Bekhud Badayuni

Bekhud Badayuni
Bekhud Badayuni
Born	Muhammad Abdul-Hayy Siddiqui; 17 September 1857; Ruba'i
Subject	Love, philosophy, mysticism, Islam

Muhammad Abdul-Hayy Siddiqui (1857–1912), writing under the

Badayun

.

History

Bekhud Badayuni's most recent biographer was Asad Ahmad of Aligarh Muslim University's Urdu Department, who drew upon the work of prior biographers, including Hasrat Mohani.

Bekhud Badayuni was born on 17 September 1857 into Badayun's prominent

Amir Khusro).^[2]

Life

Bekhud trained and qualified as a lawyer, and spent time practicing law in

Muradabad and Shahjahanpur. Tiring of the practice of law, he eventually entered into government service, serving as a high official first in the princely state of Sirohi (in Rajasthan), then in the princely state of Jodhpur

, where he spent the remainder of his days. He died in 1912 in Badayun.

Influences

Bekhud initially entered the tutelage of Maulana

Daagh Dehlvi, the last of the great poets of the erstwhile Mughal court. Upon Daagh's death, many of his numerous disciples clamored for the honor of being his jaa-nasheen (successor to his title and reputation as the greatest living Urdu poet); in his own memoirs, Bekhud reproaches many of Daagh's disciples for the manner in which they squabbled, and himself chose to remain aloof from the debate.^[3] Despite Bekhud's own reticence, Dr. Asad Ahmad quotes a well-known anecdote relating that Daagh, when asked to name his jaa-nasheen, replied, "Bekhud-ain [the two Bekhuds]", referring to Bekhud Badayuni and Bekhud Dehlvi (a fellow student of Daagh).^[4]

Poetry

Much of Bekhud's poetry has fallen out of contemporary discourse, for a variety of reasons.^[citation needed] In part, this circumstance is due to Bekhud's own reticence and limited publication of his works. He did not publish his collection of poetry (diwan) until 1910 (two years before his death) despite having compiled the bulk of it as early as fifteen years prior.^{[citation needed]} Biographers and critics have speculated that even this late publication of Bekhud's work occurred primarily to combat the plagiarism and misappropriation of his poetic works by other poets (since, short of publication, oral transmission is the primary medium for Urdu poetry).^[5] Bekhud's residence in Jodhpur, isolated from the main centers of Urdu literature in Delhi and Lucknow, also limited the circulation of his work and provided the opportunity for some of Bekhud's contemporaries in the centers of literature to pass his work off as their own. For this reason, much of his work has grown unfamiliar to the current generation of Urdu speakers, despite having been integral to any serious poet's or critic's study of Urdu poetry until late into the 20th century. At the same time, several of his works have been mis-attributed to Bekhud Dehlvi or other poets of his time.^{[citation needed]}

Published works

Hosh-o-Khirad ki Dukaan (The Shop of Sense and Wisdom) (1889) (هوش و خرد کی دکان)

Sabr-o-Shakeeb ki Loot (The Plundering of Patience and Forbearance) (1889) (صبر و شکيب کی لوٿ)

Marraat-ul-Khayaal (The Mirror of Thoughts) (1910) (مراﺓ الخيال)

Afsaanah-e-Bekhud (The Tale of Bekhud) (date unknown) (افسانه بےخود)

Notes

^ Platts, John T. (1884), A Dictionary of Urdu, classical Hindi, and English, London: W.H. Allen & Co.^{[failed verification]}
^ Ahmad, Asad (1990), Intikhaab-e-Kalaam: Bekhud Badayuni (انتخاب کلام بے خود بدایونی), Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Urdu Press, p. 88
^ Ahmad, Asad (1995), Bekhud Badayuni: Hayaat aur Adabi Khidmaat (بےخود بدایونی حيات اور ادبی خدمات), Aligarh: Baba Book Printers, p. 176
^ Ahmad 1990
^ Ahmad 1995