Journal of Subcontinent Researches
Year:2013 | Volume:5 | Issue:16|Papers Count:7

Anand Ram Mukhlis, Persian poet and author of the 12th century AH, was born in Sodhra, Sialkot district of Lahore. He followed his master, Bidel in poetry and although he was one ofhis best students, there is not the complexity of Bidel’s poetry in his poems. His prose style has been known to be of sobriety and Simplicity So that he is considered as one of the best writers of the time.‘Hengame-yeEshgh’is a romance story in prose written by Mukhlis in 1152 AH. It is a free translation of the ancient Indian legend, ‘Padmavat’ written by Malek Mohammad Jayesi.Mukhlis’ prose in ‘Hengame-ye Eshgh’ is poetic and beautiful. In the present article, ‘Hengame-yeEshgh’manuscript and its author are introduced.

Muhammad Ali Hazin Lahiji was an outstanding scholar and a great poet in Iran in the 12th century AH. He was living in India during 1146 -1180 AH. He lived in Iran for 43 years while he compiled an autobiography in which he paid attention to the political events of his age and also introduced his masters and his studies. Hazin did not entitle his book and others called it: “Tazkirat ul-Ahwal”, “Tarikh va Safarname-ye Hazin” and “Sawaneh-e Umri”. “Tazkirat ul-Ahwal” is a very useful source about Hazin' life in Iran and the history of Iran during the last years of the Safavids; however, there is no considerable source of Hazin's life in India but some repetitious information in Persian ‘tazkaras’. Therefore, Hazin's Ruqa'at (Letters) can be the best source for introducing his life in India. Some of his letters are just descriptions of his personal activities while others contain a large amount of political, historical, and literary information. The present research intends to review some of Hazin's important letters.

India is reputed as one of the most religious countries and possesses a vast spectrum of different kinds of religiosity, all of them interconnected by clear and latent threads which have shaped the beliefs and customs of this land. It’s a fact that in India, social rites and folk customs are completely intermingled with religious beliefs as much as no one can distinguish between religion and custom in individual or social life. Therefore, religious tendencies determine most of the social transactions. However, since the 19th century, the culture and religions of India have encountered the values of the west, and rationality has been applied as the scale of all the rites and ceremonies. Thereupon, many evolutions happened and religious men were intended to find a new path for preserving this ancient heritage. In this article, two more significant religious movements are discussed: Arya Samaj and Brahma Samaj which have adhered to their religious originality and ancient sacred texts and have reinterpreted some orders and views reflected in sacred books, especially those more connected to social aspects. The present paper has attempted to review these two movements through content analysis and by using the historical and phenomenological method.

The Iranian languages and the Hindi languages are both within the category of the Aryan languages and the history of their relationship goes back to the 6th century BC, In later periods, due to the dominance of Persian speaking Muslims over this region, not only the relationships between the Persian and Hindi languages continued, but it also increased; for centuries, Persian was the official language of India. The history of entering Persian words in the Hindi language goes back to the Achaemenid period and the consequence of this long and deep relationship is the influence of these two languages on each other; in fact, they borrowed elements from each other. This relationship continued in 2500 years. Now, more than 700 Persian words are used in the Hindi language. For this study, Iranian loanwords were extracted from the Sanskrit and Indian dictionaries, and then evidence from ancient Sanskrit texts and Indian inscriptions for the words were mentioned, and finally, the words were examined etymologically. It seems that such a research is useful to strengthen the historical evidence of the relationship between Iran and India in various historical periods.

More than ten years after the fall of the Taliban and international military intervention in Afghanistan, there is still little understanding about the origin and cause of insurgency of the current Taliban. In spite of the fact that Taliban were overthrown a long time ago, their fall from power did not led to their complete defeat. Fight with the Taliban is one of the important challenges before the United States, NATO, Hamid Karzai’s government and the international community. What factors have contributed to the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan after the year 2005? The purpose of the present article is examining the major grounds for the resurgence of the Taliban, the main cause of their growth, as well as suggestions for the ways of overcoming the present insurgency. The underlying hypothesis is that the Taliban of Afghanistan continue their insurgency against the Afghan government by receiving assistance and training from different circles in Pakistan, and any successful fight against this group depends upon the elimination of their sanctuaries in Pakistan. The present study, by a descriptive-analytical method, aims to examine the above issue.

Since the beginning, Islamic Sufism has borne several trends of thought, and different Sufi sects and principles have been emerged from it, one of them ‘Chishtiya’ in the Indian subcontinent which has had lots of followers in the major cities of the Indian subcontinent such as Punjab, Delhi, and Hansi with a formal establishment and a special abbatial system. One of the most famous ‘khanqahs’ (worship places) in the seventh century was Sheikh Fariduddin Ganj Shakar known as Baba Farid’s khanqah (664 AH) in Ajodhan, Pakpattan Sharif.This study seeks to investigate some of the traditions and mores inside Sheikh Fariduddin’s khanqah such as the manners of accepting disciples, swearing allegiance, cutting the hair, granting the hat, etc. Investigation of the cultural and social aspects of a certain sect’s mores is of great importance since in this way we can detect the adherence of the followers of a sect to the previous traditions, modifications, limits of changes, substituted cases, the causes, as well as the way of withdrawal or prevalence of deviations among them.In the present paper, the mores of Baba Farid’s khanqah, based on the contents of ‘Rahat ul-Qolub’ manuscript written by Nizam Olia, his student and caliph, as well as ‘Asrar ul-Olia’ by Badroddin Abu Eshaq, his disciple, son-in-law, and successor, have been investigated.

One of the main points in text research is detection of the age of the manuscripts, the origin of the quoted copies from the original manuscripts, and knowledge of their authenticity. Due to the multiplicity of its manuscripts and the added notes and dropped parts of the author after its writing, Khazanah-i Amirah by Mir Ghulam-Ali Azad Bilgrami (1704-1786 A.D.) is a good example to show how to identify the origin of the copies according to additional notes and dropped parts. In the present paper, after mentioning the added notes and dropped parts, the method of comparing the copies of the book has been explained.