Akhlaq Mohammad Khan 'Shahryar'

Poet

Akhlaq Mohammad Khan ‘Shahryar’

Born: 16 June 1936

Died: 13 February 2012

He was an Indian academician, and a doyen of Urdu poetry in India.
As a Hindi film lyricist, he is best known for his lyrics in Gaman (1978) and Umrao Jaan (1981) directed by Muzaffar Ali.
He retired as the head of Urdu Department at the Aligarh Muslim University, and thereafter he remained sought after name in mushairas or poetic gatherings, and also co-edited the literary magazine Sher-o-Hikmat.
He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu for Khwab Ka Dar Band Hai (1987), and in 2008 he won the Jnanpith Award, the highest literary award and only the fourth Urdu poet to win the award.
He has been widely acknowledged as the finest exponent of modern Urdu poetry.
He started his career as a literary assistant at Anjuman Tarraqqi-e-Urdu.
After that he joined Aligarh Muslim University as a lecturer in Urdu.
He was appointed professor in 1986 and in 1996, he retired as chairman of the Urdu Department.
He co-edited the literary magazine Sher-o-Hikmat (Poetry and Philosophy)His first poetry collection Ism-e-azam was published in 1965, the second collection, Satvan dar (Satva yet in English), appeared in 1969 and the third collection titled Hijr ke mausamwas released in 1978.
His most celebrated work, Khwab Ke dar band hain, arrived in 1987, which also won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu for that year.
In addition, he published five collections of his poetry in Urdu script.
In 2008, he became the fourth Urdu writer to win the Jnanpith Award, after Firaq, Ali Sardar Jafri, and Qurratulain Hyder