Majeed Amjad

Majeed Amjad (1914–1974) was a Pakistani modern Urdu poet, counted among the founding fathers of modern Urdu poetry and described as a philosophical poet of depth and sensitivity. Born Abdul Majid on 29 June 1914 in Jhang, Punjab, he was taught Arabic and Persian by his maternal grandfather, took his bachelor's degree from Islamia College Lahore in 1934, and edited the weekly Arooj in Jhang. He then served in the Food Department, spending the last twenty-eight years of his life in Sahiwal, where he retired as Assistant Food Controller in 1972 and died on 11 May 1974; he was buried in Jhang. His first collection, Shab-e-Rafta (1958), with a preface in verse, was the only book published in his lifetime; Shab-e-Rafta Ke Baad followed posthumously in 1976, and his complete works, Kuliyat-e-Majeed Amjad, were edited by Khawaja Muhammad Zakariya in 1989. Away from the great literary centres, he built a poetry of striking images and unexpected connections — philosophical, introspective, and deeply personal, in ghazal, nazm and free verse.