Sindhi has diverse poetry – the poetry of love, of resistance, of sorrow, of mourning, of romance, and also of divine worship.
By: Raphic Burdo
Sindhi has diverse poetry. It has poetry of love, of resistance, of sorrow, of mourning, of romance, and also of divine worship. Sindhi bhajans and Sindhi poetry expressing utter devotion for Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) are globally known. Sindhi Hamd is also in fact praise of creator, the sustainer, the artist and architect who filled the universe with immense beauty.
Let us have a look at Hafiz Ahsan’s simple yet profound Hamd or Poem in Praise of Divine.
ڌڻي ! تو بنائي عجب هيءُ خدائي،
سدا توکي سائين ! ٿي سونهين وڏائي
سوين جڳ ۾ ڏسجن ٿا، نرمل نظارا،
ڪيئي پيدا سج چنڊ، تارا ستارا،
کِڙي جڳ سڄي تي، جي ڪَن روشنائي
ڪڻي مان ڪرين تون، ٿو انبار ڪيڏا!
ٿين ننڍڙي داڻي مان گلزار ڪيڏا !
عجب تنهنجي قدرت بي انتها ئي
صفت هر ڪنهن شيءِ جي آهي نرالي،
نه حڪمت کان هرگز، اهي ڪابه خالي،
چڱي آهي سڀڪا، تو جيڪا بڻائي
(حافظ محمد احسن)
Here is the literal translation (Word-for-Word Meaning) of the poem:
O Lord! You created this wonderful universe,
Always to You, O Master, belongs the greatest grandeur.
Hundreds of worlds in, are seen, pure sights,
Many created suns, moons, stars, constellations,
By rising, the whole world they adorn, they who give light.
From a tiny seed You make, you heap up so much!
From a tiny seed, what gardens become!
Wonderful is Your power, infinite indeed.
The attribute of every single thing is unique,
Not from wisdom is it ever, any of it empty,
Good is everything, whatever You have made.
(Hafiz Muhammad Ahsan)
For the admirers of rhyme, rhyming poetic translation will go like this. I hope it appeals reader’s aesthetic and lyrical sense:
O Lord! You made this wondrous universe so grand,
To You alone, O Master, all greatness must stand.
A hundred worlds reveal pure sights to see,
You made the sun, the moon, the stars, and constellations free.
They rise and light the whole world’s canopy.
From one small seed, You make a mighty heap!
From one small seed, what gardens You can keep!
How wonderful, Your power is infinite and deep.
Each thing has its own unique and distinct grace,
None is ever empty, none lacks wisdom’s trace,
All that You have made is good in every place.
(Hafiz Muhammad Ahsan)
This is remarkably simple rhyming poem in praise of the Creator, the Lord of the Universe. The poem’s message however is profound and must not be lost on the readers.
The poem, in fact, is a Sufi hymn of awe and gratitude. The poet looks at the vastness of the universe: sun, moons, stars, and constellations rising to illuminate the world, and then looks at the smallest seed becoming a vast garden. He concludes that everything God has made is inherently good, unique, and full of divine wisdom. Nothing is without purpose. It is a profound declaration of Wahdat al-Wujud (the Unity of Being). All creation reflects the beauty and power of its Creator.
I would like to look at the poem from the perspective of a literary critic.
If examined with a lens of a literary critic, the poem under consideration, would be qualified as a devotional Sindhi Hamd. It stands as a remarkable exemplar of Sindhi Sufi poetry. It belongs to that grand tradition of devotional poems which, in Sindhi literature, has always sought to reconcile the macrocosm of the universe with the microcosm of the human soul. The poem is not merely a theological statement; it is an aesthetic experience, a journey from observation to awe, and finally to affirmation. Its structural elegance, lexical precision, and philosophical depth merit close critical attention.
Thematic Architecture of the poem extends from tiny seedling, and a grain to Cosmos, constellations. The poem unfolds in a carefully constructed four-stanza movement, each stanza serving a distinct thematic purpose. Stanza 1 opens with an apostrophic address to the Creator: “Dhanī! Tū banāī ajab hī k̲h̲udāī” (O Lord! You created this wonderful universe). The poet begins with the grandest possible subject of the entirety of existence, and immediately establishes the fundamental duality of the poem: the Creator and the creation. The word “ajab” (wonderful, strange, marvelous) is crucial. It is not merely an adjective of praise; it signals the poet’s epistemological stance. He stands before creation not as a master, but as a bewildered admirer. The stanza concludes with “Sadā tokhe Sāīna! Thī sonehi waḍāī” — all grandeur belongs to the Master alone. This is the theological anchor of the poem: Tawḥīd, the absolute oneness and sovereignty of God.
Stanza 2 shifts from the abstract to the concrete, from the totality to its constituent parts. The poet invites us to look at the heavens: “Soyen jag men disan ta, nirmal nazārā” (Hundreds of worlds are seen, pure sights). The word “nirmal” (pure, immaculate) is significant. It suggests not just physical beauty but spiritual clarity. The creation is not chaotic; it is nirmal. Then follows the catalog of celestial bodies: Sij (Sun), Chandu (Moon), Tārā (Stars), Sitārā (Constellations). This is a deliberate rhetorical strategy, enumeration as awe. The poet piles image upon image, not to exhaust the subject, but to overwhelm the reader with the sheer multiplicity of divine creation. The stanza concludes with “Khiṛī jag sajī te, je kan roshanāī”, by rising, they adorn the whole world, with their light. The dynamism here is noteworthy: the celestial bodies are not static; they rise (khiṛī), they adorn, they give light (roshanāī). Creation is not a finished product; it is an ongoing act.
Stanza 3 is the emotional and philosophical climax of the poem. The poet moves from the vastness of the cosmos to the infinitesimal: “Kaṇī mān kareen tūn, tho anbār kiḍā!” (From a tiny seed You make, You heap up so much!). This is the argument from scale, the classic Sufi meditation on God’s power to create immense multiplicity from absolute singularity. The word “Kaṇī” (tiny seed, atom, particle) is deliberately chosen. It is the smallest unit of creation, and yet from it, God creates “anbār” (heaps, tons, multitudes). The second line, “Thīyan nanḍhaṛī dāṇī mān gulzār kiḍā!” (From a tiny seed, what gardens become!), completes the metaphor. The “gulzār” (garden) is not just a physical garden; it is a symbol of Paradise, of beauty, of the flourishing of creation. The stanza concludes with the poem’s most direct theological statement: “Ajab tunhenjī qudrat be-intahā ī” (Wonderful is Your power, infinite indeed). The word “be-intahā” (without end, infinite) is the key. It is not just that God’s power is great; it is that it is incomprehensible. The poet has moved from observation to confession: he cannot fathom the depth of divine power.
Stanza 4 is the ethical and philosophical resolution. The poet returns from the cosmic to the particular: “Sifat har kanhen shae jī āhe nirālī” (The attribute of every single thing is unique). This is a profound statement of ontological individuality. Every created thing has its own sifat (attribute, quality), and that attribute is nirālī (unique, distinct, unparalleled). Nothing in creation is a mere copy; everything is original. The second line, “Na ḥikmat kān hargiz, āhe ka be k̲h̲ālī” (None is ever empty of wisdom), is the logical consequence. If everything is unique, then everything has a purpose. The word “ḥikmat” (wisdom) is critical here, it is not just intelligence, but divine purpose, cosmic order. Nothing is k̲h̲ālī (empty, devoid). The poem concludes with “Chhangī āhī sabh ka, to jekā baṇāī” (Good is everything, whatever You have made). This is the final affirmation: the goodness of creation. It is a direct echo of the Quranic refrain: “And He created everything, and measured it with a precise measure” (Qur’an 25:2). The poem ends not with a question, but with a declaration of faith.
From the angle of structutre and prosody, the poem is composed in a stanzaic form with a consistent rhyme scheme. The first stanza is a couplet (A A). The second, third, and fourth stanzas are each three-line units, with a rhyme scheme of A A B in the second stanza, and A A A in the third and fourth stanzas. This variation in rhyme scheme is not arbitrary; it reflects the poem’s emotional progression. The first stanza, with its simple couplet, establishes the theme. The second stanza, with its A A B pattern, creates a sense of expansion; the second line opens up, the third line resolves. The third and fourth stanzas, with their A A A monotone rhyme, create a sense of closure, of certainty. The poet has moved from wonder to conviction.
The meter is a loose, accentual verse, typical of Sindhi ghazal and nazm traditions. It is not strictly quantitative, but it has a rhythmic flow that is pleasing to the ear. The repetition of long vowels (ā, ī, ū) creates a sonorous, meditative quality.
We must also take into account the lexical and imagistic richness of the poem in question. The poem’s vocabulary is carefully chosen to evoke both the physical and the metaphysical.
- “Ajab” (wonderful): used twice, once for the universe (k̲h̲udāī) and once for God’s power (qudrat). It is the poem’s leitmotif.
- “Nirmal” (pure): suggests the spiritual cleanliness of creation.
- “Kaṇī” (seed/atom) and “Gulzār” (garden): the central metaphor of the poem, the movement from the infinitesimal to the infinite.
- “Ḥikmat” (wisdom): the philosophical key to the poem’s ethics.
- “Chhangī” (good): the final affirmation, the moral conclusion.
The imagery is celestial and terrestrial; sun, moon, stars, and seeds, gardens. The poet moves seamlessly between the two, suggesting that the same divine power governs both the vastness of the cosmos and the smallest seed in the earth.
The philosophical and Sufi dimensions are equally important. The poem is deeply rooted in Sufi metaphysics, particularly the doctrine of Waḥdat al-Wujūd (the Unity of Being). This is the idea that all existence is a manifestation of the Divine, and that nothing exists independently of God. The poem’s insistence that “everything is good” (Chhangī āhī sabkā) and that “nothing is empty of wisdom” (Na ḥikmat khaan hargiz, aahe ka be k̲h̲ālī) is a direct expression of this doctrine.
Furthermore, the poem reflects the Sufi practice of tafakkur (contemplation). The poet does not simply assert God’s greatness; he observes it. He looks at the sun, the moon, the stars, the seed, the garden, and from these observations, he derives his theology. This is the empirical spirituality of Sufism: the world is a book, and the poet is its reader.
No critical evaluation of poetry is complete without listing its strengths and weaknesses.
Following are the strengths of the poem:
- Structural coherence: The poem moves logically from the cosmic to the particular, from observation to affirmation.
- Lexical precision: Every word is chosen with care; there is no filler.
- Philosophical depth: The poem is not just devotional; it is a meditation on the nature of creation, wisdom, and goodness.
- Aesthetic beauty: The rhyme and rhythm create a meditative, sonorous quality that enhances the meaning.
The following may be seen as potential weaknesses of the poem:
- Repetition: The poem’s central ideas (God’s power, the goodness of creation) are stated multiple times. While this is typical of devotional poetry, a modern critic finds it somewhat redundant.
- Lack of personal voice: The poem is entirely in the third person (addressing God). There is little of the poet’s own emotional struggle or doubt. It is a poem of certainty, not of questioning. This is not necessarily a weakness, but it limits the poem’s emotional range.
To sum up, the poem is an important piece of Sindhi Sufi devotional poetry. It is a poem that seeks not to argue, but to evoke; not to prove, but to praise. Its structure is elegant, its imagery is vivid, and its philosophy is profound. It stands in the grand tradition of Sindhi Hamd poetry. It is a poem that invites the reader to look at the world with new eyes to see the sun, the moon, the stars, the seed, the garden, and to recognize in them the hand of the Creator. It is, in the truest sense, a poem of wonder (ajab).
In final analysis, this deeply moving, philosophically rich, and aesthetically beautiful poem, deserves a place in the canon of Sindhi Sufi literature.
Read: Sindhii: A Digital Alphabet for Sindhi
_________________
Raphic Burdo is student of Finance, Entrepreneurship, Public Policy, Psychology and Literature. He writes on the intersection of these subjects. He can be approached at RaphicBurdo@gmail.com
