In the Bazaar of Love: The Selected Poetry of Amir Khusrau (Penguin Hardback Classics)

by Sunil Sharma

  Husain, Mumtaz. Amir Khusrav Dehlavi. Karachi: Saad Publications, 1986.

  ___. Amīr Khusrau: hayāt aur shā‘irī. Islamabad: Naishnal Kamītī barā’e Sātsau Sālah Taqrībāt-i Amīr Khusrau, 1975.

  Meraj Ahmed Nizami. Surūd-e rūhānī: qavvālī ke rang, Delhi: Ghulam Hasnain, 1998.

  Mirza, Mohammad Wahid. Life and Works of Amir Khusrau. Lahore: Punjab University Press, 1962. (Reprint; Delhi, 1974).

  Nath, R. and Faiyaz Gwaliari. India as Seen by Amir Khusrau (1318 AD) Jaipur: Historical Research Documentation Programme, 1981.

  Qureshi, Regula Burckhardt. Sufi Music of India and Pakistan: Sound, Context, and Meaning in Qawwali. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

  Seyller, John. Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Walters Art Museum Khamsa of Amīr Khusraw of Delhi. Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2001.

  Samnani, S. Ghulam. Amir Khusrau. New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1968.

  Sarmadee, Shahab. Amīr Khusrau’s Prose Writings on Music in Rasā’il’ul I’jāz, better known as I’jāz-i Khusrawī, ed. Prem Lata Sharma and F. ‘Nalini’ Delvoye. Kolkata: ITC Sangeet Research Academy, 2004.

  Sharma, Sunil. Amir Khusraw: Poet of Sultans and Sufis. Oxford: Oneworld, 2005.

  Selected Glossary

  Abraham

  : a prophet who was cast by King Nimrod into a fire which, at God’s command, was miraculously transformed into a garden

  ‘Azrā

  : beloved of Vāmiq in the romantic tale by ‘Unsurī

  Farhād

  : sculptor who is the rival of King Khusrau for the love of Shīrīn

  ghāzī

  : warrior for the cause of Islam

  gujrī

  : female member of a tribe that traditionally used to sell dairy products

  jogī

  : or yogi, refers to an ascetic

  kajak

  : curved hook used to control elephants

  khānaqāh

  : Sufi establishment headed by a pīr where mystical gatherings take place

  Khizr

  : the prophet who led Alexander to the water of life

  Khusrau

  : ancient king of Iran and legendary rival of Farhād for the love of Shīrīn

  Lailā

  : beloved of Majnūn in the Arab tale of star-crossed lovers

  Majnūn

  : the madman-lover of Lailā in the Arab tale of star-crossed lovers

  pān

  : betel leaf that is stuffed with other ingredients and chewed

  pīr

  : elder or Sufi master, also known as murshid

  qawwālī

  : ecstatic performance of Sufi verses in South Asia

  qibla

  : direction of Mecca towards which Muslims face during prayer

  sāqī

  : cup-bearer or wine server at royal banquets, usually a young boy, frequently addressed in ghazals

  Shīrīn

  : beloved and wife of King Khusrau who is also loved by Farhād

  Vāmiq

  : lover of ‘Azrā in the romantic tale by ‘Unsurī

  Yūsuf

  : a prophet (Joseph) and object of Zulaikhā’s desire

  Zulaikhā

  : wife of Potiphar whose longing for Yūsuf was transformed into a licit love

  Acknowledgements

  We have worked closely together in every phase of this project, but as in any collaboration there has been some division of labour. Paul has been primarily responsible for the selection and translation of the ghazals, while Sunil took on the Hindi and other Persian poems. We have looked over each other’s shoulders throughout the process in countless phone calls and email exchanges, and all the translations have benefited from this incessant, friendly and peaceful collaboration. This introduction began with Sunil’s earlier study of Amīr Khusrau’s career, but was subject to so many rewrites and revisions that it has ended up a truly co-authored work.

  Introductory acknowledgements offer scant thanks to those who have inspired and supported a project this complex and ultimately it is the book itself that must convey the gratitude we feel. But to name a few names:

  Paul would first like to thank Sunil for inviting him into this richly rewarding project and ensuring that his flights of English fancy did not fly too far off the course set by Khusrau’s Persian. Paul’s students and colleagues in the translation studies programme in the Department of Comparative Literature at Indiana University offered endless insights into the delicate negotiations of language and culture that are inherent to translation. Long conversations with Franklin Lewis on the particular problems of moving between medieval Persian and modern English poetics have informed this project in ways too subtle to enumerate. And Paul’s wife, Arzetta Hults-Losensky, has patiently endured all the drafts of the translations and provided enthusiastic love and support throughout.

  Sunil would like to thank R. Sivapriya and Ambar Sahil Chatterjee at Penguin India for their support of this project; Françoise ‘Nalini’ Delvoye and Yousuf Saeed for their unceasing dedication to Amīr Khusrau’s legacy; and the organizers of the Jashn-e-Khusrau in New Delhi, March 2010, where some of the translations were first presented.

  1 A reference to the diagonal fold of the rose’s outer petal that resembles the Hindu sacred thread that is worn over the shoulder until the waist.

  2 Nāi means both ‘barber’ and ‘no.’

  3 Nahi means both ‘no’ and ‘prohibiter’.

  4 Qutb and Farīd refer to the Chishti Sufi pīrs Qutbuddin Bakhtiyār Kākī and Farīduddīn ‘Ganj-i Shikar’ who preceded Nizāmuddīn.

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  First published by Penguin Books India 2011

  Translation copyright © Paul E. Losensky and Sunil Sharma 2011

  Cover calligraphy and design by Mugdha Sadhwani

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-06-7008-236-0

  This digital edition published in 2012.

  e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-522-0

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