Dear Sir/Madame,
Please find here the introduction to the Book on Falconry by the 17thcentury Pakistani poet-warrior, Khushal Khan Khattak, which I have translated from its original Pashto into English rhyme, for publication in your esteemed magazine. Please let me know if it would be possible for your to publish the piece in your next edition. Also, I’ve included in the file the short life-history of the poet and the translator at the end of the poem.
Thanking you
Sami
Introduction
You inspire these passions In the heart, O Lord! You indulged in hunting, As You can see, this bard
The moment I was able To tell right from left You established this love Into my warp and weft
In childhood, I’d hunt
The robins and sparrows While young, I’d shoot The deer with my arrows
In mountains and in plains Ibexes did I basket As countless of them Fell prey to my musket I drew, later on, Toward the birds of prey Consumed by falconry Body and soul in a way
I kept busy in multiple tasks All along the way But hunting? No, I won’t break For a single day
Now that I age Around sixty two I find the Pashtuns And the Moguls in a stew1
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Relations between the Moguls and the Pashtuns deteriorated when Khushal Khan was imprisoned by the Moguls in 1664 C.E. for no apparent reason and kept into captivity for about four and a half years.
From the mainland India King Aurangzeb2 has come In Hasan Abdal, Attock3, He sounded the war drum
It’s been four five years Since the start of the strife As the Moguls are bleeding By the Pashtuns’ knife
The Moguls are craving To take their revenge Plotting day and night Khushal’s end to arrange
Upon power, silver and gold The Moguls do rely The God Almighty name Khushal Khattak swears by
Exiled, without countrymen All alone he roams Mountain after mountain, Like an ibex, he combs 2 3
The orthodox Mogul ruler, who imprisoned Khushal. Hasan Abdal and Attock are two adjacent cities in the northern Punjab, Pakistan.
There are two others4 In the field, I’m the third Even in this state I’m undeterred
Small or great, there’re still New tidings in store The love of falcons brought me To the Swat Valley5 floor
Tomes on other topics Have many I penned down But the Book on Falconry Is like a feather in my crown
Every heart that is passionate About a certain thing Would talk without end And discuss it in full swing
I’m an old boy, having a hundred 4
The two others being, Aimal Khan and Darya Khan, who were notable tribal chieftains. Collectively, the three made into a formidable force and routed the Mogul Army in a number of military campaigns. 5 A scenic valley in north-west Pakistan. In recent years, it was in the media spotlight for the Taliban insurgency in the area, which was contained by the Pakistan Army in 2009. Malala Yousafzai, the child star, also belongs to the same area.
Sons and grandsons6 Who are all obsessed About different funs
Some hunt with arrows As they’re master archers Some are like me The keen falconry marchers
Some wander in the deserts While looking for the rabbits Some chase the ibex In mountains which inhabits
Passionate are some About hunting with the hound Just everyone’s in love with His own happy hunting ground
May God endow everyone With an unbounded treasure May all of them enjoy Great luxury and leisure 6
Khushal Khan had a very large family. He had many wives and some sixty sons and thirty two daughters. Among them, Ashraf Khan Hijri, Abdul Qadir Khattak and Hafiza Halima were also accomplished poets. While, among his grandsons, Afzal Khan Khattak, was also a notable man of letters and writer of the voluminous Tareekh e Murassa, a book on the history of Pashtuns, also containing the diaries of Khushal.
The art of hunting runs Through our very lineage We’ve inherited this great skill As a family heritage
Whether it’s the hunting Whether it’s the sword With our pedigree These two skills fully accord
Money making or amassing Is not my cup of tea Charity and benevolence Is to what I agree
Whether it’s generosity The sword or the pen In these three areas have spread My name among men
Things such as these I desire my offspring inherit If they’ve any honor They’ll qualify the merit
In Persian, I’ve penned The Book on Falconry in prose7 In Pashto, I’d like The verse form to juxtapose
Nine hundred and nineteen Are the couplets as such In the village of Rustam8 I gave it the final touch
Whether it’s the training The cures or the odes Consisted they are all of Forty-seven episodes
It’s the year – Hijrah One thousand eighty five9 I finished it when the last days Of Rajab10 did arrive
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This particular book has, unfortunately, been lost to the ravages of time. There’re a couple of such titles being attributed to Khushal but suspicions surround their authenticity. There’s particularly one book written in Pashto prose, which draws heavily on Khushal’s Baz Nama, and being attributed to the poet but even that claim is hotly contested by scholars. 8 A small village in the outskirts of Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. 9 The Muslim Lunar Calendar, which corresponds to 1674 C.E. 10 The seventh month of the Islamic Calendar.
In the month of Scorpio11 I started writing the book A period of six days was All the whole work took
When my tongue began To converse in verse You’d say, it all started In sorcery diverse
Nature of the golden eagle Luckily do I own Ready to make a killing You’ll see in every zone! ****************************************** About Khushal Khan Khattak: Khushal (1613-1689), has widely been hailed as the national poet of the Pashtuns - a major ethnic group living on either side of the Pak-Afghan border. His work consists of more than 25,000 individual couplets, on themes ranging from love, aesthetics, statecraft, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy, medicine to jurisprudence and falconry. Khushal was the chieftain of the Khattak tribe and served as the guardian of the Mogul Royal Road from Attock in the northern Punjab to Peshawar, in the modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Before him, his forefathers had also served in the same capacity right from the times of Akbar the Great (1542 –1605). Khushal was in the good books of the Mogul emperor, Shah Jehan – the builder of the timeless, Taj Mahal - and fell under the wrath of the orthodox, Aurangzeb, who, in 1664, put
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him in the dungeon of the Ranthambore Fort, Rajasthan, India, and kept under house arrest in Delhi, for about four and a half years. Upon his release, he started a freedom struggle against the Mogul hegemony in the Pashtuns dominated areas. He formed an alliance with two other influential tribal chiefs, Aimal Khan Afridi and Darya Khan Mohmand, and was quite successful in a number of military campaigns. Things, however, started to fall apart with the death of his two allies and his own old age. The Moguls then made inroads in his household by bribing and offering royal offices to his sons, to rise against their father. His later life was marked by exile and suffering at the hands of both the Moguls and his sons. He died at the age of seventy-six, while living in exile. As per his will, his body was brought to his hometown, Akora Khattak, and secretly buried in a place, where - to his own words: “the dust of the Mogul cavalry hoofs could not light upon my grave.” The Book on Falconry was written by Khushal in 1674 C.E., on his journey to the Swat Valley, north-west, Pakistan. The purpose of his trip was two-fold. First, to urge co-Pashtun tribe, the Yousafzai, to ally with him in his struggle against the Moguls. Second, to explore the art of falconry in the area. He wasn’t very successful in his political goal but as to his contribution to the field of falconry, it’s fame and utility will ever abide. About the translator: Sami ur Rahman is a freelance columnist and a translator. He holds a master’s degree in political science and is currently working on Khushal’s quatrains. He hails from the same small town, which was founded by Khushal’s ancestors, and to which the poet himself belonged.