ISLAMABAD, Aug 25: Poet Ahmad Faraz passed away in Islamabad on Monday night. He was 78.

His funeral prayer will be offered at the Islamabad Graveyard at 6pm on Tuesday, his son Shibli Faraz told a private TV channel. He leaves behind a widow and three sons.

He had been in a critical condition in the ICU at Shifa International hospital, Islamabad, since his return from the United States last month where he had suffered kidney failure and had been put on dialysis in a Chicago Hospital.

Ahmad Faraz was a passionate and popular voice for progress and change. A famed and eminent career in Urdu poetry and a life lived richly in the pursuit of progressive ideals has come to an end.

Acclaimed, admired and widely sung, his poetry was rich in romance and progressive ideas on the side of the great unwashed and the downtrodden of the earth. His voice was unwelcome in the halls of power. He opposed usurpers and dictators alike.

His reward was exile during the regime of Gen Ziaul Haq, who could not tolerate his association with the PPP government when he became the head of the Pakistan Academy of letters. Upon return of democratic rule, he was appointed head of the National Book Foundation. He earned recognition as a poet early with the publication of his first collection of verses. Successive books of poetry added to his stature as a leading poet of the country and the Urdu language.

His name is reckoned with among the great of his contemporaries — Faiz, Rashed, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi. He had a strong bass and a plaintive

Sing-song style of his own in which he recited his verse to adulating audiences at mushaeras that made him a household name among lovers of poetry.

In the last decade of his life largely during general Musharraf’s regime he had a hard time keeping his job as head of the national book foundation that he ultimately lost. His subdued disclaimers had then no holds left and he came out openly against military dictatorship and returned the national award that had been conferred on him. Since then in all of his public appearances he was strong in his opposition to the unlawful regime. He gave his full support to the lawyers movement for the restoration of judiciary.

Although he will live in the romance and passion of his lyrical poetry, his death will e widely mourned, because in him the weak and the poor of the land have lost a friend.

Born in a village near Kohat in January 14, 1931, Ahmed Faraz was a son of a traditional poet Agha Syed Muhammad Shah Bark Kohti and was considered one of the leading poets of the country.

Faraz holds a unique position as one of the best poets of current times, with a fine but simplistic style of writing, even common people can easily understand and identify with. Ethnically a Pashto-speaking Pashtun, Ahmed Faraz learned and studied Persian and Urdu at the Peshawar University where he taught these subjects later.

During his college time, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ali Sardar Jafri were the best progressive poets, who impressed him and became his role models. He initially worked as a script writer at radio Pakistan Peshawar and then moved on to teach Urdu at Peshawar University. In 1976 he became the founding Director General (Later Chairman) of Pakistan Academy of Letters.

Outspoken about politics, he went into self-imposed exile during the Zia-ul-Haq era after he was arrested for reciting certain poems at a Mushaira criticising the military rule. He stayed for three years in Britain, Canada and Europe before returning to Pakistan, where he was initially appointed Chairman Academy of Letters and later chairperson of the Islamabad-based National Book Foundation for several years. He has been awarded with numerous national and international awards.

He was inspired by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Pakistan People’s Party. He was awarded the Hilal-i-Imtiaz in 2004, in recognition of his literary achievements. He returned the award in 2006 against Gen Pervez Musharraf’s removal of judges and toeing American policies.

“My conscience will not forgive me if I remained a silent spectator of the sad happenings around us. The least I can do is to let the dictatorship know where it stands in the eyes of the concerned citizens whose fundamental rights have been usurped. I am doing this by returning the Hilal-i-Imtiaz (civil) forthwith and refuse to associate myself in any way with the regime.”

About his current writings he had said: “I now only write when I am forced to from the inside.”

Maintaining a tradition established by his mentor, the revolutionary Faiz Ahmed Faiz, he wrote some of his best poetry during those days in exile. Famous amongst poetry of resistance has been “Mahasara” One amongst his great ghazals is the famous Ranjish Hi Sahi. He has so far written 13 books and all put together comes as “Shehr e Sukhn aarasta hai” his latest publication so far.

He also joined civil society movement launched against former President Pervez Musharrf and reinstatement of deposed judges. He was seen several times in demonstrations staged in Islamabad for the cause. He also wrote a poem on the issue.

Acting President Muhmmadmian Soomro, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari, PML-N Quaid Mian Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan Academy of Letters Chairman Iftikhar Arif, Kishwar Naheed, Aftab OIqbal Shamim, Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain and other political and literary personality expressed their deep sorrow and grief over the sad demise of the national poet.

“He had ruled on Ghazal for a long time and the vacuum occurred after his death cannot be filled,” a poet Ghazanfar Hashmi said.

Ahmed Faraz is considered one of the greatest modern Urdu poets of the last century and greatest living Urdu poet of present times. Faraz is his pseudonym ‘takhallus’, whereas his real name is Syed Ahmed Shah.