Welcome, readers of Authortimes.com, to an exclusive interview with the multi-talented Dr. Shadab Ahmed! Dr. Ahmed is not only an expert Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon but also holds the esteemed position of Ranking & Accreditation Officer at Vinayaka Mission’s Sankarachariyar Dental College in Salem, Tamil Nadu, and serves as a Reader in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the same institution. Apart from his surgical skills, Dr. Ahmed is a true connoisseur of literature and has made a significant contribution to the world of World Poetry. His translations, transliterations, and edited works are highly regarded in the field, with a particular emphasis on historical, medieval, and post-medieval manuscripts. We invite you to join us as we dive into Dr. Ahmed’s unique journey, exploring his passion for poetry and literature, as well as his dedication to his profession.



 

1. What inspired you to write a book about Persian and Urdu literature in the Indian subcontinent during the Mughal era?

Answer: India has always been a region of multiple cultures and ethnicities comprising a multifaceted, colourful and genuinely diverse civilisation of innumerable peoples, beliefs and languages. To understand this, let’s rewind a bit into the cultural history of India.
The political domination of Muslim dynasties from Central Asia from the Ghaznavid conquests onwards led to Persian being grafted into the Indian subcontinent as the official language of governance and high culture. While classical Indian civilization was based on Sanskrit, the sacerdotal language of the Brahmins, the first true lingua franca that transcended caste barriers to a certain extent was Persian, which was adopted by the ruling dynasties of Muslim India (who themselves were generally Turks or indigenous Indians rather than Persians), their Hindu peers, as well as the civil servants. However, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, Urdu began to form around the lower echelons of society as a common tongue to enable communication between the myriad ethnicities of the Mughal Empire, ultimately restricting Persian to a refined language of culture and courtly life in the Mughal court. Urdu thus became a vibrant and dynamic language in its own right, as the first literary language with a substantial original contribution from Indians since ancient Sanskrit.
There are two periods that broadly mark Persian’s literary career in Mughal India. During the first period, the Mughals came into power in the early sixteenth century and encountered a pre-existing Persian literary heritage established by the Delhi Sultanate. Culturally and politically, they embodied the Persian literary heritage and strengthened its position as a language of cultural importance, literary production, and bureaucracy. The Mughals heavily relied on a class of Persian-speaking poets, scholars, and tutors to participate in their cultural enterprise. They attracted a large number of Iranian and Central Asian émigrés. The late seventeenth-early eighteenth centuries mark the beginning of the second period, as Indian-born poets began to be favoured over Iranian poets, in no small part due to the rise of South Asian literary vernaculars such as Deccani and Rekhta (later named Urdu).
Now, away from the historical pre-text, volumes of literature has been contrived and scribed by the authors and poets of Persian and Urdu in the Indian subcontinent, and in the Indian empire frontier regions. Many of the original manuscripts are lost to time, and the present generation of students and scholars find their pleasure grounds in the cyberspace and hyperspace. As am myself a scholar of Persianate and Urdu studies, I edited, translated and transliterated a volume of compiled works, which is only the beginning. This book is intended for educational, historical, cultural and scientific purpose and to promote interest in the historically and culturally important works of the numerous bygone poets and writers.

2. How did you conduct your research for this book, and what sources did you draw upon?

Answer: Any book takes a fair amount of research and intensive study, especially if you are dealing with historical manuscripts. The first problem encountered is the availability of manuscript itself, which is often neglected in this age of digitalisation. As such, it is a painstaking work to assemble raw data. I spend a fair amount of my salary on procurement of Books and Journals, which are gloriously locked behind innumerable subscriptions. Then it takes months to study them, understand them (their political, historical, social and cultural con-text), translate them, transliterate and versify them.

The sources I drew upon was my own research and translations, then valuable help of friends, scholars and acquaintances from School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Archives – University of London, Department of Persian – Delhi University, The Centre of Persian & Central Asian Studies – Jawaharlal Nehru University, Iranian and Persianate Studies – University of Gottingen, Department of Urdu – Aligarh Muslim University, Department of Urdu – Panjab University, and Association for the Study of Persianate Societies.

3. What do you hope readers will take away from your book, and what impact do you hope it will have on their understanding of Indian culture and history?

Answer: “Befarmaid” deals with authors of Persian and Urdu who primarily composed in the Shahmukhi and Nasta’liq scripts. The readers will observe different flashing points in Indian history among the verses versified in this book. Be it the political conquests in India by the Central Asians, or the desire of a secular India by the 13th to 15th century and 17th to 19th century mystics, or the general anguish prevalent in Indian literary society through the 18th century, or the development of the Deccani-style Sufi poetry and the Naqshbandi-Mujaddadi religious order, or the history of the Qadiri order or Owaisi order, or the Chishti Sama and the Sufi reforms aiming at the harmony of Sufi philosophy in Islam and Vedanta philosophy in Hinduism, or the Mughal-Afghan Wars and the rise of Afghan Nationalism, or the economic and political history of India with the advent of Western Imperialism – many details have been recorded by the contemporary poets, writers and chroniclers of the era. This will present another narrative beyond the traditionalist and orthodox orbit of the text books that we are used to gather historical, cultural and political history from. The readers will understand how rich and profound the Indian culture is, how diversified the Indian literary history has been, how together we have survived as natives and citizenry.

4. Can you tell us about some of the most notable works of literature that you discuss in your book, and what makes them significant?

Answer: As I told you, “Befarmaid” deals with authors of Persian and Urdu who primarily composed in the Shahmukhi and Nasta’liq scripts. I have chosen 40 writers and transliterated sections of their works, who represent the kings, emperors, saints, outlaws and prisoners of the Mughal court and jurisdiction, as well as beau monde and aristocracy of the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal India. What makes them significant is that they spearheaded the Persian and Urdu literary movements, trailblazing them into major reckoning forces in World Literature. I will discuss a few prominent authors and writers whose works I have reprocessed.

Mir Taqi Mir – An Urdu poet from the court of Mirza Asaf-ud-Daula, Nawab of Oudh. One of the principal poets of the Delhi School of the Urdu Ghazal.
Khwaja Mir Dard – A Sufi saint of the Naqshbandi-Mujaddadi religious order. One of the three pillars of classical Urdu Ghazal.
Mirza Ghalib – An Urdu and Persian poet of the 19th century Mughal and British era, Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar bestowed upon Mirza Ghalib the title of “Dabir-ul-Mulk” (Secretary of State) as well as “Najm-ud-Daula” (Star of the State). He was also appointed by the Emperor as the royal historian of the Mughal Court.
Bahadur Shah Zafar – 20th Mughal Emperor and the King of Delhi. Following his involvement in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the British exiled him to Rangoon in British-controlled Burma. He was also a prolific Urdu poet and calligrapher.
Nawab Mirza Khan Daagh Dehlvi – The court poet to the Sixth Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Mahbub Ali Khan. The Nawab bestowed upon him the title “Bulbul-e-Hindustan” (Nightingale of India). He belonged to the Delhi school of Urdu poetry.
Amir Khusrau – An Indo-Persian Sufi poet and scholar who lived under various Sultans of the Delhi Sultanate (Khiljis & Tughlaqs). Khusrau is regarded as the father of ‘Qawwali’, and is often credited as “Tuti-e-Hind” (Parrot of India).
Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah – The Fifth Sultan of the Qutb Shahi Dynasty of Golkonda and founder of the city of Hyderabad. He built Hyderabad’s architectural masterpiece, the Charminar. He was an accomplished poet and wrote his poetry in Persian, Telugu and Urdu.
Abu’l-Fazl Ibn Mubarak – The grand vizier of the Mughal Emperor Akbar, and the author of the “Akbar-Nama”, the official history of Akbar’s reign. Also credited with Persian translation of the Bible. He was one of the Nine Jewels (Navaratnas) of Akbar’s royal court.
Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khanan – Known for his Hindustani Dohe (couplets) in Persian, he was a poet in the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar, also being one of the Nine Jewels (Navaratnas) of Akbar’s royal court.
Jahangir – The fourth Mughal Emperor of India from the House of Timur. His autobiography “Tuzuk-e-Jahangiri” is an important source for reflections on art, politics, literature and the onset of the British East India Company in Indian courts. Sir Thomas Roe was England’s first ambassador to the Mughal court.
Saib Tabrizi – An Iranian poet in the Mughal Court of Emperor Shah Jahan, regarded as one of the greatest masters of classical Persian lyric poetry. He is also credited with establishing the “Indian style” (Sabk-i Hind) in his native Azerbaijani literature.
Muhammad Tahir Ghani Kashmiri – One of the greatest Persian and Urdu poets of the Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in Kashmir Valley, during the reign of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb. His poetry has a strong influence across Iran, Turan and Central Asia, India, and Afghanistan.
Khosal Khan Khattak – A Pashtun poet, chief, and warrior, he served the Mughal Empire protecting them from Pashtun warriors, and later turned against the Mughals, encouraging revolt and promoting Pashtun nationalism through poetry. He is considered the “father of Pashto literature” and the national poet of Afghanistan, writing in Pashto and Persian.
Ahmad Shah Abdali – He was the founder of the Durrani Empire and is regarded as the founder of the modern Afghanistan. Durrani’s victory over the Marathas influenced the history of the subcontinent and, in particular, the policies of the British East India Company in the region. He wrote in Pashto and Persian.
Chandar Bhan Brahman – He was an Indian poet of the Persian language born in the Mughal Empire. He belonged to a Brahman family, and chose “Brahman” as his pen name. Brahman served as a secretary (Munshi) to the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. Brahman was appointed as court secretary and he was given responsibility for maintaining Shah Jahan’s personal diary.
Prince Muhammad Dara Shikoh – He was the eldest son and heir-apparent of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. He authored the work “The Confluence of the Two Seas”, which argues for the harmony of Sufi philosophy in Islam and Vedanta philosophy in Hinduism.
Malik Muhammad Jayasi – He was an Indian Sufi poet and pir. He wrote in the Awadhi language, and in the Persian Nasta?liq script. Jayasi’s most famous work is Padmavat, a poem describing the story of the historic siege of Chittor by Sultan Alauddin Khalji, who ruled the Delhi Sultanate in the Indian subcontinent.
Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti Gharib Nawaz – was a Persian Sunni Muslim preacher, ascetic, religious scholar, philosopher and mystic who eventually ended up settling in the Indian subcontinent in the early 13th-century, where he promulgated the famous Chishtiyya order of Sunni mysticism.

5. How did the role of Persian and Urdu literature evolve over the course of the Mughal era, and what impact did it have on society and culture at the time?

Answer: India has always been a region of multiple cultures and ethnicities comprising a multifaceted, colourful and genuinely diverse civilisation of innumerable peoples, beliefs and languages. To understand this, let’s rewind a bit into the cultural history of India. The political domination of Muslim dynasties from Central Asia from the Ghaznavid conquests onwards led to Persian being grafted into the Indian subcontinent as the official language of governance and high culture. While classical Indian civilization was based on Sanskrit, the sacerdotal language of the Brahmins, the first true lingua franca that transcended caste barriers to a certain extent was Persian, which was adopted by the ruling dynasties of Muslim India (who themselves were generally Turks or indigenous Indians rather than Persians), their Hindu peers, as well as the civil servants. However, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, Urdu began to form around the lower echelons of society as a common tongue to enable communication between the myriad ethnicities of the Mughal Empire, ultimately restricting Persian to a refined language of culture and courtly life in the Mughal court. Urdu thus became a vibrant and dynamic language in its own right, as the first literary language with a substantial original contribution from Indians since ancient Sanskrit. There are two periods that broadly mark Persian’s literary career in Mughal India. During the first period, the Mughals came into power in the early sixteenth century and encountered a pre-existing Persian literary heritage established by the Delhi Sultanate. Culturally and politically, they embodied the Persian literary heritage and strengthened its position as a language of cultural importance, literary production, and bureaucracy. The Mughals heavily relied on a class of Persian-speaking poets, scholars, and tutors to participate in their cultural enterprise. They attracted a large number of Iranian and Central Asian émigrés. The late seventeenth-early eighteenth centuries mark the beginning of the second period, as Indian-born poets began to be favoured over Iranian poets, in no small part due to the rise of South Asian literary vernaculars such as Deccani and Rekhta (later named Urdu).

6. How do you see the legacy of Persian and Urdu literature continuing in India today, and what relevance does it have for contemporary readers and writers?

Answer: Persian and Urdu remains as a living tradition in India, in which hundreds of millions of people continue to think, write and dream. Traditionally, History writing in India and about India of the 18th and 19th centuries was a product of a complex crosscurrent of languages and ideas. In the 18th century, historiography of India was defined by Persian language histories written for the courts of Muslim, Sikh and Hindu rulers. British colonial administrators approached this literary heritage with an eye to translating and moulding that knowledge for their own uses. Persian histories and the Persian language were studied in an intensified effort to understand India’s past, through their Department of Linguistic Studies. Persian and Urdu also remains an administrative and court language in the various regions in Middle East and South Asia.

In this age when India has globalized and liberalized – Persian, Urdu and other vernacular native languages of India have been restricted to an intelligentsia community of scholars, academicians and patrons. English can be safely considered as the lingua franca of the masses now, for practical, conceptual and professional reasons. The situation is made more complex, as there exists a colonial past, which complicates the scenario with the presence of English as the Associate Official language of India. English has been variously described by educationists and politicians as an ‘imposition’ of the colonial rule, a ‘gift’ or the last ‘legacy’ of the imperial power. Young adults from Indian subcontinent today acknowledge the emergence of English as a global language owing to the process of globalization. I will acknowledge that though knowledge and proficiency in English contributes to professional identity as a common tool to get a firm grasp in our respective fields, our personal identities are defined more by our own mother tongues or first languages.



Thank you for joining us today for this insightful conversation about your new book “Befarmaid: A Collection of Persian and Urdu Literature from the Mughal Era”. Your passion and dedication to Persian and Urdu literature in the Indian subcontinent during the Mughal era are evident in your responses. The historical background that you have provided for your book, and the research that went into it, are commendable. Your extensive research, along with your insights, is sure to add a new dimension to readers’ understanding of Indian culture and history. We wish you all the best with your book and future endeavours.

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