A comparative study of the Balochi story of Hani and Shaymorid with Laila and Majnun of Nizami

Introduction

Storytelling has a significant and prominent place in Iranian literature and its history dates back to the Pre-Islamic era. Fiction poetry is a part of Iranian poetic literature. In Persian literature, Fiction Poetry began with Wameq and Azrai Onsori (Death, 431), Vargheh and Golshah Ayoughi and Weiss and Ramin. It reached its climax with Khosrow and Shirin by Nizami (607-535). (Zolfaghari, 1394: 74) Laila and Majnun is the third fiction poem in Khamseh poem collection (a collection of five narrative poems) written by Nizami and is considered as one of his most brilliant works. The origin of this story should be sought in Arabic literature and Nizami put it in such a fascinating way that later numerous poets imitated this masterpiece work of poetry.
 Storytelling and fiction poetry are essential features of Balochi literature and a significant part of traditional Balochi poetry consists of poetic stories. There are dozens of romantic poems in Balochi literature, among which Hani and Shaymorid are the most famous. The place and role of this story in Balochi literature is the same as Laila and Majnun in Persian literature.
In this article, two poetic stories have been compared and evaluated, on the one hand, "Laila and Majnun" by Nizami, as one of the most famous and important poetic stories in Persian literature, and on the other hand, the story of "Hani and Shaymorid" as one of the most famous Balochi romantic story.
 

Methodology

The method of collecting data in the story and poems of "Hani and Shaymorid" is rather field-based. The author has heard the poem from the song of musicians and the story behind it from narrators. After compiling this story and its poems, using analytic and comparative methods, he has studied the characters and events of the stories and has used library resources for content analysis.
 

Discussion

The story of "Hani and Shaymorid" is about five centuries old and there are forty semi-long and short poems that were accessible to the author. This is the most famous Balochi story popular with the people and there are two main narrations and several sub-narrations about it. One of the main narrations is of southern Balochistan, i.e., the land of Makoran. The other one is the narration of northern Balochistan. Each of these narrations has its unique features. It is worth mentioning that there are more poems about the first narrative than the second.
The main characters of this story are Hani and Shaymorid and Mir Chakar. Hani is the daughter of Dinar, the cousin, fiancé, and lover of Shaymorid, who eventually becames his wife. Shaymorid is the son of Mubarak and Mir Chakar Rind, who is Shaymorid's love rival in this story, is the son of Sheyhak.
Hani and Shaymorid were cousins and had been engaged since childhood. Even though the two played together as children, Shaymorid did not meet Hani after childhood, so he did not discover her beauty. Mir Chakar, the chief of the tribe, heard the description of Hani's beauty and sought to choose her as the lady of his palace. Hani was engaged to Shaymorid, and it was a major obstacle to Mir Chakar's decision, so he tricked Shaymorid and dissuaded him from marrying Hani. Hani became aware of Mir Chakar's deception, and although she agreed to an unwanted marriage with Mir Chakar, she refused even to sit next to him and was still in love with Shaymorid in her heart. After the marriage, Shaymorid was able to see Hani and at first sight, he was enchanted by her beauty.
Obviously, Shaymorid was not able to fight Mir Chakar, so at his father's suggestion, he went for the Hajj journey (the house of God in Mecca) to get rid of this mad love. He wrote letters and sent messages to Hani during these years, and Hani also replied to his letters. Thirty years passed and Shaymorid returned to his house. Hani was still waiting for him to come. No one would recognize Shaymorid until some people could identify him according to the signs in his appearance and informed Hani about Shaymorid’s presence. She happily sent a messenger to take Shaymorid to the house of Hani's parents. She then sent intermediaries to Mir Chakar, asking for divorce and Mir Chakar immediately divorced Hani.  The two lovers then left while holding hands, and no one found a sign of them. They joined the myth and the Baloch people believe that they are "the living old (holy eternal life)" and have reached to the water of life and drank it.
The second narration is based on the same as the first one, with the difference that the amount of extraordinary and mythical elements in the second narration is significantly more than the first one. Here we try to summarize the general cases that are not mentioned in the above narration.
When Hani was taken from Shaymorid, Shaymorid wanted to fight against Mir Chakar because he was angry with him, but his father stopped him and advised Shaymorid that his strength would not be enough to confront Mir Chakar. Shaymorid then went to Mir Chakar’s Palace to visit Hani. Hani was asleep and did not notice his presence. Shaymorid desperately returned and made a promise to God to go to Mecca (the house of God) to get rid of his emotional dependency on Hani.
Hani was told that Shaymorid had come to her and she could not notice. She crazily and barefoot went out of the palace and followed Shaymorid. On the way, she saw a deer and asked whether it had seen a well-dressed, charming man riding a horse. The deer replied: "Last night, under the moonlight, I was sleeping next to a bush that smelled like a human being. I got up and saw a man with the same characteristics, along with six dervishes."
Hani said to the deer, "Come and convey my message to him that why did you turn your back and left me alone? Come back”! The deer immediately found Shaymorid and conveyed Hani's messages to him. Shaymorid replied: “I made a promise to my God that I would leave my city and country and be near the house of God for seven years and then only I shall return”. The deer conveyed Shaymorid's message to Hani. Upon hearing this, Hani took it as a bad omen and attempted to kill the deer, but he escaped.
Desperately, Hani made her way to the mesquite tree, which people used to ask for their wishes by tying a piece of cloth to its branches. Hani said to the tree: “O tree, fulfill my wish”. Of course, she did not hear any response and involuntarily uprooted the tree and continued on her way until she reached an old woman and said: “O kind old woman, I have a traveler on my way, tell me when he will reach.” The old woman took the rosary in her hand to fortune-tell and said: “Your traveler is on his way to Mecca, and he will stay there for seven years and then only he shall return. Like before, the result of the omen was not pleasant for Hani, and she killed the unfortunate woman. Seven years later, Shaymorid returned home and after his identity got examined, it was revealed that Shaymorid had come back. When Hani made sure that her beloved was by her side, they both put their hands around each other's necks and got united. There appeared a green camel before them. They both rode on it, and departed from that place, and never returned. Folks say that they will remain alive until the Day of Judgment. They would be wandering in the deserts and mountains till then.
Laila and Majnun is the third poem of Nizami’s Khamseh, written eight years after Khosrow and Shirin in 584 AH. Nizami put this story in poetic order in less than four months. This story was famous during The Age of Ignorance (jāhilīyah) in Arabia and before Nizami’s era. Some scholars have provided evidence of its authenticity and have even attributed a Divān (poem collection) to Majnun Qais Ameri. (Zolfaghari, 1392: 707). Laila and Majnun has an Arabic origin, but it is pretty prominent in Iranian literature and Persian. Nizami had composed this story artistically and he also did many manipulations in the story while writing the poem (Safa, vol. 2, 1989: 802).
The plot of the story in Nizami’s narrative is that a love affair begins between a child named Qais and his contemporary school girl Laila. The pride and prejudice that was quite ingrained in the Arabs’ culture of that time, created obstacles in the way of this passionate innocent love. Laila goes to the house of a greedy husband named Ibn Salam, and Qais, who does not benefit from his father's intervention and Nofal's mediation, goes insane and heads to the desert and becomes acquainted with animals (that’s why the local people gave him the title of Majnun). Neither his parents’ death, who die away in the grief of his absence, recovers him from insanity, nor the demise of Ibn Salam; brings him back to his lover. Laila, who lost her hope, dies in despair. Hearing about Laila’s death, Majnun approached her grave and said "O friend" repeatedly and then he also passed away. (Rezaei Ardani, 2012: 49)
There are common features, events, and similarities, in the two stories "Hani and Shaymorid" and "Laila and Majnun" and here we will try our best to point out some of them.
- Being companions and being in the same school got "Qais (Majnun) and Laila acquainted with each other in childhood which in result the fell in love" (Saeedi Sirjani, 1377: 117). Hani and Shaymorid were engaged and playmates since childhood. Of course, their relationship did not lead to falling in love during this period.
- When Majnun fell in love, this tragic love lasted for thirty years. (Servatiyan, 1395: 53). Hani and Shaymorid s’ ever-lasting love, which was during the separation period, according to the narrations of the people of southern Balochistan, lasted for thirty years.
-Although Laila was insanely in love with Majnun, she was forced to marry a wealthy man named "Ibn Salam," who offered her many precious gifts. (Saeedi Sirjani, 1998: 117). Hani was also deeply in love with Shaymorid and like Laila, she was unwillingly married to Mir Chakar through the cunning and sophistries of intermediaries.
  - Laila was uninterested in her husband and hated him. However, Ibn Salam knew that Laila was not in love with him. He had no choice but to get along and be patient (Saeedi Sirjani, 1998: 117). Mir Chakar, the chief of the tribe, like Ibn Islam, was a wealthy man. Hani hated Mir Chakar and did not approach him throughout her life.
- Both lovers are known mainly by their titles or nicknames, Majnun's real name is "Qais" and Shaymorid's real name is "Pirbaksh" (/pɪrbækʃ/). Majnun means mad and rebellious and Shaymorid also literally means mad and unconscious.
     - In the following poem, which is the translation of its Farsi original, Laila "laments that she has been created as a woman who is doomed to be helpless:
“ A woman even though she is a fighter
A woman, even though she is brave hearted
She is just an incapable creature after all
"A woman remains a woman, even though she is a lion." (Saeedi Sirjani, 1998: 123)
In a message sent to Shaymorid, Hani laments her inability as a woman and says:
“I am a bewildered and helpless woman sitting here
I do not have the strength to fight in Mir Chakar’s Palace
and break the doors of the palace and get out of here
and accompany the pilgrims of Haj on barefoot
and come there and embrace you
I am a woman and it is not my fault; my excuse is valid
I am like a mourning dove whose wings are broken by Mir Chakar”
   - Shaymorid's parents went blind as they were in so much grief that their son was being away and separated. Majnun's parents also died, one after the other, out of suffering from their son’s absence and madness.
   -Laila and Majnun sometimes used to meet each other secretly. During his displacement, Shaymorid stayed in Mecca for a long time. Sometimes, he disguised himself as beggars or dervishes and came to Hani's house, met her, and returned without introducing himself.
-Majnun's father took him to Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage to get rid of love but visiting the house of God not only failed to diminish his love; instead, it added to his passion and affection for Laila.   Shaymorid also spent many years near the house of God in Mecca to get rid of Hani's love, but even this proximity to God’s house had no effect on reducing his agitated love.
-People call Qais insane because of his mad behavior. When Majnun sent his envoys to Laila's father to propose Laila on his behalf, Laila's father rejected his proposal by arguing that Qais was crazy. He said:
“Although your son is cheerful and healthy, he behaves insanely and a madman does not deserve to be with us.” (Nizami, 1389: 90)
-People also called Shaymorid Diwanag (dɪwʌnæg), which means mad or crazy because of his insane behavior, and this title is repeated many times in the other following poems such as:
“Come O mad Murid!
Come! so our great time has returned”. (Jahandideh, 1390: 146)
-Some critics and narrators of Laila and Majnun consider Majnun, a poet and attribute poems to him. Others are skeptical of attributing these poems to him.
Some of Hani and Shaymorid's poems or poem collections are addressed to a dove or a nightingale to convey the messages to each other.
   - Laila gets sick after Ibn Salam's death and finally dies. Upon hearing the news of Laila's death, Majnun grieved and cried a lot at her grave, then said “O friend” and died. He is then buried next to Laila's grave.
   The union of Hani and Shaymorid was not physical, their disappearance from the sight of people, causing them to be called holy livings and people believed that they were alive like Khedr (A prophet in Islam religion).
   - Majnun was full of Platonic or pure love (in Arabic: عشق عُذری Eshq-e Ozri). This love was nurtured among the tribes living in the middle of the Arabian Peninsula (Krachkovsky, 1999: 64)
Hani and Shaymorid s’ union is a kind of Platonic love, i.e., a kind of love that is not sexually oriented. Throughout the story of Hani and Shaymorid, we see no sign of sexuality and there is no word mentioning it even when they are united.
 

Conclusion

Fiction in Iran is not limited to the Persian language and literature, but in various Iranian ethnic groups and dialects, there are poetic stories that are very important in terms of Iranian literature, anthropology, and sociology. Comparing these stories, which are often anonymous, with the narrative poem collections of Persian literature will open a new chapter in the study of ethnic and national literature. The story of Hani and Shaymorid - the most important Balochi love story and its narratives and poems have been common among the Baloch people for hundreds of years.
Significant results can be achieved by matching the two stories of Laila and Majnun and Hani and Shaymorid; The characters of both stories have many features in common, and there are various similarities in the course of events and actions of both stories too. Some of these characteristics and commonalities can be stated as follow: chastity and purity in love, having pure love, the loyalty of lovers towards their beloveds, both the lovers were addressed with their pseudonyms, both the lovers made a pilgrimage to the House of God (Mecca), both the lovers fought to achieve their beloveds, both the lovers showed insane behaviors, both the lovers were threatened to be killed, attributing poetic art to lovers of both stories, forced marriage of two beloveds and their hatred towards their unwanted husbands and secret meetings between lovers and their beloveds. The story of Laila and Majnun in Persian literature and Hani and Shaymorid in Balochi literature both have a high status and their heroes are a symbol of true love and affection. There is an obstacle to connecting the lover to the beloved in both stories, and it takes thirty years to overcome. The end of the two stories is that Laila and Majnun died in the grief of separation and at the height of their true love. Hani and Shaymorid, although they finally reached a sacred connection and away from physical desires, but hide from view. They turn and achieve eternal life.