Social Analysis of Sindhi Classical Poetry: Prior to Shah Latif

Abstract

We find a few and countable number of poets when we look at the classical poetry of the Pre-Shah Abdul Latif era in Sindhi literature. That too, most of their works are incomplete in terms of data for the literary and critical researchers to understand and explore. The most prominent poets of Pre-Shah Abdul Latif era are Kazi Kadan, Shah Karim, Shah Lutf Ullah Qadri, Miyon Shah Inayat and Miyon Eso. Shah Abdul Latif’s poetry seems strongly influenced by these early classical poets. When we look into the poetry of these classical poets, it helps to understand and reflects on the religion and mysticism along with social consciousness of the time. The symbolic meanings and signifiers used by these poets in their poetry depict and highlight to both the positive and negative social norms and values. They seem to highlight and reflect upon the positive characters and exposed the evil ones. Against this backdrop, this paper looks into the social analysis of these early classical poets of Pre-Shah Abdul Latif era. The main objective of this paper is to understand the early classical Sindhi poetry and its contribution in the social formation of Sindhi society.