Shade of Tauheed and different genres of Urdu poetry

توحید کا رنگ اور اردو کی مختلف شعری اصناف

Abstract

In its essence Tauheed (the Islamic doctrine of monotheism, the only one creator), is the foundation of all Islamic beliefs. The essence of sending the Prophets and the day of judgement and the life after death all these beliefs are based on Oneness of “God”. Hence when we take a glance on the literature of the period, between 1759 A.D. (1174 A.H.) and 1806 A.D. (1221 A.H.), which is that of the Moghul era, i.e., the literature of Aali Gohar Shah Alam era, we see that during this period alongside the development of Urdu prose, the effects of doctrine of Tauheed had begun to show in its poetry in the form of Hamd (hymns in praise of Allah). Moghul era, during which Urdu poetry was progressing and was being written in its different forms like Masnavi, Ghazal, Nazm, Rubaee, Qaseeda etc., renowned poets like Meer Hasan, Jurrat, Inshaa, Mushafi, Rangeen, Qudrat, Baqaa, Hazeen, Baidar, Bayan, Rasikh, Hidayat and others apart from writing on other subjects also laid their hands on divine topics in which the shade of monotheistic couplets were quite evident and profound. Amongst the aforementioned poets Meer Hasan was such an archetype artist who used to paint with his words, the picture of an incident with such an efficiency, delicacy, adeptness and completeness that it would appear to be a picture in front of the eyes of the reader. He was basically a poet with divine inclination and hailed from a religious family which is the reason that Tauheed is reflected everywhere in his different forms of poetry like Masnavis, Rubayees, Ghazals and Qaseedas. Masnavi is prominent in religious poetry owing to the fact that there is a continuity specific to it, which is less visible in other forms of poetry. Hence for a poet it is the easiest and beneficial form to explain an incident or subject. In our observation, when we are in search of religious and Godly shade in the works of poets, we mostly come across samples of Masnavi.