A Ghazal
Yeh ishq, yeh pal, yeh saans, yeh zindagi;
Yeh sab hai tumahara, ya, Ali!
Tum hai pati, tum hai pitaji;
Tum hai mere ishwar, ya, Ali!
Kaise chalta hai bine admi;
Kaise hai woh insaan, ya, Ali!
Mera viswas hai ahl al-bayt ki;
Ishwar ki bete hain, ya, Ali!
Allah ishwar, Muhammad bani.
Aur tum inke wali, ya, Ali!
This love, this heartbeat, this breath, this life;
This is all yours, O, Ali!
You are a husband, you are a father;
You are my god, O, Ali!
How does it travel without a man;
How are these people, O, Ali!
My faith is in the ahl al-bayt;
You are the children of God, O, Ali!
Allah is God, Muhammad his prophet;
And you are their helper, O, Ali!
I wrote this ghazal in Romanized Hindi and translated it into English in response to reading the Ta’ziyeh. There are five couplets that each refers to the narrator’s Shii love for Ali, the fourth Imam and son-in-law to the Prophet. For Shi’a, Ali was seen as the chosen successor to the prophet; Sunni uphold that Abu Bakr was the rightful heir. The Ta’ziyeh is a play that is often staged in Shii communities to remember the Battle of Karbala. In the battle, the Sunni Caliph massacred Husayn, Ali and Fatima’s son and Muhammad’s grandson, and his followers. The Shi’a remember Husayn as a martyr, and, in particular, the scene in which Husayn’s horse returns to the encampment, riderless and thereby signaling Husayn’s death, moves many.
In this ghazal, or a form of Urdu poetry, I refer to the devotion of the writer to Ali, the first leader of the Shi’a in the first two couplets, discussing his role as a spiritual leader but also as a family man. Indeed, the Ta’ziyeh, when looking at Husayn and his family, portrays them as very human in their emotion and love for each other—the second couplet is a nod to that empathy. The third couplet examines that powerful scene in which Husayn’s horse returns, riderless, and bemoans the cruelty of the Sunni caliph. The fourth couplet is a resounding statement of belief in the ahl al-bayt, the family of Muhammad, and the Shii leaders of the religion. Lastly, the fifth couplet is an adaptation of the fifth pillar of Shii Islam, which adds a commitment to its belief system to Ali.
For the Hindi version, I tried to maintain a consistency in the rhyme meter of the language, at ten syllables per line. Further, the last line repeats, linking the otherwise disjointed couplets. In each couplet, the first and second lines rhyme.