The Diwan of Rahman Baba
View the Diwan in original Pashto language:
About the Diwan (continued)
Like Sindi and Punjabi, Pukhto has had a long tradition of its own folk poetry. The oldest form in Pukhto is thought to be the two-line tapa, but it is not known when longer Pukhto poetry was first written. Andreyev sees the Rawshani period (starting at the end of the sixteenth century) as a “distinct watershed since it marked the beginning of a cultural self- awareness of the Pukhtuns and of their opposition to the language of the dominant high culture, which was Persian.”
Pukhto is considered to be an Indo-Iranian language, of ancient but uncertain origin. Though only tantalizing hints of its past linguistic history remain, it seems to have been formed from a melding of the languages of Central Asian invaders with the indigenous languages of the subcontinent. The grammatical structure, retroflex sounds and gender system are derived from an Indo/Aryan influence, while an Iranian flavour is recognizable in the predominance of Persian loan words. Some of these words are used in their original form, while others are modified in Pukhto usage. Pukhto also includes Vedic, Sanskrit, and Arabic words. Intriguing as it may be, Raverty‘s theory that Pukhto is of Semitic origin has been soundly refuted by other Orientalists.
The origins of written Pukhto are also uncertain. Though Bayazid Ansari claimed that he invented the letters of the alphabet in his introduction to Khayr al-bayan, tradition has it that the oldest written Pukhto prose was Taskerat-al-aulia (Memories of the Saints) written by Sulaiman Maku in A.D. 1215. The Pukhto script used in these early manuscripts was an adaptation of the Arabic alphabet with the addition of the letters needed to make the sounds peculiar to Pukhto.
Rahman Baba's immediate predecessors included Mirza Khan Ansari (d 1630), a descendent of Bayazid, who is considered to have been the first to perfect a Pukhto style, as well as the versatile warrior-poet Khushhiil Khan Khatak, who expresses the deep satisfaction of writing in his native tongue.
There seems to have been a good deal of overlap between poets. Rahman's diwan contains material that appears in the diwans of other Pukhtun poets. The best-known overlap is seen between the works of Khushhiil Khan Khatak and Rahman. Kamil detects 8 of Khushhal's ghazals in Rahman's diwan, but is quick to point out that perhaps there are 11 of Rahman’s poems in Khushhal’s work. The fact is that there is no certainty as to the original author of overlapping verses unless one document reliably predates another.
Despite such overlaps, Rahman's poetry stands out from the other poets of his era. It has an uncanny power and pithy turn of phrase that makes it unique. Rahman himself leaves us in no doubt about hls own feehgs on the matter: “lf someone asks who made this verse, Rahman says this petry is mine."
A fourth literary influence on Rahman Baba’s diwan was from a wide range of mystical and religious texts. Among these works were manuals of Sufi practice, theological works in Pukhto, treatises on Sufism, and the normal collection of Islamic texts available in the mosque. The influence of these texts is not prominent in the diwan but provides a background of assumed knowledge against which the whole is set.
Like other seventeenth-century Muslim poets, Rahman is keen to vigorously express his faith in an attempt to shore-up a perceived decline in Islam following the devastating Mongol invasions, and as an antidote to Hinduism Ahmad suggests there was an “instinctive escape from the fear of submergence into the Hindu cultural milieu.” A similar hesitation is felt in the case of Rahman’sdiwan. He is so absorbed in the imitation of Persian poetry that he rarely uses anything from his own life and landscape in his poetry.