The Inception of Literary Criticism in Early Modern Pashto Writings

Abstract

The article overviews the earliest Pashto texts, mostly poetic, in which the incipient forms of literary criticism can be traced as authorial self-reflections related in Persian classics to the self-praise genre (fakhriyya) and explanations of reasons for composing works (sabab-i taʾlīf). Under close examination are the seventeenth century verses of the poets affiliated with the Roshānī religious community and the writings of Khushḥāl Khān Khaṫak (d. 1689). Analyzed texts prove that through the rudimentary discourse on a variety of literary criticism topics, Pashtun authors of early modern times declared and justified the presence of emerging literature in Pashto within the Persophone cultural space of Mughal India, articulating simultaneously their commitment to the proliferation of literacy and Islamic book culture among their countrymen.

Keywords:

• Pashto Literature
• Pashtuns
• Early Modern Literary Criticism
• Persian Poetry
• Persophone Culture
• Mughal India
• Literacy

Notes

1 Darweza, Makhzan, 1. Cf. this statement with the similar if more verbose comment by the Bengali religious author ʿAbd al-Ḥakīm about the practical necessity of the use of the Bengali language for similar purposes (quoted in d’Hubert, “Persian at the Court or in the Village,” 104).

2 Darweza, Makhzan, 136. The preface to the Makhzan is written in Persian in order to introduce the book and explain its purpose and content to those who are not familiar with Pashto. The book’s conclusion is in Pashto. This is why the language of the book is identified as “Afghan” in the first case, and as “Pashto” in the second. On the etymology of the endonym “Pashtun” and the exonym “Afghan” see Morgenstierne, New Etymological Vocabulary of Pashto, 67; Cheung, “On the Origin of the Terms.”

3 On Makhzan’s co-authors and editions see Kushev, Afganskaia rukopisnaia kniga, 40–8.

4 Pelevin, Afganskaia poeziia, 37–50, 256–70.

5 Afżal, Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, 14: “I translated a book from the Persian language into Pashto so that Pashtuns may easily read it.”

6 On the disputed authenticity of Pashto texts supposedly dated to much earlier period see Loi, Il tesoro nascoto degli Afghani; Kushev, Afganskaia rukopisnaia kniga, 27–9; MacKenzie, “Development of the Pashto Script.”

7 Cf. MacKenzie, “Standard Pashto”; Kushev, Afganskiĭ iazyk, 116–26.

8 Despite the increasing interest in various ethno-cultural and socio-historical processes in the Persophone ecumene, commonly designated as “the Persianate World,” the emergence and the development of written Pashto in interaction with Persian as well as issues related to the formation of Pashtun cultural identity have not yet become a subject of serious research. Cf. a number of recently published collective studies: Spooner and Hanaway, Literacy in the Persianate World; Peacock and Tor, Medieval Central Asia and the Persianate World; Michalak and Rodziewicz, Quest of Identity; Green, Persianate World: The Frontiers; Amanat and Ashraf, Persianate World.

9 On the status of Pashto in Afghanistan and Pakistan see Hakala, “Locating ‘Pashto’ in Afghanistan”; Nawid, “Language Policy in Afghanistan”; Nichols, “Pashto Language Policy”; Weinreich, We Are Here to Stay, 13–19, 79–102.

10 On the key attributes of Pashtun identity see Barth, “Pathan Identity and Its Maintenance,” 119.

11 Taking into consideration an intrinsic syncretism of the Islamic medieval and early modern scholarship in Arabic and Persian, any attempt to divorce literary criticism (evaluation of particular works and authors) from literary theory proper (poetics, rhetoric, prosody) with respect to early Pashto writings would be extremely artificial, if at all possible. Both disciplines appear to have been closely interconnected from the times of their rise in Arabic literature. For brief definitions of these notions see Meisami, “Literary Criticism”; Heinrichs, “Rhetoric and Poetics.” For general outlines of medieval Arabic literary criticism see Abu Deeb, “Literary Criticism”; Ouyang, Literary Criticism. On the impact of Arabic scholarship on Persian literary studies see van Gelder, “Traditional Literary Theory.”

12 A study of this approach in Persian classics with a commented anthology of most important texts is found in Reisner, “Motivy avtorskogo samosoznaniia v persidskoĭ gazeli”; Reisner, “Motivy avtorskogo samosoznaniia v persidskoĭ klassicheskoĭ kasyde”; Reisner and Chalisova, “Obraz poezii v poezii.” For more general observations on the emic vision of Persian poetry see Meisami, Medieval Persian Сourt Poetry, 299–317; de Bruijn, “Classical Persian Literature,” 35–40. A summary of major Persian works on literary theory (rhetoric and poetics) is in Chalisova, “Persian Rhetoric”; manifold results of implementing this theory in literary practice are scrutinized in Meisami, Structure and Meaning.

13 On the prosody of Pashto verse see MacKenzie, “Pashto Verse”; Manalai, “Métrique du Pashto” (I am grateful to Mateusz Kłagisz for this reference); Pelevin, Afganskaia poeziia, 139–52. An overview of classical Persian prosody is found in Utas, “Prosody: Meter and Rhyme.”

14 ʿUnṣūrī, Dīwān, 211.

15 E.g. Nāṣir Khusraw, Dīwān, 63–4.

16 Cf. Meisami, Medieval Persian Сourt Poetry, 273–9; Meisami, Structure and Meaning, 46–51.

17 Niẓāmī ʿArūżī, Chahār Maqāla, 30.

18 Nāṣir Khusraw, Dīwān, 231–6.

19 Saʿdī, Kulliyāt, 63.

20 Ibid., 61.

21 Cf. similar characterizations in Morgenstierne, “Khushhal Khan,” 51–2.

22 On Khushḥāl Khān’s ḥabsiyya verses see Pelevin, Khushhal-Khan Khattak, 70–84; Pelevin, Afganskaia poeziia, 272–82. A study of Masʿūd Salmān and his oeuvre is found in Sharma, Persian Poetry at the Indian Frontier.

23 On various aspects of Khushḥāl’s literary language see Zyār, Də Khushḥāl adabī paẋto.

24 For Pashtun readership of any background, Khushḥāl’s poetry, despite its undoubted artistic merits and emotive strength, has always lacked a required degree of traditionalism, refined spirituality, and consistency in preaching universal humanistic values. A harmonious combination of these features along with the declarative intent to overcome the limitations of tribalistic ideology distinguishes the lyrics of another classical Pashtun poet—ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Momand (d. after 1711). A typical attitude of Pashtuns to Khushḥāl and Raḥmān is formulated by J. Enevoldsen as follows: “Yes, of course, Khushhal was a great poet and a big khan, but—what do you think of Rahman Baba?” (Enevoldsen, Selections from Rahman Baba, 8).

25 Cited and commented in Kushev, Afganskaia rukopisnaia kniga, 104.

26 On early Pashto literature see Hewādmal, Də paẋto adabiyāto tārīkh, 87–120; Andreyev, “Pashto Literature,” 91–107; Mannanov, Roshaniĭskaia literatura; Pelevin, Afganskaia poeziia.

27 Dawlat, Dīwān, 20, 150.

28 Originally, the Khayr al-bayān was composed in four languages: Pashto, Arabic, Persian, and an Indo-Arian idiom, presumably Hindustani or Hindko. Until now only the full Pashto version of the book from the manuscript (1652) of the Berlin State Library (Ms. or. fol. 4093) has been published and studied (Bāyazīd, Khayr al-bayān; MacKenzie, “The Xayr ul-bayān”; Mannanov, Roshaniĭskaia literatura, 76–113). Another manuscript, which allegedly contains all four versions, is known through an entry in Z.Hewādmal’s catalogue (Də hind də kitābkhāno paẋto khaṭṭī nuskhe, 9–10).

29 Dawlat, Dīwān, 257.

30 Macdonald, “Ilhām,” 1119.

31 Darweza, Taẕkirat, 137–59; Darweza, Makhzan, 122–7.

32 Darweza, Makhzan, 124.

33 Darweza, Taẕkirat, 148–9.

34 Darweza, Makhzan, 127.

35 Mīrzā, Dīwān, 48, 124, 187, 249; Dawlat, Dīwān, 149.

36 Mīrzā, Dīwān, 4, 189, 217, 222, 233; Wāṣil, Dīwān, 3, 24, 33, 76, 79, 89; Dawlat, Dīwān, 60, 65.

37 Mīrzā, Dīwān, 79–81, 83–7, 91–2, 111–12, 136; Wāṣil, Dīwān, 7, 10–14, 32; Dawlat, Dīwān, 150, 152–3.

38 Wāṣil, Dīwān, 8, 51.

39 Dawlat, Dīwān, 152.

40 Mīrzā, Dīwān, 199, 221.

41 Wāṣil, Dīwān, 18, 26, 89.

42 Dawlat, Dīwān, 208.

43 Ibid., 173, 250.

44 Ibid., 95.

45 Wāṣil, Dīwān, 95.

46 Ibid., 19, 30, 48.

47 Dawlat, Dīwān, 124–5.

48 Wāṣil, Dīwān, 21; Mīrzā, Dīwān, 247.

49 Mīrzā, Dīwān, 211.

50 Wāṣil, Dīwān, 29.

51 Dawlat, Dīwān, 64 and 41, 48.

52 Mīrzā, Dīwān, 13, 64, 217.

53 Ibid., 62.

54 See Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 411–25.

55 Wāṣil, Dīwān, 59, 69, 88.

56 Ibid., 69.

57 Mīrzā, Dīwān, 53 and 2, 4, 76, 181, 244; cf. Dawlat, Dīwān, 79; Wāṣil, Dīwān, 27.

58 Mīrzā, Dīwān, 63, 106; Dawlat, Dīwān, 66, 72, 188.

59 Dawlat, Dīwān, 4, 219.

60 Dawlat, Dīwān, 79; cf. Mīrzā, Dīwān, 170, 174, 190.

61 Dawlat, Dīwān, 218.

62 Khushḥāl, Dastār-nāma, 18–25.

63 Ibid., 7.

64 Khushḥāl, Firāq-nāma, 55.

65 Khushḥāl, Dastār-nāma, 21.

66 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, 540.

67 Khushḥāl, Dastār-nāma, 18.

68 Ibid., 19. “Two tongues” is very likely a hint to the qalam’s split nib.

69 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, 131, 623. The image of poetry as “the bride of truth” (də ḥaqīqat nāwe) was derived by Khushḥāl from Persian classics, where the word “bride” (ʿarūs) had long become a regular metaphor denoting the product of creative writing; e.g. Nāṣir Khusraw’s “the bride of words” (ʿarūs-i sukhan) (Nāṣir Khusraw, Dīwān, 301), or Saʿdī’s “the bride of my thought” (ʿarūs-i fikr-i man) (Saʿdī, Kulliyāt, 33), or Ḥāfiẓ’s “the bride of [my] temper” (ʿarūs-i ṭabʿ) (Ḥāfiẓ, Dīwān, 414, 516).

70 Khushḥāl, Dastār-nāma, 23–4.

71 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, 537–9.

72 This “someone” is most likely the Persian poet Awḥad al-Dīn Muḥammad Anwarī, who defined verse as “men’s menses” in his famous qaṣīda with a strong disapproval of poetry writing; Anwarī, Dīwān, 297–8.

73 Khushḥāl, Dastār-nāma, 24.

74 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, 539. On the perception of poetry as a craft in Persian literature see Clinton, “Esthetics by Implication”; Meisami, Medieval Persian Сourt Poetry, 299–305; Meisami, Structure and Meaning, 15–9.

75 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, 131.

76 Ibid., 540.

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid., 249–50.

79 Khushḥāl, Dastār-nāma, 24.

80 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, 538.

81 Ibid., 559.

82 Afżal, Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, 299.

83 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, 622–3.

84 Ibid., 536–46.

85 Ibid., 533–5. “The courser” means here qalam.

86 Ibid., 924.

87 Afżal, Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, 277.

88 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, 104, 131, 535, 540, 854.

89 Ibid., 623, cf. 534, 540.

90 Ibid., 703.

91 Ibid., 541, 862.

92 Ibid., 861–2.

93 Ibid., 623.

94 Ibid.

95 Cf. an explanation of a reason for stylistic shortcomings in Pashto poetry by ʿAbd al-Karīm in a copy of Makhzan al-islām from the manuscript collection of the Institute of Oriental Studies in St Petersburg (B 2483): “Know, dear, that those who compose verses in Afghan do not make enough efforts in rhetoric, nor keep the uniformity of rhymes and sameness of lines with regard to the number of letters and words (i.e. syllables). This is why, as you can see well, this humble one did not care at all about versification and tried only to make his words more or less harmonious (mawzūn), so that a listener might enjoy them and learn thoughtfully what is most important in the faith” (fols. 251b–252a).

96 On this poem see Sultan-i-Rome, “Khushal Khan Khattak and Swat”; Pelevin, Afganskaia poeziia, 282–96.

97 Khushḥāl, Swāt-nāma, 62–3.

98 Ibid., 38–47.

99 Cf. Darweza, Makhzan, 90–1, 96–7, 116–18, etc.

100 Khushḥāl, Swāt-nāma, 45.

101 Ibid., 47.

102 Khushḥāl, Fażl-nāma.

103 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, 541.

104 Ibid., 540.

105 Ibid., 544.

106 Afżal, Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, 269.

107 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, 541.

108 Ibid., 537.

109 Ibid., 855–6.

110 Ibid., 535.

111 Ibid., 541.

112 Ibid., 538.

113 Ibid., 534.

114 Ashraf, Dīwān, 244–9.

115 Kāẓim, Dīwān, 13–21.

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Notes on contributors

Mikhail Pelevin

Mikhail Pelevin is Professor of Iranian Philology at the Faculty of Asian and African Studies, St. Petersburg State University.