While rummaging through some newly published books received from Majlis-i-Taraqqi-i-Adab, a small volume with the captivating title Barr-i-Saghir ki Mausiqi attracted my attention. I picked it up and found to my delight that it was a book worth reading.
It is heartening to see that under its new management the Majlis has been reactivated with renewed vigour. It is now pursuing its publication programme at full speed. The present lot of newly published volumes includes a number of new titles in addition to reprints in order to meet the requirements of researchers.
The precious little volume I stumbled on is a brief introduction to the great tradition of South Asian classical music as it explains the intricacies of this highly developed art in a simplified way.
Enayat Ilahi Malik, who has also translated some fiction from the West, has an insight into the complexities and intricacies of our classical music. It is gratifying to see that he has at last chosen to share his knowledge with music lovers who, in spite of their love for this art, lack the necessary knowledge which would enable them to appreciate the subtleties of what is being sung.
Malik has dealt with the misunderstandings prevalent among the Muslims about the nature of this art and determine its true position by presenting it in historical perspective. Of course at one time this music, he grants, was confined within the four walls of the temples serving as homage to the gods and goddesses of the Hindu mythology.
Early Muslim musicians performed the feat of bringing it out from the temple where it could he heard and appreciated as an art form rather than a simple bhajan. It is from this point that the history of classical music begins. And it is also when many Muslim creative minds began to find expression in music.
Dhurpad was the form which had flourished in the holy atmosphere of the temples. It was steeped deep in the Hindu religious tradition, as opposed to the form of khayal which emerged as a secular form of expression. And it was here that Muslim genius made its imprint.
Malik asserts that from the times of Amir Khusrao in the 14th century to the times of Amir Khan in the 20th century Muslim, artists were foremost in playing their role in the evolution and development of khayal. Discussing the process of its evolution and development he says that 'though according to one theory Naik Gopal and Amir Khusrao had the credit of making this innovation but it was left for Naimat Khan Sadarang, who was the court poet of Mohammad Shah Rangeela, to pave the way for its mass popularity and everlasting fame.'
But strangely enough, while Malik gives credit to Muslim singers for bringing out music from the sacred confines of temples, at the same time he remarks in a derogatory way that the period of the rise of khayal coincided with the period of decline in music.
On one occasion he defends Wajid Ali Shah and sees no harm in a Muslim ruler taking up music and dance. He gives him the credit for being the innovator of the thumri and is all praise for this semi-classical form. But soon he changes his stance and passes the verdict that under the Oudh rulers, music began to lose its elevated status. In the times of Wajid Ali Shah the art which in days gone by enjoyed the status of ibadat lost its sanctity in the hands of prostitutes. Or so the author thinks.
How ironic it is that the author started with the pious intention of sifting music from the moral and cultural prejudices of the conservatives. But in the end he himself succumbs to the vicious influence of those who treat male musicians as mirasis and female singers as prostitutes and what he calls bazari aurtain. Though a scholar of music, he has perhaps cared little to study the development of music and dance in Lucknow in the background of its cultural environs, which at one time had acted as the cradle of fine arts.
Malik has rightly highlighted the patronage to music extended by different Muslim rulers of the subcontinent. In this respect the patronage extended by important rulers such as Sultan Husain Sharqi of Jaunpur and Sultan Zainulabidin of Kashmir also deserved his attention.
He has, however, not cared to take cognizance of the patronage by great institutions and instead concentrated only on the royal courts. By institutions here I mean the schools of mysticism in particular. Hazrat Amir Khusrao, for example, enjoyed the approval of his murshad Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. This approval meant to him more than the one extended by the court.