Tag Archives: Professor Azarmi Dukht Safavi

AIPTA to begin quest for Hyderabad’s forgotten Persian past

Aligarh, UTTAR PRADESH / Hyderabad, TELANGANA :

Before the arrival of British and English becoming the official language of our country, Persian held the official status in the court and administration.

Hyderabad :

Hyderabadis are in the know of the city’s long tryst with Iranian language and culture. However, it is a lesser-known fact that both the city and areas under the erstwhile Deccan region are home to a large number of Persian literary works as well.

In order to fill this gap, the All India Persian Teachers Association (AIPTA) has initiated works to document the Persian literary works from Deccan region, starting with Hyderabad. The plan is to start scourging the most important repositories of Hyderabad, like Oriental Manuscripts and Research Institute, Salar Jung Museum and State Archives.

Prof Azarmi Dukht Safavi, founder director of the Institute of Persian Research at Aligarh Muslim University and AIPTA-President, speaking to Express said, the catalogue thus created will also have introductory notes on each work. Once done, this catalogue will prove useful for Persian scholars to work on, translate and publish them.

Before the arrival of British and English becoming the official language of our country, Persian held the official status in the court and administration. It heavily influenced many local languages, including Urdu dialect of Hindustani, Punjabi, Sindhi, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali.

Prof Shahid Naukhez Azmi, head of Persian department at Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) and local secretary of AIPTA, points out that a majority of Persian literary works studied in India at the moment belong to the Mughal period.

However, the Bahmani empire in the Deccan were great patrons of Persian literature, culture and art. This trend continued under the rule of successive dynasties.
It may be mentioned here that AIPTA is organizing its 36th conference in Hyderabad at MANUU from February 5-7 with the theme, ‘Contribution of Deccan to the Persian Language and Literature’.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Hyderabad / by  V. Nilesh – Express News Service / February 03rd, 2019