Poetical
misconceptions
Middle
Dr. Muhammad Asadullah
……………………………………………………….
Once
my lecturer, Mr. Khadakkar, now he is no more in this world, told me ,” Every
day you have five times “Azan” in mosques in loud speaker ,whether God can’t
listen this prayer in slow voice ?He
referred Sant Kabeer’s , famous Doha (Couplet)
saying :
Kankad pathad jo kar Masjid laye banay ,
Ta
chadi Mulla bang dai Bahra,bhaya Khuday
(Means: By assembling stones
and sand, you have erected mosque, and early in the morning you give “Azan “(Islamic
call for prayer), whether God is deaf?)
I clarified to him that
though Sant Kabeer was a great poet and saint but either he had used a particular
figure of speech in this couplet. He has given the reason for a particular
occurrence which is not its real reason, or he is unaware of it.
The Azan in our mosques is
given only for calling Muslim to perform Namaz which is the real prayer. My teacher
surprise to know this fact then he asked me to translate the words of Azan in
Marathi.
I discussed several people
during yester years, and found them confused about these things. This is amazing that we live in a country
where a number of religions are in practice but we have very limited knowledge
of other religion and even we don’t know basic things about our own religion.
Poetical misconceptions are
also surprising in our literature which may be the result of poet’s unawareness
or he deliberately projects something wrong. Nida Fazli, a modern Urdu poet
well-known for his tender thoughts and unique style had also been in
controversy for many issues. Besides other forms of literature he had expressed
his views in the form of Doha in Urdu which is actually came from Hindi
literature. One of his Urdu Doha Nida says:
Bachcha bola dekh ke Masjid
aalishan
Ek Khuda ke waste Itna bada
makan
A child was astonished to see
a splendid mosque, he said, How surprising that for a single God this huge home
is constructed.
Perhaps poet has expressed these
words by a child so that people may not accuse him to criticize on a holy
place. It also indicates that there is tendency to spend a lot of money on
decorating religious places. But the wrong massage goes from this couplet is
that mosque is the house of God, which is indeed true but at the same time it
is a place of worship where people
assemble five times to perform Namaz ,an important prayer in Islam. The size
of a mosque may be depending on the Muslim population of that area. The people
unaware of this fact may be misguided by these lines which is merely a poetic allegation.
The grandeur of holy places always
fascinated me as it create the sense of greatness of God ,but at the same time I feel
that despite of spending lavishly on extraordinary decoration ,it is necessary
to spend some money to establish a library attached to mosque in which
religious literature and the explain er to holy book must be available so that
people must understand their religion correctly.
Most of the people in the
world are unaware of the true spirit of their religion .In our country also a number of superstitions are in practice
in the name of holy faith.
When I inquire such type of mosques in our city only
two or three places are there like this. I hope education will create awareness
among new generation about the need to acquire true spirit of religion despite
of adopting rituals to follow religion.
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