Urdu Literature - Main Prose Component: Dastaan

Main Prose Component: Dastaan

Urdu literature was generally composed more of poetry than of prose. The prose component of Urdu literature was mainly restricted to the ancient form of long-epic stories called Dastaan (داستان) often originally written in Persian. These long-epic stories would deal with magical and otherwise fantastic creatures and events in a very complicated plot.

Dastan, as a genre, originated in Iran and was disseminated by folk storytellers. It was assimilated by individual authors. Dastan's plots are based both on folklore and classical literary subjects. Dastan was particularly popular in *Urdu literature, typologically close to other narrative genres in Eastern literatures, such as Persian masnawi, Punjabi qissa, Sindhi waqayati bait, etc., and also reminiscent of the European novel. The oldest known Urdu dastans are Dastan-i-Amir Hamza, recorded in the early seventeenth century, and the extinct Bustan-iKhayal ('The Garden of Imagination' or 'The Garden of Khayal') by Mir Taqi Khayal (d. 1760). Most of the narrative dastans were recorded in the early nineteenth century, representing contaminations of 'wandering', motifs borrowed from the folklore of the Middle East, central Asia and northern India. These include Bagh-oBahar ('The Garden and Spring') by Mir Amman, Mazhab-i-Ishq (The Religion of Love) by Nihalchand Lahori, Araish-i-Mahfil ('The Adornment of the Assembly') by Hyderbakhsh Hyderi, Gulzar-i-Chin ('The Flower Bed of Chin') by Khalil Ali Khan Ashq, and the smaller dastans.

Examples of famous dastans in Urdu include:

• Nau tarz-i murassa‘ - Husain ‘Atā Khān Tahsīn
• Nau ā'īn-i hindī (Qissa-i Malik Mahmūd Gīti-Afroz) - Mihr Chand Khatrī
• Jazb-i ‘ishq - Shāh Husain Haqīqat
• Nau tarz-i murassa‘ - Muhammad Hādī a.k.a. Mirzā Mughal Ghāfil
• Ārā'ish-i mahfil (Qissa-i Hātim Tā'ī) - Haidar Bakhsh Haidarī
• Bāgh o bahār(Qissa-i chahār darwesh) - Mir Amman
• Dāstān-i Amīr Hamza - Khalīl ‘Alī Khān Ashk
• Talism Hoshruba - Muhammad Husain Azad.