Texts of Islam

Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans: Khushḥāl Khān, Khattak: The Poems of Khushḥāl Khān, Khattak

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This is a selection of 17th-century Pashto poetry by Khushhal Khan Khattak — warrior-chieftain, national poet of the Pashtuns — translated by the British officer H.G. Raverty and published in 1868. The poems move across three registers: martial-political verse chronicling Afghan resistance against the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (cataloguing specific battles and generals by name), classical love lyrics in the Persian ghazal tradition (roses, nightingales, the tormenting beloved), and personal lament touching on betrayal by a son and the poet's own mortality. What makes the work distinctive is how the martial and lyric modes interweave — the "Ode to Spring" opens with flowers and wine but pivots sharply into a battle chronicle, treating tulips red with blood as continuous with tulips in a garden. Khushhal is notably caustic toward the Yusufzi tribe for staying home to farm while other Afghans fight, arguing that tribal disunity alone prevents the Mughals' defeat; his contempt for Aurangzeb is equally personal, calling him treacherous, faithless, and cursed by his own father. The overall effect is of a poet writing under acute historical pressure, using conventional lyric forms as a vehicle for urgent political argument and tribal shame-culture rhetoric.

Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans: Khushḥāl Khān, Khattak: The Poems of Khushḥāl Khān, Khattak

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