Ashfaq Ahmed


Ashfaq Ahmed was a writer, playwright and broadcaster from Pakistan. His works in Urdu included novels, short stories and plays for television and radio of Pakistan. He received the President's Pride of Performance and Sitara-i-Imtiaz awards for his services in the field of literature and broadcasting.

Early life

Ahmed was born on 22 August 1925 in Muktsar, Punjab, British India, in an ethnic Pashtun family of the Mohmand tribe. His early education was in Muktsar.
Shortly before the partition of India in 1947, he migrated to Pakistan and settled in Lahore, Punjab. He completed a Master of Arts degree in Urdu literature from Government College Lahore. Bano Qudsia, his wife and companion in Urdu literary circles, was his classmate at the Government College.
Ahmed travelled widely and could speak Punjabi, Urdu, English, Italian and French.

Career

As a boy he wrote stories, which were published in Phool, a magazine for children. After returning to Pakistan from Europe, he took out his own monthly literary magazine, Dastaango, and joined Radio Pakistan as a script writer. He was made editor of the popular Urdu weekly, Lail-o-Nahar , in place of famous poet Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum by the Government of Pakistan.
In 1962, Ashfaq Ahmed started his radio program, Talqeen Shah which made him popular among the people in towns and villages. He was appointed director of the Markazi Urdu Board in 1966, which was later renamed as Urdu Science Board, a post he held for 29 years. He remained with the board until 1979. He also served as an adviser in the Education Ministry during Zia-ul-Haq's regime.
Ahmed wrote over thirty books. His short story, Gaddarya earned him early fame in 1955.
From his own resources, he created the Central Board for the Development of Urdu in Lahore.

Radio plays

Later in life, Ahmed’s devotion to Sufism grew. His close association with Qudrat Ullah Shahab and Mumtaz Mufti, Baba Mohammad Yahya Khanwas also attributed to this tendency. He used to get together with his fans in PTV program Baithak and Zaviya where he gave swift but satisfying responses to each and every question posed by the youth audience.
On 7 September 2004, Ahmed died of pancreatic cancer. He was buried in Model Town, Lahore, Pakistan.
In November 2004, Allama Iqbal Open University staff organized an event in Islamabad to pay tributes to Ahmed. At this event, Chairman, National Language Authority, Fateh Muhammad Malik stated that with the death of Ashfaq Ahmed, a vacuum had been created in the literary world of Pakistan. Chairman, Pakistan Academy of Letters, Iftikhar Arif also paid tribute to him as a dynamic literary figure and said that one of his priorities had always remained welfare of the people.

Awards and recognition