RASHEED Hasan Khan (1925-2006) was one of the most respected — and most feared — scholars of Urdu. Known for his erudition and meticulousness as well as straightforwardness and no-nonsense attitude, Rasheed Sahib did not mince his words and wrote whatever he thought was right, with logic and evidence, of course.
Call it bluntness or honesty, Rasheed Hasan Khan’s unvarnished truths infuriated many, including those in power, and he had to pay dearly for it, but he called a spade a spade. Several collections of Rasheed Hasan Khan’s letters written to intellectuals and friends have been compiled and published and they substantiate the opinion about his style of writing: never sugar-coating the truth and never worrying about the consequences. With his approach towards the world somewhat cynical, he scoffed at intellectuals who looked for worldly gains through flattery.
A few of Rasheed Sahib’s contemporary writers and scholars were on the same wavelength, at least in their letters addressed to Rasheed Hasan Khan, for instance, Mushfiq Khwaja. Often the scholars, while writing back to Rasheed Sahib, gave details about their own literary work-in-progress, expressed views on literary works by others, discussed literary feuds and sometimes let him have a peep into their real feelings. Just like the letters by Rasheed Sahib, these letters by literary celebrities are filled with pieces of vital literary and linguistic information. Sometimes writers in these letters reveal their candid views on several issues otherwise not discussed elsewhere.
Except for a few instances, however, letters by writers, poets, scholars and intellectuals addressed to Rasheed Sahib were scattered and most of them remained unpublished. Now they have been collected in a 550-page book titled Mashaaheer-i-Adab Ke Khutoot, Rasheed Hasan Khan Ke Naam and published by Delhi’s Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu Hind (ATUH). Ibrahim Afsar has compiled and annotated it. Ibrahim Afsar (born 1977) is an Indian educator and his doctoral dissertation was on Rasheed Hasan Khan.
Afsar has penned a longish foreword, which sounds repetitive as he has not only paraphrased the contents of many letters but has also reproduced in his foreword long excerpts from them and the very same letters are very much part of the book. In other words, some contents are repeated three times, as if it was a lecture to an undergraduate class, making sure the students remember the gist. The editor/s at the ATUH could have easily reduced the 70-page foreword to one-fourth of its length by axing the redundancies and repetitions, thereby saving the readers from a lot of burden. However, it would be not justice to ignore the pain that the compiler has taken in collecting these letters from different sources, though this, too, has been narrated in the foreword with unnecessary details and even his emails to the ATUH, seeking permission to use the library, have been reproduced verbatim.
Two letters did not merit the inclusion as they were not addressed to Rasheed Sahib but are in the book just because they discuss articles by Rasheed Sahib, and it makes no sense. These are the letters Abdul Lateef A’azmi and Firaq Gorakhpuri wrote to Gopal Mittal, the editor of Urdu magazine Tehreek. Two articles by Rashed Sahib have also been annexed in the endnotes, but many significant points in some letters have not been explained in the notes. Interestingly, two letters written to Rasheed Hasan Khan by Lateefuz Zaman Khan, a well-known scholar from Multan, are in the book, but one of them has been published under a different name, repeatedly mentioning him as ‘Lutfur Rahman Khan’, while both the letters have the same Multan address. One wonders if the ATUH has any editor/s or review committee, not to mention the proofreaders as too many typos are there and many common words have been misspelt.
The literary luminaries whose letters have been included in the book are Imtiaz Ali Khan Arshi, Jafer Ali Khan Asar Lakhnavi, Jagan Nath Azad, Jameel Jalibi, Haneef Naqvi, Khaleeq Anjum, Rasheed Ahmed Siddiqi, Shamsur Rahman Farooqi, Shanul Haq Haqqee, Shahid Ahmed Dehlvi, Qazi Abdul Wadood, Farman Fatehpuri, Gian Chand Jain, Kalidas Gupta Reza, Maalik Raam, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Mushfiq Khwaja, Nayyar Masood, Waheed Qureshi, Vazeer Agha and many more. Many letters, 81, to be precise, that Mushfiq Khwaja wrote to Rasheed Hasan Khan have been included, though these have already been published under the title Silsila-i-Mukaatabat, compiled by Mahmood Ahmed Kavish and published by Karachi’s Fazlee Sons in 2021.
The book, sent from Delhi, landed in Karachi a few weeks ago, routed via a third country, courtesy of Ather Farouqui, as the postal services between the two countries were snapped long ago.
Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2026