Faiz Ahmed Faiz

(Faiẓ Aḥmad Faiẓ) 

1911-84

Faiz Ahmad Faiz (Faiẓ Aḥmad Faiẓ; 1911-84; also Faiz Ahmad Faiz) was born Faiz Ahmed (Faiẓ Aḥmad) in Sialkot, Punjab, now in Pakistan, into a family headed by a father who was born a shepherd but became a Cambridge-educated lawyer and a minister to Amir Abdur Rahman (c. 1840-1901), king of Afghanistan. Faiz earned M.A. degrees in both English and Arabic, and in 1935 started to teach at the newly established Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College, Amritsar, where he came in contact with Progressive writers, notably Dr. M. D. Tasir (1902-50), principal of the college, one of the signers of the London 1934 manifesto of the Progressive Writers’ Association, Dr. Rashid Jahan (1905-52) and her husband, Mahmuduzzafar (1908-54), vice-principal of the college and lecturer in history, both contributors to the highly controversial 1932 anthology Angāre (Burning Embers). He published his first of eight collections of poems, Naqsh-i faryādī (Image of the Supplicant) in 1942 (or possibly 1943) with an introduction by friend and poet N. M. Rashid (1910-75), which established his reputation as a poet who infused his works, notably his love poems, with tropes of modernity and concern for social justice.

He was implicated in the contentious Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case, for which he was imprisoned for five years (1951-55) and later exonerated, during which time he wrote some of his finest poetry in his collections Dast-i sabā (Hand of the Wind; 1953) and Zindān nāmah (Prison Narrative; 1956). He published Sar-i vadī-yi sīnā (Sinai Valley) in 1962, which contains his famous “Duʻā” (Prayer),* followed by his fourth collection, Dast-i tah-yi sang (Hand Beneath the Stone) in 1965. After the 1977 coup d’état that brought General Ziaul Haq (1924-88) and right-wing Islamic groups to power, Faiz went into voluntary exile, living in Beirut, where he continued publishing poetry—notably Shām-i shahr-i yārān̲ (Evening of the City of Friend; 1978) and Mere dil mere musāfir (My Heart, My Traveler; 1980)—and editing the trilingual Lotus: Journal of the Afro-Asian Writers’ Association. Due to the June 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon during which he was nearly killed, and to his declining health, he reluctantly returned to Lahore in November, with a pledge by General Zia that he would not be hassled by the government. Shortly before his death on 20 November 1984, he received word of his nomination for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

He is especially known for writing poems which recast many of the traditional images of Urdu poetry into new light, making them contemporary and relevant to the current political-historical situation. Among his most famous poems are, to mention a few: “Mujh se pahlī si muḥabbat merī maḥbūb nah māng” (Do Not Beg Me for My Former Kind of Love, Beloved),* “Mauz̤ūʻ-i suk̲h̲an” (Subject of Poetry),* “Bol” (Speak),* “Raqīb se” (To the Rival),* and “Tanhāʼī” (Solitude).* The Palestinian poems “Falast̤īnī bacce ke liye lorī” (For a Palestinian Child: A Lullaby)* and “Ek nag̲h̲mah karbalā-yi bairūt ke liye” (A Threnody for the Karbala of Beirut)* are especially affective.

See Carlo Coppola, interview with Faiz, Journal of South Asian Literature,10:1 (Fall 1974) 141-44; with A. Jones; “Faiz Ahmed Faiz: “The Progressive Poet as Aesthete,” Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970: The Progressive Episode (2017) 504-35.