Abdul Qavi Desnavi An Urdu Writer Par Excellence

Today's Google Doodle is about Abdul Qavi Desnavi. It marks the 87th anniversary of the great bibiliographer, critic, linguist and urdu writer. Perhaps Desnavi's greatest achievement was his work on Maulana Azad and Allama Iqbal as also on the letters of Ghalib and on Ghalib's association with the city of Bhopal. Desnavi was born in Desna, Bihar

Incidentally, he wrote a book called Ek Shahar Panch Mashahir-one city, five famous people, which included among others, a profile of his relative teacher and renowned Islamic scholar Maulana Sulaiman Nadvi, who was a great historian, a scholar of Islamic studies and who had authored the life of Prophet Mohammed.

His work on the letters of Ghalib which was first published in 1975, earned him a lot of repute after his work on Iqbal. The letters of Ghalib is titled Mutala Khutoot-e-Ghalib, meaning a study of the letters of Ghalib. Ghalib had this very easy conversational style in his letters, which ran quite contrary to the principle he used in poetry. His poetry is full of complexities and is very layered. Desnavi's work on the letters of Ghalib is very well known. It went into a reprint and was published again in 1979. He authored several books on Iqbal and also on Maulana Azad. He wrote a biography of Azad, Hayat-e-Abul Kalam Azad and also a biography of his teacher and great scholar Sulaiman Nadvi.

Incidentally, Nadvi was a disciple of the great Allama Shibli Nomani, who had started a very comprehensive work on the life of Prophet Mohammad which he could not complete in his lifetime and was completed by Nadvi, Desnavi's teacher. Desnavi was highly respected in literary circles, but did not promote himself much. He got several awards for his outstanding literary works. He was a very unassuming, quiet scholar, he was the chairman, board of studies and Head of the department of Urdu, Persian and Arabic, a rare combination for one person to be the chair person and head departments of three languages at the Barkatullah University in Bhopal. He had two stints there and he was on several boards in the Urdu literary world and a renowned figure.