Iqbal Suhail

Azamgarh's poet-lawyer — the freedom fighter whose sher asks what imagination can never reach. Iqbal Suhail (1884–1955), born Iqbal Ahmad Khan on 19 December 1884 at Badhariya village in Azamgarh, was an Indian Urdu poet, Islamic scholar, lawyer, educationist and politician. He took his early schooling under Maulana Mohammed Shafi, one of the founders of Madarsatul Islah at Sarai Mir, and completed his M.A. and LL.B. from Aligarh Muslim University in 1918, returning to Azamgarh to practise law. A freedom fighter, he was elected to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly in 1937 as a candidate of the Indian National Congress, defeating the Muslim League candidate Syed Ali Zaheer, and he served on the executive committee of the Azamgarh Muslim Education Society, which runs Shibli National Post Graduate College and other institutions in the town. His poetry collections include Kulliyat-e-Suhail, Tabish-e-Suhail and Mauj-e-Kausar. He died on 7 November 1955 at Azamgarh, aged 70.