Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...
to a Persian immigrant family. His mother died when he was four years old. His father, Moulvi Muhammad Baqir was educated at the Delhi College. In early 1837, Azad's father bought a printing press and launched the ''Delhi Urdu Akhbaar'' (Delhi Urdu Newspaper). 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 next few years due to his father-owned newspaper's support of the rebels against the British empire and restoration of Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar in Delhi temporarily in the aftermath of
Indian Rebellion of 1857
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...
. 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
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...
, Azad then decided to migrate to
Lahore
Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...
in 1861.
Career
Azad started teaching at the newly-founded
Government College, Lahore
The Government College University, Lahore (colloquially known as GCU), is a public research university located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Opened as Government College, Lahore, in 1864, it became a university in 2002.
Overview
In 1864, Go ...
in 1864, and later at Oriental College, Lahore. In Lahore, he came in contact with G. W. Leitner, who was the principal 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'' (Sun among the Learned).
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
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan KCSI (17 October 1817 – 27 March 1898; also Sayyid Ahmad Khan) was an Indian Muslim reformer, philosopher, and educationist in nineteenth-century British India. Though initially espousing Hindu-Muslim unity, h ...
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'' ("Stories of India") - 1869
* ''Nairang-e Khiyāl'' ("The Wonder-World of Thought") - 1880
* Aab-e-Hayat ("Water of Life/Elixir") - 1880 (this book describes the history of Urdu poetry)
* ''Sair-i Iran'' - 1886
* ''Sukhandān-e fārs'' ("On Iranian Poets") - completed in 1887 and published in 1907
* ''Darbār-e akbarī'' ("The Court of Akbar") - 1898
Death
Muhammad Hussain Azad died in Lahore on 22 January 1910 at age 79.