Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Legendary poet late Ahmad Faraz’s 91st birth anniversary was marked on Thursday in Pakistan.
Syed Ahmad Shah was born on January 12, 1931, in Kohat and is best known by his pen name, Ahmad Faraz. He along with his family had previously relocated to Peshawar from the Kohat District.
He attended Edwardes College in Peshawar and graduated from Peshawar University with a master’s degree in Urdu and Persian. During college, he was influenced by the poetry of revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz. Although he was frequently compared with him, he always looked up to Fiaz.
He is recognized as one of the best poets of the modern era, having a sophisticated but friendly writing style that regular readers easily understood. Romantic themes predominated in Faraz’s poetry, but he also used them to further his political struggle. He protested Zia-ul-military Haq’s government by speaking out, for which he was detained.
Ahmad Faraz’s life
After that arrest, he entered a self-imposed exile and spent the next six years in Britain, Canada, and Europe. When he eventually made it back to Pakistan, he was given the position of Chairman of the Pakistan Academy of Letters and, for a while, Chairman of the National Book Foundation in Islamabad.
On August 25, 2008, Ahmad Faraz passed away from kidney failure in a private hospital in Islamabad. At H-8 Graveyard in Islamabad, Pakistan, his funeral was held on the evening of August 26 in the presence of several admirers and government representatives.
Pas Andaaz, Sab Awazain Meri, Khuwab Gul, Janan Janan, and Ghazal Bahana Karoon are all attributed to Faraz.
