The Hindustani Who Still Fills India With His Presence : My Tribute to Amir Khusrau

A compilation from various sites to make it easier for his admirers is my tribute to his genius.
The original Mr. India : for me Amir Khusrau is Mr. Hindustan.

Early Life
The life of Amir Khusrau is very well documented.
He was born in Patiali, which is in modern day Etah, U.P.in 1253. His father, Amīr Saifud-Dīn Mahmud, was a Turkish officer from Transoxania. His mother was the daughter of Rawat Arz,a Rajput and the famous war minister of the Delhi Sultan Balban.
His real name was Ab’ul Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrau ( Khusrow is the anglicized pronunciation).

Khusrau in Dilli:
“How lovely is winter in India
that makes the home and outside look like a garden.”
Khusrau served under seven rulers of the Delhi Sultanate and was a prolific writer and wrote 92 books in all.
His masnawi ‘Qiran-us-Sa’dain’,written at age 36 earned him the post of poet laureate in court of King Kaikobad.
This is also called ‘Mathnavi dar Sifat-I-Dilli’ as it was his ode to the city of Delhi.
In ‘Mathnavi Nuh-Sipihr’ he pays further tribute to India’s birds and animals, flowers and trees, its languages and people.
In ‘Nuh Siphir'(songs of nine heavens) he talks of the religious and cultural plurality of Hindustan of those times. He talks of the mutual love between Hindus and Muslims and equates a Haji going toMecca with a Hindu pilgrim going to Somnath. He says:
“The Brahmans of India have greater wealth of philosophical thought than what Rumi had revealed to the World.
As nobody has tried to learn from the Brahmans, their learning has not been revealed to the world.”
(Indian Literary Criticism: Theory and Interpretation By G. N. Devy (Orient Longman))

Khusrau and Hazrat Nizamuddin :

Amir Khusrau was entrusted with the work of developing Qawwali as a complete form of music and he selected 12 young students whom he called qawwal bachcha. It is through them that he presented Qaul Qalbana and other forms of Qawwali.
Munshi Raziuddin and his sons Farid Ayaz and Abu mohamed are descendants from those qawwal bachchas

Khusrau and Indian Music

“A superb musician in his own right and credited with the invention of several musical instruments and with having laid the theoretical basis for much of Indo-Muslim music, Khusraw imparted to his ghazals a lilt and melody that have assured their inclusion in musical programs in India to the present day”
(Sangeet Natak, Volume XLII, No. 4, 2008)

Khusrau is said to be the inventor of the Sitar and the Tabla. In addition to these musical instruments, he is said to have been the originator of genres such as the tarana, khayal and the qaul. He is also said to have composed numerous new ragas.
It is said that he invented new ragas . At the time he came to the scene, Indian music had been slowly disappearing because of the advent of Persian influence. By an amalgamation of Indian and Persian music, Amir Khusrau gave Indian music a new lease of life.
Amir Khusrau is also credited with the creation of seventeen talas (patterns of rhythm) including the talas prevailing today such as teen tal, Jhoomra and Ara Chautala, and a number of raags including Yaman Kalyan, Sazgiri and Sarparda.
Though he himself modestly states that they already existed in Indo-Iranian music.
“Nevertheless, subsequent scholars consider Khusro to be the creator of a number of them. They point out that the Ragas mentioned are actually blends of existing Indian and Persian melodies. Yaman, for example, is an amalgam of the Indian Hindol (as it existed then) and the Persian Nairez or Nairiz. Similarly, Saazgiri comprises the ancient Indian forms of Purbi, Vibhaas, Gaud and Gunkali along with the Persian Ahang.”
(http://debatesangeet.blogspot.ae/2008/12/amir-khusro-ii.html)

Khusrau and the Tarana

Amir Khusro is said to have created six forms of music, namely Qaul, Qalbana, Khayal, Tarana, Naqsh, and Gul. The last two have lapsed into obscurity but the rest remain.
The word tarana itself means a song in Persian.
Though it is generally believed that Tarana is a composition of meaningless syllables followed sometimes by the bols (words coined to denote the various sounds of instruments) of the tabla and sometimes by Persian poetry, Ustad Amir Khan who devoted much of his life to music, discovered meanings in it.
According to Ustad Amir Khan
Tanan Dar Aa – Enter my body.
O Dani – He knows
Tu Dani – You know.
Na Dir Dani – You are the Complete Wisdom.
Tom – I am yours, I belong to you.
Yala – Ya Allah
Yali – Ya Ali

Other musicologists have also tried to explain their meanings, e.g:

Dar – Bheetar, Aandar (inside)
Dara – Andar Aa (get in or come inside)
Dartan – Tanke Aandar (inside the body)
Tanandara – Tanke Aandar Aa (Come inside the body)
Tom – Main Tum Hun (I am you)
Nadirdani – Tu Sabse Adhik Janata Hai (You know more than anyone else)
Tandardani – Tanke Aandarka Jannewala (One who knows what is inside the body) [2]
( http://qaul.blogspot.ae/2008/05/tarana-singing-ustad-amir-khan.html )

Khusrau and Braj Bhasha
In The poem Zihal e Miskin Khusrau wrote alternating verses in Persian and braj bhasha the prevailing local language of Delhi and its neighborhood.

For lyrics and translate please check :

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Further Reading
1. http://www.svabhinava.org/abhinava/Dileep%20Karanth/AmirKhusrauIndianMusic.pdf)

2. http://lalioutloud.blogspot.ae/2010/09/of-qaul.html