Literature of Kashmir has a long history, the oldest texts having been composed in the Sanskrit language. Early names include Patanjali, the author of the Mahābhāṣya commentary on Pāṇini's grammar, suggested by some to have been the same to write the Hindu treatise known as the Yogasutra, and Dridhbala, who revised the Charaka Samhita of Ayurveda.
Abul Kalam Ghulam Muhiyuddin Ahmed bin Khairuddin Al-Hussaini Azad was an Indian independence activist, Islamic theologian, writer and a senior leader of the Indian National Congress. Following India's independence, he became the First Minister of Education in the Indian government. He is commonly remembered as Maulana Azad; the word Maulana is an honorific meaning 'Our Master' and he had adopted Azad (Free) as his pen name. His contribution to establishing the education foundation in India is recognised by celebrating his birthday as National Education Day across India.
Urdu literature is literature in the Urdu language. While it tends to be dominated by poetry, especially the verse forms of the ghazal غزل and nazm نظم, it has expanded into other styles of writing, including that of the short story, or afsana افسانہ. Urdu literature is mostly popular in Pakistan, where Urdu is the national language and India, where it is a recognized language. It is also widely understood in Afghanistan and has moderate amount of popularity in Bangladesh.
The Progressive Writers' Association or the Progressive Writers' Movement of India or Anjuman Tarraqi Pasand Mussanafin-e-Hind ( or Akhil Bhartiya Pragatishil Lekhak Sangh was a progressive literary movement in pre-partition British India. Some branches of this writers' group existed around the world besides in India and Pakistan.
Josh Malihabadi popularly known as Shayar-e-Inqalab was a Pakistani poet and is regarded as one of the finest Urdu poets of the era of British India. Known for his liberal values and challenging the established order, he wrote over 100,000 couplets and more than 1,000 rubaiyat in his lifetime. His wrote Yaadon ki Barat, his autobiography which is noted for its frank and candid style. The first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru held him in high esteem and frequently attended the mushaira at Lala Kishan Lal Kalra's United Coffee House where Josh performed.
Peerzada Ghulam Ahmad, known by his pen name as Mahjoor, was a poet of the Kashmir Valley, along with contemporaries, Zinda Kaul, Abdul Ahad Azad, and Dinanath Nadim. He is especially noted for introducing a new style into Kashmiri poetry and for expanding Kashmiri poetry into previously unexplored thematic realms.
The Hindi–Urdu controversy arose in 19th century colonial India out of the debate over whether the Hindi or Urdu language should be chosen as a national language.
Jagan Nath Azad, was an Indian Urdu poet, writer and academician. He wrote over 70 books, including poetry collections, poems, biographies, and travelogues.
Al-Hilal was a weekly Urdu language newspaper established by the Indian Muslim independence activist Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The paper was notable for its criticism of the British Raj in India and its exhortation to Indian Muslims to join the growing Indian independence movement. Al-Hilal ran from 1912 to 1914, when it was shut down under the Press Act.
Ratan Nath Dhar Sarshar was an Urdu novelist, columnist and editor from British India. Born into a Kashmiri Brahmin family which settled in Lucknow, he received his education at Canning College and later took up employment as a schoolteacher. In August 1878, he was appointed editor of the Lucknow-based newspaper Avadh Akhbar, in which his most famous work Fasana-e-Azad was published serially.
Prayag is an ancient holy city of India mentioned in the Vedic scriptures and texts. Prayag was renamed Allahabad by the Mughal ruler Akbar around 1575 or even later. Akbar was grandson of the Mughal conqueror Babur.
The Nawab of Awadh or the Nawab of Oudh was the title of the rulers who governed the state of Awadh in north India during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Nawabs of Awadh belonged to a dynasty of Persian origin from Nishapur, Iran. In 1724, Nawab Sa'adat Khan established the Oudh State with their capital in Faizabad and Lucknow.
Muhammad Husain Azad was a scholar and an Urdu writer who wrote both prose and poetry, but he is mostly remembered for his prose. His best known work is Aab-e-Hayat.
The Oudh State was a princely state in the Awadh region of North India until its annexation by the British in 1856. The name Oudh, now obsolete, was once the anglicized name of the state, also written historically as Oudhe.
Muhajir culture is the culture of the various Muslims of different ethnicities who migrated mainly from North India after the independence of Pakistan in 1947 generally to Karachi the then federal capital of Pakistan. They are also known as Urdu speakers, on account of Urdu being their native language. Many Muhajirs of Pakistan are closely related to the Muslims of Uttar Pradesh in India. The Muhajirs are mainly concentrated in Karachi and Hyderabad.
The Aligarh Movement was the push to establish a modern system of Western–style scientific education for the Muslim population of British India, during the later decades of the 19th century. The movement's name derives from the fact that its core and origins lay in the city of Aligarh in Northern India and, in particular, with the foundation of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875. The founder of the oriental college, and the other educational institutions that developed from it, was Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. He became the leading light of the wider Aligarh Movement.
Fasana-e-Azad is an Urdu novel by Ratan Nath Dhar Sarshar. It was serialized in Avadh Akhbar between 1878 and 1883 before it was published in four large volumes by the Nawal Kishore Press. The story follows a wandering character named Azad and his companion, Khoji, from the streets of late-nineteenth-century Lucknow to the battlefields of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) in Constantinople and Russia. The work's status as a novel has been debated, but it is thought by most scholars to be one of the first novels in Urdu.
Avadh Akhbar was an Urdu-language newspaper founded by Munshi Nawal Kishore, and published by Nawal Kishore Press from Lucknow, British India. It was launched in 1858 and lasted for almost a century. It was the most popular newspaper of its time, specialising in politics, social reform and literature. In 1877, it became the first Urdu daily in Northern India.
The Shahr Ashob (Persian: شهر آشوب; literary written as Shahr-e-Ashob, sometimes spelled Shahar-i-Ashob, is an ancient Urdu poetic genre in South Asia with its roots in lamented classical Urdu poetry. It was existed and widely used by the poets between the 16th and 19th centuries during the Mughal Empire. Ashob remained an historical genre in Persian, Urdu and Turkish literature used by the writers, predominantly by the Mughal poets to express their anguish and sorrows over political and social shifts.
