Preface

Preface

Many people, rich and poor, seem eager to improve the Urdu language, and many societies have been set up in India; but the ignorance of those who do the work, and their want of knowledge of the principles of the language, are making their literary service do harm instead of good. The odd thing is that such people neither take any help nor ask any advice from the trusted masters of Delhi and Lucknow about serving the language, nor do they learn the language properly. Some of them, in the mistaken belief that they are receiving ample money from the states and the public to carry out this work, are freely putting the knife to the throat of the language. These days the rich have lost the power of judging merit, so mistakes in choosing are possible. We were just blaming the government's Education Department for its wrong service to Urdu when a fresh calamity fell on our heads: our own countrymen began to step off the road of the language, and little by little the sweetness, eloquence and delicacy of the language began to come to an end at their hands. We do not say that, God forbid, they bear any enmity to the language, or that they do this knowingly.

The poor people of the Punjab are strong supporters and helpers of the Urdu language. They have translated many books into Urdu from other languages and started many newspapers; but they neither learned the language properly, nor ever tried to correct their mistakes, nor did they have any book by which they could become aware of their mistakes. The third calamity was that some who knew nothing of the principles of the language stirred up the Urdu-Hindi quarrel and turned the Hindus against the Urdu language.

In short, all who serve Urdu began to walk on the wrong road, and some, finding the nobles and chiefs of India to back them, took the special features of the language to be something unnecessary. When their literary service was not accepted because of such weaknesses, they grew stubborn and obstinate, and, put out by their failure, began to boycott Lucknow; and the unqualified crowd of India, who are not native speakers, joined them in the work. There is no doubt that Urdu began in Delhi; but after a time Delhi was ruined, and so ruined that all the poets who were the pride of Delhi, the princes of the Exalted Fort and the grandees of the state bade farewell to Delhi and came to settle under the kindly shade of Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula Bahadur, and in time made Lucknow into a Delhi. It was possible that after the kings of Oudh Lucknow too would be ruined, and that the service of the Urdu language would be taken from it as well; but the kings of Oudh had made full provision for the flourishing of Lucknow even after them. That is, they had fixed a valuable *wasiqa* (hereditary pension) for the upkeep of their family, their dependants, the grandees of the state and the princes of Delhi, to be paid to them generation after generation; and it is well known that Nawab Bahu Begum Sahiba even fixed the pay of her washerman and water-carrier generation after generation, and it is paid to this day. About five lakh rupees a month is still paid in *wasiqa* in Lucknow. For this reason the gentry and the trusted class of Lucknow have not yet had any need to leave Lucknow. That is why Lucknow still keeps its literary dignity, and the pensioners here think it a sin to go out of their city. The people of Lucknow fully keep to the foundation of the Hindustani language that the holy kings of India laid. Its opponents, seeing its durability and charm, bow their heads in respect, and though not with their tongues, they have to confess in their hearts that Lucknow is without doubt the capital of the language.

The Urdu-Hindi quarrel is pointless. First, because people have given two names to what is in itself one language. Second, because the progress of Hindi is no hindrance to the progress of Urdu; and in fact Urdu stands on the foundation of Hindi.

A serious mistake has arisen among people: they think that since they were born in some corner of India, Urdu is their mother tongue (though this is not so: hundreds of languages used to be spoken in India, and Urdu is the essence of them all), that the way they speak is correct and eloquent, and that they may make up whatever idiom they please. If this idea is acted upon, Urdu cannot become a learned language; cut off from following its true centre, that is Delhi and Lucknow, it will be wiped out, and there is a danger that the language of every city and town of India will become separate. People will be unable to understand one another's speech, and the whole of India will live a life of ignorance, for a language can never progress without a centre. If the authority of every city sets up his own ruling, this difference is enough to destroy the language. Seeing such an ugly stain coming upon the bright face of Urdu, I could not hold back. I was not the ruler of the country, to enforce some strict law for the protection of the language; nor was holy war required for it, that I should draw my sword and rise; and why would those who were profiting by this opposition accept persuasion and explanation?

By the grace of God, Lucknow is at present the capital of the language, and its trusted authorities are ruling the world of Urdu with their wide knowledge. Outsiders who come here gain something from the blessing of their company. If all of them together wished, this misunderstanding could be well checked. Who am I, poor fellow, to be able to contend with the opponents of the language? But there is love of the Urdu language in my heart, so I have armed myself with the few broken and rusty weapons I had and stood up to protect the language.

Those weapons are a few fragments of jewels that came to me, passed from breast to breast, from the king of poets, Hazrat Mir Taqi Mir Dehlvi, of blessed memory. Their story is this. When Mir Dehlvi came from Delhi to Lucknow, his touchy temper came with him. Who could put up with such a temper? But he had one quality for which even so great and generous a man as Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula Bahadur bore his peevishness, and that was his mastery of the language. Even those who disliked him were slaves to his language, his idiom and his eloquence. He had neither worldly wealth nor rank and state; he was king only of the language, and that was why the world honoured him. His pupils were like moths round Mir. The reason was that no one knew the principles, rules and laws of the language as the late Mir knew them, and this knowledge had come to him from his maternal uncle, Sirajuddin Khan Arzu. When Mir Sahib grew very old, he said one day to his son Mir Muhammad Askari, known as Mir Kallu Arsh, "Son, I have nothing of the world's goods and wealth that will be of use to you hereafter; but the treasure of my pride is the law of the language, on which my life and honour have rested, and which raised me from the dust of humiliation to the heaven of fame. Beside this wealth I have thought the empire of the world worthless. I give you this same wealth as your inheritance. Keep it safe in your breast, and teach it to your children or to some worthy pupil of yours." God knows what pride was packed into these rules, that whoever acquired them became touchy and haughty. So when the late Maulvi Muhammad Husain Azad came to Lucknow to meet Hazrat Arsh, he in his touchiness would not even agree to speak with him, and Azad went away displeased with poor Arsh and wrote a complaint of his ill temper.

The best poet among the pupils of Arsh was the devoted pupil the late Shaikh Muhammad Jan Shad, who all his life served his master like a slave, and was so enamoured of Laila, the beloved Poetry, that he did not even marry. Hazrat Arsh had no children; he taught all the rules that had come to him from the late Mir to Hazrat Shad, and since the late Hazrat Shad followed the language of Mir in every respect, he was given the title *Pairau-e-Mir* (follower of Mir). Hazrat Pairau-e-Mir was my teacher, and I had the honour of becoming his pupil last of all, when his blessed age was about a hundred years. The two or four old pupils that the Shaikh Sahib had had lost their taste for poetry along with their youth, and he had grown angry with one or two pupils and dismissed them from his discipleship. After some time, when he took note of my service and daily attendance, he grew kind and said, "It seems that God means to carry on the name of Mir's house through you. Very well: from today keep in your mind the rules that I tell you. This is a trust from the king of poets, the late Mir Taqi. If you take up your pen for verse and prose keeping these rules before you, no one will find fault with your writing. These are the very rules that made Mir beloved of all people." From that day it was my practice to sit daily for two or three hours in my teacher's service and learn the general rules of Urdu grammar and syntax. This practice went on for three years. When my teacher came to my humble house, the same conversation went on there too. I found such pleasure in this inquiry that, counting my teacher's life a blessing, I kept up this pursuit without a break, and it is through his blessing that I learned the method of making rules for Urdu. In truth these rules deserved to remain knowledge of the breast, passed from one to another by word of mouth, and were an honour to me; but the present course of the times is reducing Urdu to black dust, which the leading class of India too regrets. And so, for the very purpose of protecting this Urdu, His Exalted Highness Mir Osman Ali Khan Bahadur, may his honour endure, ruler of the Deccan, has also given proof of his precious generosity and open-handedness by founding the Urdu Osmania University. The King of the Deccan is rendering it financial service, but literary service is a duty binding on every person according to his position and power.

My heart did not like the idea that the sword should stay as an ornament at the waist and not be used even in time of need. I too wished to serve the Osmania University according to my means; but in such important and difficult tasks, how can my service be accepted? In any case, doing is better than not doing. This thought made me ready for this service, and I offer a sample of my service under the name *Qawaid-e-Mir* (The Rules of Mir), so that it may give some help in laying the foundation of the Osmania University. I offer these fragments of jewels for the general benefit of the country, and I hope that this book too, like my other writings, will be generally well received.

Khwaja Muhammad Abdur Rauf Ishrat