Pashto writer Abdur Rahim Majzoob dies at 86

PESHAWAR: Senior Pashto writer and poet Abdur Rahim Majzoob died in a hospital in Abbottabad, family sources confirmed on Saturday.

His funeral was offered in his native town Sarai Naurang, Lakki Marwat and was laid to rest in his ancestral graveyard the same day. A large number of poets, writers, notables attended his funeral. He was 86.

Late Majzoob was author of several prose and poetic collections. Being a polyglot, he had great command over English, Persian, Arabic and Hindi languages and influenced young Pashto writers through his innovative experiments by introducing old mythological narratives against local characters.

He was a graduate of the historic Islamia College Peshawar from where he had earned a degree in Law but he had also studied several other disciplines on his own and rendered pieces of Shakespeare and John Keats into Pashto verse form in addition to contributing features and poems to newspapers and literary journals.

His popular publications included Zairr Guloona, Da Meenay Tanda, Lal auo koti Lal, Daarul Aohaam and his complete works titled ‘ Da Noor Zahooruna’ were released in 2017. Majzoob had launched several literary organizations during his lifetime to educate young writers.

He was a blend of old and modern literary traditions, who had paved the way for the upcoming literati to do new experiments with their creative vision. His love for Allama Mohammad Iqbal and Mirza Ghalib was undying and wanted Pashto literature to be enriched with a treasure trove of scholarship devoid of all kinds of racial, tribal and linguistic prejudices.