Research Interests
Dr. Timsal Masud is a scholar of Hindi and Urdu literature whose research focuses on the literary, linguistic, and cultural history of nineteenth-century Awadh, particularly the ways in which Hindi and Urdu developed through shared regional traditions. My work brings together literary studies, textual scholarship, manuscript and print culture, and the history of performance and the arts.
A major focus of my research has been the poetry of Mir Anis (1803–1874), one of the foremost poets of Urdu marsiya(elegiac poetry). Drawing on a large collection of manuscripts assembled by my grandfather, the renowned Urdu scholar Syed Masud Hasan Rizvi, I produced a critical edition of 111 marsiyas of Mir Anis. Published in three volumes in Pakistan and subsequently in a second edition in India, the project involved collaboration with scholars from India, Pakistan, and elsewhere. My work on Anis demonstrates the importance of marsiya for understanding the historical development of Urdu and the linguistic and literary relationships between Hindi, Urdu, and the vernacular traditions of Awadh.
My current research focuses on Wajid Ali Shah (1822–1887), the last king of Awadh, whose contributions to poetry, prose, music, dance, theater, and court culture remain understudied. I am currently translating his Ishq-namah, a substantial Urdu masnavi of approximately 10,000 couplets, into English for publication by HarperCollins India. Written and richly produced as a royal manuscript, the Ishq-namah offers an important window into the intellectual and artistic life of the Awadh court. My translation seeks to make this largely inaccessible work available to a wider audience while encouraging new approaches to Wajid Ali Shah’s literary and cultural legacy.
This project continues my longstanding research on Awadh and Wajid Ali Shah. My publications include The Royal Stage of Lucknow (2019), a Hindi translation and edited version of a major study of nineteenth-century Awadh’s theatrical traditions, and a Hindi translation with annotations of a biography of Wajid Ali Shah originally written in Urdu. These works have been used as primary sources by scholars of South Asian history and ethnomusicology.
I also have a sustained interest in Urdu manuscript and print culture. My research examines how the transition from manuscript to print transformed literary practices, linguistic conventions, and aesthetic traditions. In 2023, I recreated digitally and published a coffee-table edition of a rare, highly ornamented Urdu lithographic work originally produced in 1943, accompanied by a critical introduction examining why Urdu printing presses did not sustain the elaborate manuscript traditions of the past.
Across these projects, my central intellectual aim is to explore the shared linguistic and cultural heritage of Hindi and Urdu. Rather than treating Hindi and Urdu as isolated or opposing traditions, my research examines their historical interaction and the diverse vernacular cultures from which both emerged. I seek to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of South Asian literary history by foregrounding the linguistic, literary, and cultural continuities that have connected Hindi and Urdu for centuries.