An Arabic, Persian and Urdu elegiac form mourning the dead, which in Shia devotional culture developed into an extended narrative genre commemorating the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali at Karbala, recited during the mourning month of Muharram.
Facts
Place of OriginPre-Islamic Arabia as a general elegy form; its Karbala-commemorative form developed later in Iran and, above all, in Lucknow, India. 1 StructureIn its developed Urdu form, stanzas of six lines, the first four sharing one rhyme and the last two a second, closing rhyme (musaddas). 1 Notable ExampleMir Anis's 19th-century Urdu marsiya, regarded as the form's classical peak. 1 Connections
Form Of Genre
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Sources
1. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University Press
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