Modern Poetry of Pakistan
offers many offshoots of the classical tradition of Muslim poetry in India.
Although Amir Khusrau (1253-1325), considered by some to be the first poet
writing in a recognizable Urdu diction (Hindvi, as it was then called), wrote
geet (songs), in addition to poems in many classical forms like the Mathnavi,
ghazal, rubai, and riddles.
Nazm, or an integrated rhymed poem on a single subject, did not become a regular
part of the repertoire of Urdu poetry until the second half of the 18th century
with Nazeer Akbarabadi. Whereas classical poetry was often highly stylized in
its language, imagery and symbolism, and romantic and mystical, or metaphysical,
in its themes, Nazeer Akbarabadi introduced everyday subjects, images, and
concerns in his nazms. He also wrote political and social satires.
Akbarabadi’s influence, through Altaf Husain Hali and Muhammad Husain Azad in
the 19th century, has continued in Urdu poetry to this day. One of the great
beneficiaries of this influence was Allama Iqbal, the poet with whom Modern
Poetry of Pakistan opens, widely considered the visionary who first conceived
the idea of a Muslim state in India. Iqbal wrote in a great variety of forms and
learned deeply from both Western and Eastern traditions. In the vein of Goethe
and Shelley, his poetry includes philosophical reflections steeped in spiritual
idealism in a quest for self-realization geared toward community- or
nation-building.
At the same time, classical images and symbols of Islamic poetry from Persian
and Arabic traditions are also incorporated in Iqbal’s poems, where, in addition
to their acquired mystical connotations, they are given a contextual turn that
makes them a powerful vehicle to challenge European imperial domination and
promote the cause of political liberation as well as social and economic justice
and equity.
Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1911-1984), reciting at a mushaira near the end
of his life. Faiz Ahmad Faiz, arguably the greatest poetic voice in the
sub-continent of India after Iqbal, follows in his footsteps, retaining the
political dimension in his poetry but makes two distinct contributions of his
own that give a new direction to the current of sub-continental poetry.
On the one hand, he breaks away from the religio-political impetus, shunning
high philosophy as well, and gives his poems a decidedly popular
Marxist-Socialist character. On the other, he reinterprets the imagery and
language of classical Perso-Arabic poetic tradition, to which he reverts, by
enlisting it in the cause of the common people. He thus re-imagines and
reinvents the connotative field of classical language, imagery, and symbolism
within a Marxist ideological worldview. The Beloved of classical tradition no
longer signifies God, or Muhammad, the prophet of Islam and the perfect exemplar
of a human being, physically and spiritually, or the light of abstract Truth, or
the Self, but Revolution — Revolution of the oppressed of the earth, against
economic exploitation, colonization, and all forms of imperial domination.
Iqbal’s will to revive the ideal Muslim community and resurrect the perfect “Man
of God” in each individual Muslim consciousness is replaced by an unflagging
hope for the success of the revolution everywhere against injustice. “Workers of
the world unite” is reconceived to exhort the oppressed everywhere to keep the
faith against all odds, to continue the struggle, for their efforts will indeed
bring about an upheaval that will redress the wrongs and crown the reviled, the
despised, the rejected, the robbed and impoverished with success and surcease
from their pain. Ironically, in reinterpreting the idiom and imagery of old,
Faiz ends up reinterpreting Islamic values in secular, physical, material
(Marxist) terms.