Akbar Allahabadi: The Great Satirist of Urdu Poetry
اکبر الٰہ آبادی
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Akbar Allahabadi (اکبر الٰہ آبادی, 1846–1921) is the great comic and satirical poet of Urdu. Writing in the age of the Raj, he made fun of everything the new colonial culture brought: English education, Western dress, the fashionable reformers of Sir Syed's Aligarh, railways, newspapers and committees. His verse is quick, playful and full of English words dropped into Urdu for comic effect.
Life
Syed Akbar Husain was born near Allahabad in 1846. He worked his way up from a minor post to become a sessions judge in the British judicial service, and the government gave him the title Khan Bahadur. The irony was not lost on him: a loyal official who spent his poetry laughing at his rulers' culture and at Indians who copied it. He died in Allahabad in 1921.
Poetry
Akbar wrote ghazals and serious verse, but his fame rests on his humorous qit'as and couplets, quoted across South Asia as proverbs. Their targets are mimicry and lost values: the modern girl and the modern boy, the Westernised gentleman, the clerk, the politician. In his last years he also wrote the Gandhi Nama, verses on Gandhi's movement.
He is a natural companion to Nazir Ahmad's satirical novel Ibn-ul-Waqt, which mocks the same craze for English ways.
Questions and answers
Who was Akbar Allahabadi?
An Urdu poet (1846–1921) famous for humorous and satirical verse about Westernisation under British rule. He was also a judge.
What did Akbar Allahabadi write about?
Mostly the comedy of colonial modernity: English education, Western fashions and the Indian reformers who embraced them.
More guides
- Ibn-ul-Waqt by Nazir Ahmad: Summary and Themes · The first great Urdu satire of colonial mimicry: knives, forks, hats and arguments.
- Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Life, Works and the Aligarh Movement · The reformer who founded Aligarh and gave Urdu its modern prose.
- The Great Urdu Poets: From Wali and Mir to Faiz and Faraz · Three centuries of Urdu poetry in one list, with where to read each poet.