MAREHRA, also reverently known as Marehra Sharif, is a city in district of Etah, UP, India. Those who belong to Marehra are often in Urdu referred to as Marehravi.
Though famous in the world for Muslim shrines and Hindu temples, Marehra is known in the world of Urdu literature because of Ahsan Marehravi, a poet, critic, teacher, journalist, lexicographer, linguist and research scholar.
What makes Ahsan Marehravi standout is his keen interest in Urdu orthography, lexicography and problems related to language — and that too in an era when little was written and discussed in Urdu on linguistic issues.
Born on Nov 10, 1876, in Marehra, Ahsan Marehravi’s real name was Syed Ali Ahsan. His ancestors were known for their spiritual leanings and looked after a khanqah, which is a building specifically used for spiritual teachings and where Muslim Sufis and students of religious studies can stay (in some parts of the world, a khanqah is called zaviyah or takiya, too).
So Ahsan Marehravi’s education began at his ancestral khanqah. Here he studied Arabic, Persian, Urdu and memorised Quran. In those days a school was opened in Marehra where English was taught. Young Ahsan secretly began attending the school and got an English primer. As mentioned by Ahsan Marehravi in one of his poems quoted in Nuqoosh (Shakhsiyaat Number), his father was furious when he learnt that Ahsan had begun learning English and stopped him from going to school.
Ahsan began composing poetry at an early age. In 1896, he launched an Urdu magazine Riaz-i-Sukhan, when he was 20. The same year, he requested Mirza Daagh Dehlvi (1831-1905), the renowned poet of Urdu known for his outstanding use of idiomatic expressions, to admit him to the circle of his disciples, which Daagh approved of. This proved to be a landmark in Ahsan’s life as when he moved to Hyderabad Deccan in 1898, where Daagh lived in those days, he swiftly assumed the responsibilities of Daagh’s de facto private secretary on an honorary basis. And thus began a long-drawn training in poetics, prosody, criticism, linguistic skills, rhetorical techniques and lexicology that helped shape Ahsan’s personality and hone his skills.
In Deccan, Ahsan began writing Daagh’s biography, titled Jalva-i-Daagh’. He was envious of Ameer Meenai’s dictionary Ameer-ul-Lughaat and wanted someone from Delhi to compete and compile a greater dictionary as Ameer was from Lucknow. So he suggested compiling another dictionary with citations from Daagh’s poetry for the sake of authenticity.
Initially, he named the dictionary Faiz-i-Daagh, but later on changed it to Faseeh-ul-Lughaat, since Daagh’s title was ‘Faseeh-ul-Mulk’. Ahsan began compiling the dictionary with Daagh’s approval and support. But in 1903, he had to leave Deccan for Marehra owing to some familial issues and could not go back to Deccan despite Daagh’s displeasure. In March 1905 Daagh died and the dictionary remained unfinished and unpublished.
In 1905, Ahsan went to Lahore, which had become a centre of learning and publishing. In Lahore, he worked for Lala Siri Ram who was compiling an Urdu ‘tazkira’ named Khum Khana-i-Javed. A few months later Ahsan joined Lahore’s Mufeed-i-A’am Press. In May 1905, he launched monthly Faseeh-ul-Mulk form Lahore and began publishing in it Faseeh-ul-Lughaat in instalments. In April 1906, he had to move back to Marehra and the magazine was re-launched from there. Despite its invaluable articles, book review and editorials, the magazine could not survive and had to be closed down. Its last issue was published in August 1910.
Faseeh-ul-Mulk is among those few Urdu journals that were launched to addressing exclusively the linguistic and lexicographic issues. Later on, Urdu Dictionary Board’s Urdu Nama and Muqtadira Qaumi Zaban’s Akhbar-i-Urdu were launched with the same aims. Faseeh-ul-Mulk discussed issues that had never been touched in Urdu magazines before and just a cursory glance can make one realise the significance of the articles published in it: research on the letter ‘Zaal-e-M’ujama’ (an issue that was much debated later on), the use of haa-i-havvaz, the word chaahiyye and its usage, inclusion of new word in Urdu, use of English words in Urdu, gender of Arabic words used in Urdu, Urdu orthography, suggestions for Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu, animal sounds in Urdu, and the list goes on.
In 1921, Ahsan joined Aligarh College to teach Urdu and was later on absorbed in Aligarh University’s Urdu department. He especially went to Lahore to attend Muslim League’s rally on March 23, 1940, where Pakistan Resolution was approved.
His other books include: Bazm-i-Daagh, Zaban-i-Daagh, Jalva-i-Ahsan, Ahsan-ul-Kalam, Tareekh-i-Nasr-e-Urdu: Namoona-i-Mansooraat, Insha-i-Daagh and some others.
Ahsan Marehravi went to Patna for treatment but died there on August 30, 1940, and was buried in Marehra the next day.
Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2022
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