Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

The Master on Life and Afterlife. Ghalib is a sad angel, Who from the intoxication of nearness Has brought divine revelation In the form of his ghazals. (Yusuf Hussain’s translation. Other translations here are from the same work Persian Ghazals of Ghalib )       Indeed Ghalib has bought a “revelation” that has been such a healing and joy and a fount of beauty. One must be thankful for the privilege of being born in a land and with a language of Ghalib. Ghalib’s Islam as an “Answer” to Difficult Questions Every Muslim in the subcontinent who can read poetry but is disturbed over routine disharmonies or complains about this or that issue in life would be required to answer one question on the Day of Judgment: Have you read Ghalib? Ghalib “answers” all our complaints we might conceive or imagine against Fate or providence or people or God. Since God created Ghalib, He has been largely relieved of entertaining many a question on wonder, love, beauty, betrayal...

Zargar masterfully handled language and sounds too profane at places and deconstructs romantic-mystic, revelation-intuition or scriptural-experiential binaries. All great poets and mystics and philosophers have one thing in common: rejection of Mullaism identifiable with dry, empty, legalistic, judgmental dualistic mode of thought and action. One might loosely identify it with zahir parasti (worship of form/letter) that has been associated with a class of jurists and those scholars who don’t pay attention to esoteric or mystical/symbolist dimension of scripture. In the Muslim world Mullaism has donned political guise. The term Mulla has lost its honorific connotations from quite some time though this degeneration in its traditional status has been especially exacerbated in modern age. Newer movements and trends in philosophical, theological, and socio-economic spheres have all contributed to delegitimizing Mullaism as an ideology that once had a significant say in public spaces. Ne...

Modern Contributions to Kashmiri Na’t Tradition All great poetry is a species of na’t defined as poetry in praise of the Prophet who in turn is understood, by the greatest na’t writers who happen to be inspired by Sufism, as the Principle of Manifestation, Logos, the Pole of Existence, the Perfect Man, Wisdom personified, drive for  perfection of ethics and love of beauty. One may better appreciate the thesis if one notes the function of poetry as provision for discovering the good and beautiful in all that meets and surrounds one (Coleridge), “truth telling, which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he or she was a poet,” reconciliation with the world/celebration of love/women – one may recall Wallace Stevens’ remark “A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman,” and Holderlin’s point that the duty of the poet is “to stand/Bare-headed under the storms of God,/Grasping with our own hand/The Father's beam itself, And to offer the gift of...

Reflections on Rahi as a Poet of Silence. In Kashmir we have enough pain and beauty for one million documentaries. But we have chosen, generally speaking, not to speak on almost everything Kashmiri. There is very little of Kashmir, especially its glorious empire of Mind and Spirit – on the YouTube. There is no Kashmiri cinema for reasons we know. Silence is sometimes imposed and often chosen. It is no wonder that our best known living poet Rahman Rahi would also be a victim of this chosen silence. Our talented film makers have largely ignored Rahi and Rahi in turn has cared little to break his silence and till date there is much of him and about him that is either obscure or silenced. Bilal Jan’s recently released documentary "The Poet of Silence" scripted by Shafi Shoaq (arguably best qualified encyclopaedic scholar who could write on Rahi and an institution in himself who has gifted us Dictionary of Kashmiri language, standard work on Kashmiri Grammar and co-authored most...

It is time to recognize many new contributions to English writing in J & K. Once a while we have some good news from Kashmir. Kashmiris have been the kings and king makers, at least in the realm of mind and heart. Providence seems to have amply compensated them in surprising ways leading them to live with head held high despite being underdogs in other realms. One way is the gift of words that is manifest in many ways including writing good poetry in English that is becoming a presence to contend with. New generation of Kashmiris, as worthy inheritors of Agha Shahid Ali, have proved worthy witnesses by converting tragic experience into works of art and thus, in a way, won the battle. The world will have to take note of Kashmir’s new generation of writers who have been its best ambassadors. Influential Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s pen has been more feared than scores of tanks echoing rare tribute paid to Abul Fazl’s pen when it was described as sharper than Akbar’s sword. ...

Reading Bedil in Postmodern Times The most important problem today is how to find meaning in life. Failure is find meaning helps explain reckless addiction to drugs and drinking oneself to death, quiet despair, much of unwarranted violence and bitterness in relationships, irritability of almost everyone you meet, frenzied misadventures such as reckless driving, especially the youth driving bikes and Arab men driving cars too fast for life to enjoy the feast. Since most people live as if God/the Sacred has virtually no place in their lives and they have failed in the task of self creation – a problem that tormented Nietzsche – how will life become a sacrament again is the question. Anxiety to plainly – definitively – interpret, fix and impose meanings of canonical texts by ideologues/fundamentalists is a problematic reaction to the problem. Where is our refuge then?       Postmodern thinkers living under the shadow of Nietzsche generally agree with the stateme...