Urdu Ghazals
In poetry (and as the lyrics in songs),
the
ghazal (Arabic/Persian: غزل; Turkish gazel) is a poetic form consisting of
couplets which share a rhyme and a refrain. (The word "ghazal" is of Arabic
origins, and is pronounced roughly like the English word "guzzle", but with a
different first consonant.) Ghazal (adapted into Urdu from Persian) is a
reference to the cry of a gazelle.
The form is ancient, originating in 10th century Persian verse. It is derived
from the Persian qasida, which in turn derived from a pre-Islamic Arabian form.
The ghazal spread into India in the 12th century under the influence of the new
Islamic Sultanate courts and Sufi mystics. Although the ghazal is most
prominently a form of Urdu poetry, today, it has influenced the poetry of many
languages.
A Ghazal, in short, is a collection of couplets (called sher) which follow the
rules of Matla, Maqta, Beher, Qaafiyaa, Radif, Khayaal and Wazan. The
traditional complete ghazal has a matla, a maqta, and three other shers in
between. The first two shers of a ghazal have the form of a qatha (a specific
variation of which is a ruba'ee; most familiar to modern readers from Khayyám's
Rubayyat).
Ghazals were
written by the Persian mystics and poets Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (13th
century) and Hafez (14th century), the Turkish poet Fuzuli (16th century), as
well as Mirza Ghalib (1797–1869) and Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), who both wrote
Ghazals in Persian and Urdu. Through the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749–1832), the ghazal became very popular in Germany in the 19th century, and
the form was used extensively by Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866) and August von
Platen (1796–1835). The Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali was a proponent
of the form, both in English and in other languages; he edited a volume of "real
ghazals in English".
The ghazal is a common song form in India and Pakistan today. Strictly speaking,
it is not a musical form, but a poetic recitation. Today, however, it is
commonly conceived of as an Urdu song, with prime importance given to the
lyrics.
In some modernized ghazals the poet's name is hidden somewhere in the last
verse, usually between the front and end of a word.
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