The ghazal is a short poem consisting of rhyming couplets, called Bayt.
In English, the word is pronounced / ˈ ɡ ʌ z əl/ or / ˈ ɡ æ z æ l/. The Arabic word غزل ġazal is pronounced, roughly like the English word guzzle, but with the ġ pronounced without a complete closure between the tongue and the soft palate. The poetic form derives its name from the first and the second etymological roots, One particular translation posits a meaning of ghazal as 'the wail of a wounded deer ', which potentially provides context to the theme of unrequited love common to many ghazals.
The structural requirements of the ghazal are similar in stringency to those of the Petrarchan sonnet. Ī ghazal commonly consists of five to fifteen couplets, which are independent, but are linked – abstractly, in their theme and more strictly in their poetic form. The ghazal spread into South Asia in the 12th century due to the influence of Sufi mystics and the courts of the new Islamic Sultanate, and is now most prominently a form of poetry of many languages of the Indian subcontinent and Turkey. The ghazal form is ancient, tracing its origins to 7th-century Arabic poetry. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain. The ghazal ( Arabic: غَزَل, Bengali: গজল, Hindi-Urdu: ग़ज़ल/ غزَل, Persian: غزل, Azerbaijani: qəzəl, Turkish: gazel, Turkmen: gazal, Uzbek: gʻazal, Gujarati: ગઝલ) is a form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. An illustrated headpiece from a mid-18th century collection of ghazals and rubāʻīyāt