City of lyrics : ordinary poets and Islamicate popular culture in early modern Delhi
Nathan L. M. Tabor (Author)
"For centuries, Urdu-speaking poets and their audiences have gathered for mushāʻirahs, literary competitions for spoken-word verse. Today the mushāʻirah is a global phenomenon, as audiences in the millions convene in person and online for hours of poetic performance. Tracing these modern gatherings back to their origins, Nathan L.M. Tabor introduces readers to the popular emergence of the mushāʻirah in eighteenth-century Delhi. Scores of poets composed two-line lyric poems, called ġhazals, that they muttered, sang, shouted, and spat out in contentious salon spaces across India's largest metropolis. Delhi's mushāʻirahs circulated lyrics, satires, and songs for both common and elite poets, who traded and assessed words like an urban commodity that defined hierarchy, taste, and notions of delight. Via poets' verse exchanges and the histories they wrote about Dehli's literary scene, City of Lyrics reconstructs the social networks the mushāʻirahs produced. By understanding the roots of this uniquely Islamic literary practice, readers will also gain insight into global popular culture today, which increasingly takes shape according to tastes and values from the Muslim world yet is enjoyed by wide audiences comprised of both Muslims and non-Muslims alike"-- Provided by publisher
Print Book, English, 2025
The University of North Carolina Press, [Chapel Hill], 2025