Nichols for N. Conant, 1777 [1772].
Merwin, W. S. “Preface to East Window: The Asian Translations.” In The Poem Behind the Poem: Translating Asian Poetry, edited by Frank Stewart, 152–62. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2004.
Pritchett, Frances W. Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994.
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—. “Translation of Iqbal’s ‘Masjid-e-Qurtubah.’” http://www.columbia.edu/itc/ mealac/pritchett/00urdu/iqbal/ masjid_index.html
Sorley, H. T. Shah Abdul Latif of Bhit: His Poetry, Life and Times; A Study of Literary, Social and Economic Conditions in Eighteenth Century Sind. New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1984.
Stewart, Frank, ed. The Poem Behind the Poem: Translating Asian Poetry. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2004.
Syed, Najm Hosain. Recurrent Patterns in Punjabi Poetry. Lahore: Majlis Shah Husain, 1968.
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&nbs
p; MODERN POETRY OF PAKISTAN
ALLAMA MUHAMMAD IQBAL
The Great Mosque of Córdoba
I
Succession of day and night
shaper of occurrences
Succession of day and night
origin of life and death
Succession of day and night
a double-colored silk thread
From which the self weaves
a garment of its attributes
Succession of day and night
lament of eternity’s lute strings
Through which the self discovers
the register of possibility
It examines you
it examines me
Succession of day and night
appraiser of all created worlds
If you fall short
if I fall short
Death is your reward
death is my reward
What is the truth
of your days and nights?
A torrent of passing time
in which there is no day, no night
The miracles of ingenuity
are all transient and fleeting
The world’s affairs are impermanent
the world’s affairs are impermanent
The beginning and end, extinction
the hidden and manifest, extinction
its journey’s end, extinction
II
But in that image there is
the coloring of permanence
Which may have been by
some man-of-God secured
The man-of-God’s work
is illuminated by love
Love is the root of life
death is forbidden to it
Though time’s tidal flow
is furious and swift
Love itself is a flood
that holds back its swell
In love’s almanac
besides the present age
Are other epochs as well
that have no name
Love, the breath of Jibraeel
love, the heart of Mustafa
Love, God’s Messenger
love, the word of God
With love’s ecstasy
is the rose’s face radiant
Love is wine in fermentation
love, the cup that overflows
Love, the Sanctuary’s lawgiver
love, the commander of troops
Love is born of the journey
it has a thousand stages
From love’s plectrum arises
the song of the string of life
Love is the light of life
love is the fire of life
III
O mosque of Córdoba
you spring from love
Love entirely imperishable
exempt from inconstancy
It may be paint, or stone and brick
a lute, or word and voice
The miracle of art has
its birth from the heart’s blood
A drop of blood from the heart
turns stone into a beating heart
The cry from the heart’s blood
fire, exhilaration, and song
Your atmosphere delights the heart
my song inflames the breast
From you, the spectacle of hearts
from me, the burgeoning of hearts
No less than the highest heaven
lies within man’s breast
Although for man’s fistful of dust
the blue sky is the utmost limit
What matters if the act of prostration
is available to the being of light?
Not within its reach is
the fire and fervor of submission
I am a Hindi infidel
look at my zeal and devotion
Prayer and benediction in my heart
prayer and benediction on my lips
There is yearning in my melody
there is yearning in my pipe
The song of “Allah Hu”
rings in my flesh and bones
IV
Your elegance and your majesty
are evidence of the man-of-God
He is grand and glorious
you, too, are grand and glorious
Your foundation secure
your columns, innumerable
Like a grove of date palms
In Syrian sands
On your doors and rooftops
the vale of Yemen’s light
Your tall minarets
the stage for Jibraeel’s display
Never can he perish
the man-of-Islam, since
His calls to prayer proclaim
the secret of Moses and Abraham
His land, limitless
his horizon, boundless
The Tigris, Danube, and Nile
are but a wave in his ocean
Strange and wondrous his worlds
his fables, marvelous
He gave to the old order
the signal for departure
Cupbearer to learned men of taste
a rider in the field of yearning
His wine is pure
his sword noble
He is a true soldier
his armor, faith, La ila
Beneath the nurture of the sword
his iteration La ila
V
Through you became evident
the mystery of the man-of-faith
The heat of his days
the tenderness of his nights
His high station
his noble imagination
His rapture, his eagerness
his humility, his pride
The hand of Allah
is the believing man’s hand
Triumphant and ingenious
resolver of difficulties, skilled
His nature a mix of dust and light
man, with divine attributes
More generous than the two worlds
is his selfless heart
His hopes modest
his objectives eminent
His manner captivating
his glance soothing
Gentle in conversation
fervent in seeking
In battle or social company
pure of heart, pure of deed
The center of Truth’s compass
And this whole world
fancy, a magic spell, a trope
He is the destination of wisdom
the distillation of love
In the fraternity of worlds
he is the life of the gathering
VI
Mecca of the accomplished
glory of manifest faith
Through you is sanctified
the land of Andalusians
If beneath the heavens there is
a peer to your beauty
It is within a Mussalman’s heart
and nowhere else
Ah! Those men of righteousness
those Arabian horsemen
Forebears of a great people
owners of truth and conviction
Through whose governance
this strange mystery is unveiled
That the empire of the brave
is abstinence, not regal writ
Whose visions
instructed East and West
Whose intellect lit up a trail
in the night of Europe
Because of the gift of whose blood
to this day Andalusians are
Cheerful and passionate
candid-browed and fair
Even today in this land
the gazelle-eye is common
And the darts of loving glances
are still pleasing to the heart
The scent of Yemen even now
hangs in its air
The m
anner of the Hejaz still
imbues its songs
VII
In the eye of the star
your earth is the exalted sky
Alas, for centuries
your air has heard no call to prayer
In which valley
at what stage of the journey
Is the hardy caravan
of awe-inspiring love today?
Germany has already seen
the tumult of the Reformation
Which has not spared anywhere
traces of antiquated forms
The Pope’s prestige
lost its sanctity
And the frail boat of reason
was set in motion
The French eye, too
has witnessed a revolution
That altered the complexion
of the Western world