Degree

BS (Social Sciences & Liberal Arts)

Faculty / School

School of Economics and Social Sciences (SESS)

Department

Department of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts

Date of Award

Summer 2025

Date of Submission

2025-07-28

Advisor

Aliya Iqbal Naqvi

Project Type

SSLA Culminating Experience

Access Type

Restricted Access

Keywords

Amir Khusraw, Hindavi, Poetry, Songs, South Asian Weddings, Pakistani Gen-Z

Abstract

This thesis explores how educated Gen-Z undergraduates in Pakistan receive and emotionally respond to the Hindavi poetry of Amir Khusraw, the great thirteenth-century Indo-Muslim poet and Sufi mystic. Often celebrated for his Persian verse, Khusraw’s Hindavi compositions, rich with folk idioms, cultural rituals, and spiritual longing, have remained deeply rooted in South Asian oral traditions. This study focuses on how his verses resonate with contemporary youth in Pakistan, particularly in relation to themes of love, loss, separation, and gendered expression.

Drawing on historical context, literary analysis, and focus group discussions, this interdisciplinary project combines close readings of key Hindavi verses such as Chaap Tilak, Kahe Ko Biyahi Bides, and Achay Bannay Mehendi Lavan De, with responses from Gen Z audiences. These conversations reveal how emotional recognition often precedes textual comprehension, and how Khusraw’s poetic tenderness continues to find meaning in modern lives, especially among young women. The key role of music and listening to the verses as songs, rather than reading as text, emerged as one of the most powerful reasons for Khusraw’s relevance and continuity across centuries through transmitted cultural memory.

Written with the intention of accessibility and emotional resonance, this thesis is both a scholarly engagement and a personal offering. It seeks to understand Khusraw’s works in their own context, but also to “make meaning” for contemporary and future audiences of Khusraw’s verses.

Pages

85

Download

The full text of this document is only accessible to authorized users.

Share

COinS