Symposium enjoys poems in praise of the Prophet

ADDISON: Bazm e Muhibban e Sukhan (Urdu for “Poetry Lovers Association”) hosted a mushaira (symposium) here at Addison Public Library to commemorate the birth of the Prophet Saturday January 18.
Recognized local poets from the South Asian community recited naats, a genre of poems in praise of Prophet Muhammad. This Naatiyah Mushairah was presided over by Hamid Amrohavi and conducted by Hashmat Sohail.

Following Quran recitation by Qari Irshad Ansari, naats were rendered by Tahiniyat Jafar, Masart Khan Monic, Samina Khursheed, Sultan Mohiuddin and Anwar Ahmed Khan. Eraj Ahmad gave the introductions and Dr. Afzalur Rahman Afsar delivered the vote of thanks.

Though deemed no more than the Messenger of God, Muhammad continues to be the foremost role model for Muslims around the world, to be emulated out of love rather than through fearful subservience to external norms. The significance of the na’at is therefore religious, moral and, of course, literary.
This poetic genre is popular in Urdu and Punjabi in Pakistan and India. Reciters are known as Naat Khawan or Sana’a-Khua’an. Such “exalted poetry” (na’at shareef) is found in Urdu, Bengali, English, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Punjabi, Kashmiri and Sindhi. One early khawan was Hassan, also known as Shair-e-Darbaar-e-Risalat.

Already a poet before embracing Islam, Hassan attained fame by turning his muse to writing na’ats against rival poets who were attacking the new religion and its bearer. Subsequent poets followed his trend, some devoting themselves entirely to this genre. Tala’al Badru ‘Alayna, sung to the Prophet Muhammad at the completion of his migration to Medina in 622 CE, is believed to be one of the earliest naats.

Other participating poets were Sajid Chowdri (in Punjabi), Irfan Shariff (English) and in Urdu /Hindi Abdul Rahim Talib, Shah Naeem-uddin-Naimi, Nazar Naqvi, Sajid Chaudhry, S.Z. Hasan, Irshad Ansari, Waliuddin Wali, Nadeem Sharafi, Ghulam Mustafa Anjum, Sahid Alig and Dr. Afzalur Rahman Afsar. BMS organizers are Alig, Afsar and Ahmad.

BMS has been conducting bimonthly mushaira and recitations (adabi mehfil) on second Saturdays or Sundays at Glendale Heights Public Library for the last five years. It also hosts occasional literary proceedings (muzakarat), bait bazi and music programs and to bridge Urdu and American literature in greater Chicago. Bait Bazi is a rhyming game popular in South Asia where each poet has to reply to the previous stanza (bait) with a verse starting with its last letter. It is similar to Hindi Antaakshari, Sistanian Baas-o-Beyt, Malayalam Aksharaslokam and, more generally, the British Crambo.

Afzalur Rahman Afsar