Khwaja Mir Dard was born in 1721 and died in 1785. He is one of the three major poets of the Delhi School—the other two being Mir Taqi Mir

Mir Taqi Mir

Khuda-e-sukhan Mir Taqi Mir , whose real name was Muhammad Taqi and takhallus was Mir , was the leading Urdu poet of the 18th century, and one of the pioneers who gave shape to the Urdu language itself...

 and 'Sauda

Sauda

is a municipality and industrial town in Rogaland county, Norway. It is part of the region of Ryfylke. Sauda was separated from Suldal in 1842...

'—who could be called the pillars of the classical Urdu

Urdu

Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...

 ghazal

Ghazal

The ghazal is a poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, with each line sharing the same meter. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain. The form is ancient, originating in 6th century...

.

Philosophy

Dard was first and foremost a mystic, a prominent member of the Naqshbandi

Naqshbandi

Naqshbandi is one of the major Sufi spiritual orders of Sufi Islam. It is considered to be a "Potent" order.The Naqshbandi order is over 1,300 years old, and is active today...

 Mujaddidi order, and the head of the Muhammadi path (tariqah muhammadiyah, a Mujaddidi offshoot) in Delhi. He regarded the phenomenal world as a veil of the eternal Reality, and this life as a term of exile from our real home. Dard inherited his mystical temperament from his father, Khwaja Muhammad Nasir Andalib, who was a mystic saint and a poet, and the founder of the Muhammadi path.

Education

Dard received his education in an informal way at home, and in the company of the learned, acquiring in due course a command of Arabic and Persian, as also of Sufi lore. He also developed a deep love of music, possibly, through his association with singers and qawaals who frequented his father's house. He renounced earthly pleasures at the young age of 28, and led a life of piety and humility.

Poetry

The secret of Dard's appeal as a poet lies not in his mysticism, but in his ability to transmute this mysticism into poetry, and to present transcendental love in terms of human and earthly love. Although he has written ghazals which are unambiguously mystical in their intent, his best couplets can be read at both the secular and spiritual levels, and are, for this reason, acceptable to all and sundry. In addition, Dard had also written ghazals which deal with a patently sensuous and earthly love, and deserve to be classed with the best poetry of this kind. Dard generally excels in short ghazals of about seven to nine verses, written in comparatively short measures. His style is simple, natural and musical; his content, thoughtful and thought-provoking. His poetry includes a collection of Urdu ghazals and a divan in Persian.

Dard's Persian prose works are extensive, consisting of the Ilm ul Kitab, a 600+ page metaphysical work on the philosophy of the Muhammadi path, and the Chahar Risalat, collections of more than a thousand mystical aphorisms and sayings. http://www.msci.memphis.edu/~ramamurt/dard.html

Example work:

Or as translated into English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

:

• Translation by David Matthews http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/dard.html

External links

• Khwaja Mir Dard at Kavita Kosh (Hindi)
• Khwaja Mir Dard: Life and Ghazals
• http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/20/10Ziad.pdf