Asamese zikir and zari

The most outstanding and sustaining contribution of the Assamese Muslims to the favored literature of Assam are the Zikirs and Zaris. A Zikirs may be a religious or philosophical poem centering on some extent of religion or of philosophy. In several of the songs of this variety a story centering surround the lifetime of Azan Pir or shah Miran (Milan) to whom these sons are sometimes ascribed is told. A Zari is elegiac in character and content and will be called a kind of marshiya and typically relates itself to the tragic tale of Karbala. a number of the Assamse Zaris could also be called independent ballads giving the stories of Haider Ghazi. These compositions particularly the Zikirs within the ir material resemble the Bargits or devotional songs of Sankardeva and Madhavadeva But unlike the Bargits in the literary Brajabali idiom .they are couched in colloquial homely Assamse .and in their form and expression they're in line with Deh - Vicharar Git, a spread of philosophical songs of the Assamese village minstrels and a few other folksongs. The chief objective of the Zikirs appears to be the reorganization of the society of Assamese Muslims, by regenerating their faith and love for Islam in such how that there'll be no discord in their age old harmonious relation with Hind society, during which the good movement of social reform initiated by Sankardeva seems to possess attained its logical culmination already.