ISLAMABAD: The 34th death anniversary of a prominent poet Shabbir Hassan Khan Josh Malih Abadi was observed across the country including Islamabad on Monday.
Number of literary circles organized special events to observe the anniversary, highlighting the literary services of Josh Malih Abadi.
Josh Adbi Foundation organized a Josh Adbi National Conference here at Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) to pay tribute to prominent scholar and poet.
Born as Shabbir Hasan Khan on December 5, 1894 to an Urdu-speaking Muslim family of Afridi Pashtun origin in Malihabad, United Provinces, British India, he studied at St Peter's College, Agra, and passed his Senior Cambridge examination in 1914. Subsequently, he studied Arabic and Persian and, in 1918,spent six months at Tagore's university at Shantiniketan.
The death of his father, Bashir Ahmed Khan, in 1916, prevented him from undertaking a college education. His family had a long tradition of producing men of letters.
In 1925, Josh started to supervise translation work at Osmania University, in the princely state of Hyderabad.
However, his stay there ended when he found himself exiled from the state for writing a poem against the Nizam of Hyderabad, the then ruler of the state. Soon thereafter, he founded the magazine Kaleem, in which he openly wrote articles in favour of independence from the British Raj in India. His poem Hussain aur Inquilab won him the title of Shaair-e-Inquilaab. Subsequently, he became more actively involved in the freedom struggle.
Josh migrated to Pakistan in 1958 and settled in Karachi and rigorously worked for Anjuman-i-Tarraqi-i-Urdu with Maulvi Abdul Haq. He remained here until he died on February 22, 1982 in Islamabad. Josh is reputed to have had a masterful command over Urdu and was quite strict about respecting the grammar and rules of the language.
This is the reason he is also referred to as the King of Urdu language. The first collection of his poetry was published in 1921. Shola-o-Shabnam, Junoon-o-Hikmat, Fikr-o-Nishaat, Sunbal-o-Salaasal, Harf-o-Hikaayat, Sarod-o-Kharosh,Irfaniyat-e-Josh, Yaadon ki baraat (autobiography) are some of his famous works.
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