Arabic Poetry in Sub-Continent with Special Emphasis on the Contribution of Ghulam Ali Azad Bilgrami

Introduction:-
The Indian continent did not participate to such an enormous extent as was done by other poet or non Arabic areas such as Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Syria. Whatever was the work done by the poets in Indian Sub-Continent was mostly lost unfortunately. Whatever poetry is available to us shows following are important figures who contributed in this genre of literature:
1- Syed Abdul Jalil Bilgrami
2- Ghulam Ali Azad Bilgrami
3- Molvi Fazl-e-Haq Khair Abadi
4- Ameer Khusru
5- Shah Ahmad Share’e
6- Qazi Abdul Muqtadar
7- Nasir-ud-Din Chiragh
8- Muhammad Bin Abdul Aziz
9- Syed Ali Khan Ibn-e-Masoom
10-Masood bin Saad
Out of these Muhammad bin Abdul Aziz is the only poet whose life history is available to us. Muhammad bin Abdul Aziz is the one who saw the era when ‘Vascode Gama’ invader the southern India and he had fought against Raja Samri. He explained all the incidents in a ‘Razmia nazm’ composed of 503 verses. This is master piece in the literature of Arabic in Sub-Continent.
Arabic poetry with special mention of Ghulam Ali Azad Bilgrami.
Hasan-ul-Hind:-
He was born to a well to do family. In the age of 25, he went to Saudi Arabia for performing hajj and remained there for 2 years to learn Arabic. After his return to the home land he started poetry and was given the title of ‘Hasan ul Hind’ like Khakani was given the title of ‘Hasan Al Ajam’. He got his education in Aahadith and Islamic law from Abdul Wahab Tantavi.
He learnt the art of poetry from Syed Abdul Jalil Bilgrami who was also his maternal uncle.
Dewans:-
He left many dewans behind him. Some scholars believe that he left 7 dewans behind him. In his book ‘subht ul marjaan fi asaar hindostan’ he has mentioned about many mufasreen and figures that have done some great service for the cause of Islam. In total he has mentioned about 150 people in his book.
Azad as use in name:-
Ghulam Ali used Azad as his ‘Takhalas’ and this was liked by his teacher Abdul Wahab Tantavi. Ghulam Ali Azad Bilgrami has also written in Persian language.
Subht ul Marjaan fi Asaar Hindostan;-
This book was published in 1885 and in one of its poem; ‘Mirat Al Jamal’ the poet has praised all the body parts from starting head to the toe. This poem shows the class of the poet. Another thing very interesting about ‘Azad’ is the use of similes and metaphor. In one of his verse he has written a word ‘sari’ which mean walk, but at the same time he has used this word to make an allusion to the word ‘sahri’ which is the dress of Indian women.
Azad has performed his immaculate work in all the forms of poetry i.e. Nazem, Masnavi, Rubai etc.
His Work:-
1- Subht ul Marjaan fi Asaar Hindostan
2- Dewan Azad
3- Mukhtarat Dewan Azad
4- Tasliya ul Lail
5- Shafa ul Lail
6- Al Sahjra Al Tabiya
7- Al Sabah Al Sariya
8- Shamamah Al Amber
9- Mazhar Al Barkat

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