Seemab Akbarabadi (Urdu: سیماب اکبرآبادی) born Aashiq Hussain Siddiqui (Urdu: عاشق حسین صدیقی, 5th June 1882 – 31 January 1951) was an Urdu poet from British India and Pakistan.[1][2]
Seemab Akbarabadi, (born Aashiq Hussain Siddiqui)[3][4] a descendant of Abu Bakr, the first Caliph of Islam,[5] was born in Imliwale makaan of Kakoo Gali, Nai Mandi, Agra, as the eldest son of Mohammad Hussain Siddiqui, who was himself a Urdu poet, author of several books, a disciple of Hakim Amiruddin Attaar Akbarabadi, and an employee of the Times of India Press, Ajmer. Seemab had said that his forefather had migrated from Bukhara sometime during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir and made Agra his home, however, according to Mohan Lal[6] his great-grandfather had migrated from Bukhara during Aurangzeb's reign.
Seemab began ghazal writing in 1892 and in 1898 became a disciple of Nawab Mirza Khan Daagh Dehlawi (1831–1905) to whom he was personally introduced by Munshi Nazar Hussain Sakhaa Dehlawi at the Kanpur Railway Station.[4]
After founding "Qasr-ul-adab" in 1923 with Saghar Nizami as its editor, he started publishing the Monthly "Paimana". In 1929, he started the Weekly "Taj" and in 1930 the Monthly Shair. The publication of "Paimana" ceased in 1932 when Saghar Nizami separated from Seemab and moved to Meerut. Shair continued to be published long after Seemab’s death, managed and edited (since 1935) by his son, Aijaz Siddiqi, and "Wahi-e-manzoom" published by his son Mazhar Siddiqui from Karachi won a Hijra Award on 27 Ramzan by the President of Pakistan, General Zia-Ul-Haq.[citation needed]
Seemab never enjoyed a comfortable financial position, yet he always appeared immaculately dressed in a neat sherwani and white wide pajama with a Turkish topi covering his head.[citation needed] He did not have a beard. Seemab wrote in all literary formats and on various social and political topics. In 1948, he went to Lahore and then to Karachi in an unsuccessful search for a publisher for his monumental work, "Wahi-e-Manzoom", an Urdu translation in verse form of the Quran. Seemab did not return to Agra. In 1949 he suffered a massive paralytic stroke from which he never recovered and he died on 31 January 1951.[4]
Beginning with the publication of his first collection of poems," Naistaan" in 1923, Akbarabadi published seventy-five books throughout his life.[citation needed] These included twenty-two books of poetry, not including "Loh-e-mahfooz" (1979), "Wahi-e-manzoom" (1981) and "Saaz-e-hijaz" (1982), all published long after his death. He is best known for his ghazals particularly by those sung by Kundan Lal Saigal.[7] He also wrote short stories, novels, dramas, biographies and critical appraisals in Urdu, Persian and Arabic.[2][8]
^Mohan Lal 2006 The Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature Vol.5 p.3900 [2]
^"Kundan Lal Saigal by singing the ghazals of Seemab Akbarabadi, made the poet immortal." [3] Academy of the Punjab in North America (APNA) website, Retrieved 27 May 2019
^Abdul Qadeer Khan 'The Karachi of the past' The News International (newspaper), Published 13 August 2018, Retrieved 28 May 2019
^R.G., "SEEMAB, ASHIQ HUSSAIN AKBARABADI (Urdu; b.1880, d.1951)", Mohan Lal (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature: Sasay to Zorgot, Sahitya Akademi (1992), p. 3900
