Notes The Musaddas of Hali – a Reinterpretation

Abstract

Whereas there has been a revival of interest in Hali‟s famous poem titled Musaddas-i-madd-u jazr-i-Islam, commonly called the Musaddas – as evidenced by two1 recent translations, i.e., that by Christopher Shackle and Jawed Majeed 1997 (called „Shackle-Majeed‟ henceforth) and the one by Syeda Saiyidain Hameed [2003], this has not been accompanied by a concomitant trend to hail Hali as a precursor of Islamic renaissance or revival in South Asia. There appears to be a sinister attempt to tone down his revolutionary or revivalist role and even to show him as a docile acceptor of the imperial status quo. The two translations have been reviewed by the present writer in Pakistan Perspectives Vol.9, No.2, July-December 2004; Vol.11, No.1, January-June 2006, where the idiosyncratic approach of the translators has been analyzed. The two translations are marked by the remarkable omission of the final „arz-ihal‟ or petition to the Holy Prophet on the grounds that it was a later addition and not organically related to the original poem. This, too, is a false assumption. If the original poem ended on a note of gloom and despair, then for a Muslim there is always hope by throwing oneself at the threshold of the Holy Prophet and pleading for his assistance to his beleaguered community. It appears that the translators wish to ignore or minimize this pivotal role of the Holy Prophet and to show that the Muslims have arrived at a dead-end devoid of any remedy, spiritual succour or spark of hope. The degenerate condition of the Muslims [as described by Hali] came about as a result of the Muslims abandoning the truths and tenets of their faith. If they are to reclaim their glorious heritage and continue their divinely-ordained mission, this could only be