Begum Ghazal's Daily Ghazal Blog

Bonehead Ghazals: Love Crimes

2007-02-19T23:20:00.001-08:00

The whiskey talked big time with water,

the ice made hot-chat chime with water.

Old vapours seeded cloudiness,

the sweat worked up sweet grime with water.

They rock and rolled the boat all night,

he sailed her hull to climb the water.

They lie together, they hold each other,

yet did they slip through time and water?

The guilt’s red kiss is on the collar.

Can one dissolve a crime in water?

A bath is boring without another

so swirl the oil of thyme through water.

The wine is rotten grapes in bottles

when all one wants is lime and water.

Some rain, some tears – who writes this tale

of love-crimes made sublime through water?

These lines are Bonehead’s diving-boards -

some flip flop mono-rhyme with water.

Chris Mooney-Singh

9. Sonnet Blog 3: Enter the Arabic er hmmm... European Troubadour

2005-12-13T05:39:00.000-08:00

The troubadour tradition evolved directly from the cross-cultural fusion of Islamic and Western thought from the 9th to the 13th centuries in Spain which overflowed to Southern France, in particular Provence. This was the first place associated with the Western troubadour tradition. The few surviving poems of William of Poitiers, the first troubabour poet - a Knight Templar returned from Jeruselum, show the influence of the Arabic ‘zazel’ a strophic poetic-musical form. This and other Arabic forms were often accompanied by the ud, the Arabic instrument which became l’ude, later called the Western lute, the main accompaniment for troubadour poetry.

The word ‘troubadour’ itself is said to derive form ‘tarab’ meaning ‘transport of joy’. Even today ‘tarab’ is a technical term associated with the Arabic-Perso-Indian family of instruments, referring to the delicate system of sympathetically-tuned strings found on the setar, char tar, tanbur etc which morphed into the Indian sitar, rabab, sarod etc. A specialist in Arabic research into the roots of the troubadour tradition Said I. Abdelwahed has written generally about the Islamic cultural movement of the times and its influence on Medieval Western literature:

The cultural supremacy of the Islamic world in the period immediately preceding the rise of the troubadour lyric is indisputable, and the importance of the Arabic scholarship as a medium for the transmission of Greek classical texts is widely acknowledged and the mastery of the Arabs in composing poetry.......The contacts between Arabic poetry and the Romantic poetry of Muslim Spain arose from the symbiosis of Arabic and Romance dialects in the Iberian Peninsula. What had begun in southern France in the ninth century became a truly European movement and it is that at no other time in European literature, with its vast array of love-poetry has a particular system been in favor. The troubadour represents a splendid witness to the high age of Arabic and Islamic culture in medieval Spain. It is interesting that from (mid-6th century A.H./ mid-12th century AD) until our present day the concepts of the romantic love dominated Western thinking.

Thus, it is probably in this way that the ghazal first reached the West. Originally it was the 'preface' to the qasida another Arabic performance ode which was often self-accompanied by the ud and other instruments. The qasida along with the strophic zazel were two of the early models for poetic imitation by the troubadour poets who worked in their own language, while absorbing Arabic words, ideas and conventions. The whole idea of writing a love poem was an Arabic one, not European. This trend soon spread to the cultural centre of Europe - Italy through time and poetical 'grafting'. Like a hybridised love-rose, born of the compost of East-West fusion, the sonnet thus evolved as the leading poetical platform of expression for this new courtly craze, coupled with the philosophy of Platonic (celebate) love and the Knights Templar Code of Conduct, laying down guidelines for amorous affairs for women and men of the court.

Whether directly or indirectly, the Arabic-Persian amatory tradition (with its roots also in mystical Sufism) thus spurred poets to pick up and adapt the new forms to suit their own cultural and linguistic purposes and over time these influences were absorbed and passed on to the next generation of European court poets. Thus, it is not too far-fetched to suggest that the ghazal as the premier form of Arabic-Persian love-poetry literature had a seminal part to play in the evolution of the sonnet, the longest-reigning poetical form in the canon of Western literature.

8. Sonnet Blog 2: The Sonnet, The Ghazal and the Oral Tradition

2005-12-12T12:18:00.000-08:00

Another point of similarity between these two most celebrated poetical forms of their cultures is that they are essentially linked to music. The Western sonnet along with sister forms like the rondeau and the villanelle were part of the courtly troubadour tradition and were initially performance pieces to be sung or recited to music. Western poetical forms have moved from the oral tradition to the written one and thus the the sonnet’s sonorous roots are less evident to us.

Meanwhile, the ghazal and the Malay pantun (adapted in English as the ‘pantoum’) are still deeply rooted in oral, and - ultimately - sung, tradition. All these forms present tangible, and extended, patterns of sound which may be approximated by the human voice in almost any language. Moreover, and crucially, the principal tools of prosody are phonic; which is to say: the poem largely is the sound of the poem, whether read aloud or sub-vocalised. This is perhaps why these forms have successfully travelled from language to language, adapting themselves to the patterns of the new host language along the way. It remains to be seen whether the transition of the ‘sonnet of the East’ , the ghazal will adapt to English and other European languages successfully. Perhaps the key factor will be whether or not it retains its basic musical identity. This is more likely to happen if the ghazal retains strict form and metre.

7. Sonnet Blog 1: Senor Sonnet, Son of Al Ghazal?

2005-12-12T12:00:00.002-08:00

The ghazal and sonnet have often been compared. They are both the representative poetical forms of their cultures. Did one influence the other? This is a chicken and the egg story and a game more for literary showdowns between Eastern and Western scholars to point out cultural superiority. Meanwhile, let’s have a quick look at both.

The Ghazal: The older of the two forms is the ghazal. They were first written down in Arabic during the Umayyad period (661-750 A.D.) when nomadic existence started moving toward a more settled and sophisticated urban lifestyle. The very first ghazals, however, were probably pre-Islamic tribal oral song-poetry developed as a form of competitive street ‘slam poetry’. With the spread of Islam, the ghazal entered Persian, Turkish and other literary cultures. It began to acquire more literary refinement as the warm-up preface in praise of a noble person or patron at the beginning of a heroic ode or love story (qasida, is also an Arabic form). Gradually, the ghazal was cultivated as a short literary form (usually five to fifteen couplets) in its own right, specializing in amorous subjects.

The Italian Sonnet: The first sonnet was written by medieval lawyer and poet Giacomo da Lentino of Italy in the year 1230 AD. Later Franscisco Petrarch (1304-1374) wrote sonnets whose form was copied and introduced about 200 years later into the English language by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) ‘Sonnet’ means little song. They were and still are strongly associated with romantic love. Petrarch wrote them to his wife, Dante dedicated his to Beatrice. They are structured poems of fourteen lines. . The Italian, or Petrarchan sonnet’s fourteen lines are broken into an octave (or octet, 8 lines), which usually rhymes abbaabba, but which may sometimes be abbacddc or even (rarely) abababab; and a sestet (6 lines), which may rhyme efgefg or efefef, or any of the multiple variations possible using only two or three rhyme-sounds.

The English Sonnet: The English or Shakespearean sonnet, developed first by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) and made famous by William Shakespeare, consists of three quatrains and a couplet--that is, it rhymes abab cdcd efef gg. They are divided into two parts and ‘octave’ of eight lines and a ‘sextet’ of 6 lines. The English sonnets are arranged as three quatrains (stanzas of four lines) followed by a couplet (a two-lined stanza). The traditional rhyme scheme used for English sonnets is abab, cdcd, efef, gg. Each line traditionally is written in iambic pentameter– that is, a line of ten syllables that follows the unstressed/stressed rhythm pattern. Beyond the stanzaic structure, the rhyme scheme, and the iambic pentameter, an English sonnet must present a conflict and resolve it in the couplet. Each quatrain can present a different point of view about the problem. The couplet at the end is for the poet's final thoughts on the subject. The conclusion can be clever or poignant. It may be a surprise twist.

Sonnet and Ghazal Compared: The two genres share brevity. Indeed the Persian ghazal of Hafiz is generally 14 lines long as is the sonnet. Both are basically romantic and have an introspective sensibility. Of course, the over-riding difference is that a sonnet is a lyrically narrative and a ghazal is a group of linked couplets. According to Shamsur Rahman Faruqi and Frances W. Pritchett:

The ghazal presents a blend of unity and autonomy that often seems paradoxical to Westerners. Formally speaking, the ghazal can be said to be unified: since its verses share meter, rhyme, and usually end-refrain as well, it has a powerful symmetry and cohesion. In terms of content, however, each two-line verse is an independent, free-standing poem, making its own effect with its own internal resources. Except for rare and special cases, there is no narrative or logical “flow” from one verse to the next; if the verses were rearranged, or one or two removed, usually the action would not even be detectable. While such treatment would fatally damage a sonnet, it would have little or no effect on most ghazals.

Sonnet, Son of Ghazal? Iranian scholar Iraj Bashiri has speculated on whether the older ghazal form had any influence in the development of the sonnet. What were the links and ties between the East and the West during the time of Hafiz or earlier? Italy was a world trade centre, and almost all Islamic waterways had Italian ports as their foci. Many Eastern literary works, such as The One Thousand and One Nights and The Seven Sages, found their way to the West before this time. The former, indeed, constitutes the framing story of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, believed to have been written in 1387, within Hafiz' lifetime. Other works of Chaucer may produce still stronger links between Eastern and Western literatures at that time, The Parliament of Fowls being a case in point. Bashiri goes on to say:

But a theory cannot be based simply on speculation and mere conjectures. Structurally, there are many components of the ghazal, in its perfected form, that correspond to the model introduced by Petrarch, and later developed into the Petrarchian and Shakespearean sonnets. To begin with, the seven-bayt ghazal corresponds exactly with the fourteen lines, or seven couplets, of the sonnet. Beyond these lie the division of the sonnet into an octave and a sestet, which also includes a change of attitude by the poet at the beginning of the sestet in Petrarchian sonnets. These similarities between the ghazal and the sonnet are more than coincidence. Wyatt, definitely a Petrarchan sonnet writer, can be distinguished for his use of the unfamiliar quantitative meter in English poetry; the reason for his using such meter may be the source or sources on which he models his poems.

6. Khizr Blog 2: Khizr Meets Moses (Musa)

2005-12-11T02:24:00.000-08:00

Moses learned there was man of wisdom greater than his own. He prayed to Allah that he might receive the blessing of meeting Hazrat Khizr and was ordered to make ready and to take with him a cooked fish. Khizr meets him at the assigned spot and the fish was missing as foretold. Moses and Khizr, began a journey together during which Hazrat Khizr taught a three-fold lesson through rather perverse, yet nevertheless instructive means:

[Taken from Quranic verses from 60 to 82 of Surah Kahf (18)]

And (remember) when Mûsa (Moses) said to his boy-servant: "I will not give up (travelling) until I reach the junction of the two seas or (until) I spend years and years in travelling." But when they reached the junction of the two seas, they forgot their fish, and it took its way through the sea as in a tunnel. So when they had passed further on (beyond that fixed place), Mûsa (Moses) said to his boy-servant: "Bring us our morning meal; truly, we have suffered much fatigue in this, our journey." He said:"Do you remember when we betook ourselves to the rock? I indeed forgot the fish, none but Shaitân (Satan) made me forget to remember it. It took its course into the sea in a strange (way)!" [Mûsa (Moses)] said: "That is what we have been seeking." So they went back retracing their footsteps. Then they found one of Our slaves, unto whom We had bestowed mercy from Us, and whom We had taught knowledge from Us.

Mûsa (Moses) said to him (Khidr) "May I follow you so that you teach me something of that knowledge (guidance and true path) which you have been taught (by Allâh)?" . He (Khidr) said: "Verily! You will not be able to have patience with me! "And how can you have patience about a thing which you know not?" Mûsa (Moses) said: "If Allâh will, you will find me patient, and I will not disobey you in aught." He (Khidr) said: "Then, if you follow me, ask me not about anything till I myself mention it to you."

So they both proceeded, till, when they embarked the ship, he (Khidr) scuttled it. Mûsa (Moses) said: "Have you scuttled it in order to drown its people? Verily, you have committed a thing "Imra" (a Munkar - evil, bad, dreadful thing)." He (Khidr) said: "Did I not tell you, that you would not be able to have patience with me?" [Mûsa (Moses)] said: "Call me not to account for what I forgot, and be not hard upon me for my affair (with you)."

Then they both proceeded, till they met a boy, he (Khidr) killed him. Mûsa (Moses) said: "Have you killed an innocent person who had killed none? Verily, you have committed a thing "Nukra" (a great Munkar - prohibited, evil, dreadful thing)!" (Khidr) said: "Did I not tell you that you can have no patience with me?" [Mûsa (Moses)] said: "If I ask you anything after this, keep me not in your company, you have received an excuse from me."

Then they both proceeded, till, when they came to the people of a town, they asked them for food, but they refused to entertain them. Then they found therein a wall about to collapse and he (Khidr) set it up straight. [Mûsa (Moses)] said: If you had wished, surely, you could have taken wages for it!" (Khidr) said: "This is the parting between me and you, I will tell you the interpretation of (those) things over which you were unable to hold patience.

"As for the ship, it belonged to Masâkîn (poor people) working in the sea. So I wished to make a defective damage in it, as there was a king after them who seized every ship by force. "And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared lest he should oppress them by rebellion and disbelief. "So we intended that their Lord should change him for them for one better in righteousness and near to mercy. "And as for the wall, it belonged to two orphan boys in the town; and there was under it a treasure belonging to them; and their father was a righteous man, and your Lord intended that they should attain their age of full strength and take out their treasure as a mercy from your Lord. And I did it not of my own accord. That is the interpretation of those (things) over which you could not hold patience."

5. Khizr Blog 1: Khizr of the Green Footstep, Guide of Travellers, Patron Saint of Cannabis

2005-12-11T01:23:00.000-08:00

Khizr – (Arabic al-khidr, Farsi/Urdu al-khizr): occupies a special place of distinction since pre-Islamic times. Khwaja Khadir (Khizr) was a legendary saint, prophet and teacher, often said to have been a companion of Moses (see Qur'an 18:65-82), considered to be a fountain of life and of spiritual understanding. Sometimes called the 'green man' because barren lands turned verdant in his presence. He is the protector of travellers, boat-people and rivers. When he is happy he bestows grain and fertility upon the land and when not, there is flood or a drought. He reputedly is the only soul who has gained life immortal from tasting of the Ma'ul Hayat or Fountain of Life in the Land of Darkness, possibly at Kataragama or Khidirgama, 'the home of al-Khadir' according to oral traditions that likewise live on to this day.

Although Muslim intellectuals today consign Khizr to the realm of myth and fairytale, the mass of Muslim believers are quite convinced of his saintly or angelic status. They believe he reveals himself to the worthy and shares the sirr or divine secrets. Personal encounters with Khwaja Khadir are not uncommon among Islamic mystics in Sri Lanka and worldwide. He is often invoked in Persian and Urdu literature as a guide to travellers:

Minute by minute – see – the crumbling dust of Dard,
yet Khizr cleaves the sand-dunes – another way round for me. - Dard

Khizr is portrayed in pre-Islamic sources, the Quran, Persian literature and later Islamic literatures like Turkish and Urdu. There is also a legend associating him with Alexander the Great. Both set off to find the legendary fountain of Eternal Youth, but only Khizr completes the journey and becomes Immortal. Alexander takes the path toward worldly immortality as a great king and conqueror. These traditions are well-supported by scholars. Some say that Khizr lived at the time of the biblical prophet Abraham and that he still may be seen at sacred places. According to the Isaba, 882, he was given immortality after a conversation with his friend the archangel Rafa'il in order to establish the true worship of God on earth and to maintain it.

According to the hadith or canonical account, al-Khadir was seen at the funeral of the Holy Prophet Mohammed (sal) offering condolence to the Prophet's bereaved companions. Khizr lives on an island (al-Tabari, i, 442) or upon a green carpet in the heart of the sea (al-Bukhari, Tafsir, sura 18, bab 3). He can find water beneath the ground and talks the language of all peoples (al-Suri). Others say that he can make himself invisible at will. Khizr and the biblical prophet Elijah perform haj annually and often appear in the disguise of bedawis. Both are entrusted with the duty of protecting travelers on their journeys. Elsewhere, al-Khadir's realm is an earthly paradise within the human world where Khadir rules over saints and angels; known as Yuh (also a name of the sun), it is situated in the far North.

It would incomplete to not draw attention to another popular identity of Khizr, who has also been long associated with hemp, or cannabis. As J.M. Campbell recorded in his classic 1894 essay, “On the Religion of Hemp :”

In his devotion to bhang , with reverence, not with the worship, which is due to Allah alone, The North Indian Mussulman joins hymning to the praise of bhang. To the follower of the later religion of Islam the holy spirit in bhang is not the spirit of the Almighty, it is the spirit of the great prophet Khizr, or Elijiah. That bhang should be sacred to Khizr is natural, Khizr is the patron saint of water. Still more Khizr means green, the revered color of the cooling water of bhang ;. So the Urdu poet sings: “When I quaff fresh bhang I liken its color to the fresh light down of thy youthful beard.” The prophet Khizr or the green prophet cries “May the drink be pleasing to thee.”

Thus, Khizr of the “green footstep’ and ‘the soother of grief’ is regarded as the patron-saint of the ‘Poor-Man’s Heaven,’ once used by sufi mystics to induce goodwill, pleasantness, trances and visions.

4. The Razzle Dazzle Ghazal, or Should We Muzzle the Gazelle?

2005-12-09T06:10:00.000-08:00

Ghazal (Arabic, pron. ghhuzzle): Ghazal means ''boy-girl talk," chatting with women, talking with the Beloved. The ghazal has evolved resonant meanings from the profane to the sacred. Used as a verb it means to 'flirt with', which accords well with the playful nature of the form which is amatory in nature. The plural form is ghazaliat (as in Ghazaliat-e-Hafez, Sadi, Molavi..). One can also use the Farsi plural rule (even on non-Farsi words) by adding "haa at the end of the word (ghazal-haa). In Urdu the ending 'haa' is nasalised. But both forms are less common. However, ghazal in Arabic may have started out as gazaal.

There also appears to be a relationship between the word ghazal and gazelle. According to Dr. Basiel Wolde Gabriel, from the Ethiopian Distance learning Association: "There are numerous types of antelopes in Ethiopia often called agazzen or yemeda ffiyel. In fact the derivation of the word gazelle can well be attributed to the Ethiopian word agazzen from which the Arabs borrowed and called the goat-like animals ghazal. In 'Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English", Agha Shahid Ali claims that ghazal in Persian also means "the cry of the gazelle when it is cornered in a hunt and knows it will die," but he does not quote any source to substantiate this elegant assertion. In his posthumous ghazal collection 'Call Me Ishmael Tonight' (Norton) he has written:

The hunt is over, and I hear the Call to Prayer
fade into that of the wounded gazelle tonight. ("Tonight, p 82)

Without being too pedogical about it "ghazal" and "gazelle" (a form of deer) do seem to have some etymological tie-up. One can only conjecture (in an interpretive sense) what the word "deer" might have to do with "romantic" verse. Well, a close look at the use of the word "Maan" in Tamizh, in both native mythology and contemporary literature, will reveal only the obvious: The grace of the deer. Maanvizhi, Ilamaan, Maanottam/nadai, - it is all about poise, attraction and fragility. That is the heart of the ghazal too. deer/dear might also be another aural coincidence ( or not?).

A unamed reviewer in Lynx, XVI:3, October 2001 believes ''this ties the pronunciation to ‘gay-zel'" which is one the ways that Westerners often pronounce the word. The reviewer cites American poet Robert Bly as a famous example, although Perhaps regional differences in pronunciation and the changing morphology of words as they travel from culture to culture will make it difficult for Western audiences to settle on a pronunciation. The soft 'ghh' at the beginning of the word is closer to French 'r' from deep in the throat, except that the ghh is pronounced on the back of the tongue as if (to put it graphically) coughing up phelgm.

This minor controversy about pronunciation has arisen from the difficulty English-speakers have with the traditional sounds, not found in this language. The rather rough approximation of 'guzzle' sounds more like quaffing beer than savouring the fine wine of Eastern poetry, thus Western tongues looking for a more 'refined' sounding word to match their idea of the form mostly opt for 'gay-zel', 'guh-zaal' or 'g'zaal', both which says more about the confusion felt by English-language speakers of the word, compared with the typical pronunciation of the word in say Farsi or Urdu.

3. Was Saqi a Guy or a Girl?

2005-12-09T02:00:00.000-08:00

The Saqi (pron. saaqi): was actually a boy in his early teens who served drinks at the caravan-sarai (the desert 'caravan-park'). Sometimes he was seduced by travel-weary merchants, parted from their wives for long periods. The original Saqi, of course, was Hermes, the cup-bearer of the gods, who too couldn't resist his boyish charms. The presence of Saqi listed in the dramatis personae associated with Persian, Turkish and Urdu literary culture implies a pederastic side to the once male-dominated literary scene. Because pronouns in Persian and Urdu do not denote gender, it was possible to put a ghazal 'into purdah' or hide the true meaning of a line or reference behind 'the veil'. Thus ghazal couplets often invoke Saqi who by now had taken on metaphoric or mythological status starting from ancient Persian times:

"O Saqi, bring the wine and let me confide in you a secret
About the ever-revolving planets and about the new moon." - Hafiz

Later, much later, the Saqi changed gender in Urdu poetry and became a sensuous girl, with twitching eye and hips. The hookah-bearer of medieval times too bore this name, which also gave birth to the English corruption sarki and saki for someone who tried to act sarcastic. The most famous Saki was Henri Munro, who wrote his delicious surprise-ending stories under that name during the World War II.

2. Ghazals: After Her Passing:

2005-12-07T07:27:00.000-08:00

(In Memory of Peggy Kaur, died Dec 3 1993)
1
How to comprehend? Her raspy breathing stopped.
A fever penned her frail end, then stopped.

Her small, steel wristwatch is still ticking on the table.
The clock does not pretend her heart has stopped.

Her visa bill is back, it snooped here late last month.
This cruel computer-trend – it must be stopped.

The house-keys on her chain, rest here inside the drawer.
She tied up each loose end, coughed dry, then stopped.

Her embroidered button-box, a needle and red silk
can’t mend her threadbare gasp that broke, then stopped.

The shelf, my sweeping hand, her photo’s shattered frame;
the face of my best friend has crashed and stopped.

If the body is fuse wire, does electricity live on,
did she ascend before the power stopped?

This ghazal is a letter, a prayer torn from the book.
Send it, Bonehead, before your hand is stopped.

2

Grief leads to faith and tries to start again -
make plunging in your saving art again.

The frangipani flowers had to fall -
how mad to think we'd never part again.

Prize an empty house, despite the pain,
let numbness be a wound to smart again.

Beware the gang of sorrows in the dark -
you need not pull her rose apart again.

Bite the lemon, wake the loser mouth,
let days and nights taste sharp and tart again.

Her curve’s no longer climbing up your chart -
run free and find your athlete heart again.

Why hunt, Bonehead, among the phantom trees?
Her heart stopped. Yours must start again.

2005 revision of earlier pub work.

© 2003 Chris Mooney-Singh Publ: 2003, Ghazal Page

1. Welcome to Begum Ghazal's Mushaira

2005-12-06T00:29:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Begum Ghazal's Daily Ghazal Blog. Above the side-banner links on the right, you will see a portrait of Begum Ghazal. She is seen blessing the head of a Western baby (you couldn't tell from the picture, could you!) The portrait is symbolic of Begum Ghazal's efforts to 'bless' the West with the 'ghazal'. 35 years or so the ghazal has been kicking around from America to Australia, not to mention in other European languages. She is a presiding ghazal pir, a saint-ustad who has retired from the world to her mystical cloister and occasionally prevails upon her translator and amanuensis, Chris Mooney-Singh to share her utterances and guidance with aspiring ghazalkars (ghazal-writers).This site is dedicated to this newly emerging 'ghazal nativity' through original works by the resident ghazal writer who goes by the takhullus (pen name) 'Bone-head' aka Chris Mooney-Singh, an Australian poet with more than 15 years addiction to the form. The picture above left shows the last public mushraira performance of Ustad Rhekta Bulbul Ali at Ghazalbad, (1933).