The Hamzanama or Dastan-e-Amir Hamza narrates the legendary exploits of Hamza ibn Abdul-Muttalib, an uncle of Muhammad. Most of the stories are extremely fanciful, "a continuous series of romantic interludes, threatening events, narrow escapes, and violent acts". The Hamzanama chronicles the fantastic adventures of Hamza as he and his band of heroes fight the enemies.
Urdu literature comprises the literary works, written in the Urdu language. While it tends to be dominated by poetry, especially the verse forms of the ghazal and nazm, it has expanded into other styles of writing, including that of the short story, or afsana. Urdu literature is popular mostly in Pakistan, where Urdu is the national language, and in India, where it is an Eighth Schedule language.
Asrar-ul-Haq, better known as Majaz Lakhnawi, was an Indian Urdu poet. He is known for his romantic and revolutionary poetry. He composed ghazals and nazms in Urdu. He was the maternal uncle of poet and screenplay writer Javed Akhtar and Indian-American psychoanalyst Salman Akhtar.
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi was an Indian Urdu language poet, author, critic, and theorist. He is known for ushering modernism to Urdu literature. He formulated fresh models of literary appreciation that combined Western principles of literary criticism and subsequently applied them to Urdu literature after adapting them to address literary aesthetics native to Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. Some of his notable works included Sher-e-Shor Angez (1996), Ka’i Chand The Sar-e Asman (2006), The Mirror of Beauty (2013), and The Sun that Rose from the Earth (2014). He was also the editor and publisher of the Urdu literary magazine Shabkhoon.
Jahan-e-Khusrau is an annual three-day sufi music festival held in New Delhi, India to commemorate the death anniversary of the saint Amir Khusrau.
Ustad Ateeq Hussain Khan Bandanawazi Al-Hashmi Qawwal is an Indian Qawwal.
Mahmood Farooqui is an Indian writer, performer and director. He specializes in a type of story-telling known as Dastangoi. Farooqui along with his uncle Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, noted Urdu poet and literary critic, revived Dastangoi, the ancient art of Urdu story telling. He was awarded the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar in 2010 for it.
Dastangoi is a 13th century Urdu oral storytelling art form. The Persian style of dastan evolved in 16th century. One of the earliest references in print to dastangoi is a 19th-century text containing 46 volumes of the adventures of Amir Hamza titled Dastan e Amir Hamza.
Yaseen Akhtar Misbahi was an Indian Sunni Sufi Islamic scholar and journalist, associated with the Raza Academy. He was the vice-president of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and the chairman of All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat. He was an alumnus of Al Jamiatul Ashrafia and authored books including Angrez-nawazi ki Haqeeqat.
AMU Literary Festival is an annual literary festival organised by Aligarh Muslim University. University Debating and Literary Club (UDLC) formerly University Literary Club of the university organises the festival. Some of the previous invitees include news anchor and author Rajdeep Sardesai, poet Keki N. Daruwalla, politician Mani Shankar Aiyar and independent journalist Rana Ayyub.
Jashn-e-Rekhta is the world's largest Urdu language literary festival. It is a three-day event held in New Delhi that celebrates Urdu language. This event was the flagship event of the Rekhta Foundation. The festival showcases Urdu poetry, Urdu literature, Qawwali, and Islamic calligraphy, with performances such as Ghazal, Sufi music, recitations, panel discussions, debates, conversations on films, and calligraphy workshops. It also includes shopping and food festivals. It provides a platform for Urdu lovers to share their poetry and stories in various open forums. The slogan of the festival is "Celebrating Urdu", and it is attended by a huge number of Urdu enthusiasts, younger people
Ankit Chadha was an Indian writer, story-teller, oral narrative performance artist, researcher and educator. He specialized in research-based narratives performed in the centuries-old Dastangoi form of storytelling. His writing varied from biographical accounts of personalities like Kabir and Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khana to Dara Shikoh and Majaz. He had spoken on Dastangoi globally, including at Harvard, Yale and University of Toronto.
Syed Aijazuddin Shah is an Urdu and Hindi humorist, satirist and poet. He has been performing Mushaira and Kavi Sammelan for the last 45 years all over the world. Popular Meeruthi was awarded Kaka Hatrasi Award for his humorous poetry by HRD Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal
Rekhta is an Indian web portal started by Rekhta Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the Urdu literature. The Rekhta Library Project, its books preservation initiative, has successfully digitized approximately 200,000 books over a span of ten years. These books primarily consist of Urdu, Hindi and Persian literature and encompass a wide range of genres, including biographies of poets, Urdu poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The collection originates from public and research libraries in the Indian subcontinent. It serves content in multiple scripts such as Devanagari, Roman and, primarily, Nastaliq. It hosts books from centuries earlier and is recognized as the largest website in the world for the preservation of Urdu literature.
Jashn-e-Adab (Sahityotsav) is a society for poetry and literature which has been established in 2012 to promote and preserve the literary heritage of Hindi and Urdu language through ‘Jashn-e-Adab poetry festival’.
Murtaza Danish Husaini, credited by his stage name Danish Husain, is an Indian actor, storyteller, poet and theatre director. He has also been credited as Dan Husain and Murtaza Danish Husain.
Roohani Sisters are a Sufi singing from New Delhi, India.
Umro Ayyar or Amar Ayyar is a fictional character, an ayyār, in Tilism-e-Hoshruba, an Urdu recension of the Islamic epic Hamzanama. He was first written about during the time of Mughal Emperor Akbar and many stories and novels have been written about him since.
Udaipur Tales International Storytelling Festival also known as Udaipur Tales is an India-based international storytelling festival. It was first held in February 2017 and is conducting its 6th edition in 2025. It was founded by the duo of Sushmita Singha and Salil Bhandari in 2017.
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: The Messiah is a 2024 Indian biographical film in Urdu-language based on the life of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, an Indian social reformer and the founder of Aligarh Muslim University. It is produced by Masarrat Ali, Parveen Akhtar Ali and Shoaib Chaudhary and streamed on Apple TV.
