Urdu Studies Vol. 6, Issue 1, October 2026
ENGLISH SECTION
Ahmad Aqeel Sarwar serves as Assistant Professor of English in the Higher Education Department of the Government of the Punjab, Pakistan. His research interests include postcolonial literature, with a particular focus on resistance narratives written during colonial rule, along with their translation and cultural contexts.
Email: ahmadaqeelsarwar@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4336-4935
Dr Ajit Pradhan is a cardiac surgeon, writer, and Hindustani classical vocalist based in Patna. Trained in cardiac surgery in the Philippines, England, and Australia, he returned to India in 1998 and established the first cardiac centre in undivided Bihar, pioneering open-heart and coronary artery bypass surgery in the region. He has performed over 14,000 cardiac surgeries and is Chief Cardiac Surgeon and Managing Director of Jeevak Heart Hospital, Patna.
His interest in Urdu and Persian literature began in childhood under the influence of his maternal grandfather, the late Shri Brij Kumar Sahay, a shāʾir and Urdu scholar of Chapra. He has a particular interest in classical Urdu and Persian poetry and Sufi traditions and has written for Outlook, The Lallantop, and other publications on literature, music, and cultural history. He is the founder of Navras School of Performing Arts and has organized over 150 public concerts. He also organized the First Patna Literature Festival and curated the country’s first Festival of Literature on Music.
Email: pradhanajit@gmail.com
Ali Haider is a Lecturer in English at Government Graduate Islamia College, Chiniot, Punjab, Pakistan. His research interests include South Asian literature, Urdu literary studies, postcolonial studies, narrative studies, and translation. He writes scholarly essays and book reviews on South Asian literature and culture.
Email: xaidiali35@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8640-4167
Arif Ansari was born in Lucknow and grew up in Aligarh, where he attended Our Lady of Fatima Secondary School and the Aligarh Muslim University. He earned his MS and PhD in electrical engineering from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. A wireless telecommunications technologist by training and profession, he has translated several books of fiction and nonfiction from Urdu to English. He is a winner of the 2025 Jawad Memorial Prize for Urdu-English Translation.
Email: arif.rf.ansari@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-8849-4374
Arifur Rahaman Mollah received his master’s degree from the Department of Islamic Theology, Aliah University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He is an Assistant Teacher at Majaherul Uloom Islamia Senior Madrasah, Howrah, WB. Currently, he is pursuing a Ph.D. at the same university. His areas of interest include comparative religion and religious history, especially Islam. He has also attended many national and international seminars in his areas of interest. Mollah is a passionate researcher who is actively engaged in pursuing research through various national and international seminars.
https://orcid.org/0009-0004-9066-7358
arifurmollah14@gmail.com
Claire Chambers is Professor of Global Literature at the University of York, UK, where she teaches twentieth- and twenty-first-century writing in English from South Asia, the Arab world, and their diasporas. Some of her books are Britain Through Muslim Eyes, Making Sense of Contemporary British Muslim Novels, Desi Delicacies, and the forthcoming Decolonizing Disease: Pandemics, Public Health, and Pathogenic Novels.
Email: claire.chambers@york.ac.uk
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8996-4129
Fahad Hashmi has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Delhi, Department of Sociology (DSE). His areas of interest include political-historical anthropology, religion, Urdu Adab, and translation studies. His nonfiction works have appeared in The Hindu, The Huffington Post, and Tehelka, among others. His creative pieces have been published in literary magazines like Indian Literature—Sahitya Akademi’s bimonthly magazine, The Punch Magazine, Urdu Studies, Adbi Miras, and Humsab. He was the guest editor of Café Dissensus 2017 Issue 33, Urdu in Contemporary India: Predicaments and Promises. He co-translated Audrey Truschke’s Aurangzeb: The Man And the Myth into Urdu. In 2022, he was shortlisted for the New India Foundation (NIF) Translation Fellowship.
Maaz Bin Bilal is a Visiting Scholar at SOAS University of London. His latest translation, Allah Miyan’s Workshop has been longlisted for the Ramnath Goenka Sahitya Samman Debut Award 2027.
Email: maaz.bilal@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4074-7446
Marcia Hermansen, former Professor and Director, Islamic World Studies in the Theology Department, Loyola University, Chicago, United States of America. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Arabic and Islamic Studies. Her graduate training included study of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu through language training in the respective countries. She specializes in Sufism, Islamic thought, Muslims in America, Shah Waliullah, Islam and Muslims in South Asia, and women and gender in Islam. Among her many publications are Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians (Peter Lang, 2013); Islam, Religions, and Pluralism in Europe (Springer, 2016); and Religious Diversity at School: Educating for New Pluralistic Contexts (Springer, 2021).
Prof. Marcia is the Lady Fatima Endowed Faculty Chair in Women and Divinity at Habib University, Karachi. She previously served as a Professor in the Theology Department and director of Islamic World Studies at Loyola University Chicago.
mherman@luc.edu
Medhavi Gupta is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. She is passionate about research and writing and an aspiring academic. Starting off as a creative writer but then entering the world of research and academic writing, she aims to bridge the gap between the two by undertaking the task of “intellectual translation” – making academic discourse more accessible to non-academics through public writing. Her published writings can be found here: https://linktr.ee/Medhavi_Gupta
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0164-9969
Mehr Afshan Farooqi is a scholar of Urdu and Hindi literary culture in the Department of Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures, University of Virginia. Her research interests include bilingualism, translation, literary modernism, and the intersections of literature with religion, history, and art history.
Her major publications include Ghalib: A Wilderness at My Doorstep: A Critical Biography (Penguin Allen Lane, 2021), Urdu Literary Culture: Vernacular Modernity in the Writing of Muhammad Hasan Askari (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), The Two-Sided Canvas: Perspectives on Ahmed Ali (ed., Oxford University Press, 2013), and The Oxford India Anthology of Modern Urdu Literature (2 vols., Oxford University Press, 2008).
Mohammad Asim Siddiqui is Professor of English at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. He worked on American novelist Mark Twain for his doctoral thesis. His areas of interest and publications include South Asian Literature (in English, Urdu and Hindi), Literary Theory, 19th and 20th Century English and American Fiction, Film Studies, and Research Methods in the Humanities. His most recent books are Muslim Identity in Hindi Cinema: Poetics and Politics of Genre and Representation (Routledge 2025), Shahryar (Sahitya Akademi 2021), and a co-authored book, A History of Aligarh Muslim University 1920- 2020 (Bennet and Coleman 2021). He has published with, among others, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Routledge, Orient BlackSwan, Sahitya Akademi, Viva, Bloomsbury and Springer. He was a Fulbright Fellow at New York University in 2007. He has also been a member of the Academic Committee of the Centre for Advanced Studies, Shimla.
Mohammad Asim Siddiqui regularly contributes research articles and book reviews to journals and books. He has been writing prolifically on arts and culture for different newspapers, magazines, and news portals. They include The Guardian, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, The Statesman, Rediff.com, Scroll.in, NDTV, Frontline, India Today Magazine, Cafe Dissensus, The Book Review, Biblio, Indian Literature, and many others. He also translates from Urdu and Hindi into English, and his translations have been published in many books and journals. His recent translations include two chapters in Premchand on Culture and Education (Routledge 2022), four chapters on Joginder Paul in Joginder Paul, A Writerly Writer (Routledge 2022), three chapters in Joginder Paul Reader (Sahitya Akademi 2023), and a monograph titled Qurratulain Hyder (Sahitya Akademi 2023). Very passionate about teaching, his series of online lectures on literary theory, acknowledged by The Hindu and India Today, which can be accessed on YouTube. He has written lessons and delivered lectures (available online) on “Women and Literature”, “Gender and Literature” and “World Literature” for ePathshala and Swayam.
He has also hosted a fortnightly webcast on books in English on Urdu literature and language for Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu Hind (available online).
Mushtaque B. Barq is a novelist, author, columnist, translator, poet, and reviewer from Srinagar, Kashmir, with over two decades of experience in education, writing, and art. He writes in both English and Kashmiri, bridging the two literary cultures. He is also a TV anchor, abstract artist, and English mentor.
A prolific translator, he has rendered the works of Kashmiri mystic poets Wahab Khar, Soch Kral, and Ahad Zargar into English, along with Hindi and Urdu poetry and Dr. Sohan Kaul’s novel Psychiatric Ward. His own books include the poetry collections Withered Petals, The Feeble Prison, and The Zephyr of Veth, and the novel Shades and Shadows.
His honours include the Editor’s Choice Poetry Award (USA, 2004), the Best Columnist Award (2021), the Best English Translator Award (2023), and the National Achievers Award (2024). He has also received the Ahad Zargar Annual Award, the G. N. Firaq Literary Award, and the Wahab Khar Memorial Award, and the Minister of the J&K Waqf Board honoured him for his translation work on 15 August.
A Master Trainer with the British Council and INTACH, he holds a post-graduate degree in English from Kashmir University and an honorary doctorate from Icon Peace. He is Chief Coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Fiction Writers Guild.
Sami Rafiq is Professor of English at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. She is a translator, author, poet, and novelist who celebrates human values. She has published more than 200 articles, stories, and poems in national newspapers and magazines, and also several translated books. She has also published stories/features for children in English and Urdu newspapers. Her collection of poems Woman in the Trees: Poems on Climate and Nature was published in 2022, and her translation of Farozaan by Moin Ahsan Jazbi was published in April 2023. Her most recent works are Songs of Aligarh: Poems on Nature and Culture, Hawakal Publishers, November 2024, and a collection of stories titled Innocent Raptures: Stories on the Non Human, Hawakal Publishers, June 2026.
Shabeer Ahmad Shah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at The Royal Group of Colleges, Barowal, Mansa, Punjab, India. He holds a PhD in English and an M.Phil in English. His academic interests include Translation Studies, Urdu Poetry, and Literary Criticism. He has published several research papers in reputed national and international journals.
Shaiq Ali is a PhD student in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, USA, and an MA graduate from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, India. He is working at the intersection of world literature and the history of South Asia, traversing Urdu/Hindi literature, Muslim history, and print cultures. In 2025, he was co-awarded the Ali Jawad Zaidi Memorial Prize for Urdu-English Translation.
Email: ali00838@umn.edu
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5608-7950
Shama Askari is a translator and performing artist. She has been associated with the performing arts for the last twenty years. She started her acting career in theatre in 1999, with Tehrik-e-Niswan, and then moved on to television, film, and dramatized readings, performing all over Pakistan as well as India. In 2021, Shama was selected to be a part of the Transforming Narratives – Cultural Leadership Programme supported by the British Council, which provided a platform for collaboration between creatives from the UK, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. She completed a project, ‘Producers of the Future: From Keighley to Karachi’, led by the Bradford Literature Festival 2021. She worked with the Adab Festival Pakistan and was the Project Director of the festival in 2022. She has worked with Dr Asif Farrukhi compiling and collecting Ibn-e-Sa’id’s work, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. She looks forward to exploring translation as a means of connecting and communicating with a wider audience. Her particular interest lies in translating established and emerging Pakistani writers whose work engages with contemporary life and subjects specific to Pakistan, including its history, politics, and culture. She was the runner-up to the Jawad Memorial Prize in 2022. She has translated the following texts: Hiroshima and Other Stories by Ibn-e-Sa’id (Lightstone Publishers; 2022); “Begum” by Ibn-e-Sa’id; published in Urdu Studies (https://urdustudies.in/; 2023); Queen Zarqa: A Transgender’s Odyssey (the Pashto Nainzak; Lightstone Publishers; 2024); “The Story of a Drop Caught in a Moustache” by Jeem Abbasi (excerpted from مونچھ میں اٹکے ایک قطرے کی کہانی; Pakistan Academy of Letters; October 2026)
Email: shamaaskari@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-1032-4605
Syed Imtiaz Hasnain, formerly Professor of Sociolinguistics at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India, is presently an Adjunct Professor at the School of Languages, Linguistics & Indology, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad.
Tousif Raza is a scholar of the English language who writes not only in his mother tongue, Kashmiri, but also in Urdu. He has established himself as a poet, translator, essayist, and columnist. His creative writings and columns have appeared in several reputed magazines and literary journals. An accomplished speaker as well, he has received recognition and appreciation from numerous literary and cultural organizations. He has translated Ashai’s poetry collection Mann men jamī barf as Frozen Snow within the Soul. His earlier translations include Auraq-e-Gum Gashta (a collection of poems by Satish Vimal) and Wounds and Whispers (translated from the poetry of Ali Shaida).
Dr Yusuf Ayaz is Assistant Professor of English at Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti Language University, Lucknow, where he is also a member of the Proctorial Board in the capacity of Assistant Proctor. His areas of academic interest include medical humanities and critical theory. He has presented research papers at national and international conferences.
Email: sfayaz321@gmail.comORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-7114-426X
URDU SECTION
Prof. Ameena Tahseen is associated with the Department of Women’s Studies at Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), Hyderabad. An experienced teacher and research supervisor, she has authored and edited several books and published numerous research papers and critical essays in reputed Urdu journals. Her areas of interest include gender and society, feminist criticism, women’s literature, women’s empowerment, and the contributions of Muslim women.
She introduced the course Understanding Gender for the four-year undergraduate programme and developed self-learning materials for students. She has also compiled Urdu workbooks for primary-level students, adopted by several schools in Telangana.
At MANUU, she has served as Associate Dean of the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Head of the Department of Women’s Studies, and Director of the Centre for Women’s Studies. Her academic, literary, and social contributions to women’s advancement have earned her numerous honours and awards.
Dr. Mushtaque Sadaf (real name Mushtaque Ahmad) completed his Intermediate, B.A. (Hons.), and M.A. in Political Science at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, and earned his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Urdu from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. A critic, poet, and journalist, he has over ten years of teaching experience. His research interests include poetry and literary criticism, language studies and teaching, mass media, and translation. He has authored 18 books and published over 60 research papers and literary articles in reputed journals. He taught in the Department of Urdu at Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut, for about two and a half years. He subsequently served for over seven years as Programme Officer at the Sahitya Akademi, Ministry of Culture, Government of India, New Delhi.
He is Joint Editor of Fikr-o-Nazar, published by Aligarh Muslim University, and is currently associated with the Centre for Promotion of Developing Urdu Teaching (CPDUT), Urdu Academy, AMU. He also serves as Deputy Director of the Sir Syed Academy, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Nasir Abbas Nayyar is the former Director General of the Urdu Science Board, Lahore, and Professor of Urdu at the University of the Punjab, Lahore. He is the editor of LUMS’ research journal Bunyaad. His book Mabad Nauabadiyat: Urdu kay Tanzur men (OUP, 2013) ushered postcolonial studies into Urdu Literature. His book Urdu Adab ki Tashkeel e Jadid (OUP, 2016) won the best Urdu Book Prize, KLF 2017, and the Baba-e-Urdu Maulvi Abdul Haq Award 2016 for Urdu prose from the Pakistan Academy of Letters. His book, Us Ko Ik Shakhs Samjhna to Munasib hi Nahi (OUP, 2017), was awarded the UBL Literary Prize 2019 (non-fiction) for the best Urdu book. His book Nazm Kaisay Parhain is the first of its kind in Urdu. Aik Zamana Khatam Howa Hae is his fourth collection of short stories. In Jadeediat aur Nauabadiyat (OUP, 2021), Dr Nayyar has unraveled the problematic relationship between modernity and colonialism. Naye Naqqad ke Naam Khatoot is his recent publication. He regularly writes on literary issues in The News and Dawn. (Source: https://nasirabbasnayyar.com/about/)
Raoof Khair is a noted Urdu poet, fiction writer, literary critic, and translator from Hyderabad, Telangana, India. His real name is Abdul Rauf, and Khair is his pen name. He has made significant contributions to modern Urdu literature, particularly through his poetry, critical writings, and research on literary and cultural figures associated with the Deccan.
His published works include Khatt-e-Khair (1997), Ba-Chashm-e-Khair (2007), Qintar (2008), Khairiyat (2010), Haq Goyi-o-Bebaki (2012), Deccan Ki Chand Hastiyan (2014), and Iqbal Ba Chashm-e-Khair (2017). His writings reflect his engagement with Urdu literary traditions, criticism, and the cultural heritage of the Deccan.
Sohail Mehmood is an academic, journalist, researcher, writer, and translator based in Karachi, Pakistan. He is associated with Jinnah University for Women, where he teaches Urdu Language and Literature and media. He is engaged in research, academic supervision, and curriculum development. He has also worked extensively in journalism and editorial practice. His areas of interest include Urdu literature, linguistics, translations, and journalism, particularly critical discourse analysis, digital humanities, and the emerging impact of artificial intelligence on language and communication. His work reflects a continuing engagement with the intersections of literature, media, translation, technology, politics, and society.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-2851-577X
Umar Farhat, born on March 01, 1986, in Rajouri, Jammu and Kashmir, is an Urdu poet, novelist, critic, and editor. He holds an M.A. in Urdu from Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad. Since beginning his literary career in 2007, his writings have appeared in reputed literary journals in India and abroad.
In 2012, under the guidance of Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, he founded the quarterly literary journal, Tafheem. His books include the novel Nirakar (2011); poetry collections Zameen Zaad (2019), which won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2021, Sir-e-Shaakh-e-Tamanna (2021), and Lafzon ka Chiragh; and the edited volume Gopi Chand Narang: Alif Aasaar Fikr Paima Naqqad (2023). His other editorial project, Khalid Jawed: Fiction Ka Naya Istiyara, and the poetry collection Wajd Wajood are forthcoming. He is regarded as a significant voice in contemporary Urdu poetry, blending existential concerns with modern poetics.
Dr. Yasmeen Rasheedi is an Assistant Professor and Head of the Department of Urdu at T. P. College, B. N. Mandal University, Madhepura, Bihar. She earned her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and received the Sajjad Zaheer and Razia Sajjad Zaheer Merit Award for securing the highest CGPA in her M.A. programme. She has qualified for UGC-NET and received the JRF and SRF. Her research articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in journals including Urdu Adab, Urdu Duniya, Fikr-o-Tahqeeq, Adab-o-Saqafat, Tasteer, Isbaat, and Andaaz-e-Bayaan.
