ISLAMABAD, Aug 26, 2008: Renowned poet and literary figure Ahmed Faraz has passed away here on Monday.
He was under treatment at a local hospital in Islamabad, according to Geo News. His son Shibli Faraz has also confirmed the news that Faraz has passed away.
Syed Ahmad Shah or Ahmed Faraz (January 14, 1934 - August 25, 2008) is considered one of the greatest modern Urdu poets of the last century and greatest living Urdu poet of present times. Faraz is his pseudonym ‘takhallus’, whereas his real name is Syed Ahmed Shah. Ahmed Faraz died at Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad on August 25, 2008
Faraz, who has been compared with Mohammad Iqbal and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, holds a unique position as one of the best poets of current times, with a fine but simplistic style of writing, even common people can easily understand and identify with. Ethnically a pashto-speaking Pashtun, Ahmed Faraz learned and studied Persian and Urdu at the Peshawar University where he taught these subjects later.
His poems were so upsetting to the powerful, he was exiled during the regime of Gen. Zia al-Haq. The Dawn said the military dictator couldn’t tolerate Faraz’s association with the Peoples Party government after he became the head of the Pakistan Academy of Letters.
When democratic rule returned, he was named head of Pakistan’s National Book Foundation.
