Poets Directory (شعرائے کرام)

Akhtar Sheerani (1905–1948), born Muhammad Dawood Khan at Tonk on 4 May 1905, was Lahore's poet of romance. His father, the scholar Hafiz Mahmood Khan Shirani, had the boy taught at home — religious learning, wrestling for the body, poetry for the soul — and when the family was driven from Tonk after a revolt against the Nawab, father and son settled in Lahore, where Dawood passed Munshi Fazil (1921) and Adeeb Fazil (1922) at Oriental College and took the pen name Akhtar under the guidance of Maulana Tajwar Najibabadi. From 1923 to 1939 he edited, in succession, Intikhab, Bahaaristan, Khyaalistan and Romaan, and wrote, at a time when the Progressive movement dominated Urdu letters, a poetry deliberately apart from it: not slogans but youth, beauty, nature and longing, in the spirit of Shelley and Keats — a verse that, in Pakistan Post's words, "exhales verse as a flower exhales fragrance". Woman, for him, was not one figure but beauty itself — beloved, wife, mother, sister — and nature took its colour from her. His life, by contrast, was a succession of losses — a son, a friend, a love called Salma who did not return his love — and drink undid his health. He died at Lahore on 9 September 1948, aged forty-three, two days before Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and lies in Miani Sahib Graveyard.

Pillar of the modern Urdu nazm — Sahitya Akademi laureate and the Filmfare-winning pen behind *Waqt*'s famous dialogues. Akhtar-ul-Iman (12 November 1915 – 9 March 1996), born at Qila Patthargarh near Najibabad in Uttar Pradesh's Bijnor district, was one of the pillars of the modern Urdu nazm. Raised in harsh circumstances — an orphan's upbringing in Delhi — he worked menial jobs while studying, graduated from the Anglo-Arabic (Zakir Husain) College in Delhi, and took his master's in Urdu from Aligarh Muslim University. After a spell as a staff artist at All India Radio, he moved to Bombay in 1945 and became one of Hindi cinema's most respected screenwriters: his dialogues shaped landmark B.R. Films productions including *Kanoon* (1960), *Dharmputra* (1961) and *Waqt* (1965), earning him the Filmfare Best Dialogue award twice (1963, 1966); the famous "glass-house" line of *Waqt* is his. As a poet he deliberately set the ghazal aside, choosing the nazm — in free, conversational verse — to speak of the modern individual's alienation, moral choice and philosophical humanism. His collection *Yadein* won the 1962 Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu. He died in Mumbai on 9 March 1996.

Ale Ahmad Suroor (1911–2002), born in Badaun, was one of the founders of modern Urdu criticism — a poet who became the conscience of Urdu literary judgement. His father, a postmaster, wanted him to be a doctor, so he first graduated in science from St John's College, Agra; but literature claimed him, and he took an M.A. in English in 1934. He taught English and Urdu at Aligarh and Lucknow, and from 1958 to 1974 was professor and Head of Urdu at Aligarh Muslim University, later founding and directing the Iqbal Institute at the University of Kashmir. His critical books — *Tanqeed Kya Hai?* (1947), *Adab aur Nazriya* (1954) and above all *Nazar aur Nazariya* (1973) — turned Urdu criticism from impressionistic praise into a disciplined, principled art; his lifelong study of Iqbal (*Iqbal: Nazriya aur Shairi*, 1978) remains a landmark. He wrote poetry too, in ghazal and nazm, with a critic's clarity and a poet's heart — the shore's peace weighed against the joy of fighting the storm. India honoured him with the Sahitya Akademi Award (1974) and the Padma Bhushan (1991). He died in Delhi on 9 February 2002.

Ali Sardar Jafri (1913–2000), born in Balrampur, Gonda district, U.P., was one of the most prominent Urdu poets of the twentieth century — a progressive poet, critic, and film lyricist. Raised in Lucknow's religious atmosphere, he could reportedly recite a thousand verses of Anis by age eight. Admitted to Aligarh Muslim University in 1933, he was expelled in 1936 for political reasons; he graduated from Zakir Husain College, Delhi (1938), and his Lucknow University postgraduate studies ended with his 1940–41 arrest for anti-war poems. He presided over the first conference of the Progressive Writers' Movement in Lucknow (1936), co-edited *Naya Adab* (1939–1949), and later edited *Guftagu*; his poetry collections — *Nai Duniya Ko Salaam* (1948), *Asia Jaag Utha* (1951), *Ek Khwab Aur*, *Mera Safar*, *Sarhad* — carry his romantic lyricism and revolutionary hope. He wrote film lyrics (*Dharti Ke Lal*, 1946; *Pardesi*, 1957), produced the documentary *Kabir, Iqbal and Freedom* and the 18-part TV serial *Kahkashan* on Urdu poets. He received the Padma Shri (1967), the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship (1971) and the Jnanpith Award (1997). He died in Mumbai on 1 August 2000.

Allama Shibli Nomani (1857–1914), born at Bindwal in Azamgarh district, was the scholar who gave Urdu its modern historiography. Taught first by the rationalist Maulana Muhammad Farooq Chirayakoti and then, on Hajj, by scholars in Arabia, he joined Sir Syed Ahmad Khan's Anglo-Mohammedan College, Aligarh, in 1882 as professor of Arabic and Persian, where sixteen years beside Thomas Arnold opened him to Western thought without loosening his oriental roots. After Sir Syed's death he advised Hyderabad State on education, then served as principal of Nadwatul Ulama (1908–1913), before returning to Azamgarh. His biographies — above all Al-Farooq — set a new standard: history written from sources, in lucid Urdu prose, rather than panegyric. As a critic, Sher-ul-Ajam made him a founder of Urdu literary criticism. He founded Shibli National College in 1883 and, in his last year, bequeathed his house and orchard for Darul Mussanifin (the House of Writers) at Azamgarh; its first formal meeting was held on 21 November 1914, three days after his death, and his disciple Syed Sulaiman Nadvi carried the house — and Sirat-un-Nabi — forward. His poetry, small in bulk beside his prose, carries the same mind: a reformer's grief for a community that had lost its learning, and a believer's address to eternity.

Ambar Bahraichi (1949–2021) was a prominent modern Urdu poet and a well-known Sanskrit scholar. Born Mohammad Idris at Bahraich on 5 July 1949, he made Lucknow his home and his literary base. He was a Sahitya Akademi award winner, and his bibliography joins the two traditions he lived in: Urdu collections such as Doob (1990), Khali Seepiyon Ka Iztirab (2000) and Malang Malhar (2013) stand beside Sanskrit and critical works including Maha Bhinishkarman (1987) and studies of Anand Vardhan. His ghazal is spare, image-driven and quietly philosophical — rivers and thirst, faces and masks, victories won outside the house and lost within it. A man who seems to have been a river himself, carrying the thirst of every stream he passed, he wrote of success as a face that changes colour, and of solitude as the silence of a forest of faces. He died at Lucknow on 7 May 2021, leaving a body of work that bridges Urdu poetry and Sanskrit learning.

Ameeq Hanafi (1928–1988) was one of the most prominent modern Urdu poets and a critic of wide range. Born Abdul Aziz Hanfi at Indore on 3 November 1928, he was educated at Mhow, matriculating in 1946 and taking two M.A. degrees, in Political Science in 1952 and in History in 1954. Alongside the social sciences he cultivated a deep interest in music and Indian philosophy. He joined All India Radio and retired from a senior position, remaining a broadcaster at heart. He began writing poetry at Mhow. His first collection, Sang-e-Pairahan (1958), still carried the imprint of Progressive poetics, but his later work — Shajar-e-Sada, Shab Gasht, and the long poem Salsalat-ul-Jaras — established him as a modernist of great promise and fulfilment. He also wrote criticism, including work on Amir Khusro and the study of poetry and poetics Sher Cheeze Deegar Ast, which ranges across Eastern and Western poetics. In both verse and criticism, he joined modern experiment to a classical sense of form.

Amjad Islam Amjad (4 August 1944 – 10 February 2023) was the poet Pakistan invited into its living rooms — through verse, and through television dramas that became household names. Born in Lahore to a family originally from Sialkot, he took an MA in Urdu literature from Punjab University (1967), lectured at Govt. M.A.O. College Lahore (1968–1975), directed at Pakistan Television Corporation (1975–1979), and later served as Director General of the Urdu Science Board (1989) and project director of the Children's Library Complex. Poet, playwright, lyricist, columnist, critic and translator, he authored more than seventy books. His first poetry book appeared in 1974; his collections include Barzakh (1974), Satvan Dar (1978), Fishar (1982), Barish ki Aawaz (1997) and Yahiin Kahiin (2006). His TV dramas — Waris (1979), Dehleez, Samandar, Raat, Waqt, Apnay Log — made him a household name, as did his famous ghazal "Insha Ji Utho", sung by Ghulam Ali, and the lyric "Mann Ki Lagan". His style is simple, humanistic and philosophical, emotionally direct — everyday feeling with depth. He received the Pride of Performance (1987), Sitara-e-Imtiaz (1998) and Hilal-e-Imtiaz (2023).

Arsh Malsiani (1908–1979) — born Balmukund on 20 September 1908 in Malsiyan, Punjab — was a distinguished Urdu poet, translator, prose writer and editor, known as the Raj Kavi of Punjab. His father, Labhu Ram "Josh" Malsiyani, was a celebrated Urdu-Persian scholar-poet and disciple of Dagh Dehlvi; that Dagh lineage is Arsh's literary inheritance. He began as an overseer in the Punjab Irrigation department, then taught for about fifteen years at the Government Industrial School, Ludhiana, earning his F.A. and B.A. along the way. From 1948 to 1968 he served in the Publications Division of the Government of India — Assistant Editor of the Urdu monthly Aajkal under Josh Malihabadi, and its editor from 1954. His poetry collections are Haft Rang, Chang-o-Aahang, Sharar-e-Sang and Aahang-e-Hijaz; he translated Umar Khayyam's rubais (Hast-o-Bood), gathered his humorous prose as Post-mortem, and published a biographical sketch of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1976). He died in Delhi on 15 December 1979.

Syed Anwar Hussain 'Arzoo' Lakhnavi (1873–1951) was a leading poet of the Lucknow school of Urdu poetry. Born in Lucknow into a cultured, well-off literary family, he was the son of Mir Zakir Hussain 'Yas' and the younger brother of Mir Yusuf Hussain 'Qayas', both poets. Educated at home and later in Arabic and Persian under Lucknow scholars, he wrote his first marsiya at twelve and became a disciple of Syed Zaman Ali 'Jalal' Lakhnavi, succeeding him as guide to Jalal's disciples. Though he wrote in nearly every genre — marsiya, qasida, masnavi, rubai, naat and more — he is remembered above all for his ghazals, collected in Fughan-e-Arzoo, Jahan-e-Arzoo and Nishan-e-Arzoo. His hallmark was plain, conversational language: he brought the ghazal closer to everyday speech without abandoning its Lucknow elegance. In 1942 he moved to Bombay and became one of the first mainstream Urdu poets to write for Hindi cinema, later migrating to Karachi, where he joined Radio Pakistan and died in 1951.

Asar Lakhnavi (1885–1967), born Mirza Jafar Ali Khan, was a prominent poet of the later Lucknow School, a critic, scholar and civil servant. Born on 12 July 1885 in Katra Abu Turab, Lucknow, he was educated at Canning College, served as Deputy Collector and held other important administrative posts, and later worked as a minister in the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, for which service India conferred on him the Padma Bhushan. A disciple of Aziz Lakhnavi, he wrote on traditional subjects with great linguistic finesse. His poetry collections include Baharaan, Naubaharaan and Uroos-e-Firtrat, his critical studies include Anis ki Marsiya Nigari, Mutala-e-Ghalib and Chhan Been, and his dictionary Farhang-e-Asar remains a landmark. He died in Lucknow on 6 June 1967.

Aziz Hamid Madni (1922–1991) was a Pakistani poet, critic and translator, and one of the stalwarts of the new Urdu ghazal in Pakistan. He was born on 15 June 1922 in Raipur, in British India, the son of Mohammad Hamid Saqi — a student of Shibli Nomani and a classmate of Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar. In 1948 he moved to Pakistan and settled in Karachi. After a master's degree in English, he taught and worked in journalism for a short while, then joined Radio Pakistan as a programme executive. Three collections of his poetry appeared in his lifetime — Chashm-e-Nigaraan (1962), Dasht-e-Imkaan (1964) and Nakhl-e-Gumaan (1983) — and his two-volume critical survey of modern Urdu poetry, Jadeed Urdu Shaeri, remains a landmark study. His translations of Shakespeare's Othello and Antony and Cleopatra, and most of his translations of French poetry into Urdu, were never published. Forty-three of his ghazals and thirty-seven of his sher survive, and some of his ghazals have been set to music. He died in Karachi on 23 April 1991.

Aziz Lakhnavi, born Mirza Mohammad Hadi in Lucknow in 1882, was a distinguished Persian and Urdu scholar and poet of the Lucknow school. His family, descended from migrants from Shiraz who first settled in Kashmir and later moved to Lucknow under the Awadh nobles, was renowned for scholarship. Educated at home after his father's death when he was seven, he later taught Persian and Urdu at Aminabad School and then became guardian to the siblings of Ali Mohammad Khan, Maharaja of Mahmudabad, spending the rest of his life there. A disciple of Safi Lakhnavi, he practised every poetic form and earned a particular reputation as a qasida poet, praised for the magnanimity of his language and the vitality of his imagination. His works include Gulkadah and the collected Kulliyat-e-Azeez.

The poet who turned Urdu poetry toward reform — Musaddas-e-Hali, Urdu's first critic, and Ghalib's first biographer.

Asghar Husain (1884–1936), known by his pen name Asghar Gondvi, was a pre-modern Urdu ghazal poet of rare philosophical depth. Born in the Gorakhpur district in 1884, his family settled in Gonda, where he lived most of his life and from which he took his name. With little formal schooling, he taught himself Urdu, Arabic, Persian, and English, and worked as an editor — first with Urdu Markaz, Lahore, then for many years at Tej Bahadur Sapru's Hindustani Press in Allahabad, editing the magazine Hindustani. A close friend of Jigar Moradabadi (whose Safha profile is in this directory), Asghar was not a prolific writer; he was preoccupied essentially with the idea of perfecting his ghazal. His poetry takes the stock romantic metaphors of the ghazal and re-thinks them in both romantic and spiritualist registers — a soft, melancholic voice that is philosophical without ever losing its music. His best-known sher, "chala jata hun hansta khelta mauj-e-hawadis se / agar aasaniyan hon zindagi dushwar ho jae," has entered the living memory of Urdu. His collections include Nishat-e-Rooh and Surood-e-Zindagi. He died in Allahabad in 1936.

Seemab Akbarabadi (1882–1951), born Aashiq Hussain Siddiqui in Agra, was one of the most prolific poets of twentieth-century Urdu — some seventy-five books, including twenty-two collections of poetry. In 1898 he became a disciple of Daagh Dehlvi (whose Safha profile is in this directory), joining the great classical tradition of the Delhi school. In 1923 he founded the publishing house Qasr-ul-Adab in Agra and launched the monthly Paimana, the weekly Taj, and the monthly Shair — printing not only his own work but that of a generation; his son Aijaz Siddiqi carried Shair on for decades. His ghazals, beloved in the voice of Kundan Lal Saigal, move easily between love, philosophy, and social themes. Late in life he completed Wahi-e-Manzoom, a verse translation of the Quran, published after his death. After Partition he moved to Karachi, where a paralytic stroke in 1949 ended his writing life; he died there on 31 January 1951.