IF you have heard the qawwali Kangna by Farid Ayaz and Abu Muhammad, it is impossible not to notice a Persian interlude which goes: “Ma ra ba ghamza kusht o qaza ra bahana sakht” (Am struck by the beloved’s coquettish ways; death is but an excuse) The famous ghazal was penned by the 12th-century poet Nizami Ganjavi. It has been sung by dozens if not hundreds of singers wherever Persian is understood including by Iqbal Bano in our neck of the woods. Nizami’s birthplace Ganja was part of the Persian Empire back then and came under Russian control half a millennia later. Though the Republic of Azerbaijan was proclaimed only in 1918 this did not deter the Azeris from embracing and celebrating him by establishing the Nizami Museum of Literature in Baku, the country’s capital and putting his picture on a currency note of 500 manat, among myriad other commemorative initiatives. Nazrul Islam, Gul Khan Naseer, Ameer Hamza Shinwari, Shaikh Ayaz, Nasir Kazmi, Ahmad Faraz, If...
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