Wikis and an Encyclopedia in Urdu

I just found a wiki in Urdu:

http://www.sovereign-renditions.info/urduwiki/UrduHome

It also provides information about blogging in Urdu. For those who are not following this, there is a very large community of bloggers in Farsi/Persian--it's a largest single community in one language besides English or something—and it will be wondeful to see people blog more in Urdu, too. The languages are very close in script and other such technicalities, so we should be able to build on their achievements.

BTW, I never tire of saying this: The Wikipedia community has also set up an encyclopedia in Urdu. Everyone can and should participate; it should be a wonderful way to engage the Urdu-speaking community and Urdu lovers with the Internet and help the collection and growth of knowledge in Urdu. In case you want the address for that directly, it is at:

http://ur.wikipedia.org

(Here's a link to the entry on my personal blog on this topic.)

Adaab,
iFaqeer

Adaab...

I have just been invited to contribute to this blog. I maintain a personal--or should I say personal/political--blog at http://iFaqeer.blogspot.com. The motto of that blog is:

banaa kar faqeeroN ka hum bhais Ghalib
thamaasha-e-ehl-e-karam dhaikthay haiN
or
Taking the guise of the poor, the dervishes, we, O Ghalib,
Watch the spectacle of the blessed; with power and pelf
(of course, from Chacha, Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib)

One item I posted a little while back on my blog was a translation of a piece by a progressive writer from Delhi. You can read it at: http://ifaqeer.blogspot.com/2005/01/of-oppressors-and-oppressed.html

Hope readers will like that.

Iqbal's Sketch by Khushwant Singh

A lot has been written about poet/philosopher Allama Iqbal. But, the best piece I have come across was the one written by the celebrated Indian author: Khushwant Singh. Khushwant Singh has eloquently translated Iqbal’s Shikwa and Jawab-I-Shikwa, too.

I must say, his comprehension of Iqbal is very neat, indeed. This article gives a good insight about the distinguished and profound person that Iqbal was.

Read the article at: http://www.musicalnirvana.com/ghazal/iqbal_articles.html.

Shikwa – A Pleading Complaint

Shikwa, or Complaint, was one of the best works of the remarkable poet-philosopher: Allama Muhammad Iqbal. Shikwa is primarily a despaired and exigent cry of a dismal, yet beseeched believer, for his beleaguered community.

Shikwa was brilliant, but also controversial. However, Iqbal silenced all his critics by carving out a hard-hitting and thought provoking Jawab-I-Shikwa, what was Allah’s candid reply to the Complaint.
Listen to Iqbal’s Shikwa, in the matchless voice of the late maestro Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: http://www.urdustan.com/aawaz/nusrat1.ram

Urdu ke Rahnuma

Before posting any commentary on my favorite shers, ghazals and nazms on this blog, I would like to quote some shers written in the praise of Urdu. I will start with a sher from Altaf Husain Hali. It says:

Shahad-va-shakkar se shiirii.n urduu zabaa.N hamaarii
hotii hai jis ke bole miThii zubaa.N hamaarii

The meaning of this couplet is that Urdu is a language which is sweeter than sugar and honey and even the tongue becomes sweet when we speak urdu. Such was Hali's love for the language.

Daagh Dehlvi, too considered urdu as the most lovable language of the world. According to him:

Urdu hai jis kaa naam hamii jaante hain "Daagh"
saare jahaa.N mein dhoom hamaarii zubaan kii hai

Another great poet of his time - Akbar Allahabadi went to the extent of saying:

Apne mahbuub kii Khaatir thaa Khudaaa ko ma.nzuur
Varnaa quraan bhii utartaa ba-zabaan-e-urdu

This couplet dares to say that:
Had it not been for God's loving messenger
Quran, too, would have been sent down in urdu

There are many such ghazals/shers which glorify the sweet and poetic language called urdu. But for now, I'll like to wind up only to come back with another interesting post on this blog.

Urdu - a language which unites

A language is used by people to communicate with other human beings. Most of the languages in this world developed within particular communities but some languages developed to facilitate interaction between some very diverse communites. These communities didn't have any common thing in language and culture. The communities were Mongols, Mughals, Afghans, Persians, Aryans, Dravedians and some othercommunities based in the great Indian sub-continent. The language which I am talking about is URDU.

Urdu is a language which paved the way towards unification of world's most diverse civilisations and formed the basis of development of one of the world's richest literature and culture.

This Blog is dedicated to Urdu, Hindustan and all those who contributed to the language which unites.