From Pakeezah : On Reddit

Writes : Pakeezah Munshi (Jaipuri). 24 September 2017, Raj Bagh J&K India.

Mirza Sharafat Hussain Beigh's Testimony Creates Exciting Admiration Among Western Readers.


Hello ! So, when we received countless requests from western friends, Mirza had no way to escape from writing an Elegy in English. Such an elegy which would explicitly explain tragedies that befell Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) Grandson Hazrat Imam Hussain Syed e Shohda. (a.s.) So people living in west and Europe have after all developed an inclination towards reading elegies. We received around 380 requests in total from United Sates, including 66 from Europe and 39 from India since Muharram 2015 CE. They all expressed their wishes to get heard about Battle of Karbala through a poetic account in English.

After releasing a trial version of Elegy composed by Mirza, today we received an overwhelming response from blog readers. However our plan to release the elegy over real internet platform is 9th of Muharram (30th Sep. 2017) Interet.

Mirza Sharafat Hussain Beigh, who is ancestrally privileged, holding a position of central reciter of Modern Elegies in Grand Muharram (Ashura) Procession of Kashmir may not qualify as that eloquent English speaker and writer but however his family's contribution towards literature of Shiites in Kashmir valley since centuries qualify him enough as an Elegy teller. Mirza Sharafat traces his history of writing elegies from his forefathers. This was kicked by Mirza Mehdi Beigh, the first person who wrote an Elegy apart from complicated traditional Kashmiri Marsiyas (Elegies). Mirza Mehdi is great grandfather of Mirza Sharafat, since then all the descendants of Mirza Beigh family have written number of elegies. Some of which were set ablaze and some manuscripts were found missing from their ancestral residence at Sonwar when sectarian riots broke between various factions of Muslim community near the shrine of Syed Yaqoob (r.a.) after independence from British. Though, Sharafat is the first person from family who is writing about society and romance also, making him vulnerable to bare criticism from Shia community in Kashmir. However, elegy was taken positively by western readers who requested same.
Mirza Sharafat has composed the elegy for all age groups, in a very lucid style of writing. Testimony is first of it's kind in genre of Free Verse English Elegies, that aims to deliver elementary knowledge regarding tragedies of Karbala's battle field.