''Sehra'' (سہرا) or

prothalamion ''Prothalamion'', the commonly used name of ,Cox, Michael, editor, ''The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature'', Oxford University Press, 2004, is a poem by Edmund Spenser (1552–1599), one of the important poets of the Tudor period i ...

is a poem sung at a ''

nikah In Islam, nikah is a contract between two people. Both the groom and the bride are to consent to the marriage of their own free wills. A formal, binding contract – verbal or on paper – is considered integral to a religiously valid Islam ...

'' (

Muslim wedding Muslim marriage and Islamic wedding customs are traditions and practices that relate to wedding ceremonies and marriage rituals prevailing within the Muslim world. Although Islamic marriage customs and relations vary depending on country of ori ...

) in praise of the groom, praying to God for his future wedded life. Sehra is not the subject matter of folk songs alone, some of the prominent Urdu poets like Mirza Ghalib, Zauq and even Bahadur Shah Zafar too have composed ''sehras''.

Tradition

In South Asian Muslim traditions, especially in

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

and

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India ...

(

Deccan The large Deccan Plateau in southern India is located between the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats, and is loosely defined as the peninsular region between these ranges that is south of the Narmada river. To the north, it is bounded by the ...

), there is a social ritual where the sisters of the groom sing ''sehra'', a

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

in praise of the groom and pray to God for his future wedded life. The groom follows this by giving cash to his sisters. Also, ''sehras'' are generally written by individuals praising their brothers, so they are very varied in style and nature.

Literature

''Sehra'' is a type of

nazm ''Nazm'' () is a major part of Urdu and Sindhi poetry that is normally written in rhymed verse and also in modern prose-style poems. is a significant genre of Urdu and Sindhi poetry; the other one is known as ''ghazal'' (). is significantly ...

and a genre of

Urdu poetry Urdu poetry ( ur, ) is a tradition of poetry and has many different forms. Today, it is an important part of the cultures of South Asia. According to Naseer Turabi there are five major poets of Urdu which are Mir Taqi Mir (d.1810), Mirza Ghali ...

, though there are no specifications for a ''sehra'' except that it should rhyme and be of the same meter.

Popular culture

A good sehra appears in the

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Razia Sultana Raziyyat-Ud-Dunya Wa Ud-Din ( fa, ) (died 15 October 1240, ), popularly known as Razia Sultana, was a ruler of the Delhi Sultanate in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. She was the first female Muslim ruler of the subcontinent, and ...

; however, this particular sehra was sung by males, quite contrary to the current tradition.

References

External links

* {{Urdu poetry Urdu-language poetry