Ahmed Ali (; 1 July 1910 – 14 January 1994) was a Pakistani novelist, poet, critic, translator, diplomat and scholar. A pioneer of the modern Urdu short story, his works include the short story collections: (Embers), 1932; Hamari Gali (Our Lane), 1940; Qaid Khana (The Prison), 1942; and Maut Se Pehle (Before Death), 1945. His other writings include Twilight in Delhi (1940), his first novel in the English language.

Muneeza Shamshie has called him "the forefather to all Pakistani English fiction."

Early life and education

Ahmed Ali was born in Delhi, British India, on 1 July 1910. He was descended from families of Islamic scholars on both his paternal and maternal sides, with his paternal lineage tracing directly to Abdul Qadir Gilani, the prominent 12th-century Islamic scholar and Sufi saint. His father Syed Shuja-ud Din was a civil servant in the British administration, being associated with the Punjab Civil Service, and was fond of Persian literature. For his higher studies, he graduated in English literature from Aligarh Muslim University and Lucknow University; in the latter "having achieved the highest marks in English in the history of the university."

Personal life

In 1950, Ali married Bilqees Jehan Begum, the daughter of Barrister Rauf Ali; he was also from a prominent Delhi family and a friend of the noted lawyer and independence activist Asaf Ali. Bilqees was a painter and writer who in 1963 had translated Ali's novel Twilight in Delhi into Urdu as Dilli ki Ek Sham. Following that, he was the British Council Visiting Professor to Nanjing University, as appointed by the British government of India. In 1948, when he tried to return home after the Partition, K. P. S. Menon (then India's ambassador to China) would not allow it because Ali had not indicated his preferences as a government employee; that is, whether to remain in India or transfer to Pakistan. As a result, he was forced to go to Pakistan. Later, he was appointed Director of Foreign Publicity for the Pakistan Government. At the behest of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, he joined the Pakistan Foreign Service in 1950. According to custom, tiles were drawn to determine the country of assignment. Ali's tile was blank, so he chose China and became Pakistan's first envoy to the new People's Republic. By that time he had learnt the Chinese language and wrote a study titled Muslim China in 1949. Shortly afterward, Ali and Zafar announced the formation of a "League of Progressive Authors", which was later to expand and become the All-India Progressive Writers' Association. Ali presented his paper "Art Ka Taraqqi-Pasand Nazariya" (A Progressive View of Art) in its inaugural conference in 1936. Later, Ali would distance himself from the movement, which he considered too narrowly focused on Marxism. This novel, as its title implies, describes the decline of the Muslim aristocracy with the advance of British colonialism in the early 20th century. Francis Edward Peters called it the best English translation of the Qur'an while Fazlur Rahman Malik said of it that "it aims at doing something new, it seeks to bring out the original rhythms of the Quranic language and the cadences. It also departs from traditional translations in that it gives more refined and differentiated shades of important concepts."

Awards and recognition

  • Elected a Founding Fellow of the Pakistan Academy of Letters in 1979.
  • Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence) Award in 1980 by the President of Pakistan