“Shiʿr” by Abdur Rahman (1873-1954)
Translated by M. Aqib
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11407505
Abstract:
The author of this text, Abdur Rahman, was born on 10th February 1873, in Jaipur and passed away on 30th July 1954, in Karachi. He was a professor who headed the Department of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu at the University of Delhi during the 1920s. He was recognized as a distinct scholar in British India and bestowed with the honorific title of Shams-ul ʿUlamāʾ in 1933. In 1926, he published a collection of his lectures on the history and theory of Arabic couplet tradition as Mirāt-ush-Shiʿr (The Mirror of Couplet). In the preface to the book, Rahman informs that these “additional university lectures” were given in 1923 and were attended by Khwaja Mohammad Abdul Majeed Khan, a former professor of Persian at St. Stephen’s College. Khan advised Rahman to include couplets from Persian and Urdu in his lectures and publish them. The book was self-published by the author, in keeping with Khan’s advice. In these lectures, Rahman covers the keywords in Eastern poetics such as shiʿr (couplet), alfāz (words), majāz (materiality), māʿnī (meaning), jażbāt (emotions), ḳhayāl (thought) etc. and through this discussion, explores shared histories of couplet in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu languages. Mirāt-ush-Shiʿr was re-published by the Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy in 1978 in its campaign to re-vitalize important and rare books. Other than Mirāt-ush-Shiʿr, Rahman also authored Sharḥ-e-Aṣtarlāb (explanation of astrolabe), Ḥayāt-e-Aurañgzeb ʿAlaihur Raḥmā (life of Aurangzeb, peace be upon him), and Tarjumah Ibn-e Ḳhaldūn (translation of Ibn-e Khaldoon).
Works cited
Translated from:Rahman, Abdur. “Shiʿr.” Mirāt-ush-Shiʿr, Jayyed Electric Press, Delhi, 1926, pp. 1-17. Rekhta Ebooks,https://www.rekhta.org/ebooks/detail/miraat-us-sheir-abdur-rahman-aleeg-ebooks/.
“Shiʿr” by Abdur Rahman (1873-1954) by M. Aqib is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
