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Nurnama (literally, the book of light) popular medieval Bangla poem, about hazrat muhammad (Sm) and the creation of the universe. A number of verses in the holy quran compare Allah and his Prophet to light. Thus verse 35 of Sura Nur, the twenty-fifth chapter of the holy Quran, states, 'Almighty Allah is like the light of this world and the universe'; verse 45 of Sura Ahsab, the thirty-third chapter of the holy Quran, states, ' Muhammad
(Sm) is like a lamp disseminating
light'. Afterwards, Muslim philosophers, such as Al-Farabi, Al-Gazzali and Ibne Sina, synthesised these ideas.
Several Bengali poets wrote versions of the Nurnama
in Bangla. Perhaps the most elaborate of these versions is that written
by the seventeenth century poet, abdul
hakim. The poem was very popular and many manuscript copies
are extant. The Nurnama of Abdul Karim Khondkar, a poet of the
eighteenth century, is a shorter version. Other poets such as Sheikh Paran
(c 1550-1615), Mir Muhammad Shafi (c 1559-1630) and Dwija Ramtanu, dalso
escribe the mystery of creation at the beginning of their poems, which
is why these books are also called Nurnama.
[Razia Sultana] |
