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Abstract
Ali Sardar Jafri (1913-2000) was an influential Urdu poet and critic, as well as a leading figure in the taraqqī pasand taḥrīk (Progressive Writers’ Movement), which espouses Marxist literary sensibilities. Carlo Coppola, a pioneer in the study of modern Urdu literature, spoke to Jafri in 1968 about the historical, ideological, and aesthetic orientations of the Progressives.
Abstract
Since the early twentieth century, Urdu poets have recited verse at locally-organized poetry gatherings held in country fairs across North India’s Gangetic plain. Critical engagement with these mushāʿarahs overturns assumptions about historical and affiliative aspects of vernacular and elite literary practices, revealing a patchwork of patronage, influence, and taste among poets and their audiences, while also highlighting unexpected routes of textual circulation outside urban locales. This essay examines poetry gatherings in and around the city of Muzaffarnagar located in North India’s Upper Doab. Ethnographic and archival materials tell a history of the performance arenas, tea stalls, and municipal structures of a semi-urban milieu that changes the scale of Urdu literary spaces over time.
Abstract
In histories of the Urdu novel, the name of G.W.M. Reynolds (1814-1879) is either not mentioned at all or only in passing reference to his possible influence on Sharar, Urdu’s first writer of historical romances. But the actual role that this ill-reputed contemporary of Dickens played in the development of Urdu prose fiction was far greater. By 1918, twenty-four of his massive works were available in Urdu, some in more than one translation, and all reprinted more than once. Among his translators were a number of significant poets and fiction writers of the time. Arguably, between 1890s and 1920, Reynolds was not only the most widely read author in Urdu but also the most admired. He influenced not only writers of historical romances, but also inspired what can be best described as the earliest original crime tales in Urdu.
Abstract
Some of the most important structural patterns and devices used in individual ghazal verses by the famous poet Mirza Asadullah Khan ‘Ghalib’ are identified and analyzed; their literary effectiveness is illustrated with examples and discussion. In particular, the paper considers two such patterns. One set of verses have a ‘twist’ to them, such that the reader (or, ideally, hearer) is first misled or confused, then at the last possible moment is suddenly and almost explosively enlightened. Another set of verses create an inherently unresolvable ‘tangle’ of several possible meanings which cannot be either affirmed or rejected on any non-arbitrary grounds. The context-free independence of such small ghazal verses, together with their division into two formally distinct and performatively separated lines, makes for unusual poetic constraints and opportunities. The author has prepared an extensive commentarial website on the poetry of Ghalib and Mir.
Abstract
The reception of Mullā Ṣadrā in South Asia began soon after his death through the dissemination and commentary culture on his Sharḥ al-Hidāyah that was adopted into the Dars-e Niz̤āmī pedagogy in the eighteenth century. However, the modern reception of his thought in Urdu has been somewhat removed from that initial scholastic engagement. I examine four modalities of this reception: translation of his major work the Asfār; analytic engagement by a philosophy doctorate; triumphalism in the literary sphere; and responses to the intellectual challenge of the West by a Shiʿi seminary student. I attempt to show that these varied receptions are indicative of trends and developments in the modern intellectual history of Pakistan.
Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History 16 (CMR 16) covering North America, South-East Asia, China, Japan and Australasia in the period 1800-1914, is a further volume in a general history of relations between the two faiths from the 7th century to the early 20th century. It comprises a series of introductory essays and the main body of detailed entries. These treat all the works, surviving or lost, that have been recorded. They provide biographical details of the authors, descriptions and assessments of the works themselves, and complete accounts of manuscripts, editions, translations and studies. The result of collaboration between numerous leading scholars, CMR 16, along with the other volumes in this series, is intended as a basic tool for research in Christian-Muslim relations.
Section Editors: Clinton Bennett, Luis F. Bernabe Pons, Jaco Beyers, Emanuele Colombo, Lejla Demiri, Martha Frederiks, David D. Grafton, Stanisław Grodź, Alan Guenther, Vincenzo Lavenia, Arely Medina, Alain Messaoudi, Gordon Nickel, Claire Norton, Reza Pourjavady, Douglas Pratt, Radu Păun, Charles Ramsey, Peter Riddell, Umar Ryad, Mehdi Sajid, Cornelia Soldat, Karel Steenbrink, Charles Tieszen, Carsten Walbiner, Catherina Wenzel.
Section Editors: Clinton Bennett, Luis F. Bernabe Pons, Jaco Beyers, Emanuele Colombo, Lejla Demiri, Martha Frederiks, David D. Grafton, Stanisław Grodź, Alan Guenther, Vincenzo Lavenia, Arely Medina, Alain Messaoudi, Gordon Nickel, Claire Norton, Reza Pourjavady, Douglas Pratt, Radu Păun, Charles Ramsey, Peter Riddell, Umar Ryad, Mehdi Sajid, Cornelia Soldat, Karel Steenbrink, Charles Tieszen, Carsten Walbiner, Catherina Wenzel.
Egyptian and Islamic Law: Selected Essays
In
Sharia, Justice and Legal Order: Egyptian and Islamic Law: Selected Essays Rudolph Peters discusses in 35 articles practice of both Sharia and state law. The principal themes are legal order and the actual application of law both in the judiciaries as well in cultural and political debates. Many of the topics deal with penal law. Although the majority of studies are situated in the Ottoman and, especially, Egyptian period, few of them are of a more recent period, such as in Nigeria and, also, Egypt. The book’s historical studies are based on archival judicial records and are definitively pioneering. Although the selected articles of this book are the fruit of more than forty years of research, most of them have constantly been cited.