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Ahmad, (Khan Bahadur) Syed Ashrafuddin (1855-?)
Urdu and Persian poet, was born in
Calcutta. His father, Nawab Amiruddin Khan Bahadur, was a resident of Patna. He studied at
Aliya Madrasa, Calcutta, and Doveton College. He first worked for Wajid Ali Shah at Matia Buruz. He was later appointed to the imambara of Hughli as a mutawalli (official trustee of a property donated for the promotion of religion or for public welfare).
Ahmad was an influential man and was appointed at various
times honorary magistrate of Hughli, municipal commissioner, secretary
to Anjuman-e-Islami, fellow of the university
of calcutta, and trustee of Aligarh College. Among his 14 books
in Urdu and Persian are Tuhfa-e-Sukhan (1881), Nawratan
(1882), Ibratnama (1883), Durdana (1884), Tabakat-e-Muhsinia
(1889), Guldasta (1890) and Awraq-e-Ashraf (1915). The Tabakat-e-Muhsinia
is a biographical book about the lives and contributions of the trustees
of the Hughli Imambara, founded by haji
muhammad mohsin. Awraq-e-Ashraf is a collection of his
Urdu and Persian poems, which include nat, ghazals,
qasida and salam. The British government honoured him with
the title of Khan Bahadur in 1893 and the Certificate of Honour in 1903.
[Wakil Ahmed] |
