LITERARY NOTES Three new books on Ghalib mark his death anniversary
By Rauf Parekh
2025-02-17
ONE of Urdu criticism`s unwritten but time-honoured understandings is to keep on writing on life and works of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (Dec 27, 1797 Feb 15, 1869), one of the greatest and most popular poets of Urdu.
No year goes by without a book being published on the great bard and the last year, too, it could not have been otherwise.
So, during the last few months, some new books have appeared on Ghalib. Let us have a quick look on them: Divan-i-Ghalib Qalmi: al ma`aroofbah Nuskha-i-Hameediya Nuskha-i-Hameediya is a manuscript of Ghalib`s Urdu divan. Handwritten in 1821, it is known as Nuskha-i-Bhopal, too, as it was found in Bhopal`s Hameediya Library. Since it had remained a part of personal collection of Faujdaar Muhammad Khan, a member of Bhopal`s royal family, the manuscript was also called Nuskha-i-Faufdaar Muhammad Khan. It is considered a very important and one of the authentic versions of Ghalib`s Urdu divan. But the manuscript had somehow faded into oblivion, that is,until Abdus Salam Nadvi found it unexpectedly in Bhopal`s library in 1918. Nadvi was collecting material for his book Shearul Hind in Bhopal`s famous library when he noticed the unlooked-for rare work.
It was indeed a historic moment and Syed Sulaiman Nadvi gave the breaking news about this rare gem through his journal Ma`arif`s September 1918 issue, informing the readers that Abdur Rahman Bijnori was working on it. But that was not to be, as Bijnori died all of a sudden in 1918, age 33. Mufti Anwaarul Haq, later on, edited the manuscript and it was published in 1921 from Agra under the title Nuskha-i-Hameediya. With the publication of Anwaarul Haq`s edited version, a debate ensued as some scholars had some reservations on the edited version.
In 1969, coinciding with Ghalib`s centennial, Hameed Ahmed Khan, Punjab University`s vice chancellor, published his edited version of the manuscript and named it Nuskha-i-Hameediya (which some may find confusing). It was edited on the basis of notes that Hameed Ahmed Khan had taken on the occasion of his visit to Bhopal library in 1938.
He also criticised Anwaarul Haq as he thought the text of the manuscript does not exactly match with Anwaarul Haq`s edited version. Hameed Ahmed Khan himself, how-ever, could not escape criticism. But the manuscript soon disappeared from Bhopal`s library and yet another controversy began as to who took it away, how it disappeared and where it may be found. On all three occasions, some scholars had expressed their views and reservations, for instance, Hashmi Fareedabadi, Imtiaz Ali Khan Arshi, Abu Muhammad Sahar, Dr Abdul Lateef, Qazi Abdul Wadood, Gian Chand, Syed Hamid Husain, Ghulam Rasool Mehr, Akber Hyderi and many others. The manuscript resurfaced in 2015 when Shahaab Sattar bought it from a London dealer of rare books. Mehr Afshan Faroogi wrote about the rediscovery and Zafar Ahmed Siddiqi also gave some details about it.
Almost all the relevant articles on Nuskha-i-Hameediya, save for a few, have now been compiled by Dr Dawood Usmani and this 728-page tome has been published by Karachi`s Rang-i-Adab Publications. In his intro, the compiler has introduced the manuscript and the history attached to it.
The articles included are written by some renowned scholars and have been arranged in chronological order, giving the reader an understanding of when and how the events unfolded. The source of every article too has been mentioned, making the work ofresearchers quite easy. Lovers of Ghalib`s poetry will love it.
Nahviyaat-i-Ghalib The book, recently published by Idara-iYadgar-i-Ghalib (IYG), Karachi, is titled Nahvipaat-i-Ghalib, or Ghalib`s syntax, penned by Dr Yahya Nashet, a scholar from India known for his work on Urdu grammar and related topics. Syntax, as the author discusses in his foreword, is the study of how words join together to form phrases and sentences. Syntax is concerned with the sequence of words and their relations with each other, analysing gender, number, pronouns, tenses and their agreement with eachother.Thebookhastakenintoaccount all these aspects, citing Ghalib`s Urdu poetry with a special emphasis on auxiliary verbs, adverbs and prepositions (which are in fact post-positions in Urdu). This happens to be the first detailed study of its kind when it comes to Ghalib`s Urdu poetry.
Abul Kalam Qasmi Aur Nagd-i-Ghalib This is another book on Ghalib published recently by the IYG and is a collection of articles. Compiled by Rukhsana Saba, it includes Prof Abul Kalam Qasmi`s articles on Ghalib. Prof Qasmi (Dec 20, 1950July 8,2021) was a prominent scholar from India andhad served asprofessorand dean offaculty of arts at Aligrah Muslim University.
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