The Propriety of Poetry: Morality and Mysticism in the Nineteenth Century Urdu Religious Lyric

Abstract

This article traces the impact of nineteenth century religious reform on the voicing of mystical experience in Urdu poetry. Shifting the focus away from the better-known literary milieu of colonial North India, the article turns towards the more neglected setting of princely Hyderabad. By setting the mystical lyrics produced there by Iftikhār ‘Alī Shāh Watan (d. 1324/1906) in relation to the poetry of his contemporaries, it argues that in a new public sphere in which poems were distributed through print no less than performance the poetry of mystical experience took on more morally conservative idioms that eschewed the sensual metaphors of older Urdu and Persian tradition. In this way, the article highlights the compromises that Sufi poets were required to undertake to protect their message from the critiques of moral impropriety that were a potent force in literary no less than religious debates during India's fin-de-siècle.