LAHORE: A doctoral thesis on the Naat poetry of Lala Sahrai has been completed at Lahore Leads University. For a poet who had to give up his own schooling as a boy, it is a fitting tribute.
The thesis was written by PhD scholar Zakaullah under Dr Muhammad Attaullah, head of the university’s Urdu department. Its title is “A Technical and Thematic Study of Lala Sahrai’s Naatia Poetry”.
The Lala Sahrai Foundation says it is the ninth research work on the poet. The first eight were MPhil theses, written at different universities across Pakistan. That appears to make this the first at doctoral level.
Lala Sahrai was the pen name of Muhammad Sadiq. He was born in Amritsar in 1920, and his family later settled in Jahanian, in what is now Khanewal district. According to published accounts of his life, he loved reading from an early age but could not continue his education after middle school because the family could not afford it.
He went on to write for magazines and newspapers. His collections of Naat, poetry in praise of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), were published from the early 1990s, and he received a Presidential Award for his work. He died in Multan in 2000. A square in Jahanian is named after him.
Naat is among the most widely heard forms of Urdu poetry, yet it has received far less attention in universities than ghazal or the modern poem. Nine theses on one Naat poet suggest that is beginning to change.
The foundation thanked the scholars and supervisors who have worked on the poet. It did not say whether the thesis has been examined and the degree awarded, or where the earlier eight can be read.
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