Kamal Malhiabadi

The poet of the Rooh — writing the soul's journey home. Kamal Malhiabadi (Kamaal Ahmad Khan) is a contemporary Urdu poet from Malhiabad, Uttar Pradesh, now based in Houston, Texas. His sher, written in the Sufi tradition, return again and again to one journey: the rooh — the soul that comes from Allah and returns to Him — and the body it briefly lodges in, a saraye, a rented house on the way. Through his series Noor-e-Kalam and Rooh-e-Kalam, and through Safha Global, the literary archive he founded to preserve the heritage of Malhiabad and Avadh for the coming generations, he pairs every sher with its decoding — the concept at its heart, opened layer by layer. His family has served Urdu for generations through Bazm-e-Urdu, the literary organisation led by his younger brother, Rehan Khan. He is writing the history of his homeland, Malhiabad, and a memoir, "Meray Safar Malhiabad Say America Tak".