The (Critical) Edge of Tradition: Understanding Ġhālib as Valī in Contemporary Delhi
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Abstract
In this essay, I explore an emergent trend within both authoritative Islamic discourse and Urdu public culture in north India, in which the poet Mirzā Asadullāh Ḳhān “Ġhālib” (1797-1869) is portrayed as a saintly and prophetic figure. I aim to show that claiming Ġhālib as an authoritatively Islamic figure—and hence his life and poetry as Islamically authoritative and legible—at this historical moment of unprecedented Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bias in India is a profoundly radical claim. It gestures towards a Muslim—and crucially, also non-Muslim—reclamation of precolonial lifeways and intellectual, literary, and spiritual traditions as an antidote to the poisonous discourses of modern religious nationalism and sectarianism.
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The (Critical) Edge of Tradition: Understanding Ġhālib as Valī in Contemporary Delhi
In: Journal of Urdu StudiesSearch for other papers by Anand Vivek Taneja in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
In this essay, I explore an emergent trend within both authoritative Islamic discourse and Urdu public culture in north India, in which the poet Mirzā Asadullāh Ḳhān “Ġhālib” (1797-1869) is portrayed as a saintly and prophetic figure. I aim to show that claiming Ġhālib as an authoritatively Islamic figure—and hence his life and poetry as Islamically authoritative and legible—at this historical moment of unprecedented Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bias in India is a profoundly radical claim. It gestures towards a Muslim—and crucially, also non-Muslim—reclamation of precolonial lifeways and intellectual, literary, and spiritual traditions as an antidote to the poisonous discourses of modern religious nationalism and sectarianism.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 825 | 129 | 14 |
| Full Text Views | 55 | 3 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 101 | 10 | 0 |
