Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks

For centuries, Urdu-speaking poets and their audiences have gathered for mushirahs, literary competitions for spoken-word verse. Today the mushirah 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 mushirah in eighteenth-century Delhi. Scores of poets composed two-line lyric poems, called hazals, that they muttered, sang, shouted, and spat out in contentious salon spaces across Indias largest metropolis. Delhis mushirahs circulated lyrics, satires, and songs for both common and elite poets, who traded and assessed words as an urban commodity that defined hierarchy, taste, and notions of delight.Via poets' verse exchanges and their histories of Dehlis literary scene, City of Lyrics reconstructs the social networks the mushirahs produced. By understanding the roots of this uniquely Islamic literary practice, readers will gain insight into global popular culture today, which increasingly takes shape according to the tastes and values of the Muslim world yet is enjoyed by wide audiences of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.