Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:13:09.511Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“The Time of Lament”: A Momand drama of 1711 through the eyes of Pashtun litterateurs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2021

Mikhail Pelevin Open the ORCID record for Mikhail Pelevin [Opens in a new window]
Mikhail Pelevin*
Affiliation:
Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
*
mosprolege@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article offers a comparative examination of the literary responses of four leading early modern Pashtun authors to an armed clash in the Momand tribe in 1711. The responses include a chronicle record in prose (Afżal Khān Khaṫak) and three poems – an elegy (ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Momand), a satire (ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Momand), and a war ode (ʿAbd al-Qādir Khaṫak). Discussed as both authentic historical documents and creative writings linked to a local social discourse, these Pashto texts enable us to reassess the intensity of everyday literary communications in Pashtun tribal areas in early modern times and append new factual material to the study of ethno-cultural processes within the Persophone oecumene. The salient stylistic and rhetoric diversity of the texts not only highlights the authors’ individual mindsets and literary techniques, but also provides an insight into a variety of social moods, political attitudes and ethics in the Pashtun traditional society.

Keywords

Pashto literatureEarly modern poetry in Islamic societiesGenresText functionalityLiterary communicationTribalism
Type
Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 84 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 47 - 66
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, . [1958]. Dīwān: Durr aw Marjān [Collected poetry: Pearls and Corals]. Ed. with preface by al-Ḥaqq, S. Anwār. Peshawar: University Book Agency.Google Scholar
ʿAbd al-Qādir, Khaṫak. 1969. Dīwān: Ḥadīqa-yi Khaṫak [Collected poetry: The Khaṫak Garden]. Ed. with preface by al-Ḥaqq, S. Anwār. Peshawar: University Book Agency.Google Scholar
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, . 1963. Dīwān [Collected poetry]. Ed. with preface by ʿAbd al-Qādir, M.. Peshawar: Pashto Academy, University of Peshawar.Google Scholar
Abel, Armand. 1991. “Al-Dadjdjāl”, The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. Vol. 2. Leiden: Brill, 76–7.Google Scholar
Afżal, Khān Khaṫak. 1974. Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ [The Ornamented History]. Ed. with preface and notes by Kāmil Momand, D.M.. Peshawar: University Book Agency.Google Scholar
Andreyev, Sergei. 2010. “Pashto literature: the classical period”, in Kreyenbroek, Philip G. and Marzolph, Ulrich (eds), Oral Literature of Iranian Languages: Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik. Companion Volume II to A History of Persian Literature (A History of Persian Literature.). London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 89–113.Google Scholar
Bartlotti, Leonard N. 2010. “Modern written Pashto literature”, in Kreyenbroek, Philip G. and Marzolph, Ulrich (eds.), Oral Literature of Iranian Languages: Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik. Companion Volume II to A History of Persian Literature (A History of Persian Literature.). London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 114–34.Google Scholar
Caroe, Olaf. 1958. The Pathans 550 B.C.–A.D. 1957. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Caron, James. 2013. “Ambiguities of orality and literacy, territory and border crossings: public activism and Pashto literature in Afghanistan, 1930–2010”, in Green, Nile and Arbabzadah, N. (eds), Afghanistan in Ink: Literature between Diaspora and Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 113–39.Google Scholar
Dabistān-i maẕāhib [The school of religions]. 1904. Kanpur: Munshi Naval Kishore.Google Scholar
Dawlat, Lohāṅay. 1975. Dīwān [Collected poetry]. Ed. with preface by Rashād, ʿA.. Kabul: Paẋto Ṫoləna.Google Scholar
Darweza, Akhūnd. 1969. Makhzan [al-islām] [The treasury of Islam]. Ed. with preface by al-Ḥaqq Kākākhel, S. Taqwīm. Peshawar: Pashto Academy, University of Peshawar.Google Scholar
A Dictionary of the Pathan Tribes on the North-West Frontier of India. 1910. Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing.Google Scholar
Dorn, Bernhard. 1836. History of the Afghans: Translated from the Persian of Neamet Ullah. P. 1–2. London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.Google Scholar
Elliot, Henry M. and Dowson, John. 1873. The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians. The Muhammadan Period. Vol. V. London: Trübner and Co.Google Scholar
Elphinstone, Mountstuart. 1839. An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, and Its Dependencies, in Persia, Tartary, and India; a View of the Afghaun Nation, and a History of the Dooraunee Monarchy. New and revised edition. Vol. I. London: Richard Bentley.Google Scholar
Enevoldsen, Jens. 1977. Selections from Rahman Baba. Herning: Poul Kristensen.Google Scholar
Fragner, Bert G. 1999. Die “Persophonie”. Regionalität, Identität und Sprachkontakt in der Geschichte Asiens. Berlin: Das Arabische Buch.Google Scholar
Green, Nile. 2017. “Introduction. Afghanistan's Islam: A history and its scholarship”, in Green, N. (ed.), Afghanistan's Islam. From Conversion to the Taliban. Oakland: University of California Press, 1–37.Google Scholar
Hewādmal, Zalmay. 2000. Də paẋto adabiyāto tārīkh (larghūne aw məndzanəy dawre) [The history of Pashto literature (the old and the middle periods)]. Peshawar: Dānish.Google Scholar
Hewādmal, Zalmay. 2001. Nangyālay də zamāne [A hero of time]. [S.l.]: Də Afghānistān də kulturī wade ṫoləna (Germany).Google Scholar
Kāmil, D.M. Momand. 1951. Khushḥāl Khān Khaṫak. Peshawar: Idāra-yi ishāʿat-i sarḥadd-i Pishāwar.Google Scholar
Khushḥāl, Khān Khaṫak. 1952. Kulliyāt [Collected works]. Ed. with preface and notes by Kāmil Momand, D.M.. Peshawar: Idāra-yi ishāʿat-i sarḥadd-i Pishāwar.Google Scholar
Krasnowolska, Anna. 2009. “Ḵeżr”, in Encyclopædia Iranica. Online edition. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kezr-prophet.Google Scholar
Kushev, Vladimir V. 1976. Opisaniie rukopisei na iazyke pashto instituta vostokovedeniia [The description of the Pashto manuscripts from the Institute of Oriental Studies]. Moscow: Nauka, Vostochnaia literatura.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, David N. 1965. Poems from the Diwân of Khushâl Khân Khattak. London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Mannanov, Abdurahim M. 2006. Roshaniiskaia literatura (Istochniki i problemy rekonstruktsii) [Roshanian literature (Sources and problems of reconstruction)]. Tashkent: FAN.Google Scholar
Mīrzā, Khān Anṣārī. 1975. Dīwān [Collected poetry]. Ed. with preface by Dost. Kabul: Paẋto Ṫoləna.Google Scholar
Morgenstierne, Georg. 1960. “Khushhal Khan – the national poet of the Afghans”, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 47, 49–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Robert. 2001. Settling the Frontier: Land, Law, and Society in the Peshawar Valley, 1500–1900. Karachi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Niʿmatallāh, Ibn Ḥabīballāh al-Harawī. 1960–62. Tārīkh-i Khānjahānī wa Makhzan-i Afghānī. Vols 1–2. Ed. with introduction and notes by Imām al-Dīn, S.M.. Dacca: Asiatic Society of Pakistan.Google Scholar
Partavī Āmulī, Mahdī. 1990. Rīshahā-yi tārīkhī-yi amthāl va ḥikam [Historical roots of proverbs and wise sayings]. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. Tehran: Sanāyī.Google Scholar
Pelevin, Mikhail S. 2001. Khushhal-Khan Khattak (1613–1689). Nachalo afganskoi natsional'noi poezii [Khushhal-Khan Khattak (1613–1689): The beginning of Afghan national poetry]. Saint Petersburg: Peterburgskoie vostokovedenie.Google Scholar
Pelevin, Mikhail S. 2005. Afganskaia poezia v pervoi polovine – seredine XVII veka [Afghan poetry in the first half and the middle of the XVIIth century]. Saint Petersburg: Peterburgskoie vostokovedenie.Google Scholar
Plowden, Trevor C. 1893. Translation of the Kalid-i-Afghani. The Text Book for the Pakkhto Examination, with Notes, Historical, Geographical, Grammatical, and Explanatory. Lahore: Munshi Gulab Singh and Sons.Google Scholar
Raverty, Henry G. 1867. Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans, from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century, Literally Translated from the Original Pus'hto; with Notices of the Different Authors, and Remark on the Mystic Doctrine and Poetry of the Ṣūfīs. London: Williams and Norgate.Google Scholar
Saʿdī, Shīrāzī. 1996. Kulliyāt [Collected works]. 3rd ed. Ed. by Furūghī, M.ʿA.. Tehran: Nigāh.Google Scholar
Saʿīd, Sirāj al-Dīn and Muḥammad Hotak, Ṣāliḥ. 1987. Taẕkirat al-shuʿarā [An anthology of poets]. Ed. with preface and notes by Bakhtānay (Khidmatgār), ʿA., and commentaries by Hewādmal, Z.. [Kabul]: Hewād Newspaper.Google Scholar
Shahrānī, ʿInāyatallāh. 2008. Paẋto matalūna yā żarb al-amsāl [Pashto proverbs]. [S.l.]: Qizil Chupan Cultural Center.Google Scholar
Schimmel, Annemarie. 1975. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Syāl, M.J. Momand. 1988. Də paẋtano qabīlo shajare [The lineages of Pashtun tribes]. Peshawar: University Book Agency.Google Scholar
Wide, Thomas. 2013. “Demarcating Pashto: Cross-border Pashto literature and the Afghan state, 1880–1930”, in Green, Nile and Arbabzadah, N. (eds), Afghanistan in Ink: Literature between Diaspora and Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 91–112.Google Scholar
Widmark, Anders. 2011. Voices at the Borders, Prose on the Margins. Exploring the Contemporary Pashto Short Story in a Context of War and Crisis (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 17.). Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet.Google Scholar