ALTAF Hussain Hali is among the writers who pioneered the genre of biography in Urdu. His Hayat-i-Sa’di (1886) discusses the life and works of Sa’di, one of the greatest poets of Persian.
In fact Sa’di is ranked among the greatest poets of the world and his Bustan and Gulistan are considered a part of the world’s great literary heritage.
Many of Sa’di’s lines, composed either in prose or verse, have got currency as maxims not only in Persian but in Urdu, too. Sa’di’s moral views, his humanistic approach and reflections on practical aspects of everyday life, often presented aphoristically, have made him very popular, too.
Hali’s Hayat-i-Sa’di was first published in 1886 from Delhi and scores of editions followed. Now Lahore’s Majlis-i-Taraqqi-i-Adab (MTA) has just come up with a new, revised edition of Hayat-i-Sa’di.
Prof Tehseen Firaqi, who has also been serving as MTA’s director for the last several years, has penned an enlightening intro to the book. In his intro Firaqi first describes Sa’di’s amazing popularity all over the word and in all eras.
Aside from the Indo-Pak subcontinent and Turkey, where Sa’di has always been immensely popular as is evident from a large number of his translations into Turkish and Urdu, Sa’di has left his impressions on Europe as well. Sa’di’s translations into a number of languages — including German and French — had popularised him so much that his undeniable influence may be noted on some German philosophers, poets and critics, such as Johann Gottfried Herder, Goethe, Heinrich Heine and Bodenstedt, says Firaqi.
Other Western scholars who were fond of Sa’di’s works include William Jones, Hammer-Paurgstall, Gore Ouseley and Edward G. Browne, adds Firaqi. But then Firaqi goes on to critically analyze some certain aspects of Browne’s critical remarks on Sa’di and rejects them with sound academic evidence.
The erudite intro then informs the readers about what has been written on Sa’di in the Persian language. This topic needs a full-length book but Firaqi Sahib has, taking full advantage of his vast studies in Persian literature, just given a thumbnail summary, wonderfully capturing the essence of all the important critical works written in Persian on Sa’di.
As for Hali’s book, Firaqi is all praise and rightly so. Hali had mastered the Persian language and knew Arabic quite well. In fact, Hali has composed poetry in Arabic and Persian, not to mention his poetic and prose works in Urdu. Hali had a natural mental harmony with Sa’di: both believed in humanity, justice, moral values, equanimity and contentment. Hali has narrated Sa’di’s birth, the atmosphere at his birthplace Shiraz, his education, journeys, works as well as the literary merits of his prose and poetry in such a way that the readers are deeply connected to the subject, a sure sign of a successful biography.
Hali has mentioned the sources that he had consulted for writing the book and has taken pains to rectify the inaccuracies, if and when found.
It will not be out of place to mention here what Hali has written in this book about the ghazals of Hafiz Shirazi, another maestro, while discussing Sa’di’s ghazal. Hali says when a nation is in decline and has lost all guts and resoluteness, exhorting it to be content and resigning to the Divine Will is just like trying to blow out a lamp with a faint glow.
It is exactly what Hafiz’s poetry did when seen against the backdrop of the decline of the Muslims. Hali has also quoted someone who once said that “anyone who reads Hafiz’s ghazals would go mad”. Here Firaqi Sahib concludes that Iqbal’s stance on Hafiz’s poetry was almost identical and that is why Iqbal composed a few couplets against Hafiz in his masnaviAsraar-i-Khudi, something that caused a tumult. To avoid any untoward situation, Iqbal removed those couplets from the second edition.
A great tribute to Hali and his Hayat-i-Sa’di was paid by a scholar like Shibli No’mani. In his She’ar-ul-Ajam, Shibli wrote “it is useless to write anything on Sa’di after what Moulvi Altaf Hussain Hali has written on him, his life and works”.
In 1961, MTA had published an edition of Hayat-i-Sa’di, which was edited by Ismail Panipati. Typeset and printed in Urdu’s ‘naskh’ script, it was based on 1886 edition and it claimed to be free of all typos. But the ‘naskh’ typesetting had rendered hundreds of words either meaningless or mutilated beyond recognition. MTA reprinted it in 1995, but no corrections were made.
But in this new edition Firaqi has also corrected the text by carefully collating it with the 1886 edition. He has added footnotes wherever needed. These footnotes have been marked to separate them from Panipati’s notes reproduced from the last edition.
This new edition has certainly given a new lease of life to a classical work and Firaqi’s intro, a research and critical work unto itself, has indeed enhanced the value of the book.
Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2020
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