{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/spa/spa14.htm","path":"isl/spa/spa14.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/spa/spa14.htm","text":"Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans, by H.G. Raverty, [1868]\n\u00c6abd-ul-\u1e32\u0101dir Kh\u0101n, son of Khush\u1e25\u0101l Kh\u0101n, Khattak, and brother of Ashraf, the subject of the preceding notice, was born in the year E. 1063 (a.d. 1652), and is the most eloquent writer and poet of all Khush\u1e25\u0101l's sons, several of whom were poets of no mean ability. Although his father had little reason to be very partial towards his sons generally, on account of their very unnatural conduct, and unfaithfulness towards himself, on too many occasions; yet, upon the whole, \u00c6abd-ul-\u1e32\u0101dir appears to have been a favourite, and to have shared considerably in his father's affection.\n\u00c6abd-ul-\u1e32\u0101dir was as good at the sword as at the pen; and in the battle with the Mughal troops at Kottah, a place in the vicinity of the Pes\u2019h\u0101war district, the victory of the confederate Afgh\u0101ns was chiefly owing to the skill displayed by the poet on that occasion; and it was he also who led the assault against that fortress, which, after three hours of severe fighting, he captured. He afterwards distinguished himself; in like manner, in the war of Bangas\u2019h, during which operations he was wounded; and the successes gained in the war were celebrated in his name.\nWhen his father abdicated the chieftainship of the tribe (as related in the notice of Khush\u1e25\u0101l and his writings), and the sons were each struggling to supplant each other, and grasp the vacant authority, \u00c6abd-ul-\u1e32\u0101dir did not hold back. He tried very hard\nto gain the chieftainship, but fortune was unpropitious; and Ashraf, who, as the eldest son, had certainly the best right, was chosen by his father and the tribe to succeed him. When Ashraf was betrayed into the hands of the Mughals, and sent by Aurangzeb into the Dakhan as state prisoner, \"Bahr\u0101m the Malignant,\" the brother, who had betrayed him, seized the chieftainship; but, subsequently, Af\u1e93al Kh\u0101n, the son of Ashraf, became chief of the clan.\nTo pay obedience to this nephew appears to have been extremely difficult and bitter for \u00c6abd-ul-\u1e32\u0101dir, who wished to hold the authority himself; and although the whole of his brothers, then living, sided with him in his ambitious designs, it was of no avail; for the tribe were unanimous in favour of Ashraf's son Af\u1e93al, in whom was the hereditary right, as previously stated. The upshot, however, was, that Af\u1e93al, the nephew, saw no other practicable solution of the difficulty, according to the custom of those days, than to get rid of all rivals; and, accordingly, \u00c6abd-ul-\u1e32\u0101dir, together with ten of his brothers, and a number of their sons, were put to death, at the village of Zam\u0101n Garraey, in one day, and buried in one grave; thus escaping the sorrows and troubles of chieftainship.\nThe poems of \u00c6abd-ul-\u1e32\u0101dir, which are deeply imbued with \u1e62\u016bfi mysticism, are thought very highly of by the Afgh\u0101ns; and his language is extremely polished. His chief works, now known, are a D\u012bw\u0101n or Collection of Odes, from which the following poems are taken; a translation of Molaw\u012b J\u0101m\u012b's celebrated poem of Y\u016bsuf and Zul\u012bkh\u0101, from the Persian, which is rendered by the translator into the most difficult style of Eastern poetry, and is considered the most perfect of its kind in the Afgh\u0101n language; the affecting love tale of Adam and Durkh\u0101na\u2019\u012b\u2014which three or four other authors have written on, both in verse and prose\u2014together with translations of Shaikh Sa\u00e6d\u012b's Gulist\u0101n and Bost\u0101n, from the Persian\n[paragraph continues] He is said, by his descendants of the present day, to have been the author of about sixty different works; but with the exception of a small volume on enigmas, charades, and verses of mysterious meaning, even the names of them are now unknown.\nSpecimens of his Odes in the original Pus\u2019hto, together with a portion of Y\u016bsuf and Zul\u012bkh\u0101, and the first part of the Gulist\u0101n, will be found in the \"Gulshan-i-Roh,\" or Selections in the Afgh\u0101n Language, published by me last year.","title":"Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans: \u00c6abd-ul-\u1e32\u0101dir Kh\u0101n, Khattak: Introduction","type":"page"}