Beher (poetry)

Beher (Arabic/Persian/Urdu: بحر) in Urdu poetry is the meter of a sher (couplet). Essentially, beher is a specific pattern, combining the arkaans (dummy meaningless words) of Urdu prosody that define the "length" of a sher. However, generally beher is categorized in three classes: Short, medium, long, depending upon the length of the sher of the ghazal.

an old manuscript in Arabic poetry, in 1841 (1)

an old Manuscript in Arabic poetry, in 184jp1 (2)

For a ghazal, since all the shers in it should be of the same beher, determining the beher of one sher (or even one line of the sher) is enough to determine the beher of the entire ghazal. For example, in this ghazal of Ghalib, the length and meter of the ashaar is same throughout. In terms of the European method of scansion, the metre can be written as follows (where "x" = long or short, "u" = short, "–" = long, "u u" = one long or two short syllables):

x u – – u – u – u u –

koii ummiid bar nahiin aatii

koii suurat nazar nahiin aatii

aage aatii thii haal-e-dil pe hansii

ab kisii baat par nahiin aatii

jaanataa huun savaab-e-taa'at-o-zahad

par tabiiyat idhar nahiin aatii

hai kuchh aisii hii baat jo chup huun

varna kyaa baat kar nahiin aatii

kaabaa kis muunh se jaaoge 'Ghaalib'

sharm tum^ako magar nahiin aatii

The ghazal above is written in a beher called: khafiif musaddas makhbuun mahzuuf maqtu (Meter G8).[1] This is a ten-syllable beher and by the standards of Urdu poetry, is a chotii (small) beher.

As with the scansion of Persian poetry, a syllable such as miid or baat consisting of a long vowel plus consonant, or sharm consisting of a short vowel and two consonants, is "overlong", and counts as a long syllable + a short one.[2]

In Urdu prosody, unlike Persian, any final long vowel can be shortened as the metre requires,[3] for example, in the word kaabaa in the last verse above.