Seemab Akbarabadi

Aashiq Hussian Siddiqui, famously known as Seemab Akbarabadi, was one of the most prominent modern-era Urdu poets. He was born on 5th June 1882 in Agra, India as the eldest son of Maulana Muhammad Hussian Siddiqui, who was a highly educated executive as well as an Urdu poet. His father died in 1897 while he was still in college. This compelled him to drop out of college and seek a livelihood, where he started working in Agra, Kanpur, and then joined the railways service at Ajmer but resigned from the job in 1922 and returned to Agra. Seemab started ghazal writing in 1892 during his school days and, in 1898, became a disciple of Nawab Mirza Khan Daagh Dehlvi Daagh Delvi was an Urdu poet of Indian origin. He >> Read More... , a poet known for his Urdu ghazals. In 1923, he founded an institution, “Qasr-ul-Adab,” to train new poets, where he started publishing the monthly “Paimana” and, in 1930, the monthly “Shair.”

The “Shair” publications continued even after Seemab’s death and were managed and edited by his son Aijaz Siddiqi. Based in Mumbai, India, it is the oldest Urdu-language literary magazine that is still in circulation. He translated the Masnavi of Rumi into Urdu, a massive task. His ghazals are suffused with true Sufism. Spiritual master Meher Baba, while listening to the singing of a ghazal of Seemab, was so impressed by a particular couplet that he stopped the singer and bestowed upon Seemab the ultimate gift of gifts, liberation from the round of births and deaths. One of his famous couplets, “For a long life I begged, and four days I could negotiate two days of which I spent in pinning, and two days in wait,” continues to have a substantial impact on readers. He firmly believed in the philosophy of love and evidently his works also mainly highlight the importance of goodness in humanity.

Seemab Akbarabadi’s famous works include “Naistaan,” his first collection of poems published in 1923. Throughout his lifetime, he published seventy-five books, including twenty-two books of poetry. He is best known for his ghazals, particularly those sung by Kundan Lal Saigal. He came to Pakistan after the partition in 1949, where he suffered a massive paralytic stroke from which he never recovered and passed away in Karachi on 31st January 1951. Even long after his death, his works continue to remain relevant to this day.