Allama Aqeel Turabi Died Inna Lillah

The religious scholar Allama Aqeel Turabi died in Karachi today.

Inaillah hae wa ina illahae rajayon.
He was 1 of 14 children of Late Allama Raseed Turabi. Allama Aqeel Turabi passes away

Friday, April 24, 2009

By Shamim Bano

KARACHI: Allama Aqeel Turabi died in a local hospital here on Thursday. He was 72. His funeral prayers will be offered at the Imambargah Shah-e-Najaf, Martin Road, after the Friday prayers. He was seriously ill and was in a state of coma for the last three years. He was the second son of late Allama Rasheed Turabi. He is survived by a widow, two sons and two daughters.
He is being laid to rest in Wadi Al Hussain GraveYard after Friday Prayers -on Apr24th.

"urdu ki zabaan dunya ki azeeem zaban hai kyuneh jo zikr Ahl-ul-Bayt as.gif iss zaban mei hoti hai, woh kissi aur zaban mei nahin hoti." He went on to say that "Zikr-e-Ahl-ul-Bayt as.gif ko nikal do, toh urdu ki rooh nikal jaaye gi, urdu hai hii Shioun ki zabaan.

He went onto mention how one of the earliest urdu poets was Amir Khusroo, jin ka pehla sher is:

Man kunto maulaa, Ali maulaa
Aik suurat kii do ha muuratiya
Aik Mohammad, Aik Ali
Man kunto maulaa, Ali maulaa

Bedam yahii to paak ha maqsuud-e-qaayanat
Kair-un-nisaa Hussain, Hasan, Mustafaa, Ali
Man kunto maulaa, Ali maulaa

Iss naam kii tasbiih to farishton ne bhi perhi hai
Man kunto maulaa f'a Ali un maulaa, f'a Ali un maulaa
Da, dad.ril dad.ril dad.raanii, ham tum tanananana, tanananana re.....
Man kunto maulaa, alii maulaa

Ma sadaqe ni maulaa, man kunto maulaa
ahaa mere Ali maulaa, man kunto maulaa
ek suurat kii

Hui kab aisi shaadii, hazarat-e-Adam se taa 'isaa
Ke dulahan Faatimaa zoharaa, Ali al-muratazaa dulhaa
Jo vo bint-e-payambar thii, to ye molud-e-k'aaba thay
Nabii ke ghar kii thii beyti, Khuda ke ghar kaa thaa beyta
Ali maulaa, maulaa, Ali maulaa

da dere....

maulaa, Ali maulaa
Ye naam koii kaam bigarney nahin deytaa
Bigarney bhii banaa deytaa ha sab kaam
Ali maulaa, maulaa Ali maulaa
da da dan dar dam, ta diri diri dam
Ali maulaa, maulaa ali maulaa
ai man kunto maulaa

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Multinationals should help promote literature


Naseer Turabi

By Naseer Ahmad
At the beginning of his poetry collection, Naseer Turabi explains his family background and his passion for poetry with the help of a couplet by Saadi Shirazi, �My ancestors were all religious scholars, but your intense love has inspired me to become a poet.�

The family name Turabi immediately invokes the name of his illustrious father, Allama Rasheed Turabi, whose pictures hang on the walls in the drawing room of his house near Yousuf Plaza. The late Allama Turabi was a very popular orator and erudite scholar of his time. He died on December 18, 1973, but lives on in the audio and video recordings as well as in his admirers� hearts. Naseer, whose resounding voice is similar to that of his father, elder brother Allama Aqeel Turabi or younger brother Salman Turabi, has veered a little off the ancestral path. His grandfather, Maulvi Sharraf Husain Khan, was also a religious scholar in Hyderabad (Deccan).

Although Naseer has so far published only a slender collection of his poetical works titled Aks-i-Faryadi, his ghazals have been picked up, sung and made more popular by renowned artistes such as Ahmed Rushdi, Runa Laila, Gulshan Ara Syed, Asad Amanat Ali Khan and Abida Parveen. �I�ve never tried to have my poetry sung. But somehow these eminent vocalists have picked my poetry from here and there and sung them,� says the poet.

Born in Hyderabad (Deccan) in 1945, Naseer Turabi studied at Sindh Madrasstul Islam and did his graduation from the Jinnah college before doing his Master�s in journalism from Karachi University. On the recommendation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, he began his career at an insurance company as a PRO and then the information department where he rose to the post of deputy director before quitting the job and setting up his own modest business agency.

�My two sons, Danish Turabi and Rashid Turabi, are well settled and I live a contented life. I�m content with my poetic achievements also and do not aspire for much.�

Often seen at TV mushairas, either compering or reciting his own salam or naat, he is essentially a ghazal poet.

�Initially, I wrote poems, but Nasir Kazmi told me in 1967 that I was ruining my ghazal as he believed the poems I wrote were in the idiom of ghazal.� He doesn�t agree to the notion that ghazal is a genre that is easy to handle. �Rather it is a test case for a poet. Every couplet of a ghazal may have a different subject, but there is an underlying unity of mood. And a good poet has to maintain this undercurrent throughout the ghazal.�

Arguing that when a cricketer hits a six, various firms reward him with big prizes, but there is no such incentive for poets and writers who keep creating literature throughout their lives. He suggests that multinational firms should encourage poets and writers. He says literature takes people away from violence and makes them compassionate and mellow. �The multinationals should buy one-third of books of genuine writers and distribute them as complimentary copies. This will encourage the authors and help promote Urdu literature and earn goodwill for the firm,� he says.

In this context, Naseer praises Dawn for its initiating an international mushaira soon after independence. �I was a young child then. But my seniors tell me that it was a huge success. Poets such as Firaq Gorakhpuri, Jigar Muradabadi and Josh Malihabadi recited their poetry at it. Just imagine the commitment of those people to our culture and literature that an English-language newspaper provided a forum for it. Majeed Lahori named it Azeem-ud-Dawn Mushaira. But, alas, as everything popular is hijacked by commercial ventures, the newspaper could run that mushaira only for a couple of years.�

He also proposes that newspapers publishing literary sections publish works of poets who need introduction and recognition, and let known poets be published in established literary magazines.

He laments that programmes such as mushairas, bazm-i-adab and bait-bazi, which were once the hallmark of college life, are no longer held in colleges. �So these newspaper pages are the only forum that may be available to young writers.�

Naseer says he himself began with a radio programme called University magazine in 1962. �That programme gave me recognition and I was invited to various mushairas. After I recited my verses at a mushaira in Peshawar, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi asked me to write for his literary magazine Funoon.�

He says Urdu literature is deteriorating. �The slide will continue as there is no hope of improvement. Good literature is produced by a good audience, just as a good readership helps write good books. In the heyday of Urdu literature there was an educated India. Today�s education is geared to commercialism.�

Answering a question, he says there may be some good poets, but there is no great poet among the current lot. �In fact, great poets ceased to be born with the passing away of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Nasir Kazmi and Aziz Hamid Madani.� He says these three poets inspired him a lot and he was lucky to have been close to them. �But the learning process is such that we are not sure when and what we learn from whom. For instance, even a common man may utter a word and we may exclaim, �Oh this is how this word should be pronounced�.�

Naseer says in marsia Hilal Naqvi�s is the biggest name after the trio of Josh Malihabadi, Nasim Amrohvi and Syed Aal-i-Raza. �He has made immense contribution to the genre of marsia, indeed�. Speaking on Josh, he says, he was not a �poet of revolution� as he is usually described. �Josh sahib is a poet of ehtijaj� (protest). He demands that an ugly and unpleasant system be rooted out, but he does not propose an alternative to fill the void. He is a great magician of words, there is no doubt about it. .... On the other hand, Iqbal suggests that this system be uprooted and replaced with this one