Just when we begin to think that the standards of research in Urdu — and the standards of education in general — are falling, a good book or a worthwhile research publication in Urdu appears and makes one think that all is not lost after all.

A few months ago Dr Abraar Abdus Salam, a friend based in Multan, sent me a book titled Urdu mein qata nigari and said that I ought to read it. Though Abraar is a good research scholar and despite being quite young commands respect of the literary circles for his erudite research papers, I at first did not give the book much importance thinking that it was yet another case of what our society sees as an obligation promoting a friend or favourite whether deserving or not. But going through the book, I realised that his recommendation was not unfair. In fact the book can be seen as ample proof that genuine and commendable research work is still being carried out at our universities.

Published by Multan's Beacon Books, Urdu mein qata nigari is Muneeba Khanum's doctoral dissertation. But I felt really sorry when I read that we lost this fine research scholar a few years ago. Her brother Prof Mubeen Ahmed has informed the readers in the introduction that the author Dr Muneeba Khanum passed away in 2004 while she was in Saudi Arabia where she had gone to perform Haj. Born into a family of scholars and poets in 1953 in Okara (Punjab), Muneeba Khanum began teaching Urdu in Punjab's colleges after doing her MA in Urdu from Punjab University. She earned a PhD from Multan's Bahauddin Zakaria University in 2003 under the supervision of Dr Rubeena Tareen. The topic of her research was Urdu mein qata nigari ki riwayet, which has now been published in book form. Though published posthumously, the book contains a foreword by the author which she had penned in 2003.

Qata, a popular genre in Urdu poetry, is derived from an Arabic root meaning 'to cut' or 'to cut off' and a qata is, literally, a piece, a cutting, a segment or a detached piece. The author explains the origin of the word qata with the help of Urdu, Arabic and Persian dictionaries and informs us that the correct pronunciation in Arabic is qita but in Urdu qata has also been validated by several dictionaries. Then she expounds on the features of qata as a genre and traces its history right back to its origin.

Qata, according to her, is among the oldest and the longest surviving genres of Urdu, the others being qaseeda and ghazal. Though initially qata formed a part of qaseeda or ghazal as an intra-connected or unified segment or a detached piece that could also be read independently from the original work, it established itself as an independent genre. Some began giving qata a title, too, and it became a kind of a poem. When considered on the basis of form, qata resembles ghazal, qaseeda and rubaai which have a qafiya, or a rhyming syllable, at the end of every line in the first couplet and then at the end of the second line in the each of the following couplet. But for a ghazal and a rubaai, it is must to have a matla, the first couplet with both the lines having a rhyming syllable at the end, whereas a qata may or may not have a matla. By the way, matla, an Arabic word, literally means 'a place from where the sun rises' and since the ghazal begins or peeps from the first couplet, hence the name.

Just like qaseeda and ghazal, writes Dr Khanum, a qata can be composed in any bahr, or metre, but rubaai has to be composed in the predetermined auzaan (literally weights) or poetic measures — which, according to some, are 24 in number. A qata must contain a minimum of two couplets. And while there is no restriction on the maximum number of couplets in a qata, a good qata may not exceed 15 couplets. Another feature considered a must for qata is, as opposed to ghazal, the continuity of thought and presentation of a central theme in such a way that the reader's interest is sustained till the very end. Qata consists of a beginning, the middle and an end with a logical sequence of introducing the idea, developing the idea and then ending on a startling climax. The art of qata is, says the researcher with the help of an oft-repeated Urdu expression that literally means 'enclosing the river in a jar', saying much in a few words. In other words, qata demands conciseness and comprehensiveness.

But how Urdu qata grew into a genre independent of ghazal and qaseeda and how it had to pass through different stages of evolution and how it chose its own path quite different from Persian and Arabic qatas, is the real thesis and the learned scholar has been quite successful in highlighting these historical phases and features of Urdu qata. Then she embarks upon a journey through the history of Urdu qata, signposting the different stages of its development in northern and southern India. She also takes the reader along the different historical phases of Urdu qata, including the modern age and post-independence era, quoting judiciously to prove her premises.

What surprised me most is the vast knowledge of the author about the finer points of prosody, rhetoric, exposition and poetics. At a time when even senior scholars seem to underrate or shun the jagged and rugged terrain of prosodic studies, a comparatively young scholar's command over such matters is indeed heartening and reassuring that we still have some rare diamonds amongst our younger generations and we only need to polish and encourage them if we wish our language and literature to live and flourish in the decades to come.