Naqsh e Faryadi / نقش فریادی

by Faiz Ahmad Faiz

This is Faiz Ahmad Faiz's first book of poetry. It contains his earliest poems - in nazm, ghazal and qita form - that set him on course to becoming the greatest and most-read Urdu poet of the 20th century.

Genres: Poetry, Classics

88 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1943

About the author

Faiz Ahmad Faiz [فيض ١حمد فيض] was born on February 13, 1911, in Sialkot, British India, which is now part of Pakistan. He had a privileged childhood as the son of wealthy landowners Sultan Fatima and Sultan Muhammad Khan, who passed away in 1913, shortly after his birth. His father was a prominent lawyer and a member of an elite literary circle which included Allama Iqbal, the national poet of Pakistan.

In 1916, Faiz entered Moulvi Ibrahim Sialkoti, a famous regional school, and was later admitted to the Skotch Mission High School where he studied Urdu, Persian, and Arabic. He received a Bachelor's degree in Arabic, followed by a master's degree in English, from the Government College in Lahore in 1932, and later received a second master's degree in Arabic from the Oriental College in Lahore.After graduating in 1935, Faiz began a teaching career at M.A.O. College in Amritsar and then at Hailey College of Commerce in Lahore.

Faiz's early poems had been conventional, light-hearted treatises on love and beauty, but while in Lahore he began to expand into politics, community, and the thematic interconnectedness he felt was fundamental in both life and poetry. It was also during this period that he married Alys George, a British expatriate, with whom he had two daughters. In 1942, he left teaching to join the British Indian Army, for which he received a British Empire Medal for his service during World War II. After the partition of India in 1947, Faiz resigned from the army and became the editor of The Pakistan Times, a socialist English-language newspaper.

On March 9, 1951, Faiz was arrested with a group of army officers under the Safety Act, and charged with the failed coup attempt that became known as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case. He was sentenced to death and spent four years in prison before being released. Two of his poetry collections, Dast-e Saba and Zindan Namah, focus on life in prison, which he considered an opportunity to see the world in a new way. While living in Pakistan after his release, Faiz was appointed to the National Council of the Arts by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's government, and his poems, which had previously been translated into Russian, earned him the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963.

In 1964, Faiz settled in Karachi and was appointed principal of Abdullah Haroon College, while also working as an editor and writer for several distinguished magazines and newspapers. He worked in an honorary capacity for the Department of Information during the 1965 war between India and Pakistan, and wrote stark poems of outrage over the bloodshed between Pakistan, India, and what later became Bangladesh. However, when Bhutto was overthrown by Zia Ul-Haq, Faiz was forced into exile in Beirut, Lebanon. There he edited the magazine Lotus, and continued to write poems in Urdu. He remained in exile until 1982. He died in Lahore in 1984, shortly after receiving a nomination for the Nobel Prize.

Throughout his tumultuous life, Faiz continually wrote and published, becoming the best-selling modern Urdu poet in both India and Pakistan. While his work is written in fairly strict diction, his poems maintain a casual, conversational tone, creating tension between the elite and the common, somewhat in the tradition of Ghalib, the reknowned 19th century Urdu poet. Faiz is especially celebrated for his poems in traditional Urdu forms, such as the ghazal, and his remarkable ability to expand the conventional thematic expectations to include political and social issues.

Reviews

[W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hain Labraiz aahon se thandee hawain
Udasi main doobee huee hain ghatayen
Mohabbat ki dunya pe shaam aa chukee hai
Siah posh hain zindagi kee fazayen

A slim volume of Faiz's love poetry,mercifully devoid of his communist ideology.Very sad and poignant,a master wordsmith at his best.

[Shabana Mukhtar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was reading it and after a few pages I thought about concentrated H2SO4.
Why?
Because every poem, most of them reasonably are on one page, he communicates so much. His poetry is like a concentrated dose on philosophy of life.

My favourites are 'Surood-e-Shabana' and 'Akhri Khat'.
The preface was the BEST.

[Rural Soul · Rating 5 out of 5]

ہوچکا عشق، اب ہوس ہی سہی
کیا کریں فرض ہے ادائے نماز
...

اپنی تکمیل کررہا ہوں میں
ورنہ تجھ سے تو مجھ کو پیار نہیں
...

اک تری دید چھن گئی مجھ سے
ورنہ دنیا میں کیا نہیں باقی
...

اک فرصتِ گناہ ملی وہ بھی چار دن
دیکھے ہیں ہم نے حوصلے پروردگار کے
دنیا نے تیری یاد سے بیگانہ کردیا
تجھ سے بھی دلفریب ہیں غم روزگار کے
...

[francis · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh to be loved like faiz loved his muse :(

[Syed Raza Mehdi · Rating 5 out of 5]

فیض اور نظمیں

A love story 🥺🥺

[Jibran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Faiz's early poems are steeped in the romantic tradition of Urdu poetry but it is also possible to see the early development of a temperament that would lead him, in due time, to become the finest poet of his age

I still haven't read a poem as world-changing as "Raqeeb Se," which ended the everlasting acrimony between the lovers of the same person and turned it into a relationship of empathy and understanding.

Only Faiz could write something like that. Salutes!

[Omama. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Naqsh-e-Faryadi: The one who laments; the title is borrowed from the very first verse of Deewan-e-Ghalib. What creative use of words. The freshness. The energy. The uniqueness. The imagery.

رات یوں دل میں تیری کھوئی ہوئی یاد آئی
•
بہارِ حسن، یہ پابندئ جفا کب تک؟
یہ آزمائشِ صبرِ گریزِ پا کب تک؟
•
مجھ سے پہلی سی محبت میرے محبوب نہ مانگ
•
تیری آنکھوں کے سوا دنیا میں رکھا کیا ہے؟
•
آؤ کہ آج ختم ہوئی داستانِ عشق
•
مگر دل ہے کہ اس کی خانۂ ویرانی نہیں جاتی
•

[Umair Akram · Rating 5 out of 5]

اور بھی دکھ ہیں زمانے میں محبت کے سوا

اور

مجھ سے پہلی سی محبت مرے محبوب نہ مانگ

اور

دلے بفروختم جانے خریدم

_______________________________________________

فیض صاحب نے روایتی غزل سے اپنی بیزاری اس کتاب کی شکل میں رکھ چھوڑی ہے۔ اگر آپ بھی روایتی غزل سے بیزار ہیں تو یہ آپ کی کتاب ہے۔

[Muhammad Afaq khattak · Rating 5 out of 5]

ہمتِ التجا نہیں باقی
ضبط کا حوصلہ نہیں باقی
اک تری دید چھن گئی مجھ سے
ورنہ دنیا میں کیا نہیں باقی
نقش فریادی میں فیض صاحب کے مشہور زمانہ نظمیں اور غزلیں موجود ہے. "مجھ سے پہلی سی محبت مرے محبوب نہ مانگ" سے لے کر "رقیب سے" تک۔

[Dr. Anushka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Faiz, the one and only. Kya khoob kaha hai Faiz - 'Mujhse pehli si mohabbat, mere mehboob na maang.' He, through his words, is immortal. Mashallah. All time classic in the world of poetry.

"राज़े-उल्फ़त छुपा के देख लिया
दिल बहुत कुछ जला के देख लिया

और क्या देखने को बाक़ी है
आप से दिल लगा के देख लिया

वो मेरे हो के भी मेरे न हुए
उनको अपना बना के देख लिया

आज उनकी नज़र में कुछ हमने
सबकी नज़रें बचा के देख लिया

'फ़ैज़' तक़्मील-ए-ग़म भी हो न सकी
इश्क़ को आज़मा के देख लिया

आस उस दर से टूटती ही नहीं
जा के देखा, न जा के देख लिया"

[Iqra · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is the first book of his poems, and it is so raw and heartfelt. you can really see his taraqqi pasand and anti regime roots here too. would this be just as sweet in English too? i don’t think any translation would ever do it justice ❤️

[Z U L F i · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading faiz reminds you that your urdu is not that good.

[Maninder Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book in urdu poetry.

[Veer]

Time waste ho tum

[Aakash saini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mujh se pahli si mohabbat miri mahbub na maang
main ne samjha tha ki tu hai to daraḳhshan hai hayat

[Muhammad Rehan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book which entails about the poetry.

[Talha Janjua · Rating 5 out of 5]

پھر کوئی آیا دلِ زار، نہیں، ہوئی نہیں۔۔۔

[Faiqaslibrary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfection!