Faiz Ahmad Faiz

Fayḍ, Fayḍ Aḥmad - Brill Reference

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Fayḍ, Fayḍ Aḥmad (2,436 words) Rahman, Tariq

Fayḍ, Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayḍ Aḥmad “Fayḍ” (1911–84) was born in Sialkot city in Pakistan. His earlier forebears were agricultural labourers, but his father, Sulṭān Muḥammad Khān, educated himself and eventually became personal interpreter and minister in the court of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khān (r. 1880–1901), the amīr of Afghanistan. Sulṭān Muḥammad Khān was later educated in England and eventually settled down as a lawyer in Sialkot city (Bukhārī, 2012: 157–220). Fayḍ obtained his basic education in a mosque school, under Maulvī Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Mīr Siālkoṭī. In 1921 he went to the Scotch Mission School, reputed to be the best school in Sialkot, from which he passed his matriculation in 1927. He then joined Government Murray College Sialkot, where he obtained his F.A. in 1929. In the same year he moved to Lahore, then the educational and cultural centre of the Panjāb, and joined Government College. During Fayḍ’s stay in Lahore, his father died suddenly, in 1931, the year he completed his B.A. (Honours), and his family faced financial hardship and disputes over the division of property, but he continued his studies, receiving master’s degrees in English and Arabic literature, in 1933 and 1934. Although these were years of economic depression, Fayḍ was appointed lecturer at the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College of Amritsar in 1935. Here he became acquainted with Marxist ideas through Maḥmūd al-Ẓafar (d. 1994) and his wife Rashīd Jahān (d. 1952), who were already known as pioneers of the left-wing All-India Progressive Writers’ Movement (Taraqqī Pasand Muṣannifīn kī Anjuman), which held its inaugural meeting in India in 1936, in Lucknow. Fayḍ read socialist literature and was inspired by ideas of the equitable distribution of wealth, the elimination of poverty, the creation of a just society that would end the exploitation of the working classes, and peace between nations. In 1936 he became a member and secretary of the Panjāb branch of the Progressive Writers Movement. In 1940 he joined Hailey College in Lahore as a lecturer in English while continuing to write poetry, using “Fayḍ” (Blessing) as his pen name (takhalluṣ). His poetry was gaining recognition, and his first collection of poetry, Naqsh-i faryādī, was published in 1941. This was an eventful year: in October he married Alys George (d. 2003), sister of Bilqīs Tāthīr (née Christobel George), the wife of Muḥmmad Dīn Tāthīr (usually spelled Taseer, d. 1950). Alys, too, had left-wing ideas and proved to be a fitting companion for the poet in his tumultuous life. The marriage of Fayḍ and Alys was memorable: the ceremony (nikāḥ) was performed, at the house of Muḥammad Dīn Tāthīr, by Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh (d. 1982), the Muslim leader of Kashmir and later its chief minister in Srinagar. Fayḍ’s mother insisted that Alys be given the Muslim name Kulthūm, but it never gained currency. This was the period of World War II, and Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union brought out left-wing ideologues in support of the Allies. In 1942 Fayḍ joined the British Indian army as a captain in the Public Relations Department and was assigned to disseminate anti-Axis-Powers propaganda, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel by 1944; in

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1947 he left the army and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). His eldest daughter, Salīmā, was born in 1942, and his second daughter, Munīzā (usually spelled Muneeza), was born in 1946. During the years 1938–9, Fayḍ edited Adab-i laṭīf, a left-wing literary magazine. In 1947 Fayḍ was offered the editorship of the The Pakistan Times and Imroz (“Today”), the English and Urdu dailies of the Progressive Papers Limited of Miyāṇ Iftikhār al-Dīn (d. 1962), who was himself sympathetic to left-wing views. Soon these publications became known for championing social justice and an independent foreign policy and for advocating democracy. Fayḍ also became active in the Pakistan Trade Union, making special efforts to secure the rights of the postal workers’ union. In 1951 he was arrested in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy affair, an attempted coup, for arranging meetings between Major General Akbar Khān (d. 1993) and the Communist leader Sajjād Ẓahīr (d. 1976). Fayḍ, along with Akbar Khān and his military companions, was incarcerated for four years. Fayḍ describes his prison days in letters to his wife (in Ṣalībeṇ mere darīche meṇ (Crosses in wy window)), as well as to Sajjād Ẓahīr and to Major Isḥāq Muḥammad (in Zindāṃ nāma (Prison writings)), who were in jail with him. During his imprisonment he wrote some of his best poetry, which would make him a household name in the years to come. Upon his release from prison in 1955, Fayḍ rejoined the Progressive Papers and renewed his criticism of the regime through his editorials. But in October 1958 martial law was imposed, and Fayḍ was arrested in December, when he returned to Pakistan from the Second Conference of the Afro-Asian writers in Tashkent, USSR. He was soon released, although he could not resume his old post, because the Progressive Papers had been taken over by Ayub Khan’s government. Instead, he became secretary of the Arts Council of Lahore in 1959, remaining in that position until 1962. In that year, his film Jāgo huʾā saverā (Awake, the day has dawned), for which he wrote the script, dialogues, songs and lyrics, was released and, most importantly, recognition came to him in the form of the Lenin Peace Prize. To receive the prize he travelled with Salīmā to Moscow by ship and train. Fayḍ described this and his other journeys to the Soviet Union in Māh-o sāl-i āshnāʾī (Months and years of acquaintance), published in 1975. After this he spent two years (1962–4) in London. Upon his return, his friend Shawkat Harūn, daughter of Sir ʿAbdallāh Harūn (usually spelled Haroon), the entrepreneur of the Dawn group of publications, was instrumental in making him the head of Haji Abdullah Haroon Government College, in Karachi, which post he held from 1964 until 1971. In 1970–1, he also edited the Urdu magazine Layl-o nahār (“Night and day”) which, however, had to be closed down after only a few issues had been published. During the Bhutto regime (1971–7), Fayḍ wrote a report on Pakistani culture in 1968, extracts from which were published in 1975, that resulted in the creation of several institutions, including the Pakistan National Council of Arts, the leadership of which was entrusted to him in 1972. Fayḍ set up the organisation, moving house to Islamabad for three years, but he was not made its chairman, the chairmanship being reserved for a federal minister; he was, however, offered effective control, as director general. He then moved back to Lahore, where he served as a consultant on culture to the government of Pakistan until 1977, when he resigned upon Zia-ulHaq’s coming to power. Between 1978 and 1984, he was the editor of the quarterly Lotus, the journal of the Afro-Asian Writers’ Association, and travelled to Beirut, where its editorial office was located, but these were years of war in Beirut, and Fayḍ eventually left the city in 1982. He stayed for some time in Moscow, travelling often to London but missing home, because Zia-ul-Haq’s rule (1977–88) had driven him into self-exile. He did however return home in 1983, enjoying his life in Lahore, meeting with friends and family, and travelling to his village. He fell ill with chest infection and died on 20 November 1984. Fayḍ is famous for expressing progressive political themes through the metaphor of romantic love, in the idiom of Urdu lyrical poetry (ghazal). Some of the best such poems function at both the surface level of the romantic ghazal and the ideological level of left-wing, socialist, revolutionary poetry. Other poems are purely in the romantic tradition of the ghazal. He also experimented with blank verse in explicitly political poems on world issues and other subjects. His poems, especially the romantic ones, are very popular and have been sung by the greatest singers of Pakistan. They have been translated into English (for the most part) and other major languages, including French, Russian, Swedish, and Arabic. They are also available in India in the Devanagari script of Hindi. His collected poetic output, Nuskhahā-yi vafā (1984), also contains memoirs of his time in jail and biographical accounts of his childhood and youth. All who have written personal accounts of Fayḍ have called him a mild-tempered, good-natured man, who,



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while fond of intellectual conversation, usually remained quiet. He was fond of good food, alcoholic drink, and the company of beautiful women, but he was a family man with deep affection for his wife, and he doted upon his children and grandchildren. His daughters, Salīmā Hāshimī and Munīzā Hāshimī, held a festival called Fayḍ Melā (lit., Fayḍ assembly) for some years after his death, and it soon became a symbol of anti-establishment resistance. The Melā is now held in Lahore and other cities of Pakistan and even in London. Fayḍ’s daughters and their families have now converted a house donated to them for this purpose into a cultural centre and literary museum called Faiz Ghar (lit., Fayḍ’s house). Fayḍ’s popularity increased over the years, and the government of Pakistan granted him the Nishān-i Imtiāz (lit., mark of distinction), Pakistan’s highest civil award, in 1990. The hundredth anniversary of his birth, in 2011, was a major cultural and historical event mainly in Pakistan and India, but also in the U.K., U.S.A., Canada, Russia, Germany, France, Norway, South Africa and Australia. Tariq Rahman

Bibliography Works by Fayḍ Sāre sukhan hamāre (“All that I have said”), London 1983, repr. as Nuskhahā-yi vafā (“Inventories of fidelity”), Lahore 1984 (includes Naqsh-i faryādī, “The image of the plaintiff,” Lahore 1941; Dast-i sabā, “The hand of the gentle breeze,” Lahore 1952; Zindāṃ-nāma, “Prison writings,” Lahore 1956; Dast-i tah-i sang, “Hand beneath the stone,” Lahore 1965; Sar-i Vādī-yi Sīnā, “In the Sinai Valley,” Karachi 1971; Shām-i shahr-i yārāṃ, “The evening of the city of friends,” Lahore 1978; Mire dil. Mire musāfir, “My heart. My wanderer,” Lahore 1981; and Ghubār-i ayyām, “The dust of days,” Lahore 1987) Fayḍ ba nām-i Iftikhār ʿĀrif (“Fayḍ’s letters to Iftikhār ʿĀrif”), ed. Rashīd Aḥmad, Lahore 2011 Hamārī qaumī thaqāfat (“Our national culture”), ed. Mirzā Ẓafar al-Ḥasan, Karachi 1976 Problems of national art and culture. Extracts from the report of the Standing Committee on Art and Culture, 1968, Lahore 1975 Iqbāl, ed. Shīmā Majīd, Lahore 1987 (Fayḍ’s writings and speeches on Iqbāl, in Urdu and English) Two loves. Faiz’s letters from jail, ed. Kyla Pasha and Salima Hashmi, Lahore 2011 Culture and identity. Selected English writings of Faiz, ed. Sheema Majeed, Karachi 2005 Māh-o sāl-i āshnāʾī (“Months and years of acquaintance”), Karachi 1975 (travelogue and memoir about the Soviet Union) Mīzān (“The balance”), Hyderabad 1960 (essays) Matāʿ-i lawḥ-o qalam (“The wealth of the tablet and the pen”), Karachi 1973 (essays) Mukālimāt-i Fayḍ (“Interviews of Fayḍ”), ed. Khalīl Aḥmād, Lahore 2011 Nathr-i Tāthīr (“Prose writings of Tāthīr”), Bahawalpur 1963 Ṣalībeṇ mere darīche meṇ (“Crosses in my window”), ed. Mirzā Ẓafar al-Ḥasan, Karachi 1971 (letters to his wife from prison) Safar-nāma-yi Kūbā (“Cuba travelogue”), Lahore 1973 Mauj-i zar (“The wave of gold”), ed. Aḥmad Salīm, Lahore 1993 (editorials and other rare writings). Translations of Fayḍ’s works



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Victor G. Kiernan, Poems by Faiz, London 1971; Agha Shahid Ali, The rebel’s silhouette, Delhi 1991 Ikram Azam, Poems by Faiz, Rawalpindi 1982 Laeeq Babree, Poèmes, Paris 1979, repr. Islamabad 2010 Estelle Dryland, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, 1911–1984. Urdu poet of social realism, Lahore, 1993 Khalid Hasan, O city of lights. Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Selected poetry and biographical notes, Karachi 2006 Mahboobul Haq, An elusive dawn. Selection from the poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Islamabad 1987 Shoaib Hashmi, A song for this day. 52 poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Lahore 2009 Fāris Jalūb and Muʿīn Basīsū, Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayḍ. Qaṣāʾid al-ḥayāt, Beirut 1989 Shiv Kumar Kumar, Selected poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Delhi 1995 Shiv Kumar Kumar, The best of Faiz, Delhi 2001 Naomi Lazard, The true subject. Selected poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Princeton 1988 Khwaja Tariq Mahmood, Poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz. With original Urdu text, roman and Hindi transliteration, and poetical translation into English, Delhi 2002 Sarvat Rahman, 100 poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Delhi 2002 Riz Rahim, Faiz Ahmed Faiz. A renowned Urdu poet, Bloomington 1998 Shamsher Bahādur Singh and Muʿizz al-Dīn Farīdī, Fayz, New Delhi 1979 (selections translated into Hindi) Majīd Ṣiddīqī and Aḥmad Salīm, Rāt dī Rāt (lit., “The night of night”), Lahore 1975 (selections translated into Panjabi) Mohammed Zakir and M.N. Menai, Poems of Faiz Ahmad Faiz. A poet of the third world, New Delhi 1995. Studies in English, French, and German Hafeez Malik, The Marxist literary movement in India and Pakistan, Journal of Asian Studies 26/4 (1967), 649–64 Jan Marek, Die Darstellung der Realität in der Urdu-Dichtung von Faiz Ahmad Faiz, in Johann Christoph Bürgel and Hartmut Fähndrich (eds.), Die Vorstellung vom Schicksal und die Darstellung der Wirklichkeit in der zeitgenössischen Literatur islamischer Länder (Bern 1983), 153–68 Denis Matringe, Le renouvellement de la poésie ourdou traditionnelle dans Naqsh-i faryādī de Faiẓ Aḥmad Faiẓ (1911 –1984), Journal asiatique 276/1–2 (1988), 163–87 Imdad Husain, An introduction to the poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Lahore 1989 Kalpana Sahni (ed.), A black rainbow over my homeland. A commemorative volume on Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Mosun Besseiso and Alex La Guma, Delhi n.d. Khalid Sohail and Ashfaq Hussain (eds.), Faiz. A poet of peace from Pakistan, Karachi 2011 Ali Madih Hashmi and Shoaib Hashmi, Faiz Ahmed Faiz. His life, his poems. The way it was once, New Delhi 2012. Studies in Urdu Sāḥir Anṣārī, Fayḍ ke ās pās (“Around Fayḍ”), Karachi 2011 Shafīq Ashrafī, Fayḍ. Afkār-o iqdār (“Fayḍ. Thought and values”), Delhi 1993



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Aftāb Aḥmad, Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayḍ. Shiʿr awr shakhṣiyyat (“Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayḍ. Poetry and personality”), Lahore 1999 Ashfāq Bukhārī, Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayd. Chand naʾī daryāfteṇ (“Some new research findings”) Lahore 2012 Saʿīd al-Ẓafar Chughtāy, Fayḍ kā sarmāya-yi sukhan. Shakhṣiyyat awr fan (“Fayḍ’s poetic capital. Personality and art”), Delhi 2008 Khalīq Anjum (ed.), Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayḍ. Tanqīdī jāʾiza (“Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayḍ. Critical survey”), New Delhi 1985 Muḥammad ʿĀrif, Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayḍ. Rūmāns awr shāʿirī (“Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayḍ. Romance and poetry”), Lahore 2010 ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Anjān, Khwush navā faqīr. Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayḍ (“A graceful mendicant. Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayḍ”), Toronto 2009 Adabiyāt 82, Special issue on Fayḍ (2009) Ashfāq Ḥusayn (ed.), Fayḍ. Tanqīd kī mīzān par (“Fayḍ on the criterion of literary criticism”), Karachi 2011 ʿAbd al-Mughnī, Fayḍ kī shāʿirī (“The poetry of Faiz”), Patna 2001 Fātiḥ Muḥammad Malik, Fayḍ. Shāʿirī awr siyāsat (“Fayḍ. Poetry and politics”), Lahore 2008 Muḥammad ʿAlī Ṣiddiqī, Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayḍ. Dard awr darmān kā shāʿir (“Fayḍ Aḥmad Fayḍ. Poet of pain and of its remedy”), Lahore 2011.

Cite this page Rahman, Tariq. "Fayḍ, Fayḍ Aḥmad ." Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. Edited by: Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Brill Online, 2013. Reference. BRILL demo user. 27 June 2013


Faiz Ahmad Faiz

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