Quraishi, Akbar Husain. Farhang-e Tilism-e Hoshruba (Islamabad: Muqtadira Qaumi Zuban, 1995).
Raza, Ghulam Raza. Tilism-e Hoshruba-e Batin. 4 vols. (MS, 1858-59, Rampur Raza Library). Tilism-e Batin Hoshruba. Vols I–II (MS, 1876, Rampur Raza Library), Vols III–IV (MS, 1877, Rampur Raza Library), Vols V–VII (MS, 1878, Rampur Raza Library), Vols VIII–IX (MS, 1879, Rampur Raza Library), Vol X (MS, 1880, Rampur Raza Library).
Raza, Rahi Masum. Tilism-e Hoshruba: Aik Mutala’a (Bombay: Khayaban Publications, 1979).
Subuhi Dehlvi, Ashraf. Dilli Ki Chand Ajib Hastiyan (Delhi: Anjuman-e Taraqi-e Urdu, 1943).
Syed Tasadduq Husain, and Syed Abid Husain. Lughat-e Kishori (Lucknow: Tej Kumar Press, 1952; rpt., Karachi: Mir Muhammad Kutub Khana, n.d.).
PERSIAN
Abu Tahir Tarsusi, and Husain Ismaili. Abu Muslim Nama. 4 vols. (Rpt., Tehran: Intisharat-e Mueen, 2001).
Ali, Wajid. Matla-ul Uloom wa Majma-ul Funoon (Lucknow: Naval Kishore Press, 1902; rpt., Quetta: Maktaba al-Quds, n.d.).
British Library, Shah-e Mardan Ali. (MS, British Library).
Ghiyasuddin Muhammad, Sirajuddin Ali Khan, and Mansur Sarwat. Farhang-e Ghiyas al-Lughat wa Farhang-e Chiragh-e Hidayat. (Tehran: Intisharat-e Amir Kabir, 1944).
Hamdani, Haji Qissa-Khvan. Zubdatur Rumuz. (MS, c. 1613–14. Khuda Bakhsh Library, Patna).
Kitab-e Rumuz-e Hamza (Tehran: AH 1274-76 [1857–59]; British Museum Library).
Mirza Muhammad Khan ‘Malik-ul Kuttab’. Kitab-e Dastan-e Amir Hamza Sahibqiran. (Bombay: Matba-e Sapehr-e Matla, AH 1327 [1909]).
Muhammad Badshah Shad, and Muhammad Dabir Siyaqi. Farhang Anand Raj. 7 vols. (Tehran: Kutubkhana-e Khayyam, 1917).
Shiar, Jafar, ed. Qissa-e Hamza. 2 vols. (Tehran : University of Tehran Press, AH 1347 [1968–69]).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have benefited immensely from dastan scholar Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s work, Sahiri, Shahi, Sahibqirani – a voluminous study of the poetics of the Urdu dastan. It will remain the starting point for all future dastan criticism.
I also relied on Gyan Chand Jain’s encyclopaedic study, Urdu Ki Nasri Dastanen. He performed a great service to Urdu literature by compiling this record of Urdu dastans, qissas and other classical literature dispersed in private and public libraries.
I am indebted to Professor C. M. Naim for his guidance in translating some difficult passages and verses, and for his encouragement of my translation work.
The guidance and encouragement of my friend, Professor Muhammad Umar Memon, has helped me discover and explore many facets of our literary culture. His friendship has always been a great support in my work. He was the first to publish an excerpt from my translation of The Adventures of Amir Hamza, and the first to publish an excerpt from Hoshruba in the Annual of Urdu Studies.
My friend and editor Bob Wyatt, with his natural sense for stories, has been one of my most trusted guides in literature. If a novel fell on Earth from a distant planet, I am sure he would be able to read and make sense of it, and send it back marked with his edits. As my fiction editor, his first instinct is to keep me focussed on my original writing. But knowing that my translation work also informs my original writing, he has decided to let me simultaneously ride my two wobbly boats, and also to lend a hand with the rowing.
My friend Elham Eshraghi helped in translating the Persian verses and phrases, looked up many references to the Hamza legend in Iranian libraries, and found dictionaries and reference books. She has an abiding interest in promoting the joint cultural heritage of the region through her 7Zones project and has always been supportive of my work.
Dastan enthusiast Syed Mujtaba Abbas sponsored the editing of this book. He is also in the process of publishing in Urdu a new edition of the complete 46-volume set of the Amir Hamza dastan cycle.
One of the pleasures of working on this project was to make the acquaintance of this book’s copy editor, Rick Johnson (www.finalcopy.ca) whose professional care and attention kept the publication on schedule.
In the completion of this work, I owe the single greatest debt to my friend Haleema Jazmin Quill. As a child, she listened to the adventures of the trickster Amar Ayyar from her father, Marghoob Ahmed Quraishi, who retold them – in the best tradition of storytellers – with his own embellishments. She was the first reader of this translation and her enthusiasm for this tale kept me working on the translation even on days when I felt lazy, or slow, or both. She painstakingly edited the manuscript; the hundreds of queries she sent me about various aspects of the story helped make this translation more coherent and fluid. I was extremely lucky and privileged to have her support.
During this ongoing translation adventure, the sufferer-in-chief has been (and will be) my wife Michelle. She read the different drafts, gave her feedback, and made drawings of trickster girls, sorcerers and giants that made me imagine this story in a new light. She also took care of my share of housework when I acted the martyr, hiding behind and using my translation work as excuse.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
MUSHARRAF ALI FAROOQI is an author, novelist and translator. He was born in 1968 in Hyderabad, Pakistan. His critically acclaimed translation of The Adventures of Amir Hamza by Ghalib Lakhnavi and Abdullah Bilgrami was published in 2008. His children’s picture book The Cobbler’s Holiday Or Why Ants Don’t Wear Shoes was published in 2008; and his novel The Story of a Widow was published in India in 2009. A translation of contemporary Urdu poet Afzal Ahmed Syed Rococo and Other Worlds is forthcoming in 2010. Farooqi is currently collaborating on the graphic novel Rabbit Rap illustrated by Michelle Farooqi.
www.mafarooqi.com
THE ADVENTURES OF AMIR HAMZA
Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s definitive English translation of The Adventures of Amir Hamza (2008) presents the spellbinding story Amir Hamza, adventurer and uncle of prophet Muhammed, who travels to exotic lands, defeats countless enemies, and encounters along the way warriors and kings, tricksters and fairies, courtesans and magical creatures.
“Non-Urdu-speaking readers can at least appreciate an epic ‘on par with anything in the Western canon.’…the classical pantheon populated by the indomitable Achilles, cunning Odysseus and righteous King Arthur will now be joined by a new, beloved hero: mercurial, mighty Amir Hamza, astride his winged demon steed, soaring to the heavens.” —Time
“Extraordinary. Farooqi has translated into English what most of us thought was untranslatable. The Adventures of Amir Hamza have beguiled readers in many languages for centuries.” —C.M. Naim, Professor Emeritus of Urdu Studies, University of Chicago
COMING SOON
THE PRISONER OF BATIN
Book 2 of Tilism-e Hoshruba
The Master of the Tilism, Emperor Afrasiyab, seals the region of Batin the Hidden, making the trickster Amar Ayyar a virtual prisoner in the tilism. Unable to escape, Amar Ayyar avenges himself on the sorcerer emperor, causing death and destruction in Batin.
Read more about Hoshruba at
www.hoshruba.com
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