page_title: Ghalib
section_title: Mirza Ghalib and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
hierarchical_section_title: Ghalib / Mirza Ghalib and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
caption_attribution_description: Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
context_page_description: Ghalib, born Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, was a prominent Urdu and Persian poet during the last years of the Mughal Empire. He used his pen-names of Ghalib and Asad. His honorific was Dabir-ul-Mulk, Najm-ud-Daula. During his lifetime, the already declining Mughal empire was eclipsed and displaced by the Colonial British Raj and finally deposed following the defeat of the Indian rebellion of 1857, are some of the events that he described through his work.
  Most notably, he wrote in both Urdu and Persian. His Persian Divan is at least five times longer than his Urdu but his fame rests on his poetry in Urdu.
  Today, Ghalib remains popular not only in India and Pakistan but also among the Hindustani diaspora around the world.
context_section_description: 1855, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan finished his scholarly, well researched and illustrated edition of Abul Fazl's Ai’n-e Akbari. Having finished the work to his satisfaction, and believing that Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib was a person who would appreciate his labours, Syed Ahmad approached the great Ghalib to write a taqriz (in the convention of the times, a laudatory foreword) for it. Ghalib obliged, but what he produced was a short Persian poem castigating the Ai’n-e Akbari and, by implication, the imperial, sumptuous, literate and learned Mughal culture of which it was a product. The least that could be said against it was that the book had little value even as an antique document. Ghalib practically reprimanded Syed Ahmad Khan for wasting his talents and time on dead things. Worse, he highly praised the "sahibs of England" who at that time held all the keys to all the a’ins in this world.
  This poem is often referred to but had never been translated into English. Shamsur Rahman Faruqi wrote an English translation. The translation is accurate if lacking the felicity of the original:
  Good news my friends, this ancient book's door
  
  Is now open, because of the Syed's grace and fortune, 1
  
  The eye began to see, the arm found strength
  
  That which was wrapped in ancient clothes,
  
  now put on a new dress. 2
  
  And this idea of his, to establish its text and edit the A’in
  
  Puts to shame his exalted capability and potential, 3
  
  He put his heart to a task and pleased himself
  
  And made himself an auspicious, free servant. 4
  
  One who isn’t capable of admiring his quality
  
  Would no doubt praise him for this task, 5
  
  For such a task, of which this book is the basis
  
  Only an hypocrite can offer praise. 6
  
  I, who am the enemy of pretence
  
  And have a sense of my own truthfulness, 7
  
  If I don’t give him praise for this task
  
  It's proper that I find occasion to praise. 8
  
  I have nothing to say to the perverse
  
  None know what I know of arts and letters, 9
  
  In the whole world, this merchandise has no buyer.
  
  What profit could my Master hope from it? 10
  
  It should be said, it's an excellent inventory
  
  So what's there to see that's worth seeing? 11
  
  And if you talk with me of Laws and Rules
  
  Open your eyes, and in this ancient halting-place 12
  
  Look at the Sahibs of England.
  
  Look at the style and practice of these, 13
  
  See what Laws and Rules they have made for all to see
  
  What none ever saw, they have produced. 14
  
  Science and skills grew at the hands of these skilled ones
  
  Their efforts overtook the efforts of the forebears. 15
  
  This is the people that owns the right to Laws and Rules
  
  None knows to rule a land better than they, 16
  
  Justice and Wisdom they’ve made as one
  
  They have given hundreds of laws to India. 17
  
  The fire that one brought out of stone
  
  How well these skilled ones bring out from straw! 18
  
  What spell have they struck on water
  
  That a vapour drives the boat in water! 19
  
  Sometimes the vapour takes the boat down the sea
  
  Sometimes the vapour brings down the sky to the plains. 20
  
  Vapour makes the sky-wheel go round and round
  
  Vapour is now like bullocks, or horses. 21
  
  Vapour makes the ship speed
  
  Making wind and wave redundant. 22
  
  Their instruments make music without the bow
  
  They make words fly high like birds: 23
  
  Oh don’t you see that these wise people
  
  Get news from thousands of miles in a couple of breaths? 24
  
  They inject fire into air
  
  And the air glows like embers, 25
  
  Go to London, for in that shining garden
  
  The city is bright in the night, without candles. 26
  
  Look at the businesses of the knowledgeable ones:
  
  In every discipline, a hundred innovators! 27
  
  Before the Laws and Rules that the times now have
  
  All others have become things of yesteryears, 28
  
  Wise and sensitive and prudent one, does your book
  
  Have such good and elegant Laws? 29
  
  When one sees such a treasure house of gems
  
  Why should one glean corn from that other harvest? 30
  
  Well, if you speak of its style, it's good
  
  No, it's much better than all else that you seek 31
  
  But every good always has a better too
  
  If there's a head, there's also a crown for 
caption: Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
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