Mukhammas (Arabic مخمس 'fivefold') refers to a type of Persian or Urdu cinquain or pentastich with Sufi connections based on a pentameter. And have five lines in each paragraph.

It is one of the more popular verse forms in Tajik Badakhshan, occurring both in madoh and in other performance-genres.^[1]

Details of the form

The mukhammas represents a stanza of two distichs and a hemistich in monorhyme, the fifth line being the "bob" or burden: each succeeding stanza affects a new rhyme, except in the fifth line, e.g., a rhyme scheme of AAAAB CCCCB DDDDB and so forth.

Every stanza of a mukhammas includes five lines.

• In the first stanza, all five lines rhyme.
• In the later stanzas, the first four lines rhyme, but the fifth line breaks the rhyme. It can be repeated, or else its rhyme can be that of the first stanza.^[2]

Themes

A recurrent theme of the mukhammas is praise of Imam Ali and his companions but other themes also occur.

Poets

Many Urdu poets have contributed to the mukhammas. The important among them include:

• Mirza Ghalib
• Bahadur Shah Zafar
• Wali Mohammed Wali
• Zauq

Poets who have written the mukhammas in other languages include:

• Sipandi Samarkandi
• Qatran Tabrizi^[3]