Although the ghazal deals with the whole spectrum of human experience, its central concern is love. The ghazal came to India with the advent and extension of the Muslim influence from the 12th century onwards. The Moghuls brought with them Iranian culture and civilization, including Iranian poetry and literature. By the 18th century, when Persian gave way to Urdu as the language of poetry and culture in India, the ghazal found its opportunity to grow and develop. The Urdu ghazal still adhered largely to the form, imagery, and content of its ancestor.
Evidence suggests that the ghazal as musical genre has thrived for several centuries in North India.
Ghazal could be chanted in a semi-melodic tarannum style by poets at poetry readings, or it could be used as a text for Muslim devotional qawwali performed by professional groups in shrines. Ghazal as a musical genre became particularly popular in the nineteenth century, when a proto-capitalist, incipient bourgeoisie began to replace the declining feudal Mughal nobility as patrons of the fine arts. On the whole, however, the light-classical ghazal successfully effected the transition from court and courtesan salon to the public concert hall, and from feudal to bourgeoisie patronage. The ghazal's popularity was aided by the advent of the recording industry in India in 1901. From the very start, ghazals constituted a significant part, and perhaps a plurality of commercial recordings, largely because ghazal was the most popular music genre in Urdu, the lingua franca of North India.