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Shabbir Hassan Khan “Josh”, “Sha’er-e Inqelab” (Poet of the Revolution)
Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On December 5, 1894 AD, the famous Urdu poet of the Subcontinent, Shabbir Hassan Khan “Josh” was born in a Pashtun family in Malihabad, northern India. After mastering Urdu and English, he studied Arabic and Persian, and in 1925 began to supervise translation work at the famous Osmania University in the semi-independent state of Haiderabad-Deccan.
Soon he founded the magazine “Kaleem” in which he openly wrote articles in favour of independence from Britain. As his reputation spread, he came to be called “Sha’er-e Inqelab” (Poet of the Revolution), and was a personal friend of India’s first prime minister, Jawaherlal Nehru.
Over a decade after India’s independence, disillusioned with the declining status of Muslims and Urdu language in India, he migrated to Pakistan in 1958, and settled in Karachi where he joined Anjuman-e Tarraqi-e-Urdu for promotion of the Urdu language in Pakistan. He passed away in Islamabad on February 22, 1982. Josh Malihabadi has left behind valuable works in poetry and prose, including lengthy odes in praise of the Ahl al-Bayt, especially Imam Ali (AS) and Imam Husain (AS) – regarded as masterpieces of Urdu poetry.
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