“In the rows of resurrection your panegyrist will be with you Mohsin Kakorwi, writing in the early 19th century, expresses the hope that his naat would intercede, as it were, on the Day of Judgement. In naat after naat, the Prophet appears before his listeners as an archetype for all forms of human beauty, or as the poet Saghar Nizami says, he becomes: “Beauty from Head to toe, Love embodied”.įashioned first on the Arab models such as the Burda and later on the Persian masnawis, the Indian versions wove in many indigenous elements. Songs celebrating the Mard-e-Kamil, the perfect man, the exemplar and model for every believing Musalman, whose every action and habit, no matter how seemingly trivial, began to be written not just in Urdu but in many dialects such as khari boli, bhojpuri, dehati and so on. Patience, wisdom, modesty, gratitude, intelligence, respect for women are exemplary qualities and dwelling on them in such loving detail is virtually an exercise in “character-building”! Tender, loving, colourful, rustic, sophisticated, subtle, grandiloquent – the terms and images vary but what doesn’t is admiration for the many qualities the Prophet embodied. While every naat-poet down the ages has expressed his inability to express the true greatness of the Prophet, they have struggled nonetheless to find the right words. “Friends, before all of us is the journey into nonexistence –īut when one has words of the naat, then one has provisions for the road!” Finding the right words Ghulam Imam Shahid, an Urdu poet of the early 19th century put it best when he announced:
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Be that as it may, in the Indian sub-continent the Eid-e Milad-un Nabi is celebrated in homes and assembly halls with great fervour.Ĭoloured by Sufism, influenced by the fast-gaining popularity of the sozkhwani and marsiyakhwani traditions of Awadh which recount the events associated with the Battle of Karbala and its dramatis personae in sonorous verses, the tradition of naat (hymns in praise of the Prophet) flowered in homes and mehfilkhanas all across the north reaching as far east as Bengal and the Deccan in the south. Many point out, quite rightly, that the cornerstone of Islam is the word of god, not the person of his messenger. Still others are uncomfortable with this almost mystical veneration of the Prophet, that seems not in keeping with the essential spirit of Islam. Others believe that since 12th Rabi’ul-awwal is not only the day of the Prophet’s birth but also considered to be the day of his death, such celebrations are inappropriate.
![ya nabi salam alaika naat old version ya nabi salam alaika naat old version](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1wvNSiFB1jA/maxresdefault.jpg)
While an unshakeable love for the Prophet is the strongest binding force among Muslims, its expression in song – often using the language of conventional love poetry and the idiom of the ghazal and the geet – is frowned upon by the exponents of a Unitarian Islam. However, that has not stopped the poet and hymn-writer from using local idiom and metaphor to express a deep, trusting love for the beloved of god whose life and sayings, as exemplified in the Hadith, influence the lives of believers in more ways than can be counted. A great deal of poetry is written in different languages expressing love and veneration for the Prophet, even though much of it flies in the face of the orthodox view that considers all such celebrations as bid’at or a misguided form of innovation. Maulid, the day of birth of the Prophet Muhammad, on 12th Rabi’ ul-awwal, the third month of the Muslim lunar calendar (corresponding with December 2 in 2017) is celebrated in different ways across the Muslim world.
![ya nabi salam alaika naat old version ya nabi salam alaika naat old version](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TySRCETrJs8/maxresdefault.jpg)
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