Types of Urdu Poetry

Ghazal (pronounced as "ghuzzle")

Ghazal is a collection of couplets (shers or ashaar) which follow the rules of 'matla', 'maqta', 'bahar', 'qafiya' and 'radeef'. The couplets are complete in themselves and each may and usually do deal with topics/subjects completely unrelated to each other. All the couplets of a ghazal must be of the same bahar, end in the same words (radeef) and have the same rhyming pattern (qaafiyaa). Every ghazal MUST have a matla. A ghazal may or may not have a maqta but if it does, it has to be the last sher of the ghazal.

To know what a ghazal is, it is necessary to know what these terms mean. Learn more about these terms in the glossary.

A few points to be noted:

1. Some ghazals do not have a radeef. They are called "Gair-muraddaf" ghazals. Even in such cases, qafiya is strictly followed. However, these are very rare.
2. Some Ghazals have the same radeef. They are called ham-radeef Ghazals. Often a Gazal is identified by its radeef, e.g. "aahistaa aahistaa".
3. It is possible that all the ashaar of a Ghazal are on the same theme.
4. In modern Urdu poetry, the restriction of bahar is somewhat relaxed. But even in those poems, the qafiya and radeef tradition is followed.
5. The presence of maqta is often not considered necessary. One reason it may have been more prevalent in earlier times could be to establish ownership, and to prevent others from taking credit for the Gazal.

Nazm

In a broad sense, nazm is a term used to define all kinds of Urdu poetry which do not fall into any other category. However, in a literary sense, a nazm is a well organized, logically evolving poem where each individual verse serves the need of the central concept or theme of the poem. Though a nazm is traditionally written in rhymed verse, there are many examples of nazms written in unrhymed verse, or even in free verse.

Marsiya (muhr-see-yaa)

An elegy written to mourn the death of a great man or a dearly loved person. In its stricter sense, traditionally accepted in Urdu, a marsiya is an elegy written specifically in honour of the martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Husain and his comrades at Karbala.

Masnavi (pronounced "mus-na-vee")

A long narrative poem - much longer than the ghazal - embodying religious, romantic or didatic stories. It is written in rhyming couplets, with each couplet having a different rhyme and radeef.

Qasida (pronounced "quh-see-daa")

A panygeric, or poem written in praise of a king or a nobleman, or a benefactor. As in a ghazal, the opening couplet of a qasida, is a rhyming couplet, and its rhyme is repeated in the second line of each succeeding verse. The opening part of the qasida, where the poet may talk in general about love and beauty, man or nature, life or death, is called the 'tashbib' or 'tamheed'.

Interestingly, the ghazal has evolved from the qasida. Over time, the tashbib got detached and developed into what we today know as Gazal. A qasida is usually quite long, sometimes running into mor than a 100 couplets. A Gazal is seldom more than 12 couplets long, averaging about 7 couplets.

Rubayi (pronounced "ru-baa-ee")

A self-sufficient quartrain, rhyming (a, a, b, a) and dealing generally with a single idea, which is customarily introduced and developed with the aid of similes in the first three lines, and concluded, with concentrated effort and impact, in the fourth line.