Pir Roshan - Contribution To Pashto Literature

Contribution To Pashto Literature

Besides his reputation as a revolutionary, Pir Roshan invented Pushto script thus ensuring the emergence of Pashto literature and writing. Pir Roshan realized that Pashto could not be written in Arabic script owing to some of its sounds. He invented 13 characters to represent those sounds, thus making written Pashto a reality. Some of these characters patched up vocal differences between the hard and soft dialects of Pashto as well. Pir Roshan's contribution to Pashto nationalism and Pashto language has been neglected, possibly because: first, he was from the small—but influential—tribe of Baraki, whose mother tongue was Ormuri (a Western Persian language) not Pashto and whose lineage was attributed via his Baraki roots to the Kurdistan region and could not supposedly be traced to one of the Pashtun confederations, although rumor has it that the Barakzai (sons of Barak) are originally "Baraki", and secondly his "Roshaniya" movement was militarily crushed over and over although his ideas spread beyond the Pukhtunkhwa region. The victors in a concerted effort demonized the man and his movement as being a "secret cult," and in the minds of many this character assassination stuck. Pir Roshan, however, is credited with writing the first book in Pashto language; Khair-ul-Bayan and thus sowing the seed of Pashto literature. The book was thought to be lost till recently when an original hand written Persian manuscript was found, preserved in the university of Tübingen, Germany. This reached London through the courtesy of Norwegian professor Margestierne, who delivered it to Sir Denison Ross, then the Director of London School of Oriental and African Studies. Moulana Abdul Qaadir of Pashto Academy-Peshawar, obtained it from there and published the Pashto edition in 1987. Khairul-Bayan was written in four languages – Pashto, Persian, Arabic, and Hindi by the author himself and is considered the first book on Pashto prose. However this Pashto book is not in author's words but a Pashto Academy translation of his original Persian manuscript.

He wrote nearly a dozen books, although less than half of these have survived to modern days, mostly in private and family libraries. His works include, "Khayr al-Bayan", "Maksud al- Muminin", "Surat-i Tawhid", "Fakhr", "Hal-Nama" "Maksud al- Muminin", "Surat-i Tawhid", "Fakhr", "Hal-Nama" quiet meditation, known as Khilwat.