Thought this article was very nice..
http://dawn.com/weekly/books/archive/051009/images/books5.jpg] Amir Khusrau’s image today is multifaceted: as a saint in the dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin for the common people, as a chronicler of mediaeval India and classical poet of Persian for the scholars, as an innovator of Hindustani music for the classical and semi-classical musicians of north India, and as a poet of the masses using their language and imagery to entertain them. Many of us are familiar with the very lively geet:
Chhap tilak sab cheeni ray mosay naina milaikay
Chhap tilak sab cheeni ray mosay naina milaikay
Prem bhatee ka madhva pilaikay
Matvali kar leeni ray mosay naina milaikay
Gori gori bayyan, hari hari churiyan
Bayyan pakar dhar leeni ray mosay naina milaikay
Bal bal jaaon mein toray rang rajwa
Apni see kar leeni ray mosay naina milaikay
Khusrau Nijaam kay bal bal jayyiye
Mohay Suhaagan keeni ray mosay naina milaikay
Chhap tilak sab cheeni ray mosay naina milaikay (You’ve taken away my looks, my identity, by just a glance.
By making me drink the wine of love-potion,
You’ve intoxicated me by just a glance;
My fair, delicate wrists with green bangles in them,
Have been held tightly by you with just a glance.
I give my life to you, Oh my cloth-dyer,
You’ve dyed me in yourself, by just a glance.
I give my whole life to you Oh, Nizam,
You’ve made me your bride, by just a glance.)
Khusrau was born in 1253 in Balkh, Afghanistan into a family of nobles. His real name was Abul Hasan, though he became famous by his pen name Amir Khusrau. His family moved to India to escape the Mongol hordes that were spreading havoc all over Central Asia at the time. Since his father was a nobleman, he became a member of the Turkish Sultan Altutmash’s court.
The best websites on this wonderfully ever fresh poet/saint/chronicler is alif-india.com as well as angelfire.com. Also look up grandpoohbah.com for some good translations of both Khusrau’s Persian and Hindi poems. Overall, Khusrau wrote 92 books of poetry and prose in Persian as well as in Hindi. Khusrau is also famous as a singer and is considered the father of Qawwali, a style of sema Sufi music.
It is said that when Khusrau was eight his father took him and the other children to visit Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya’s convent. While his siblings and father went inside the convent he stayed outside thinking that if he (Nizamuddin Auliya) were a perfect saint he would summon him himself. Nizamuddin Auliya seems to have become aware of his thought telepathically and sent his servant to bring him in. Amir Khusrau was so impressed by his personality that he accepted him as his guide. Soon he became the dearest of his disciples and remained so until his death. In fact when Nizamuddin Auliya died, Amir Khusrau was not in Delhi. When he arrived in Delhi and heard the news of his master’s demise, he died on the spot of his master’s grave in 1325. He was buried near the tomb of his teacher on a slightly raised platform popularly called Chabootra-i-Yaran.
One has to read Khusrau’s works in the context of 12th/13th century South Asia, to fully appreciate it. Khusrau was born at a time when there had recently been a great influx of people into India from central Asia, where Chengiz Khan and his Mongol armies had devastated much of the civilization from Russia till Turkey. Those who escaped to India were rulers, traders, artisans, musicians, mystics and soldiers. They brought with them a different culture and values that slowly started getting assimilated into the local Indian culture and civilization. There may have been fierce conflicts between the two, as well as friendly dialogues. Eventually, new composite cultural values started emerging. Of course by the time the Mughals were in power this composite tradition had reached its zenith.
Khusrau’s was the time of discovery and experiments, and therefore the apparent contradictions on whether Khusrau composed any poetry in Hindi or not, and whether the riddles and other dohas ascribed to him are his or not. This is a debate that may have begun in the 19th century when scholars started collecting and compiling Khusrau’s poetry. So far no authentic document containing Khusrau’s Hindvi poetry has been found which would date back to earlier than the 18th century, unlike those containing his Persian works which are as old as 500 years or even older. Though Khusrau himself has mentioned at many places in his Persian books that he loves writing in Hindvi and has dispensed with such works (of Hindvi poetry) amongst his friends, he himself probably didn’t bother to preserve them in any written form.
So where did this huge body of Hindvi verse come to us from? Khusrau’s pahelis (riddles), dohas (couplets) and geets (songs) seem to have been orally transferred from generation to generation by Qawwals, mirasees (professional singers), bhands (stage performers), women-folk who were employed by aristocratic families to look after children and perform other daily chores, and of course the family members themselves. These verses have gone through much alterations and additions over the years — in many cases transformed entirely from the original in language and content. But the original spirit of playfulness, celebration, and surprise still remains.
Main to piya say naina lada aayi ray,
Ghar naari kanwari kahay so karay,
Main to piya say naina lada aayi ray.
Sohni suratiya, mohni muratiya,
Main to hriday kay peechay samaa aayi ray;
Khusrau Nijaam kay bal bal jayyiye
Main to anmol cheli kaha aayi ray,
Ghar naari kanwari kahay so karay,
Main to piya say naina lada aayi ray.
(Hey, I’ve just locked eyes with my sweetheart,
Don’t care what the neighbourhood girls say;
I’ve just locked eyes with my darling.
Oh, his beautiful face, charming like an idol,
I’ve just made a place in the bottom of his heart.
I, Khusrau, give my life to Nizamuddin in sacrifice,
I’ve just had him call me his most favourite disciple;
Don’t care what the neighbourhood girls say,
I’ve just locked eyes with my darling.)
Amir Khusrau’s first masnavi, the Qiran al-sa’dayn (The Conjunction of Two Auspicious Stars), was completed in 1289 in three months and has been described as “a picture composed of figures painted separately and independently and then put together, with a suitable background, to represent the scene the artist wanted to depict.” The plot of this work is rather thin and describes the quarrel and reconciliation between Bughra Khan and his son (and Khusrau’s patron) Sultan Mu’izz al-Din Kayqubad, but this is interspersed with vivid descriptions of Delhi and its buildings, the Indian seasons and a Mongol raid, among other noncourtly topics. In an appendix to the work, Khusrau describes the details of his creative endeavour and repeatedly valourizes truth (rasti) over lies (durugh), a theme to which he would return later.
His second work in this genre was a shorter and less ambitious work, Miftah al-futuh (Key to Victories), completed two years later, that describes four victories of Jalal al-Din Firuz Khalji within the course of one year.
Khusrau’s third historical poem, Duval Rani Khizr Khan, was completed in 1316 after he had written his khamsah and is probably the best known and most remarkable work among his historical poems. The theme of this romance is as fabulous as any fiction, describing the tragic love of prince Khizr Khan, the son of Sultan Ala’ al-Din Khalji, for the Hindu princess Devaldi, daughter of Raja Karan of Gujarat. Here the “facts of history narrated with great fidelity have been woven round with such a rich mass of fresh fancies and variegated imagery that the whole forms a peerless specimen of the masterpieces of romantic literature.” Amir Khusrau was doing for Indo-Persian literature what Nizami had done for Persian literature.
His next work, Nuh sipihr (Nine Spheres), was completed three years later. This is a literary tour de force: it is divided into nine sections of unequal length, each section in a different meter and concluded by a ghazal. The different sections are devoted to praising Sultan Mubarak Shah and the birth of his son Muhammad, his building activities, with the third spher devoted to an extensive eulogy on all aspects of Indian culture.
In his last masnavi, the Tughlaqnamah, written at the end of his life in 1320, Khusrau returned to the realm of politics. This work is a dramatic and thrilling narrative of the convert Khusrau Khan’s bloody usurpation of the throne from his master Sultan Qutb al-Din Mubarak Shah, his subsequent defeat by Ghiyas al-Din Tughlaq, and the re-establishment of proper Islamic rule. Khusrau, however, was prevented from making a poetic use of his material by the very purpose of his work; things had to be surveyed from the official, not the artistic, view-point; and this made the production of a real poem impossible.
There is here, as elsewhere, no lack of verbal ingenuity and verbal trickery and quaint turns of thought and figures of speech that delighted his contemporaries but are wearisome to our modern taste. This reinforces the possibility that the poet could criticize the vagaries of the political situation of his time even as he praised the rulers. Khusrau’s works are actually full of implicit moral and ethical exhortations to his patrons, and he is as interested in issues of courtly conduct and justice as of rhetoric and poetics.
Qawwalis and folk songs, the most popular area of the Khusrau tradition, have kept his name alive amongst the masses for more than seven centuries. Many qawwals begin their qawwali with one of these popular dohas of Amir Khusrau.
Khusrau raen suhaag ki, jaagi pi ke sung,
Tun mero mun pi-u ko, dovu bhaye ek rung.
(Khusrau (the bride) spends the eve of her wedding
Awake with her beloved,
(in such a way that)
The body belongs to her, but heart to the beloved,
The two become one.)
Bhai ray malla jo hum kon paar utaar, Haath ka devongi mandra, gal ka devun haar.
(Oh, brother oarsman, if you let me cross the river,
I have for you my gold
bangle, my necklace.)
Basant, the festival of spring, is celebrated by many Muslims in the subcontinent, especially at the tomb of Nizamuddin Aulia at Delhi, every year. This 700-year-old colorful tradition is attributed to the Sufis, especially the Chishti saint Nizamuddin and his disciple Amir Khusrau, who were probably the first Muslims to have rejoiced at the celebration of Basant.
Aaj basant manaalay suhaagun,
Aaj basant manaalay;
Anjan manjan kar piya mori,
Lambay neher lagaaye;
Tu kya sovay neend ki maasi,
So jaagay teray bhaag, suhaagun,
Aaj basant manalay…;
Oonchi naar kay oonchay chitvan,
Ayso diyo hai banaaye;
Shaah-i-Amir tohay dekhan ko,
Nainon say naina milaaye,
Suhaagun, aaj basant manaalay.
(Rejoice, my love, rejoice,
It’s spring here, rejoice.
Bring out your lotions and toiletries,
And decorate your long hair.
Oh, you’re still enjoying your sleep, wake-up.
Even your destiny has woken up,
It’s spring here, rejoice.
You snobbish lady with arrogant looks,
The King Amir is here to see you;
Let your eyes meet his,
Oh my love, rejoice;
It’s spring here again.)
Khusrau wrote about the past to fulfill not a practical, or a moral, or a religious, or an academic purpose, but to fulfill an aesthetic purpose. He wrote not in order that man should know what man has done and should, therefore, leave undone, or that he should know how the present came to be, or that he should know what is the will of God, but that he should be diverted and amused. Amir Khusrau did not write history — he wrote poetry.