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 Arabic poetry in Arabia long before the birth of Islam. The term Ghazal is of North African and Middle Eastern origin. Its root term in Arabic is " gh-zl " and is derived from the Arabian panegyric qasida. The structural requirements of the ghazal are similar in stringency to those of the Petrarchan sonnet.
World :
The ghazal spread into South Asia in the 12th century due to the influence of Sufi mystics and the courts of the new Islamic Sultanate. Although the ghazal is most prominently a form of Dari poetry and Urdu poetry, today it is found in the poetry of many languages of the Indian sub-continent.
Famous poets :
Ghazals were written by Rumi and Hafiz of Persia; the Azeri poet Fuzûlî in the Ottoman Empire; Mirza Ghalib and Muhammad Iqbal of North India; and Kazi Nazrul Islam of Bengal. Through the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), the ghazal became very popular in Germany during the 19th century; the form was used extensively by Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866) and August von Platen (1796–1835). The Kashmiri poet Agha Shahid Ali was a proponent of the form, both in English and in other languages;
Sufism :
It is not possible to gain a full understanding of ghazal poetry without at least being familiar with some concepts of Sufism.[citation needed] Many of the major historical ghazal poets were either avowed Sufis themselves (like Rumi or Hafiz), or were sympathizers with Sufi ideas. Most ghazals can be viewed in a spiritual context, with the Beloved being a metaphor for God, or the poet's spiritual master. It is the intense Divine Love of Sufism that serves as a model for all the forms of love found in ghazal poetry.
Themes :
Most ghazal scholars today recognize that some ghazal couplets are exclusively about Divine Love (ishq-e-haqiqi), others are about "earthly love" (ishq-e-majazi), but many of them can be interpreted in either context.
Traditionally invoking melancholy, love, longing, and metaphysical questions, ghazals are often sung by Afghan, Pakistani, and Indian musicians. The form has roots in seventh-century Arabia, and gained prominence in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century thanks to such Persian poets as Rumi and Hafiz and later due to Indian poets such as Mirza Ghalib.
Deep roots :
The word Ghazal comes from an Arabic word that means the mortal cry of Kasturi deer. Kasturi is a deer that has a fragrance in its body that is not known to him. The deer has to be killed to obtain this Kasturi fragrance. Ghazal is a poignant form of poetry that tries to capture the same mortal cry that comes out of the deer when he is being killed for the fragrance.
Meaning:
The central theme of a ghazal is love but it is capable of producing an extraordinary range of expressions with seemingly simple and ordinary words. This form of poetry is always portrays the word from the point of view of a lover who has not been able to get his lover in the physical sense of the word. The description of the lover and her physical and emotional features is laden with metaphors making Ghazals very meaningful.
Ghazal contains several shers and all of these shers are complete poems in themselves giving a message. Rhythm in ghazal is expressed through matla (first sher) and a ghazal always ends with a takhallus which is the pen name of the writer. This takhallus is contained in the last sher of the ghazal which is called Makta.
