Hamd, Naat and Islamic Poetry

In brief: Specialise in Hamd, Naat and Islamic poetry: poetry in praise of Allah and the Prophet, its history in Arabic, Persian and Urdu, prosody and literary analysis.

Research the poetry of praise — hamd for Allah and naat for the Prophet ﷺ — and the wider tradition of Islamic poetry in its literary and devotional contexts.

Sample research areas

• History of naat from the Companion-poets to the present
• Arabic, Persian and Urdu naat: forms, imagery and prosody
• Manqabat, qasida and marthiya as Islamic poetic genres
• Literary analysis and translation of devotional poetry
• Naat in performance: its adab and etiquette

Key sources and texts

• The poetry of Hassan ibn Thabit and Ka’b ibn Zuhayr
• Qasidat al-Burda of al-Busiri
• Hada’iq-e-Bakhshish of Imam Ahmad Raza Khan
• Persian and Urdu divans of devotion

Where graduates serve

• Poets, writers and editors
• Teaching literature and Islamic studies
• Cultural and community programmes

Available at: B.Litt (Hons) · M.Litt (Hons) · MPhil · D.Litt · Post-doctorate. Back to all fields.