What Is a Matla in a Ghazal?
Quick answer: The matla is a ghazal's opening couplet, where both lines end with the qafiya and radif. What the matla does, double matlas, and writing one in English.
The matla is the opening couplet of a ghazal, and it is defined by one structural fact: both of its lines end with the poem's full rhyme apparatus, the qafiya (rhyming word) followed by the radif (repeated refrain), where the ghazal uses one. Every couplet after the matla carries that pattern in its second line only. So the matla is where the ghazal announces its music twice in a row, teaching the listener the sounds that the whole poem has promised to keep.
That double declaration is not a decorative flourish; it is the ghazal's constitution being read aloud. Once the matla has sounded, the audience knows the metre, knows the rhyme, knows the refrain, and can lean forward waiting for each new couplet to arrive at the expected chime by an unexpected road. Understanding the matla is the fastest way to understand why ghazals feel the way they do, in Urdu, Persian or the strict English ghazals written today.
A one minute map of the ghazal
A ghazal is a chain of couplets, each called a sher, typically five to fifteen of them, all in one metre. The couplets are thematically independent: each sher is a complete poem, and the chain is held together not by story but by sound. That sound has two named parts: the qafiya, a rhyme that changes word to word (rain, chain, again's cousin words), and the radif, an identical word or phrase repeated after the qafiya at each couplet's close.
Two couplets get special titles. The first is the matla, where both lines end with qafiya plus radif. The last is often a maqta, where the poet signs the poem with a pen name, the takhallus. Between those bookends, each sher must land its second line on the established rhyme and refrain. That is the entire formal contract, and the matla is the page it is written on.
What the matla establishes, with a worked example
Consider an original English matla: The city lights its small forgiven fires again; / my heart, that arsonist, conspires again. Both lines end with a rhyming word (fires, conspires) followed by the refrain again. From this single couplet a listener now knows everything the poem has promised: the radif is again, the qafiya is the ires sound, and every couplet to come will close on that combination.
A later sher in the same ghazal might run: Old friends write less; the winter horde grows thin; / but memory, that lamplighter, rewires again. The first line roams free; the second must come home. This is the pleasure the matla sets up: anticipation with surprise inside it. In the mushaira tradition, audiences respond audibly at a fine matla precisely because they can already feel the whole poem's shape in it, the way the first bars of a song declare its key.
The double matla and other refinements
Poets sometimes open with two matlas in a row, a second couplet that also rhymes in both lines. The second is called a matla-e-sani, and the flourish is traditionally admired under the name husn-e-matla, the beauty of the opening. It is a display of command, like a batsman driving the first two balls of a match to the boundary: the constraint is hardest at the matla, and doing it twice announces that the poet has rhymes to spare.
Not every ghazal needs the flourish, and some ghazals dispense with a radif altogether, running on qafiya alone; the matla still declares whatever pattern the poem will keep. What a classical ghazal should not do is change the pattern midstream. The matla is a promise, and the form's entire drama comes from keeping promises in surprising ways.
Matla and maqta: the two bookends
The matla and the maqta frame the ghazal between two different kinds of intimacy. The matla is public: it faces the audience and hands over the key to the poem's music. The maqta is personal: the poet turns inward, often addressing himself by his takhallus, and signs off. One opens the door; the other leaves a name on the doorpost.
For readers new to the form, these two couplets are also the quickest diagnostic tools. Open any ghazal in translation: if the first couplet chimes at the end of both lines, you are looking at the matla working; if the last couplet suddenly contains a name, you have found the maqta and the poet's signature. Between them, count how each couplet's second line returns to the same closing sounds, and the whole architecture becomes visible in a minute.
The matla in English ghazals
For most of the twentieth century, English ghazals were free-form: couplets with white space between them and none of the sound contract. The Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali campaigned, charmingly and firmly, for the real thing, ghazals in English with a true matla, qafiya, radif and signature maqta, and edited an anthology to prove the form could live in English. Since then the strict ghazal has become a fixture of English-language poetry.
The matla is where English writers most often stumble. Common faults: rhyming the two lines but forgetting to repeat the radif; establishing a radif so long it strangles every later couplet; or enjambing the matla into the second sher, which breaks the rule that each couplet stands alone. Choose a short radif (again, tonight, without you) and a qafiya sound with at least a dozen usable rhymes, and the matla will open doors instead of closing them. A finished ghazal, incidentally, is a satisfying thing to test on fresh judges; Writory's monthly contest scores structure and language directly, and entries are open from the 1st to the 25th.
What poets can take from this
- Draft the matla first; it fixes the metre, qafiya and radif that govern everything after.
- List fifteen possible qafiya words before accepting your matla, or later couplets will starve.
- Read the matla aloud twice in a row; if the repeated ending already sounds tired, choose a fresher radif.
- Study translated ghazals of Hafiz and Ghalib to hear how a matla declares a poem's key.
- Try a matla-e-sani only after the single matla feels easy; it is a flourish, not a requirement.
- Pair your matla with a signed maqta to experience the form's full frame from door to doorpost.
Try it yourself
Choose the radif 'at last' and any qafiya sound you like. Write only a matla, one couplet in which both lines end qafiya plus 'at last', then list ten rhyme words you could use for future couplets.
Questions
Can a ghazal have more than one matla?
Yes. A second opening couplet with both lines rhyming is called a matla-e-sani, and the graceful use of it is traditionally praised as husn-e-matla. It is an optional display of skill, not a requirement.
What is the difference between radif and qafiya?
The qafiya is the rhyming word that changes from couplet to couplet, while the radif is the identical word or phrase repeated immediately after it. In 'fires again' and 'conspires again', the qafiya is the ires sound and the radif is 'again'.
Does the matla contain the poet's name?
No, that is the maqta, the ghazal's closing couplet, where the poet traditionally weaves in a pen name called the takhallus. The matla opens the poem and carries the rhyme in both lines; the maqta closes and signs it.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated September 2026.
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