TILISM HOSHRABA

Introduction

The dastan of Tilism-e-Hoshruba is to Urdu literature what Homer’s epic poems were to Greek literature and what A Thousand and One Nights were to the Arabian bardic tradition. For years, it was believed that the Tilism-e-Hoshruba was translated from an original Persian version composed by Faizi to entertain the Mughal emperor Akbar. This was due to the established tradition of giving the credit for a dastan to an irreproachable source to establish its credibility as a historical document. It is now almost certain that the bulk of the Tilism dastans were composed not in the sixteenth century but later, in that unique period of aesthetic refinement and cultural decadence which distinguished Lucknow as the capital of the former kingdom of Awadh. The storyline of the Hoshruba chronicle was probably delineated by one Mir Ahmed Ali, a dastangoh or narrator from Lucknow who later moved to Rampur. The story was further embellished by his disciples like Amba Prasad Rasa and numerous other dastangohs, including Rasa’s son, Ghulam Raza.

In the late nineteenth century, the Naval Kishore Press in Lucknow commissioned dastangohs to compile the primarily oral tradition of dastans into written form. The first to be published were the seven volumes of the Tilism-e-Hoshruba, already very popular in its oral form. For this purpose, the canny Munshi Naval Kishore employed Muhammad Husain Jah, a leading dastan narrator and marsia reciter in Lucknow. Jah was familiar with the Hoshruba chronicles and composed the first four volumes of this classic for publication. Ahmed Husain Qamar, another dastan professional, wrote the final three volumes. Qamar had a longer association with his distinguished patron Naval Kishore and continued to compose other Tilism dastans.

Although the Tilism-e-Hoshruba is a narrative complete in itself, it is deemed to be a sequel to the original epic of the legendary Persian hero, Emir Hamza. The Hamza dastan is said to have originated in eleventh-century Persia and was greatly influenced by the national epic Shahnama—the Story of Kings. The story of Hamza is derived from the life of a real-

life hero—Hamza bin Abu Muttalib, the paternal uncle of the Holy Prophet Mohammad. The original Hamza was known to be the strongest man in his tribe, a warrior, a hunter and an outdoor man. The fictional Hamza travels to Persia where he fights the enemies of the emperor Nausherwan and is later trapped in Qaf, the land of jinni and fairies for fourteen years. The last part of Hamza’s story involves his return to Arabia. Here, the fictional Hamza becomes the real Hamza bin Abu Muttalib who defends his nephew, the Holy Prophet, against the kafirs of Mecca and is subsequently martyred at the Battle of Uhud.

The Hamza stories travelled through the Middle East and Central Asia and gained immense popularity. Inevitably, the itinerant dastan narrators added local touches or nuances to the recited text to broaden its appeal. This was particularly apparent during the spread of the Hamza legend in India. The emperor Akbar gave the Hamza story an imperial stamp of acceptance by commissioning a series of 1600 illustrations, painted in the Perso-Mughal miniature style, but on cloth. The size of each illustration and the use of cloth rather than paper was done to allow each illustration to be unfolded simultaneously before the audience while the narrative was being recited.

Gradually, over the centuries, dastan narration became an intrinsic part of court ritual in India. It became increasingly popular in an age when the self-indulgent philosophy to live only for the moment had permeated from the monarch through the aristocracy to all levels of society. Story-tellers were as essential a feature of the entertainment at a royal court or of a nobleman as were retinues of musicians, singers and courtesans. They enjoyed a mass appeal that encouraged the narrators to tailor their stories to suit their audience. The original Hamza stories were translated from Persian into Urdu and spawned another genre of epic fantasies known as the Tilism dastans. Emir Hamza remained the pivotal character, but now was supported by his dynasty of sons, grandsons and great grandsons, all of them like their illustrious forbear— brave, chivalrous and stunningly handsome.