Chief poets who flourished under his patronage includes Zauq, Ghalib, Azurda and Momin. Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal Emperor was himself a poet and a patron of poetry. The second quarter of the nineteenth century saw the revival of Urdu poetry in Delhi in the Mughal court. Chief among these poets were Khaliq, Zamir, Aatish, Nasikh. The Lucknow court emerged as the centre of Urdu poetry as it received poets from Delhi with much enthusiasm. 19th century Poetry Urdu poetry in Lucknow ĭuring the nineteenth century, the centre of Urdu literature shifted from Delhi as most literary men migrated to other parts of India like Hyderabad, Patna and Lucknow. Other important poets of this period includes Mas'hafi, Insha and Nazeer. Another major figure was Mir Hasan, known for his masnavis, the most famous being Sihar-ul-Bayan often referred to as Masnavi e Mir Hasan. Urdu poetry was dominated by Mazhar, Sauda, Mir and Dard, who later came to known as “the Four Pillars of Urdu Poetry”. His major works include two volumes of poetry, Diwan and Diwanzada. Shaikh Zahuruddin Hatim was an important poet in Delhi during this period. In the 18th century, the three most important forms of Urdu poetry were ghazal, the qasida and the masnavi. 18th century First Urdu period in Delhi (1730-1830) The most Urdu important writer of this period was Wali Mohammed Wali. Urdu in Deccan under Mughal Rule (1687-1730) Other important poets included Rustami, Nusrati and Mirza. His Kitab-e-Navras (Book of Nine Rasas) in Dakhani is a collection of 59 poems and 17 couplets. Ibrahim Adil Shah II was another royal poet who was also a patron of art and literature. Written in 1670, it is nearly 2700 lines long. Qissa o bairam e Gul andman written by Tab’i is an important work of the period. In 1655, Ibn e Nishati wrote Phul ban, a romance in 1300 lines. Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, the fifth sultan of the Qutb Shahi dynasty of Golkonda and founder of the city of Hyderabad, was a royal poet and prolific writer in Persian and Dakhini. See also: Deccani language Qutub Shahi poets (1590-1687) Other important writers include Shah Miranji and his son Shah Buran. Important writers of this period include Bande Nawaz whose Miraj ul Asiquin, a Sufi tract is one of the earliest Urdu prose.
The works composed during this period are mostly Dakhini prose and poetry on religious themes. This dialect, which up to 1375 had no difference with Delhi Urdu, influenced by local languages like Gujarati and Marathi came to be known as Dakhini. The Bahmani sultans cultivated the use of Urdu in the kingdom as opposed to Persian which was the court language of the Delhi Sultanate. In 1326, Muhammad bin Tughluq shifted his capital from Delhi to the Deccan and in 1347 Zafar Khan, his governor in the Deccan, declared independence establishing the Bahmani Sultanate and took the title of Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah.
An early form of Urdu was first introduced in the Deccan by the soldiers of Alauddin Khalji who raided the Deccan from 1294 to 1311. Literary composition in Urdu first started in the Deccan in the 14th century. The Urdu language, with a vocabulary almost evenly split between Sanskrit-derived Prakrit and Arabo- Persian words, was a reflection of this cultural amalgamation. The continuing traditions of Islam and patronisations of foreign culture centuries earlier by Muslim rulers, usually of Turkic or Afghan descent, marked their influence on the Urdu language given that both cultural heritages were strongly present throughout Urdu territory. Urdu literature originated some time around the 14th century in present-day North India among the sophisticated gentry of the courts.
#History of english literature in urdu pdf series#
Literary works written in Urdu language Part of a series on