Urdu Academy of North America pays tribute to Khatir Ghaznavi
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
The Urdu Academy of North America dedicated its November 17, 2024 literary event to the life and work of multi-lingual poet Khatir Ghazna
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The event was held at the Chandni Restaurant at Newark CA. Tashie Zaheer, President of the Urdu Academy of North America welcomed the audience.
Abdus Sattar Ghazali was nazim of the event. He presented a well researched maqala about the life and work of Khatir Ghaznavi.
Those who recited the poetry of Khatir Ghaznavi included: Tasadduq Hussain Attari, Adil Ashary, Atiya Naz, Mahmoodul Hasan, Zafar Yousafzai, Qazi Habib, Pamy Arora, Arshad Rashid and Talat Qadeer
Khatir Ghaznavi’s real name was Mirza Muhammad Ibrahim Baig.
He was born on 31st October 1925 in Peshawar. He was the only child of his parents.
His family had immigrated from Ghazni, Afghanistan, to northern Pakistani province of Khybar Pakhtoon Khwaa (known as North Western Frontier Province during British colonial rule over India).
He started his career as a bursar (cashier) with All India Radio's Peshawar Studios where he worked from 1943 to 1947.
After the creation of Pakistan, he stayed with Radio Pakistan until 1962.
Having Masters degree in Urdu from University of Peshawar in 1958, he later joined the same department as lecturer and was promoted as professor and chairman of the department.
In 1958 when he did MA (Urdu) with flying colours from Peshawar University, he was offered lecturer’s post at the Urdu department of the university.
He went to China where he learnt Chinese language and on his return he established the Chinese language Department at the Peshawar University.
He also visited Malaysia for teaching and had the honor of writing a dictionary of common words in Urdu and Malaya that was published by the Malaysian government.
He worked as the Head of Pakistan Studies Department and held the Urdu Chair at the University of Malaya where he learned the Malay language.
Along with Farigh Bukhari and Raza Hamdani, he started an Urdu literary magazine from Peshawar which had a section devoted to Pashto culture and literature.
He founded Baithak, a Hindko (a language very similar to Punjabi) literary organization. He did research on Hindko language and proposed that Urdu language might have had its origins in the Hindko language.
He was also a founding member of the Abaaeen Arts Council, Peshawar.
He was fluent in many languages, including Pashto, Hindko , Urdu, English, Chinese, and Malay.
Authored 50 Books
Khatir Ghaznavi has to his credit over 50 books in Urdu, Pashto and Hindko. Some of his works are Phool aur patther (novella), Sarhad ke rooman, Pashto matloona (Pashto proverbs), Dastar nama (Urdu translation of Khushhaal Khan Khattak’s prose work), Khwaab dar khwaab (collection of poetry), Khushhaal nama, Jadeed Urdu adab (criticism), Zindagi ke liye (play), Wuthering heights (dramatisation), Koonjaan (Hindko ghazals), Dictionary of common words in Urdu and Bhasha Malaysia and Roop rang (songs).
Professor Ghaznavi was awarded Presidential Pride of Performance Award for his contribution to Urdu and Hindko literature.
Among his non-poetic works are Suba Sarhad Kay Roomaan, and a translation of Khushal Khattak's Dastaar Naama.
He loved books and donated about 6,000 books to the Qartaba University and about 22,000 books to the Peshawar University. A special section was specified at the Oriental Corner of the Central Library of Peshawar University where all these books would be shelved for use of students and researchers.
He was a good artist and photographer and had a rare collection of photographs of the Pakistan Movement. These exceptional photographs were published by a literary and cultural organisation of Peshawar-Gandhara Hindko Board in its regular publication titled ‘Hindkowan’.
He passed away in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan, on 6th July 2008 and was buried in his ancestral graveyard in Peshawar.
What other prominent poets say?
“He is not only a poet, but also holds ample authority over every aspect of writing,” wrote the great Ahmad Faraz about him. “He is a man of hard work, perseverance and creativity.”
Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi once wrote about how Ghaznavi’s work has a fresh and modern outlook to both poetry and prose.
Iftikhar Arif noted that his literary contributions are not only a vital part of our own history, but also honoured by many around the world.
Interview with the News
In an interview with the News in September 2005, narrating the story of his literary journey, Khatir Ghaznavi says he -- along with Farigh Bukhari and Raza Hamdani -- started an Urdu literary magazine from Peshawar which had a section devoted to Pashto culture and literature. The magazine also had a special voluminous issue by the title of 'Sarhad Number' which carried detailed information about the Frontier. Both the Pashto section of the magazine and its special issue proved very popular in India and Pakistan.
Drawing comparisons between literary environment of Frontier in the past and what prevails now, he says: "There used to be an organisation called 'Idara-e-Adbiyat' set up by great literary figures of NWFP like Syed Zia Jafferi, Dr Nazir Ahmed, Mirza Barlas, Farigh Bukhari and Raza Hamdani. Literary gatherings used to regularly take place at the organisation's office at Shahwali Katal in Qissa Khawani. Such was the literary environment of Peshawar that people like Hasrat Mohani, Seemab Akbar Abadi, Shahid Ahmad Dehlvi and many other literary icons from India used to visit 'Idara-e-Adbiyat' in Peshawar. But the only literary organisation now surviving is the Syndicate of Writers, with members from Pashto, Hindko and Urdu literati.
Khatir raised quite a literary eye brows when he wrote that Urdu has its origin in Hindko. His thesis on the subject is published as a book by Moqtadara Qaumi Zuban. Explaining and defending his thesis, he says: "In reality, Hindko is a highly misunderstood language. It is thought to be a language of only Peshawar. No, it is not. Hindko is a mega-language, which contains elements of almost all languages spoken on both sides of the river Indus -- from Gujri to Gujrati and including Punjabi, Potohari, Seraiki and Sindhi.
Khatir raised quite a literary eye brows when he wrote that Urdu has its origin in Hindko. His thesis on the subject is published as a book by Moqtadara Qaumi Zuban. Explaining and defending his thesis, he says: "In reality, Hindko is a highly misunderstood language. It is thought to be a language of only Peshawar. No, it is not. Hindko is a mega-language, which contains elements of almost all languages spoken on both sides of the river Indus -- from Gujri to Gujrati and including Punjabi, Potohari, Seraiki and Sindhi.
"I have written another thesis entitled 'Pakhtoons and Urdu'. If you search, you would find out that the greatest contribution to Urdu's development in India is by the Pakhtoons. For instance, though India's ex-president Dr Zakir Hussain and his younger brother Yousaf Hussain Khan, also a noted poet, were Urdu speaking, they basically were Pakhtoons. They are in fact Afridis. I have a book entitled Yadoon Ki Dunya, written by Yousaf Hussain, in which he has written his family history. He tells how his ancestors migrated from the Frontier to fight in India and get large estates there.
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Khatir further explains: "Another Pakhtoon family which contributed a lot to Urdu's development in India was of Josh Malih Abadi, who was also an Afridi. Josh's grandfather took his son to India who afterwards become a known Urdu poet. Akhtar Shirani is another Pakhtoon. Even his name shows that he belonged to one of the main Pakhtoon tribes, the Shiranis."
Khatir Ghaznavi’s theory about the birth of Urdu
Urdu’s origin is an issue that has kicked up many controversies, claims, counterclaims, rejoinders and arguments among scholars. Several regions — such as Punjab, Sindh, Deccan, Delhi and Multan, Bihar — and several languages — such as Punjabi, Brij Bhasha, Khari Boli, Pali Prakrit, Seraiki and Delhi dialects — have claims of having given birth to Urdu.
Though the issue has remained a bone of contention for quite long and a large number of books and research papers have been written on the topic favouring different theories, over the past few decades, the issue has inched up towards sort of a consensus and many scholars now almost agree with the idea that suggests that Urdu was born of the dialects spoken in and around Delhi, especially Khari Boli. However, it has not stopped scholars from presenting new theories about Urdu’s origin, or, simply, the theory of Delhi dialects is not acceptable to some.
One theory proffered about a decade ago said that Hindko had given birth to Urdu. Khatir Ghaznavi’s book Urdu zaban ka makhaz Hindko, or the Urdu language’s source Hindko, (National Language Authority, Islamabad, 2003) tried to establish the idea that Urdu’s origin and source was the Hindko language, though the theory was not new and before Khatir Ghaznavi, some scholars of Hindko, such as Mukhtar Ali Nayyar and Farigh Bukhari, had expressed the similar views in their writings. Khatir Ghaznavi was of the view that an ancient language of the Indus valley developed into Hindko and gave birth to both Urdu and Hindi.
