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Recasting Karbala in the Genre of Urdu Marsiya
by Syed Akbar Hyder
Urdu maraiya or elegy has not only rendered to the Urdu language literary and
poetic beauty, but also a medium of religious, cultural, and intellectual
expression. Although some Urdu marasi deal with topics other than the
seventh-century battle of Karbala, most of them have focused on the events that
paved the
path to this battle and the agonizing aftermath of this event. In this paper, I
will discuss the salient characteristics of the genre of marsiya and the
variations of the Karbala theme within this tradition according to changing
social, cultural, and political contexts.
In order to comprehend Urdu marasi, it is essential to glance briefly at the
historical and social milieu that nourished this genre. The tradition of
marsiya has its roots in the pre-Islamic Arab and Persian worlds, where human
sentiments and pathos were expressed in form of elegiac poetry.[3] This
tradition
continued after the advent of Islam, with many companions of the Prophet
Muhammad, such as Umar, arranging for elegies to be written about their deceased
family members.[4] In 680 C.E., on the bank of the river Euphrates, Hussain, a
grandson of Muhammad, along with his seventy-one companions, was killed in a
deserted place, Karbala, for refusing to pay allegiance to the Ummayad ruler,
Yazid. This event became a major theme for the marasi of the ensuing centuries.
According to some traditional beliefs, the first marasi were recited by
Hussain's sister, Zainab, and son, Zain-al-Abedin, in the aftermath of Hussain's
martyrdom. There were, however, severe restrictions imposed on such mourning
ceremonies since the Ummayad rulers could not afford to foster empathy for the
family of the Prophet.[5]
When Shi'ism[6] became the official religion of Iran in the fifteenth century,
Safavid rulers such as Shah Tahmasp, patronized poets who wrote about the
tragedy of Karbala, and the genre of marsiya, according to Persian scholar
Wheeler Thackston, "was particularly cultivated by the Safavids."[7] The most
well-known fifteenth-century Persian marsiya writer was Muhtasham Kashani (d.
1587), whose works consequently became a source of elegy emulation for Iranians
as well as Indian poets of ensuing generations.[8]
Persian and Arabic languages and literatures had a momentous influence on
Indo-Muslim culture in general and on the evolution of Urdu language and
literature in particular. The Adil Shahi and Qutb Shahi dynasties of South India
(Deccan), predominantly Twelver Shi'is in religious persuasion, patronized
Dakhni
(an early South Indian dialect of Urdu) marasi. Although Persian marasi of
Muhtasham Kashani were still recited, the Adil Shahi and Qutb Shahi rulers felt
the need to render the Karbala tragedy in the language of common Muslims. In the
Adil Shahi and Qutb Shahi kingdom of Deccan, marasi flourished, especially
under the patronage of Ali Adil Shah and Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah,[9] marsiya
writers themselves, and poets such as Ashraf Biyabani.[10] Urdu marasi written
during this period are still popular in South Indian villages. One such marsiya
expresses the pathos of the moment when Imam Hussain's loved ones bid him
farewell:
Farewell, O King of martyrs,
Farewell, O Ruler of both worlds,
Mustafa [the Prophet] mourns for you in Paradise,like Yaqub mourned in the
aftermath of his separation with Yusuf.[11] The Yaqub-Yusuf motif,[12]
which by no means is restricted to marsiya, recurs over and over in this genre
since the son of Imam Hussain, Ali Akbar, was supposedly as handsome as the
Qu'ranic Yusuf, and since the Imam's distress after the martyrdom of his son was
analogous to Yaqub's sorrow after his son parted from him. The North Indian
marsiya writers used similar motifs and metaphors when the centre of Urdu
literature moved to the North after the kingdoms of
the Deccan were annexed by the Mughals.
As Mughal power began to wane in the aftermath of the rule of Aurangzeb (1706),
other autonomous Muslim powers sprung up in India. The Navabs of Avadh,
Twelver Shi'is and patrons of Urdu literature and poetry, provided auspices for
the sublimation of the marsiya genre in North India.
Contrary to popular perceptions, Urdu marasi are not confined to the gatherings
of Muharram[13] but are recited throughout the year in ceremonies preceding
weddings[14] and death anniversaries. However, in the kingdom of Avadh, during
the months of Muharram and Safar, marasi were recited on a daily basis in
the majalis (gatherings to commemorate the tragedy of Karbala) held twice a day
in imambareh (places of gathering for the majalis). The adab (etiquette) of
these majalis was such that the audiences would sit facing the taziyah (models
of the shrines of the martyrs of Karbala), and listen to the narration of the
popularly perceived events of Karbala in Persian; they would then hear the Urdu
marsiya written for that particular day. The recitation of marasi was also
considered an art, and the writers were not always considered the best orators
to generate pathos among the audiences. The Navabs thus invited effective
reciters (marsiya khwan) who had a considerable following themselves.[15] After
the recitation of marasi, the family of the Prophet was praised and the enemies
of this family rebuked. The majlis would close with self-flagellation.[16]
Keeping this historical and cultural background of Urdu marsiya tradition in
mind,
it is apposite to delve into the salient characteristics of this genre.
The main purpose of Urdu marasi is to praise the heroes of Islam, who fought on
the side of Imam Hussain in Karbala, and to induce empathy for the family
of Ali and Fatima. The metaphors utilized in Avadh, Delhi, and the surrounding
vicinity to glorify the accomplishments of early Islamic heroes in Urdu marasi
were similar to the metaphors and similes used in qasaid, or odes, written in
praise of Indian rulers. Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) described the "King of
Martyrs," Imam Hussain, by using metaphors, similar to the ones he used in his
odes:
The glory and jewel of faith, Hussain Ibn-e Ali,
who shall be called the candle of the gathering of grandeur.
The fountain of paradise [Salsabil] is in the path of those,
who call him the thirsty martyr of Karbala.
It is a strange occurrence that an enemy of Islam,
battles with Ali and is considered only to be mistaken. After Ali there is
Hassan, and after Hassan there is Hussain,
How can I exonerate any person who has mistreated them.[17]
Ghalib, in his marasi, not only praised the family of Ali, but expressed
loyalty to the family of Muhammad by rebuking their opponents. It is difficult
for
Ghalib to comprehend how the enemies of the Prophet's family can be
exonerated by Muslims. Ghalib's criticism could have been aimed at the belief of
many
Muslims that the judgment of the companions of the Prophet should be left to
Allah. Ghalib considered Imam Hussain to be the ideal king; the precepts of
loyalty demanded aversion toward any enemy of the king.
While Ghalib used regal imagery to underscore the virtues of Imam Hussain, Mirza
Dabir (1803-1875) described the Imam as also being the paragon of a true
lover. Dabir used ascetic and mystical imagery, commonly implemented in Urdu and
Persian poetry, to describe Imam Hussain. Imam Hussain is depicted as the
ideal lover due to his penchant for suffering in order to attain Allah:
For the sake of thirst, he [Hussain] fasted in youth,
For the sake of thirst, he turned away from Zehra's [Fatima's] milk,
For the sake of thirst, he never accepted the Euphrates' favor,
For the sake of thirst, he abnegated water from the Seventh of Muharram. [18]
The world remembers the story of his slaying,
and his utterance of `thirst, thirst' while biting the tongue.[19]
Dabir interpreted the Imam's thirst as if it were a means to unite the Imam with
Allah. It was as though Allah tested his beloved by depriving him of water
in the sweltering desert of Karbala. But Imam Hussain was not the only one put
to the test of Allah; each and every person on the side of the Imam --from
the six month old child, Ali Asghar, to the seventy-one-year-old companion of
the Prophet Muhammad, Habib Ibn-e Mazahir-- was subjected to the agony of
thirst. The mystical imagery of forbearance was utilized by Dabir to make his
view of the suffering side of the Imam more fathomable to an audience attuned to
mystical poetry.
The marasi of Mir Taqi Mir (1722-1810) and Muhammad Rafi Sauda (1713-1780) are
similar to those of Ghalib and Dabir in that they perform their panegyrical
function for the martyrs of Karbala; but these poets also wrote marasi in which
the narration of the Karbala tragedy was saturated with cultural and
ceremonial imagery of North India. The North Indian Muslim cultural terminology
used by Mir and Sauda includes sehra--the veil of flowers that the groom and the
bride wear on their wedding day in India, arsi mushaf--the moment when the bride
and the groom cast first glances at each other through the mirror placed on
the Quran between them, and naig--the demand of the groom's sister for money
before allowing her brother to approach his bride.[20]
It was the wedding of Imam Hussain's daughter, Fatima Kubra, and Imam Hassan's
son, Qasim, moments before the battle of Karbala, that spawned the
incorporation of this event into the narratives of Karbala, giving the tragedy
characteristics of an ill-fated romance.[21] Sauda embellished his marasi by
characterizing the wedding of Qasim in terms of the weddings of Delhi and Avadh:
Friends, listen to the affliction wrought by the oppressive celestial sphere,
[22]
it has planned a strange wedding for the son of Hassan.
In such a way has it joined the bride and the groom,
that the [inauspicious] thread of the shrouds has been tied to the
[auspicious] lagan.
How should I describe the naubat played at this wedding,
It was the perpetual self-flagellation, day and night,
of the men and women of this household.
Instead of lighting, the house has been set on fire.
The strange color-play of the wedding,
had left nothing but blotches of blood on the clothes.
The Bride's gift for sachaq was the severed head of the groom,
Say, what country has the tradition of such a sachaq?[23]
Sauda's utilization of lagan (the brazen or copper pan used for cooking sweet
rice before weddings), naubat (the music played outside the house during
cheerful ceremonies), lighting of the houses, traditional color-play prior to
the wedding, and the ceremony of sachaq (the ceremony a few days before the
wedding when the groom's family brings gifts, including the wedding garments,
for the bride),[24] give the seventh century wedding of Karbala a North Indian
cultural touch.
Sauda also incorporated the beliefs and superstitions prevalent in his days:
The bride's mother would lament and say:
`a sorrow heavier than my daughter's widowhood,
are the remarks of our acquaintances,
that the feet of the bride were inauspicious for the groom...
The view of the bride's face set his [the groom's] destiny for heaven...
How can I look in the eyes of the groom's mother?
When this wedding has taken the light of her eyes.'[25]
Sauda discussed the mother of Qasim's bride as if she were an Indian woman,
overpowered by the pangs of remorse, and concerned with the reputation of her
family due to the doomed wedding of her daughter and the embarrassment of
bearing the culpability of her son-in-law's death. This kind of imagery appealed
to
the thousands of marsiya listeners and readers in India who understood the
tragedy of Karbala by placing themselves in the context of this story. For many
Indians, the death of a groom just moments after his wedding conjured up images
of the widespread stigma associated with an "inauspicious" bride, as it was
common in that context to cast the blame for a groom's misfortune on his bride.
In addition to the wedding of Karbala, other parts of the Karbala tragedy were
painted with Indian colors. Mir Anis' (1802-1874) description of the women
of the Prophet's household embarking on the journey to Karbala and the protocol
that was followed was quite similar to the protocol followed by the begmat
(ladies) of Lucknow:
Even if there is a young boy on the roof,
he must get down,
If he is coming this way, he must stop.
No stranger should travel on this road,
For God has made her [Zainab, sister of Hussain]
nobler than Mary,
Even the male angels have closed their eyes.[26]
This part of Anis' marsiya echoes the rigidity with which purdah (veiling) was
observed in nineteenth-century Avadh.
The marasi of Anis were also heavily laced with durbar imagery, which registered
in the mind of the readers and listeners the manner in which Imam Hussain
and his companions must have eagerly awaited their martyrdom:
On the right side of the camp were the relatives of the Imam,their glowing faces
brightened the dark desert of Karbala.
Like beads in a rosary, they were all united.
They anxiously waited for their death.
They would desire neither food nor water,
their aim was to offer their heads to Allah.
The young boys pleaded to be the first martyrs,
and the older ones left this decision up to the Imam.
In the middle of this assembly was the King of the world,
like the sun amidst the stars.[27]
The foregoing verses create images similar to those associated with the Mughal
durbars, or the Navabs of Avadh sitting in the Diwan-e-Khas (hall of the
private audience) while being praised by their loyal friends and advisers.
In the marasi of Mir Ishq (d. before 1890), the farewell of Imam Hussain to his
friends and family in Medina is also similar to that of a North Indian king
before he commenced on a course of war: crowds gathering to bid farewell,
subjects praying for the master's health, and so on.[28] The farewell of Imam
Hussain's son Ali Akbar, who was eighteen years old during the battle of Karbala
and allegedly bore a striking resemblance to his great grandfather, the
Prophet Muhammad, is similar to the farewell any beloved son of Avadh would
receive before he went to war: the family comes to bid him farewell and prays
for his
well-being; sisters express their aspirations for his wedding; and mothers give
sadqa (alms that are supposed to remove any curse that might afflict a
person) to the poor.
The marasi of Mir Anis reflect the popular prayers of women of Lucknow. When an
unmarried son departs for the battlefront, his mother expresses her desire
to see his sehra; when a brother leaves the house, his sister prays that the
brother's wife always has sandal-wood powder in her hair and children in her
lap; and when a slave joins his master in the war, the slave's wife prays for
her husband's death in exchange for his master's life. The ideals of
brother-sister and mother-son love, fertility of a woman, and loyalty to the
king, were aspirations of the Muslim culture of North India and were channeled
through literary genres like the marsiya.
Images associated with the 1857 uprising against British rule were also
incorporated into marasi. As Intezar Hussain states in his study of Mir Anis'
poetry, Urdu marasi were shaped by the political situation of their day. The
tumultuous events that afflicted Avadh in the mid-nineteenth century were
juxtaposed
with the tragedy of Karbala, generating emotional catharsis as well as consoling
North Indian Muslims by associating their plight with the travails of Imam
Hussain.
Marasi would also induce catharsis when families in Avadh lost their beloved
members. Marsiya writers would narrate the family's agony by comparing it to
various events of Karbala. When the Navab of Patna, Sayid Ahmad Hussain Khan,
lost his sixteen-year old son to smallpox, Mir Anis was asked to write a
marsiya in honor of the youth. The marsiya written by Anis opened with a prayer
in which the poet asked Allah to spare parents the grief of their children:
Oh God, give no parent the sorrow of their child.
May no inauspicious being be the victim of the scar of their son,
May this wealth, even of the enemy, be preserved,
and may any agony, but this, afflict your people.[29]
The poet moves on to discuss the virtues of Ahmad Navab, the son of the Navab
of Patna:
Alas! Ahmad Navab was lively and young,
he did not get to enjoy the bliss of the garden of youth.
Fate turned away from him in the spring of his life,
like a bubble, he vanished from this world.[30]
This grief, however, is insignificant compared to that of Imam Hussain. Anis
consoles the mother of Ahmad Navab by reminding her that the women of Karbala
had to endure similar grief:
You [mother of Ahmad Navab] are a devotee of the children of the Prophet,
Every year You listen to the narration of their martyrdom,
It is necessary for you to think about the agony of Shaher Bano,
She had lost Akbar in his youth.
Think about the mother of Qasim,
may no mother in this world see such a wedding,
it is a pity that he was a groom in the evening,
but when the morning came, he was martyred.
The mother of Qasim saw her son's body wounded by swords,
and she saw his bride of one night lamenting for her groom.
Widowhood is a calamity in this world,
but the wife of Qasim bore this grief with forbearance.
She would mourn, yet thank Godfor any fate that was bestowed upon her.[31]
Anis is asking Ahmad Navab's mother to emulate the mothers of Ali Akbar and
Qasim. No grief, according to the poet, can equal the suffering of the family
of Imam Hussain.
Marsiya writing was not confined to Muslims. Several Hindu marsiya writers
wished that Imam Hussain had come to India instead of going to Karbala. They
used imagery of the Indian landscape, such as the river Ganga, to provide
evidence of Indian hospitality, as opposed to the "betrayal of the
Euphrates."[32] If
Imam Hussain had come to India, these marsiya writers asserted, he would have
been welcomed by the Ganga and not subjected to the afflictions of the
Euphrates. The river Ganga, in several Urdu marasi, was given a benevolent mien
of a noble host.[33]
By recasting the events of Karbala in local imagery, marsiya writers were also
able to infuse their poetry with intellectual concerns, such as the ideal
manner in which a king should rule. Mirza Dabir, in his marsiya which was
recited in the palace of Navab Ghazi Uddin Hyder, warned the ruler of Avadh to
avoid
the snare of injustice:
When the day of judgment will arrive,
tyrant kings will be the first ones to be called (by Allah),
they will be asked about fairness and justice.[34]
Ghaziuddin Hyder, according to some accounts, was so moved by these didactic
verses, which have the resonance of the "Mirror for Princes" tradition,[35]
that he instructed his minister to heed Dabir's advice. The Indianized story of
Karbala thus had a moral for the Indian rulers: follow the virtuous, selfless
path of Imam Hussain and avoid the quagmire into which the family of Yazid sunk.
If the rulers and their subjects did not see their present lifestyles compatible
with the ideals of Islam, there was a message of hope articulated through
Urdu marasi. The embodiment of hope was Hur, a general in Yazid's army, who
realized the iniquitous aspects of Yazid's rule and underwent a remarkable
transformation within one night. Hur joined Imam Hussain in his battle against
the forces of Yazid, and the Imam bestowed upon him the status of the "diamond
in
the crown of heaven."[36]
In the twentieth century, the number of Muslim socio-religious reformers who
capitalized on the Indianized version of Karbala to channel their concerns for
the society increased. Many twentieth century Urdu marasi were given a solid
intellectual dimension by the incorporation of issues--the Khilafat movement,
India's independence, and the plight of the Indian Muslims, and so on--into the
frame story of Karbala. Among the modern marsiya writers who have
appropriated the events surrounding Karbala as the underpinnings of their
socio-religious reform ideology are Josh Malihabadi and Vahid Akhtar.
Josh Malihabadi (1898-1982), renowned as "Shair-i inqilab," or the Poet of
revolution, used the medium of marsiya as a means to propagate the view that
Karbala is not a pathos-laden event of a bygone era, but a prototype for
contemporary revolutionary struggles. Josh's writings during the late 1930's and
the
early 1940's, when nationalist feelings were running high in South Asia, had a
momentous impact upon his generation. Josh attempted to galvanize the youth of
his day by intertwining their contemporary struggle of liberation from
colonization with Hussain's battle:
O Josh, call out to the Prince of Karbala [Hussain],
cast a glance at this twentieth century,
look at this tumult, chaos, and the earthquake.
At this moment there are numerous Yazids, and yesterday there was only one.
From village to village might has assumed the role of truth,
Once again, Human feet are in chains.[37]
By interlacing his marasi with metaphors that had nuances of a revolutionary
struggle and depicting the `anti-Muslim' forces as being on a par with the
tyranny of Muawiya and Yazid, Josh gave the impression that the state of the
Muslim community was imminently threatened by a massive, ideologically-based
assault upon everything Islam valued. As far as most Muslims are concerned,
Yazid's rule had been the `Other' of the true Islamic state for centuries. To
identify one's enemy in terms of Yazid was the ultimate demonization that
conjured up the most horrific images of opponents, whether the opponents were
the British
colonizers and their indigenous collaborators, or the corrupt, hypocritical
politicians who were about to replace the British colonizers.
Josh is a good example of the colonized intellectual who uses nostalgic
paradigms to enable his audience to conceptualize the potential for an ideal
society. His marasi fit into the Fanonian category of "literature of combat." As
Frantz Fanon has pointed out, the strategies of resistance used by intellectuals
like Josh were common in several other colonized cultures:
There is a tendency to bring conflicts up to date and to modernize the kinds of
struggle which the stories evoke, together with the names of heroes and
types of weapons. The method of allusion is more and more widely used. The
formula `This all happened long ago' is substituted with that of `What we are
going
to speak of happened somewhere else, but it might well have happened here today,
and it might happen tomorrow.' [38]
Josh, through his marasi, reinterprets Karbala so that it corresponds to his
ideals of the future. By explaining contemporary issues through references to
past Islamic heroes, Josh enabled his audience to conceptualize the potential
for a pure Islamic society. The extensive use of the images of the family of
the Prophet was destined to have a special resonance with readers who had been
reared to regard this household as the apotheosis of virtue. The nobility of
thought and action of the heroes of Karbala is poetically pitched at a level
which makes striving for the characteristics of these early Islamic heroes a
contemporary necessity.
Vahid Akhtar, Professor of Philosophy at Aligarh Muslim University, has been
crucial in keeping the tradition of marsiya dynamic in present-day South Asia.
His marasi rely on the images, metaphors, and nuances inherited from nineteenth
century masters like Anis and Dabir, and on the values invested in this
genre by socio-religious reformers like Josh. On the back cover of his
recently-published marsiya anthology, for example, is the famous Arabic saying:
"Every
place is Karbala; every day is Ashura." By positing a similarity between
Hussain's historic battle and the present day struggle of human kind against
renewed
forms of Yazidian oppression, Akhtar deflects the interpretation of the martyrs
of Karbala as mere insignia of Islamic history; they are instead posed as
the sinews for the revival of an ideal Islamic state of being.[39]
The genre of Urdu marsiya is a fitting example of a spiritually-exalted literary
enterprise imported into the subcontinent from the Arab and Persian world
which evolved in conjunction with `Indian culture'. Marasi remain important
socio-religious texts, permeated by emotional undercurrents, in the cultural
repertoire of South Asia. Through these texts, the events surrounding the battle
of Karbala were emplotted in a myriad of ways congruent with changing
political and cultural milieus. Urdu marasi thus furnish a literary landscape
which reflects the underlying social, religious, and intellectual bonds of South
Asian
cultures.
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