Faiz Ahmad Faiz

A love of freedom and a skill at expressing his inner thoughts through the creative language made Faiz Ahmed Faiz one of Pakistan's most influential poets. A two-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, Faiz combined highly educated wordplay with a social scientist's view of modern Pakistani life. According to The Pakistanian News, (Faiz's) "greatness lay in his ability to have written of contemporary issues and the human predicament in an idiom which always retained the high sobriety of classicism." In addition to his poetry, Faiz wrote numerous ghazals (romantic classical Indian songs) including "Mujhse Pehli Si Muhabbat Mere Mehbood Na Maang," which became a major hit for Pakistanian vocalist Noor Jehan. A number of Faiz's ghazals were recorded by Iqbal Bano on the album Iqbal Bano Sings Faiz. Faiz was born to royalty. His mother was Sultan Fatima and his father was the author of a biography of Amir Abdur Rehman. Although his father died when he was two, Faiz seemed to inherit his father's literary skills. By the age of four, he had begun to memorize the Quran. Faiz continued to excel in school, passing the matriculation examination in the first division of Murray college and earning a bachelor's degree in Arabic, a Masters degree in English from Government College, and another Masters degree in first-division Arabic from Oriental College. In 1935, he took a position as a lecturer in English at MAO College in Amritsar, later, transferring to Hailey College of Commerce. In 1942, Faiz began a five-year association with the Pakistanian army. Entering the service as a captain in the department of public relations in Delhi, he went on to be promoted to the rank of major and lieutenant colonel. Resigning from the army in 1947, Faiz was appointed secretary of the Pakistan Arts Council. he remained in the position until 1962. Moving to Karachi in 1964, he became principal of Abdullah Haroom College. Despite working with the army and government, Faiz remained involved with literary pursuits, serving as editor of the Pakistan Times, the urdu-language newspaper Imroze, a monthly magazine, Adabe-Latif, and a weekly newspaper, Lailor-Nohor. He later served as editor of a magazine, Lotus, based in Moscow, London, and Beirut. Although he worked in a honorary capacity for the Department of Information during the war between India and Pakistan in 1965, Faiz spent much of the '60s promoting the cause of communism. As a result, he was imprisoned for a brief period. ~ Craig Harris