Muhammad Husain Azad
Muhammad Husain Azad was an Urdu writer and scholar who wrote both prose and poetry, but is mostly remembered for his prose. His best known work is Aab-e-Hayat.
Early life and family
Muhammad Hussain was born in Delhi to a Persian immigrant family. His mother died when he was four years old. His father, Moulvi Muhammad Baqir was educated at the Zakir Husain [Delhi College|Delhi College]. In early 1837, Azad's father bought a printing press and launched the Delhi Urdu Akhbaar. In 1854, Muhammad Hussain graduated from college and began to help his father with his newspaper and publishing work.Azad married Aghai Begum, the daughter of another Persian immigrant family. Then his world came apart during the next few years due to his father-owned newspaper's support of the freedom fighters against the British empire and restoration of the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar in Delhi temporarily in the aftermath of Indian Rebellion of 1857. After the British retook Delhi some months later and executed his father Maulvi Muhammad Baqir, his whole joint family including old women and young children were expelled from their house by force by the British authorities. A period of turmoil followed in Delhi, Azad then decided to migrate to Lahore in 1861.
Career
Azad started teaching at the newly-founded Government College, Lahore in 1864, and later at Oriental College, Lahore. In Lahore, he came in contact with G. W. Leitner, who was the Principal of Government College, Lahore and founder of Anjuman-e-Punjab. In 1866, Azad became a regularly paid lecturer on behalf of the Anjuman and a year later became its secretary. In 1887, he established the Azad Library which helped him earn the title of Shams-ul-ulama.Along with Altaf Hussain Hali, Azad led a movement for 'natural poetry', a movement to reform classical Urdu poetry. He declared the aim of poetry to be “as we express it, it should arouse in the listeners’ heart the same effect, the same emotion, the same fervor, as would be created by seeing the thing itself, rejecting the aesthetics of classical Urdu poetry, which, according to him, was artificial and involved in a 'game of words' that did not produce genuine emotion. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan encouraged and supported both Hali and Azad in their effort to create a simple and realistic-looking creed of Urdu literature.
Works
Qisas ul-Hind - 1869Nairang-e Khiyāl - 1880- Aab-e-Hayat - 1880 Sair-e-Iran - 1886Sukhandān-e Fārs - completed in 1887 and published in 1907Darbār-e-Akbarī - 1898