Qaafiyaa


Qaafiyaa or Qafiyah is a device employed in a form of Persian poetry and Urdu poetry known as Ghazal and also in Nazm. The Qaafiyaa is the rhyming pattern of words that must directly precede the Ghazal's Radif.
The example below is of a Ghazal below by Daag Dehelvi.
In this case the Qaafiyaa is the following pattern of words: jalwa-gaah, nigaah, raah, haale-tabaah and aah. The Radif is mein.
HAROOF E QAFIYAA :
Ravi، Rauf, Qaid and Tasees ۔ These letters precede RAVI, which is the last letter of qaafiyaa.
HARF E RAVI :
It is the last letter in Qaafiyaa e.g. in Nigah and Gulshan "ہ" and " ن" are RAVI. It is in other words the last letter of Qaafiyaa.
HARF E RAUF :
It is the letter preceding "Ravi". For example "ش" in Gulshan and "ا" in Nigah are rauf. It is mandatory that haroof e rauf must match with each other. Using word Share instead of Shore will be considered wrong.
HARF E QAID :
This precedes rauf e.g. "ی " in Dare and Bare
HARF E TASEES :
If harf e rauf is preceded by Alif it is called Tasees e.g. in Kamil and Shamil, letter is Tasees.
وہ حروف جو روی کے بعد آتے ہیں وہ حرف وصل، حرف خروج، حرف مذید اور حرف نائرہ کہلاتے ہیں۔
HAJIB : When there are two "Qaafiyaa" and two "Radeef", the first radeef which is inbetween two qaafiyaa is known as Hajib.
جس شعر میں دو قافئیے اور دو ہی ردیف ہوں اس میں سےپہلی ردیف کو جو دونوں قافیوں کے درمیان واقع ہو اس کو حاجب کہتے ہیں۔ جیسے کہ
MazmooN sifat ka qiyamat say laR giyaa
مضمون صفات قد کا قیامت سے لڑ گیا
Qamat kay Aagay sir khijalat say gaR giya
قامت کے آگے سر خجالت سے گڑ گیا
اس شعر میں قیامت اور خجالت اور لڑ اور گڑسے ردیف حاجب ہیں۔

Origin

The origin of "Qaafiyaa" is Arabic; it is the rhyming of the ends of the words. "Ghazal" is a form of romantic Arabic poetry. "Ghazal" is essentially "flirting" and quite often playful poetry.
A ghazal which has no "Qaafiyaa" and radeef is known as Ghair muradaf ghazal while which has any of these two then it is called a Muradaf ghazal.