Dr Muhammad Asif Awan writes books about legendry poets Allama Iqbal and Faiz Ahmad Faiz. He loves exploring the imaginative realm of both poets.
Dr Awan sat down on Friday for an hour on a panel with Dr Tariq Hashmi at a session on the inaugural day of the Lahore Literary Festival-2014 in front of a rapt crowd talking about his recent book ‘Deeda-i-Maana Kusha’ or the eye exploring the world of semantics is a glossary of Faiz.
The session, moderated by Musharraf Ali Farooqui, naturally trended toward unpacking the epic poetic language of Faiz.
It’s necessary to understand the language of a poet to understand his poetry,” Awan said. While talking of semantics and syntax, he said Faiz had used three types of idioms in his poetry. The first type of idioms are those found in everyday usage.
The second type includes those phrases which are technically not idioms but Faiz displays them in his verses with such dexterity that they become meaningful. “His poetry evolved the language; he also coined idioms,” he said, explaining the third type of idioms found in Faiz’s poems.
Like all great poets, he said, Faiz gave new meanings to language, and that was the beauty of great poetry.
“Regardless of the usage of words, Faiz’s greatness lies in his philosophy and thoughts,” he said.
Dr Hashmi explored similarities between Iqbal and Faiz and Faiz’s inclination towards classic poetry. He said critics and public rated Iqbal as a religious poet and Faiz a liberal, which was not true.
One of the participants commented at this point: “Iqbal talks of the Muslims while Faiz talks of the human. And that represents a stark difference between the two. Every poet represents his own age.” Musharraf Farooqui said that poetry, and not prose, testified the authenticity of words. He said a glossary should only be used to understand a poet, not to pull his legs.
The book ‘Deeda-e-Maana Kusha’ gives a variety of meaning for a word in a verse, but leaves it to a reader’s imagination to interpret them.
Like in ‘Koi naghma, koi khushboo, koi kafir soorat’, ‘kafir’ can either be an apostate or an enemy or a beautiful face. It is up to a reader.
Dr Awan and Dr Hashmi both work with the Government College University in Faisalabad – the city, Dr Awan says, most of the time engaged in debating Faiz and Iqbal.
“The city seems quite fertile for literature,” said Asad Sagar, a participant, while smiling and looking at Dr Awan and Dr Hashmi.
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