To place Zeb-un-Nissa’s writing in the historical continuum of some well-known Sufi poets: Rumi wrote in the 13th century, Hafez in the 14th, Kabir in the 15th, Zeb-un-Nissa in the 17th, and Ghalib in the 19th.
Zeb-un-Nissa wrote her poems as ghazals. A ghazal (pronounced “guzzle”) is a series of self-contained couplets. The first couplet establishes an end-rhyme. The second lines of succeeding couplets continue this rhyme. The last couplet addresses the poet by name and provides some kind of personal instruction. In the final lines of Zeb-un-Nissa’s ghazals, the poet calls herself Makhfi, meaning “the hidden one.”
A ghazal usually contains no more than eighteen couplets, thirty-six lines. Lacking a clearly stated, unifying theme, the poem engages the reader in searching for the larger context in which the whole may have meaning. The form of the ghazal ushers the reader into the unknown — in essence, a spiritual quest.
A diwan is a sequence of groups of ghazals, ordered according to their rhyme. The first group of ghazals rhymes with the first letter of the alphabet, the second group rhymes with the alphabet’s second letter, and on down the line.
