VII.—A Persian Poet of the Shahābād district. By Saiyid Wasi Ahmed Bilgrami, B.A. MIR Imâmi: Born at Koâth in the Shahabad (or Arrah) district in Mohurrum 1212 A. H. (the month of the Imâms), he was called Imâmi. His father, Mir Iftikhar Ali Bilgrami, who under the pen-name of "Zarra" (atom) has left behind a Persian Diwân, gave him the best available education in literature, theology, and medicine. Then he was sent to join Maulvi Waliullah's Madrasa at Furrukhabad. Mir Imâmi's cousin and boon-companion was the illustrious Hazrat Shah Sahib Alum Bilgrami of Mârahra (United Province) whom Ghâlib acknowledged as his spiritual guide in a number of letters addressed to him in Urdu-i-Muallah. On his mother's side, Imâmi traced his lineage from the celebrated Bilgrami poets, Allâmâ Syed Abdul Jalil, and Hussânul-Hind Mir Ghulam Ali Azâd, as he himself boasts (1) The bubble of Abdul Jalil's ocean I am; It is a bold testimony that I am Käuser-like (of purest water or lineage; kāuser being a fountain in Mohammed's Paradise). (2) My house situated at Bilgrâm Belongs to the same eminent (personage). The poem, Shorish-i-Ishq, was Imâmi's maiden attempt at the age of 23 in A.H. 1235. Then followed Samar-i-Murâd (A. H. 1248) and a volume of Persian lyrics. Critics say that Imâmi's poetic flights remind one of Saeb, Naziri, and Ghanimat. Towards the sunset of his life, his mind became deranged, but the sparks of poetry were all along alive in him. He died at the age of 62 in A.H. 1274, leaving behind an only son, Mir Quwwat Ali, "Shorish", who had versatile studies and was the author of an Urdu Diwân, a treatise on Prosody (tausi-ul-Qawâfi) and a number of original works [1] on Islâmic theology. In order that the deceased poet's memory may not die out, his great-grandson, now a boy of 5, has been named Imâmi. His first work, Shorish-i-Ishq, was printed in 1295 A.H. at the Nurul-anwâr Press, Arrah, and covers 28 pages. His later and more mature poem, Samar-i-Murâd, exists as a MS. in the Khuda Bakhsh Library. It has, unfortunately, been very incorrectly named and described in Khan Sahib A. Muqtadir's Catalogue of that Library, Vol. III, page 265 (MS. No. 437, Persian Poetry), as I shall show below. To quote the exact words of the cataloguer, it is "a poem, in the metre of Jâmi's Yousuf Zalikha, dealing with the love adventures of a youth, who in course of a voyage after suffering shipwreck reached an island, and there fell in love with a damsel,by an anonymous author. Beginning : لوایم خامه و لفظ است لشکر * به میدان آمدم الله اکبر * "My pen is the banner, and word the army; To the field (of Poetry) I have come: God is Great [2] !!” The name of the poem occurs as Shorish-i-Ishq at the end of the poem. The date of composition, A.H. 1248, A.D. 1882, is expressed by several chronograms at the end. The story itself begins on fol. 7a :— بصورت مرغ شاخ خوش بیانی * چنین زد رقص طاؤس معاني * ['] Seven in number. (1) Mirat-ut-tahqiq. (2) Lamat-ul-uqul. (3) Tambi- [*] The expression, Alla-ho-Akbar, though used as a tacbir or battle-cry here But the true facts what is stated above. about the MS. are quite different from (i) The MS. 437 is not by an anonymous author. (ii) It is not entitled Shorish-i-Ishq. (i) The authorship.-In the above MS., the poetic pen-name, Imâmi, occurs in red ink alone as many as ten times, as if to show that the book is not without an amount of life-blood in its veins. The chronograms at the end (alluded to by the cataloguer) happily says in no equivocal terms that the poem owes its birth to Mir Imâmi Bilgrami. On fol. 58, the MS. concludes with the author's prayer:- By Ahmad, the star of exalted; seat (i.e., the Great Prophet). On fol. 61, we have the date of composition by Anwar Ali, Yâs, of Arrah :- As the year of its conclusion, my heart, O Yas, "The Strength of Imâmi's pen ", found out. [3] (ii) The title of the poem. Again, the very title of the MS. is wrongly given. Shorish Ishq is quite another Masnavi, and should not be confounded with MS. 437. The former, beginning with the verse Come! O ye my sweet-tongued pen ! Come! O ye my nightingale of Ind! deals with the adventures of an Arab poet, Asmai, on his Mecca, whose main story [4] opens with the couplet : way to Born in Arabia, a magic-worker, (in Poetry) called Asmai; The palate of eloquence watered with honey at (the mention of) whose name! اصامي گفت * Here "taqat-i-khamila-i-Imâmi" gives the year, A.H. 1248. [+] There is also a poem, embodying the same story by Shaikh Ali Hazin in one thousand verses. Hazin is ranked with Ghâlib, Khusro, Bedil and Azad Bilgrami among the classical poets of India. He lies buried at Benares. The chronogram by Mir Mohammed Askari on fol. 58 of the K. B. MS. 437, distinctly says: پکے نام مثنویش چو به شاخ فکر رفتم تمر مراد نامش شده سبز از زبانم "When for his Masnavi's name, to fancy's bough I went: The name, Samar-i-Murad, (Ambition's fruit) became green on my tongue!" Mir Askari was Imâmi's uncle, for which reason the name suggested was adopted by the nephew for his poem. Thus Samar-i-Murâd, and not Shorish-i-Ishq is the correct title of MS. 437. On fol. 59, line 8, whence the cataloguer's mistake originated, the verse چو بستم نقش نظم شورش عشق کشیدم جام بزم شورش عشق has a marginal note, in red ink, attached to it, which reads thus: نام مثنوئي اول مصنف که در حال اصمعي شاعر عرب است that is," it is the name of the author's first Masnavi dealing with the story of the Arab poet, Asmai." The word in italics is suggestive. The MS. under review, then, must be a second Masnavi, and must have another title. It is as well obvious that the theme of the two poems, Shorish-i-Ishq and the MS. 437 (or Samâr-i-Murâd) is not one and the same. The former introduces to us an Arab poet, deciphering verses on a stone-slab in a desert; whereas the latter speaks of "the love-adventures of a youth who in course of a voyage after suffering shipwreck, reached an island, and there fell in love with a damsel." There are altogether 16 chapters in 'shorish' or the desert-story, as against 36 in 'Samar' or the shipwreck-romance. A comparison of the headings of the main stories of the two poems is given below as a conclusive proof that the MS. in question is not Shorish-i-Ishq but Samâr-i-Murâd. Shorish-i-Ishq. MS. 437, or Samâr-i-Murâd. 5. The love-story narrated by 5. The thread of romance is Asmai commences. 6. He happens to pass by a stone containing some verses. 7. He retorts by writing verses on the stone. 8. He comes to the same spot a second time only to find another set of verses. 9. He extemporizes another verse in reply. taken up. 6. The hero with his companions starts on a journey by land and water. 7. The ship described. 8. An invisible Voice speaks :"And whoso feareth God, unto him will he grant a happy issue out of all his afflictions, and He will bestow on him an ample provision from whence he expecteth it not; and whoso trusteth in God, He will be his sufficient support; for God will surely attain His purpose. Now hath God appointed unto everything a determined period." The hero, taking this voice as a mandate from God, throws away his coins into water. His companions take it as a windcry. 9. A parenthetical chapter: the method of being benefited by the above Korânic verses. |