Mir Babbar Ali Anees was a renowned Urdu poet. He wasborn in Faizabad in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in 1803 and died
in 1874.
His father, Mir Khaliq who was a famous poet and litterateur, took personal
interest in the education and upbringing of his son, and entrusted him to the care
of reputed contemporary teachers, Mir Najaf Ali Faizabadi and Maulvi Hyder Ali
Lucknavi. In addition, Anis's mother who was an educated and pious lady, played a
significant role in shaping the personality of the boy poet. But above all, it was
the boy's own instinctive urge for learning and literature that made him an
accomplished poet, proficient in Arabic, Persian and Islamic scriptures, and well
-versed in logic, literature and philosophy. Poetry came to him as ancestral
heritage, for his forbears, going back to his great grandfather, were eminent
poets and men of letters. Anis was the grandson of Mir Hasan who is remembered for
his immortal Masnavi, Sehir-ul-Bayaan. His parents had migrated in their old age
to Lucknow, where he spent the best part of his life.
Anis had started writing poetry quite early in his life right at Faizabad, though
he perfected his art in Lucknow under the supervision of Imam Bakhsh Nasikh. In
keeping with the popular trend, he first tried his hand at the ghazal, but failing
to make much headway in this sphere, he changed over, under the advice of his
father, to the writing of marsias, in which domain he soon established a high
reputation, equaled (sometimes) by his poetic compare, Salamat Ali Dabir. Anees
broadened the scope of this genre by including in its body, in addition to the
customary lamentation and mourning, realistic scenes of the battlefield, graphic
delineations of the hero's face and figure, lively portrayals of the emotional
states of the combatants, accurate descriptions of the landscape, and occasional
interludes of moral edification. Anis was a master of simple, natural utterance,
with a superb command on the language, which was always adequate to express a
large variety of moods, scenes, characters and situations. He is specially notable
for presenting the same scene or situation, over and over again, in different
words or phrases, without letting it appear monotonous. Besides being a master of
the marsia, Anis was also a specialist of the rubai, the shortest complete poem in
Urdu, containing only four lines.
Anis died in 1874 at the age of 71. The marsia, strictly speaking, is an elegiac
poem written to commemorate the martyrdom and valour of Hazrat Imam Hussain and
his comrades of the Battle of Karbala. In its form the marsia generally consists
of six-line units, with a rhyming quatrain, and a couplet on a different rhyme.
This form found a specially congenial soil in Lucknow (a city in Northern India),
chiefly because it was the centre of Shia Muslim community, which regarded it an
act of piety and religious duty to eulogies and bemoan the martyrs of the battle
of Karbala, and Even a short poem written to mourn the death of a friend can be
called marsia. Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem 'In Memoriam' can rightly be called
marsia. The sub-parts of marsia are called noha and soz which means lamentation
and burning of (heart) respectively. It is usually a poem of mourning. The form
reached its peak in the writing of Mir Babbar Ali Anis.
The famous marsia writers who inherited the tradition of Mir Anis among his
successive generations are Mir Nawab Ali 'Munis', Dulaha Sahab 'Uruj', Mustafa
Meerza urf Piyare Sahab 'Rasheed', Syed Muhammad Mirza Uns, Ali Nawab 'Qadeem',
Syed Sajjad Hussain 'Shadeed', Syed Sajjad Hussain "Shadeed" Lucknavi, Dr. Syed
Ali Imam Zaidi, "Gauher" Luckhnavi the (great grandson of Mir Babber Ali Anis).
The Majlis of 25 Rajab, is historically important Majlis of Marsiya in Lucknow, in
this majlis Mir Anis used to recite Marsiya. After Mir Anis well known marsiya
writers of Mir Anis's family as Dulaha Sahab 'Uruj', Mustafa Meerza urf Piyare
Sahab 'Rasheed', Ali Nawab (Qadeem) and Syed Sajjad Hussain 'Shadeed', inherited
the legacy of reciting marsiya. Presently, Dr. Syed Ali Imam Zaidi (Gauher)
Luckhnavi (grandson of 'Shadeed') recites self composed Marsiya.
Work, contribution and legacy
Mir Anis composed salams, elegies, nauhas, quatrains. While the length of elegy
initially had no more than forty or fifty stanzas, it now was beyond one hundred
fifty or even longer than two hundred stanzas or bunds, as each unit of marsia in
musaddas format is known. According to Muhammad Hussain Azad "The late Mir Sahib
must certainly have composed at least ten thousand elegies, and salams beyond
count. He composed as easily and casually as he spoke.
Muharram and Mir Anis have become synonymous among Urdu lovers of the Indo-Pak
subcontinent. Mir Anis has been a great teacher and inspiration for generations.
Undoubtedly, Urdu derives much of its strength from the Marsias of Mir Anis. Mir
Anis has drawn upon the vocabulary of Arabic, Persian, Urdu/Hindi/Awadhi in such a
good measure that he symbolizes the full spectrum of the cultural mosaic that Urdu
has come to be. No Urdu poet from Ghalib onwards has lagged behind in showering
his eulogies on Mir Anis. Mir Anis himself was aware of his contribution as he
writes: "Kisi ne teri terha se aay Anis, Aroos-e-sukhan ko sanwara nahi"
"Perhaps there is no other poet in the world who has looked after the aesthetic
and spiritual satisfaction of his fans so completely as Mir Anis does. It is
simply miraculous!
The first major and still current critical articulation about Mir Anis was Muazna
-e-Anis-o-Dabir (1907) written by Shibli Nomani in which he said "the poetic
qualities and merits of Anis are not matched by any other poet"
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi in 'How to read Iqbal?' on comparing Iqbal with Nazeer
Akbarabadi says that "Iqbal was placed better because he had, among others, Bedil
(1644–1720) in Persian and Mir Anis (1802–1874) in Urdu." to inherit the rich
tradition of Urdu nazm. He further asserts that, "The mention of Mir Anis may
surprise some of us until we realize it that Mir Anis’s marsiyas are the best
premodern model in Urdu of narrative-historical, narrative-lyrical, and oral-
dramatic poetry, and Iqbal’s poetry extends and exploits the possibilities created
by Anis."
