Tribes
The following tribes exist in the pukhtoon society:
1:Pure Pukhtoon
2:Gujjars
3:Qasab
4:Chamyar
5:
1:Pure Pukhtoon
2:Gujjars
3:Qasab
4:Chamyar
5:
Rahman Baba
one of the great religious scholar of Swat (A city in current Pakistan),
Swat Sahib, said: "If any other then, the book of God, was permissible for prayer,
I would have defiantly chosen Rahman's book." At the dawn of seventeenth century, at the age of invasions from the West by Persians and East by Moghols, a the time when Afghans were in the mist of war in every corner of the nation, a the time when education was the last thing in peoples' mind, a legend was born. In the high hills of the Afghan nation, in the provincial area of Mohmand, a child was born, by the name of Abdul Rahman. Abdul Rahman would become one of the greatest poet in the history of the Pashto literature.
At the dawn of seventeenth century, at the age of invasions from the West by Persians and East by Moghols, a the time when Afghans were in the mist of war in every corner of the nation, a the time when education was the last thing in peoples' mind, a legend was born.
In the high hills of the Afghan nation, in the provincial area of Mohmand, a child was born, by the name of Abdul Rahman. Abdul Rahman would become one of the greatest poet in the history of the Pashto literature.
One of the great religious scholar of Swat (A city in current Pakistan), Swat Sahib, said:
"If any other then, the book of God, was permissible for prayer, I would have defiantly chosen Rahman's book."
Abdur Rahman Baba popularly known as Rahman Baba (1064-1123A.H/1653-1711 AD) was born to Abdus Sttar at Bahadur Killi, Hazar Khawani, Peshawar.
Rahman is commonly acknowledged as the saint among Pashto Poets. That is why he is called Rahman Baba. Baba means father, and is a common appellation of reverence for age and wisdom. Professor Preshan Khattak writes, 'there are many excellent poets of Pashto language those of the past and of the present. They are appreciated, loved, but none of them has reached the universal popularity of Rahman Baba and probably no one will'. Rahman Baba a great mystic poet has always been a great source of inspiration for poets and writers. Rahman Baba is an in exhaustible subject for researchers and critics of Pashto language.
Twentieth century gave a new wind of thought to Pukhtoons. With the dawn of the twentieth century, many poets/writers, researchers and critics emerged, they rediscovered Khushal Khan Khattak coupled with ennobling spirit of mysticism of Rahman Baba provided a new spur to the imagination of Pukhtoon poets.
Rahman Baba was well conversant with the prevalent stock of knowledge, fork lore and all the pros and cons of a typical Pukhtoon society. He was not just a detached reclusive mystic, oblivious and blind to the common problems of the people around him. Rahman Baba was a true representative of the spirit of the age he lived in. His poetry is a mirror to the virtues and ills of his period. Many of his verses have become proverbial in Pashto language. His verses have got such a currency in Pashto language that a convincing speech or a sermon remains almost incomplete and even incomprehensible without quoting one or two of his verses as a forceful argument.
The subjects of Baba poetry are universal love, sympathy, humility, peace, humanity and true friendship.
'Rahman Baba was the king of love, the guide to contemplation and virtue, the walking stick of the blind, the leader of poets, the saint of Pathans, and the master of simple word, observes a critic. Dost Mohammad Kamil who has explored Rahman Baba in his most admirable book "Rahman Baba' published in 1958 says, 'Rahman Baba has reached such heights of humanity and honesty that the reader-listener is compelled to accept his words "The Truth".
The poetry of Baba attracted many linguists, Scholars and researchers to understand the collective wisdom of Pukhtoons. Major Raverty and Plowden jointly translated (A selection from the poetry of Afghans) a celebrated book published during the British era. Markazi Naukhar Pukhto Adabi Jirga founded in 1934 by Abdul Khaliq Khaleeq, Abudl Hanan Hami and others arranged the first ever Pashto Mushaira at the mazar of Rahman Baba in 1938. The Jirga included Amir Hamza Khan Shinwari, Samander Khan Samarder, Abdul Ghufran Baikas, Ashraf Maftoon, Ajmal Khattak, Mian said Rasool Rasa, Abdullah Ustad, Mohammad Akram Mahshood. The poets at the Mushaira demanded that Tablets should be prepared for the graves of literary giants, Khushal Khan Khattak and Rahman Baba so that it could be properly preserved. The demand was put before the 'Pukhto Tolana Kabul, Afghanistan.
Mohammad Hassan a sculptor along with an engineer came to Peshawar and prepared the designs of the graves, they handed over the Tablets to the Afghan consulate in Peshawar 1949. The provincial government of N.W.F.P built a complex comprising a white marble mazar, a cafeteria, mosque, library and an auditorium where the poets and writers arrange a three days seminar and a Pashto Mushaira at the mazar of Rahmana Baba every year in the spring season. This year the Rahman Baba day coincides with the centenary celebration of N.W.F.P. The Diwan of Rahman Baba was translated into Urdu in verse form by Amir Hamza Khan Shinwari published in 1963.
Jens Kristian Enevoldsen (1922 -1991) a Danish scholar rendered Rahman Baba's poetry into English under the tile Rahman Baba: the nightingale of Peshawar. Keeping in view the universality of the message of Rahman Baba, I consider him the Nightingale of Humanity.
Ghani Khan
(Ghani Khan)Ghani Khan, whose ninth anniversary is being celebrated today, was not only a poet but a great lover of peace and humanity. His life passed through various phases and almost all of them are reflected in his writings. Most people know little about Ghani Khan. For many, he is only a poet who wrote about love, Music, pleasure, wine and sensuality. For some, he is a rebel while for others he is a heretic. It’s, therefore, makes sense to talk also about his life and times instead of discussing his poetry in isolation.
Ghani Khan was born in January 1914, at Utmanzai village in District Charsadda. He was the eldest son of Bacha Khan who founded the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement and who rose to prominence because of his relentless, non-violent struggle against the British rule in the subcontinent. When Ghani was five, his mother died of influenza and his paternal grandmother took charge of his upbringing, But she also died in 1923
Ghani Khan received his early education from a traditional religious teacher at an Utmanzai mosques. He was then sent to the National High School in Peshawar. After he had studied there for one year, his father set up Azad Islamic Madrassa in his hometown Utmanzai in 1921 and Ghani Khan was admitted to it. At the age of 14, he started composing poetry while he was still at school. But it was in December 1928 that his first poem appeared in Pakhtoon, a monthly journal launched by his father as the organ of the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement for the promotion of the Pashto language.
In 1929, Bacha Khan sent him to London for higher education where he also came to learn about Christianity. Even in those years of adolescence, he was able to impress others with his body and bent of mind. While in London, he got involved in a love affair with an eminent film actress but Bacha Khan did not approve of it. Ghani Khan was told by his father to depart for the United States of America to study of sugar technology at the University of Southern Louisiana.
But though Ghani Khan went to America his heart was in London. It was then that he wrote many verses on the liberalism of the western society. He also wrote about his emotional deprivation. He did Chemical Engine-ering from the US and on his return was appointed in a sugar mill in Uttar Pradesh province as chief chemist.
It was also during these days that, deeply moved by the atrocities committed by the British government against his father’s Khudai Khidmatgars, Ghani Khan sought Bacha Khan’s permission for an armed struggle. Instead he was sent to Allahabad where he stayed with Jawaharlal Nehru.
It is interested to note here that Bacha Khan while sending Ghani Khan, wrote to Nehru
“Teach Ghani Khan our culture, he has been Americanized during his stay in America.”
Therefore, in February 1934 Ghani Khan and Indra Gandhi were admitted to Rabindra Nath Tagore’s Shantiniketan College of Arts where, along with journalism, he started studying sculpture and painting. His stay at Shantiniketan had a profound effect on him.
In his own words, “it was in Shantineketan that I discovered myself and the past greatness of my own culture and civilisation which has produced several men of versatile geniuses, who have been appreciated by historians and scholars of the West.”
In December 1934 he went to Bombay where, at a friend’s house, he met and instantaneously fell in love with Roshan (1907-1987), a Parsi lady of noble birth and the youngest daughter of Nawab Rustum Jang Faridoonji of Hyderabad Deccan. They married on November 24, 1939.
In 1940, he joined Frontier Sugar Mills, Takht-i-Bhai in Mardan District as cane manager. In February 1943, he resigned. But soon the circumstances compelled him, much against his natural inclinations, to actively associate himself with electoral politics.
Ghani Khan was against non-violence preached and practiced by Bacha khan. He believed in struggle through any means possible. This was what prompted him to set up an armed organisation named Zalmey Pakhtun (Pakhtun Youth) to protect Khudai Khidmatgars and members of the Congress Party from violence by the state. But despite his belief in an armed political struggle, he took part in electoral politics. At 32, he was elected as the second youngest member of the Central Legislative Assembly of India in December 1945 on one of the two general seats for the Frontier province.
Zalmey Pakhtoon was banned after Pakistan came into being and Ghani Khan was put behind the bars for allegedly subversive activities. His agricultural land was also confiscated by the provincial government. He remained in different jails for six years and was finally released in 1954.
He devoted the rest of his life entirely to poetry. In 1987 a peasant killed Ghani’s only son Fareedon Khan. Though the incident shook him greatly, he pardoned his son’s killer.
Atrocities by the state, plight of the Pathans and death of his only son gave his poetry a philosophical colour which became a hallmark of his literary persona. Ghani Khan’s first poetic collection was Da Penjery Chaghaar (Chirpings of the Cage) which he wrote from 1947 to 1954 while he was in jail. His other books include Palwashey (Beams of Light), Panoos (Chandelier), Latoon (Search) and Kulyat-e-Ghani (A collection of Ghani’s poetry).
It is because of his varied and colourful personality that one can see so many shades — ranging from freedom, love of God, land and people, nationalism, fate, the mysteries of life and death, the joys of communion, and the woes of separation to beauty — in his poetry.
According to him, it is the duty of the poets to turn man’s attention to those higher centres of his being where he might see the reflection of his own perfection and the face of his eternal beloved beauty. A poet, therefore must worship beauty in thought, in word and in deed. Ghani Khan was of the view that beauty is the essence of civilisation and culture which includes almost all human creative activities like painting, sculpture and music. “Without the search for beauty in thought, word and deed we cannot have any kind of civilisation.”
Ghani khan was a passionate devotee of freedom to whom the slavery of foreign domination was anathema. His love for freedom and hate for slavery is manifested by these verses.
Though tombstones fine of bluish slate Should ornament, adorn, my grave, But I were to have died a slave, Come, spit on and defile them!
Beauty and love are the foundation upon which the building blocks of his poetry are lying. Beauty, according to him, is present everywhere. If one is beautiful from within, then the whole universe would be beautiful. But if one were hypocritical and ugly from within, then the whole world would be dark and unattractive.
In Ghani Khan’s view, God created the world beautifully. It is only man’s narrow-mindedness and prejudices that make it ugly. Ghani commented once, “Allah created light and colour, poetry in nature and taught us so that we can appreciate them and their creator”.
Love for him is the divine gift of God. It is far more superior to beauty because physical beauty is mortal and would perish while the spirit of love is immortal. The beauty of the beloved is essential but it is the passion of the lover which makes love eternal.
He describes his “Beloved” in this manner.
Eyes, two in love, Load with scores of vision bright
Enriched my universe with Eye-appealing flowers, Giving in this world a draught of wine of Paradise. Loading my dreams with life, flooding life of mine with dreams Handfuls and handfuls of lustrous moon’s white
Lightning you splashed and sprinkled devotedly into my feet.
You showed me God, the Almighty, Hidden in Love deeds.
And threw heaps of stars in to shallow apron of mine.
I hear nymphs’ hustle bustle in your shining beauty
You showed me God, the Almighty, hidden in Love deeds.
Apart from Pashto, Ghani Khan also wrote in English. His first English book, The Pathans, which was published in 1947, remains the best humorous introduction to the people of the Frontier. It is a description of history, culture, traditions and customs of Pakhtoons. It also depicts their feuds, enmities and their attitudes to life. “Pathan is not merely a race but in fact, a state of mind; there is a Pathan lying inside every man, who at times wakes up and overpowers him,” he once wrote.
He was very proud of his being a Pakhtoon and thanked God that he was born among Pakhtuns. He says.
“When I see my clay-made homes, I forget about the cities of the world.
When you embrace a simple Pakhtun brother, You may forget about the lands and seas of the world.I am thankful to Allah for having created me among the Pakhtun nation.”
His poetry is about humanism, and the search for truth. It is about self realization. “I want to see my people educated and enlightened. A people with a vision and a strong sense of justice who can carve out a future for themselves, in harmony with nature”.
Ghani Khan was not just a poet. He was a painter and sculptor. About his paintings, he once said “From the very beginning I have only drawn faces. I don’t draw anything else. I think it [the rest] is all a lot of waste of time. You see I want to get the personality of the person into the paper. And that you can only show through his eyes, his face.”
Despite touching the glories of fame and sagacity, he sees himself neither as a poet, nor as a sculptor or painter but perhaps only as a plagiarist who very humbly glorifies, the work of another artist, the real creator, who he calls Al-Musavvir (The Artist) and Al-Jameel (The beautiful).
Ghani khan possessed such a great wisdom that he could see things in their true colours. His poetry at times reads like the description of the secrets and mysteries of life. For him, life without an objective has no meaning. Death is the manifestation of the kindness of the Creator for man. He sees life in the eyes of death because it is death, which unites man with God and is proof of God’s love and mercy for mankind. He further says,
“I do not believe that death is the end of life, because ecstasy does not end with the end of wine in the Jam.” With these bearings in his mind, Ghani Khan died on March 15, 1996 in Peshawar and was buried by the side of his mother in his ancestral graveyard near Utmanzai, Charsadda.
O'Lord! What a mad I were to love just an idea,
Being drowned in the sea just for a ruby that I love.
O'Lord! What a rapture is this that I lost my sweetheart,
Or, I was charmed by the broker of the eyes of my beloved.
I couldn't gulp down the sea, so I had a hand-cups of it,
Since I was incapable to love the sun, I loved the crescent.
As my bosom couldn't store, I put them up in my dreams.
When I faced my beloved, I was charmed by the tastoo-mark
Neither excitement of the youth, nor delight of the wine.
I have, infact, fallen in love of an idea of my beloved's eyes
Did I hear laila calls for the prayers, or the Praise of Bilal,
Or I loved the lingling of the anklet bells of my beloved
Was it the moth delighted in darkness the name of candle;
Or I have fallen in love of an idea of my beloved's eyes.
Whether the grasshopper saw the shadow of sun in a dewdrop;
Or my sweetheart smiled at me in any dreams?
Ghani Khan was born in January 1914, at Utmanzai village in District Charsadda. He was the eldest son of Bacha Khan who founded the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement and who rose to prominence because of his relentless, non-violent struggle against the British rule in the subcontinent. When Ghani was five, his mother died of influenza and his paternal grandmother took charge of his upbringing, But she also died in 1923
Ghani Khan received his early education from a traditional religious teacher at an Utmanzai mosques. He was then sent to the National High School in Peshawar. After he had studied there for one year, his father set up Azad Islamic Madrassa in his hometown Utmanzai in 1921 and Ghani Khan was admitted to it. At the age of 14, he started composing poetry while he was still at school. But it was in December 1928 that his first poem appeared in Pakhtoon, a monthly journal launched by his father as the organ of the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement for the promotion of the Pashto language.
In 1929, Bacha Khan sent him to London for higher education where he also came to learn about Christianity. Even in those years of adolescence, he was able to impress others with his body and bent of mind. While in London, he got involved in a love affair with an eminent film actress but Bacha Khan did not approve of it. Ghani Khan was told by his father to depart for the United States of America to study of sugar technology at the University of Southern Louisiana.
But though Ghani Khan went to America his heart was in London. It was then that he wrote many verses on the liberalism of the western society. He also wrote about his emotional deprivation. He did Chemical Engine-ering from the US and on his return was appointed in a sugar mill in Uttar Pradesh province as chief chemist.
It was also during these days that, deeply moved by the atrocities committed by the British government against his father’s Khudai Khidmatgars, Ghani Khan sought Bacha Khan’s permission for an armed struggle. Instead he was sent to Allahabad where he stayed with Jawaharlal Nehru.
It is interested to note here that Bacha Khan while sending Ghani Khan, wrote to Nehru
“Teach Ghani Khan our culture, he has been Americanized during his stay in America.”
Therefore, in February 1934 Ghani Khan and Indra Gandhi were admitted to Rabindra Nath Tagore’s Shantiniketan College of Arts where, along with journalism, he started studying sculpture and painting. His stay at Shantiniketan had a profound effect on him.
In his own words, “it was in Shantineketan that I discovered myself and the past greatness of my own culture and civilisation which has produced several men of versatile geniuses, who have been appreciated by historians and scholars of the West.”
In December 1934 he went to Bombay where, at a friend’s house, he met and instantaneously fell in love with Roshan (1907-1987), a Parsi lady of noble birth and the youngest daughter of Nawab Rustum Jang Faridoonji of Hyderabad Deccan. They married on November 24, 1939.
In 1940, he joined Frontier Sugar Mills, Takht-i-Bhai in Mardan District as cane manager. In February 1943, he resigned. But soon the circumstances compelled him, much against his natural inclinations, to actively associate himself with electoral politics.
Ghani Khan was against non-violence preached and practiced by Bacha khan. He believed in struggle through any means possible. This was what prompted him to set up an armed organisation named Zalmey Pakhtun (Pakhtun Youth) to protect Khudai Khidmatgars and members of the Congress Party from violence by the state. But despite his belief in an armed political struggle, he took part in electoral politics. At 32, he was elected as the second youngest member of the Central Legislative Assembly of India in December 1945 on one of the two general seats for the Frontier province.
Zalmey Pakhtoon was banned after Pakistan came into being and Ghani Khan was put behind the bars for allegedly subversive activities. His agricultural land was also confiscated by the provincial government. He remained in different jails for six years and was finally released in 1954.
He devoted the rest of his life entirely to poetry. In 1987 a peasant killed Ghani’s only son Fareedon Khan. Though the incident shook him greatly, he pardoned his son’s killer.
Atrocities by the state, plight of the Pathans and death of his only son gave his poetry a philosophical colour which became a hallmark of his literary persona. Ghani Khan’s first poetic collection was Da Penjery Chaghaar (Chirpings of the Cage) which he wrote from 1947 to 1954 while he was in jail. His other books include Palwashey (Beams of Light), Panoos (Chandelier), Latoon (Search) and Kulyat-e-Ghani (A collection of Ghani’s poetry).
It is because of his varied and colourful personality that one can see so many shades — ranging from freedom, love of God, land and people, nationalism, fate, the mysteries of life and death, the joys of communion, and the woes of separation to beauty — in his poetry.
According to him, it is the duty of the poets to turn man’s attention to those higher centres of his being where he might see the reflection of his own perfection and the face of his eternal beloved beauty. A poet, therefore must worship beauty in thought, in word and in deed. Ghani Khan was of the view that beauty is the essence of civilisation and culture which includes almost all human creative activities like painting, sculpture and music. “Without the search for beauty in thought, word and deed we cannot have any kind of civilisation.”
Ghani khan was a passionate devotee of freedom to whom the slavery of foreign domination was anathema. His love for freedom and hate for slavery is manifested by these verses.
Though tombstones fine of bluish slate Should ornament, adorn, my grave, But I were to have died a slave, Come, spit on and defile them!
Beauty and love are the foundation upon which the building blocks of his poetry are lying. Beauty, according to him, is present everywhere. If one is beautiful from within, then the whole universe would be beautiful. But if one were hypocritical and ugly from within, then the whole world would be dark and unattractive.
In Ghani Khan’s view, God created the world beautifully. It is only man’s narrow-mindedness and prejudices that make it ugly. Ghani commented once, “Allah created light and colour, poetry in nature and taught us so that we can appreciate them and their creator”.
Love for him is the divine gift of God. It is far more superior to beauty because physical beauty is mortal and would perish while the spirit of love is immortal. The beauty of the beloved is essential but it is the passion of the lover which makes love eternal.
He describes his “Beloved” in this manner.
Eyes, two in love, Load with scores of vision bright
Enriched my universe with Eye-appealing flowers, Giving in this world a draught of wine of Paradise. Loading my dreams with life, flooding life of mine with dreams Handfuls and handfuls of lustrous moon’s white
Lightning you splashed and sprinkled devotedly into my feet.
You showed me God, the Almighty, Hidden in Love deeds.
And threw heaps of stars in to shallow apron of mine.
I hear nymphs’ hustle bustle in your shining beauty
You showed me God, the Almighty, hidden in Love deeds.
Apart from Pashto, Ghani Khan also wrote in English. His first English book, The Pathans, which was published in 1947, remains the best humorous introduction to the people of the Frontier. It is a description of history, culture, traditions and customs of Pakhtoons. It also depicts their feuds, enmities and their attitudes to life. “Pathan is not merely a race but in fact, a state of mind; there is a Pathan lying inside every man, who at times wakes up and overpowers him,” he once wrote.
He was very proud of his being a Pakhtoon and thanked God that he was born among Pakhtuns. He says.
“When I see my clay-made homes, I forget about the cities of the world.
When you embrace a simple Pakhtun brother, You may forget about the lands and seas of the world.I am thankful to Allah for having created me among the Pakhtun nation.”
His poetry is about humanism, and the search for truth. It is about self realization. “I want to see my people educated and enlightened. A people with a vision and a strong sense of justice who can carve out a future for themselves, in harmony with nature”.
Ghani Khan was not just a poet. He was a painter and sculptor. About his paintings, he once said “From the very beginning I have only drawn faces. I don’t draw anything else. I think it [the rest] is all a lot of waste of time. You see I want to get the personality of the person into the paper. And that you can only show through his eyes, his face.”
Despite touching the glories of fame and sagacity, he sees himself neither as a poet, nor as a sculptor or painter but perhaps only as a plagiarist who very humbly glorifies, the work of another artist, the real creator, who he calls Al-Musavvir (The Artist) and Al-Jameel (The beautiful).
Ghani khan possessed such a great wisdom that he could see things in their true colours. His poetry at times reads like the description of the secrets and mysteries of life. For him, life without an objective has no meaning. Death is the manifestation of the kindness of the Creator for man. He sees life in the eyes of death because it is death, which unites man with God and is proof of God’s love and mercy for mankind. He further says,
“I do not believe that death is the end of life, because ecstasy does not end with the end of wine in the Jam.” With these bearings in his mind, Ghani Khan died on March 15, 1996 in Peshawar and was buried by the side of his mother in his ancestral graveyard near Utmanzai, Charsadda.
O'Lord! What a mad I were to love just an idea,
Being drowned in the sea just for a ruby that I love.
O'Lord! What a rapture is this that I lost my sweetheart,
Or, I was charmed by the broker of the eyes of my beloved.
I couldn't gulp down the sea, so I had a hand-cups of it,
Since I was incapable to love the sun, I loved the crescent.
As my bosom couldn't store, I put them up in my dreams.
When I faced my beloved, I was charmed by the tastoo-mark
Neither excitement of the youth, nor delight of the wine.
I have, infact, fallen in love of an idea of my beloved's eyes
Did I hear laila calls for the prayers, or the Praise of Bilal,
Or I loved the lingling of the anklet bells of my beloved
Was it the moth delighted in darkness the name of candle;
Or I have fallen in love of an idea of my beloved's eyes.
Whether the grasshopper saw the shadow of sun in a dewdrop;
Or my sweetheart smiled at me in any dreams?
Khushal Khan Khatak
Khushal Khan Khattak was born at Akora Khattak district Nowshera in 1613.
He was an intelligent and bold person from childhood. His father Shahbaz Khan
was killed in a tribal clash on 4th January, 1641. Mughal Emperor Shahjehan
was the ruler of India during that period. Shahjehan had great regard for
Khushal Khan Khattak due to the guts that he possessed. Khushal Khan
Khattak was the ally of Mughals during many adventures and was awarded
a Jagir and Lakhs of rupees.
The distances between the Aurangzeb Allamgir and Khushal Khan Khattak
increased due to some misunderstandings and the latter was not remained a
favorable person near the former personality.
Mahabat Khan who was the governor of Peshawar had tried to keep the
relation between Khushal Khan Khattak and Aurangzeb Alamgir and was
successful to a great extent. After Mahabat Khan, Syed Amir Khan was
appointed as governor Peshawar then the tension increased between Khushal
Khan Khattak and Syed Amir Khan, as a result Khushal Khan Khattak was
arrested and put behind the bars. Khushal Khan Khattak was later on released and returned to homeland in 1668, but the relations between government and him remained tense. He was a good poet and religious scholar. He is also called with the name of Baba-e-Pushto. His poetry consists of more than 45,000 poems. According to some historians the number of books written by him is more than 200. But the books, which enjoyed more fame, are Baz Nama, Fazal Nama, Distar Nama and Farrah Nama. The Mazar of Khushal Khan Khattak is situated near the Railway Station of Akora Khattak in Nowshera district.
After adorning herself elegantly and graciously from top to toe turning to be merciless and tyrannous.
She'll rob and plander the hearts with every hair of her lock.
Lo! The beauty is conferred upon the sweetheart in abundance,
so that she may bereave and deprive the lover of his heart.
A spot where a few beloveds are seated for some time
is more accelerated and enhanced in excellence than oparadize.
Her black eye lashes are as furious and violent as arrows,
they'll assault the lover, if the sweetheart has raised up her attractive eyes.
ll inflame your heart furiously and tremendously.
If two lovers are displeased and angry with one another,
their courtship and affection will strengthen and confirm their friendly relations.
There are as many soars and specks on my heart,
As the tattoos on the lovely countenance of my sweetheart.
When all the benumbed and bereaved are assembled to enjoy themselves,
Their best enjoyment is the negotiation concerning your appreciation.
O'Khushal! don't look at her with deliberation and seruting,
It'll inflame your heart furiously and tremendously.
Ameer Hamza Shinwari
Amir Hamza Shinwari, the legendry poet, scrip writer, dramatist, and a saint, is
commonly known as 'Baba-e-Ghazal' (the father of Pakhto Ghazal).
Hamza Baba himself testified the fact in a couplet, that:
The crimson of color in your cheeks,
Is the color of the blood of Hamza.
You came of age, Pashto Ghazal,
But turned me into an old Baba
Hamza Baba, son of the rugged mountains of the Khyber agency, born in
Lwargi, a village in the north-west of Landi Kotal, in the house of Malik Baz
Mir Khan, Chief of the Ashraf Khel, a clan of Shinwari Pakhtoon tribe, in
December 1907. At of the age of six, he was admitted to school in Lwargi; from
there, when he was eight, he came to Peshawar and continued his studies at
Islamia Collegiate Peshawar. But he gave up his studies, when he was in 9th class,
and retired to his village. And get married, soon after, according to the Shinwari
tradition of early marriage.
Hamza Baba, later on, joined the British India Political Department as Passport Officer, later he worked as T.T. Officer in the All-India Railways. Forced by his restless nature, he quit the job, and devoted his energies to polish and gloss over the inborn artist. He went to the cosmopolitan city of Bombay-the Hollywood of Subcontinent. There he performed as a dacoit in a silent film 'Falcon': but unsatisfied with, he returned to his homeland. And devoted his life to mysticism, under the patronage and guidance of his murshid (god father), Sheikh Abdul Satar Chesthi, known as 'Bacha Khan'. Inspired by the wonderland of Sufism, which he called the 'haratabad, and a desire to achieve the unattainable. He carved a niche in the awesome of temple mysticism, and lived there for good in the monastery of his soul.
Hamza Shinwari started his career as a poet, when he was in 5th class. According to Hamza Baba, "my poetic nature persuaded me, and I started poetry in Urdu." The first ever poetry of his life was in Urdu. But on the advice of his patron, Sheikh Abdul Satar, he started poetry in his mother tongue, and devoted himself to the service Pashto. A couplet of his depicts Hamza Baba's attactchmetn and gratitude for Pakhto. Accordingly:
The enemy brands it as a language of hell,
To heaven I will go with Pashto.
Hamza Baba stands at the juncture of the medieval and modern Pashto poetry, and can undoubtedly be called the renaissance of the Pashto poetry. He lifted Pashto lyric to its zenith. This is why Hamza Baba stands at an enviable stature among all poets, and a pillar of the Pashto literature. Particularly, Pakhto Ghazal is remarkable: for its construction, expression, style, imagery, and even its diction. Testifying to this, he was crowned and jeweled with the epitaph of 'Baba-e-Ghazal' (the father of Ghazal) in a mushaera, which organized by 'Bazm-e-Adab' (Pakhto Literary Society) under the patronage of Pir Abdul Satar, in 1940.
Hamza Baba was a dramatist and prose writer of his class. He wrote more or less 400 dramas. According to Hamza Shinwari, Hamza Baba has written 200 plays, during his life long association with the All-India Radio that was established in 1935. Some of his well-known plays are: Zamindar (the farmer), Ahmad Shah Abdali, Akhtar Mo Mubarak Shah (Eid Greetings), Dwa Bakhilan (two Misers), Fateh Khan Rabia, Guman Da Eman Zyan de (doubt undermines faith), Khan Bahadur Sahib, Khushal Khan Khattak, Khisto, Matali Shair (the poet of proverbs), Maimoona, Muqabilla (competition), Qurbani (Sacrifice), Spinsare Paighla (the spinster), Da Damano Khar (city of the Professional singers), Da Chursiyano Badshah (king of the Hashish smokers), and Jrandagarhe (the miller). But these are just names and no more, as most of these manuscripts, for he handed over to the Radio in original text, were lost or misplaced. He has written the scripts, songs and dialogues of three mega-hit classical, namely: Laiala Majnoon, Paighla (the virgin) and Allaqa Ghair (the tribal area) both in 1960s.
Hamza Baba has authored so many books of varied subjects: some about philosophy of human life and mysticism, other about love and romanticism, or ethics and social values. Starting with short stories and essays, to some estimates, he has 30 books to his name, including ten books in Urdu. These include: Tazkira-e-Sittaria, Tajjaliate Mohammadia (the refulgence of Mohammad), Jabar Wa Ikhtiaar (Free will & Predetermination), Nawe Chape (new waves), Tashheer da Kaiynat (conquest of the universe), Wajud Wa Sujud (the essence of the apparent), Anna aur Ilm (ego and knowledge) in Urdu and its Pashto version, Insany anna au poha (human ego and knowledge), Zhwand (life) in Pashto and Zindagee in Urdu, and Da Weeno jam (cup of blood). He has written travelogue of his journey to Afghanistan and Mecca. He has translated Rehman Baba's Dewan (collection poetry) into Urdu, and two major works-Armaghan-e-Hijaz and Javed Nama--of 'Shair-e-Mashreq' (Poet of the East), Dr. Allama Mohammad, into Pashto, in 1964 and 1967, respectively.
Hamza Baba remained the incubator and nucleus of the institutions and circles framed for the promotion and uplift of the both Pashto and Urdu, during his life time. For instance he was one of the few who has established the first ever Pashto literary society 'Bazm-e-Adab' that came into being in 1937. He acted as vice president, and remained president until 1950 when it was finally evolved into 'Olasi Adabi Jirga' (National Literary Society). He was nominated vice president of Dairay-e-Adabiya (Urdu Literary Circle).
Hamza Baba suffered, for long, from kidney illness, which he operated at Hyderabad, in 1986, but to no effect and his traveled to the master on February 18, 1994. He was laid to rest in his ancestral graveyard of Ashraf Khel at Lwargi. After two and a half year, his mortal remains were exhumed and reburied at Darwazgai graveyard.
Owing to his services, he was awarded for his epoch making services the Presidential Pride Award by ZIa-ul-Haq in his life time, while the present government is presenting a tribute to him by constructing the Amir Hamza Khan Shinwari Complex at the site of his grave at Darwazgai, Landi Kotal, in the Khyber Agency. Marking the eight death anniversary a ground breaking ceremony of the Rs 3.2 billion project took place at the site his graveyard. The complex is consisting of mazar (coliseum), library, and auditorium.
Hamza Shinwari Baba was, undoubtedly, a flowering spring of extraordinary genius, and has become an icon of universal admiration beyond the barriers of cast, language, color, or creed. Dr. Qabel Khan comments that Hamza Baba "is a virtual stream of friends of friends, disciples, admirers, and well-wishers….Hardly there was any day in his life he was not visited by his admirers and readers…his knowledge of Pashto is simply encyclopedic."
Why my love's face wrinkles in smile in the mirror,
Her loveliness increases and excels tremendously.
Since the inducement of her face is similar to spring,
The amazement of the mirror changed into a garden.
The devout seem sorrow stricken externally,
But he doesn't have any sorrow in the heart.
The human beings have to face some constrains,
On the way of their free will.
You can see glimpses of the beauty in my amazement,
You don't need to have a mirror.
Is it the effect of cosmetics or thy own youth,
Which radiates in thy rosy cheeks.
Since you can't determine the standard of thy adornment.
You, therefore, look at the mirror off and on.