Janab Aqeel ul Gharavi, the orator who likes to self-style himself as an Ayatollah while speaking in a programme of Anjuman e Taraqqi Urdu, Pakistan, made unnecessary critical comments on Mīr Anees, and Mirza Dabīr, the two celebrated poets of Urdu, who hold the esteemed position in literary world.
No denying the fact that everyone is has rights to expression and exercise of such right can never be beyond criticism. Zakir sahib’s criticism of both the great poets is lacks on the consideration of basic understanding and linguistic rigour. Further, as Gharavi sahab claims that he has a command over at least three languages: Urdu, Persian and Arabic. He not only displays good diction in his oratory, but is also said to be a good versifier himself. But perhaps in his attempt to be a critic, he forgot certain basic facts.
He starts by saying that perhaps there are certain terms which Anees and Dabīr should have avoided and not used in their marsiyas. He also points out that they are not beyond reproach. People don’t want to listen anything against them. He then picks up the term “rānd” for widows used by Anis which according to him is inappropriate and should have been avoided. He also said that there are many allusions in Anis on Saidus Shuhada which are not “shāyān us shān” (appropriate). He inconsistently mentain that some of what Dabīr wrote was also a “tauhin” (disgrace, insult, dishonour) of Ahlulbayt! He also cites a new edition of a Dabīr’s marsiya which on this ground should never have been published as it insults (“tauhīn) the Imām, Janāb Fatima and Janāb Zainab. He wrote so only so that listeners should wail!
Being a self proclaimed scholar he must be knowing that there is something known as Semantics. Every scholar of language (any for that matter) is supposed to be aware of it. Even if he had googled, he would have come to know that semantic change is a form of language change regarding the evolution of word usage—usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage.
Anees and Dabīr wrote during 19th Century. Gharavi is reading them in the 21st Century. Every word has a variety of senses and connotations, which can be added, removed, or altered over time, often to the extent that cognates across space and time have very different meanings. The study of semantic change can be seen as part of etymology, onomasiology, semasiology, and semantics.
For example in English the term “Awful” which literally means “full of awe”, originally meant “inspiring wonder (or fear)”, hence “impressive”. In contemporary usage, the word means “extremely bad”. The word Begum in Urdu similarly kept changing from a noble woman to a keeper of prostitutes! Every word which is used in the language of a given time has a sense: “Rānd” in Awadhi language which was developing as Urdu signified widows. Today Gharavi might find it repulsive, in 19th Century Lucknow where Anees and Dabīr lived, it was not!
To give one reverse example from English : Terrific. Originally this term meant “inspiring terror”, later it transformed to indicate anything spectacular, and then today it is used for something spectacularly good!
The fact that today in the second decade of the 21st Century he is trying to judge 19th Century writers on parameters which did not exist then shows his lack of scholarship!
If one has to really see what the “tauhīn” of the Ahlulbayt is, read works which negate Imām Zainul Abedin, Zainab and Sakīnā to claim presence of water in the tents of Husain on the day of Āshūra! Is it not an insult of Imām Husain to claim that instead of quenching the thirst of children, he bathed?
Ref by: Abid Shamim
Copied from the wall of Asghar Mehdi sb
