The Man of Letters
His Literary Legacy
Hazrat Zia Jaffry was, in the words of his biographer, a poet of Haq o Ma’rifat — of Truth and gnosis — whose verse carries the pain of the heart so that it passes into other hearts. He wrote in every form, in Urdu and Persian, and stood among the foremost literary figures of Peshawar.
نفس کی آمد و شد کا کچھ اعتبار نہیں
جو تیری یاد میں گزرے وہ دم غنیمت ہے
“There is no reliance on the coming and going of the breath — the breath that passes in Your remembrance, that alone is the treasure.”
Quoted in his biography · read in the book
His poetic worldview
Gnosis, love, and purpose
Wahdat al-Wujud
He was a believer in the unity of being — seeing his Beloved at every turn and in every path. Even his own perfect guide he named through the attributes of the Divine.
Sarapa Mohabbat
Because he saw the divine attributes in every human being, he could hate no one. His whole message, his biographer writes, was love.
The school of Iqbal
A follower of Iqbal’s thought, he made poetry a means to moral and national ends — a verse of purpose (maqsadiyat) and reform, rich in contemplation.
A master of every form
From ghazal to ruba’i
He tried his hand at every genre of verse — ghazal, nazm, masnavi, ruba’i, geet, marsiya, manqabat and naat — in both Urdu and Persian, in which he first began to write.
Naat & Manqabat
Praise of the Prophet ﷺ, and of Ali, the Ahl al-Bayt, Ghawth-e-Azam and his own murshid. Some were broadcast from Radio Pakistan, Peshawar; one manqabat aired on 20 October 1964.
Marsiya of Karbala
Elegies for the martyrs of Karbala — the sacrifice of Imam Husain and the loyalty of Hazrat Abbas — rendered with moving power.
Ghazal in a great line
His ghazal inherits the mystical-love tradition — from Mir and Sauda through Hasrat, Fani and Faiz — and, in the Persian manner, was likened to Hafiz.
The ruba’i — “Khayyam-e-Sarhad”
For the matchless quatrains of his diwan “Sufi”, critics named him the Omar Khayyam of the Frontier — and, some said, of all Urdu.
Beyond every bigotry
A poet of universal love
His society, his biographer records, was “far from religious, sectarian and communal bigotry.” He longed for an atmosphere of peace and love in his homeland, and lived among his Hindu neighbours as one of them. So wide was his sympathy that among his poems are devotional pieces “In Praise of Shri Ram” and “Asia ka Chand” — “the Moon of Asia” — addressed to Krishna.
In an age of division, he wrote of the beauty he found in every tradition — a Sufi’s vision of the One reflected in all.
فطرت کے اشاروں کو میں پہچانتا ہوں
شاعر ہوں ستاروں کی زباں جانتا ہوں
“I know the signs and gestures of Nature; I am a poet — I know the language of the stars.”
Quoted in his biography
The advocate
For Urdu, and for a homeland
He gave his pen to the cause of the Urdu language, and to the dream of Pakistan.
18 December 1938
A poem for “Urdu Day”
He championed Urdu during the movement for the language, publishing verse on Urdu Day — a mark of his standing in the literary politics of his time.
The freedom years
“Hamara Quaid”
His love for Quaid-e-Azam and for the making of Pakistan runs through poems such as “Our Leader” — “in him is the jewel of faith, the very map of Pakistan.”
On Jinnah’s passing
An elegy for the Quaid
On the death anniversary of Quaid-e-Azam he wrote a marsiya — “the spring had barely begun when autumn came.”
Mera Karwan — “my caravan”
The circle he built
He led the literary assembly Bazm-e-Sukhan and, in 1934, founded Dairah-e-Adabiya with his friend Abdul Wadud Qamar — an institution that grew world-renowned. He called its poets “my caravan,” and served as its first vice-president, then president.
Poets who counted themselves his pupils. The critic Ehsanullah Danish called him plainly “the Khayyam of the twentieth century.”
Remembrances
How they mourned him
When he passed in 1973, the poets he had raised grieved as children grieve a father.
“Zia Sahib — where will we now find your company? Who will pray behind you? It is you yourself whose funeral we the unworthy are praying.”
چلو کہ خواب عدم سے ذرا جگائیں اسے
جو اس کے بعد ہوا حال دل سنائیں اسے“Come, let us gently wake him from the sleep of non-being, and tell him what befell our hearts after him.”
Ahmad Faraz · from his elegy “Yaad-e-Yaar-e-Mehrban”
“By name he was Zia — light — and by nature Zia. I never found anyone as luminous as Zia.”
Raza Hamdani · from his essay “Mera Zia”
“He gave me a share of the vigour and effort of life — he roused ambition in me. If Zia’s words could be called sorcery, then they shattered my very self into fresh pieces.”
Mohsin Ehsan
“My standing then was slight. At Dairah-e-Adabiya, Zia’s affection and attention taught me much — the training there gave me light, and gave birth to a true urge for creation within me.”
Farigh Bukhari · who named him “Tahir Lahooti”
Read the verse itself
Selected naat, manqabat, ghazal and ruba’iyat — with the full diwan readable page by page.
The appraisal on this page follows the critical essay in his biography, “Sawaan-e-Hayat o Tadween-e-Kalaam.”