Zahida Khatun Sherwani

Zahida Khatun Sherwani

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Category: Literature

Zahida Khatun Sherwani Profile

  • Name:
  • Zahida Khatun Sherwani
  • Born:
  • December 18, 1894
  • Died:
  • February 2, 1922
  • Father:
  • Nawab Sir Muhammad Muzammilullah Khan

Zahida Khatun Sherwani Biography

Zahida Khatun Sherwani was an Indian poet and writer, and a women’s activist. She wrote in Urdu language. She stood for the promotion of women's rights, and had a short life of only 27 years. She lived during the period, 18 December 1894 – 2 February 1922. She belonged to a conservative Muslim community where women were not given so much freedom or allowed to write poetry. So she used the penname, Zay Khay Sheen (or Z-Kh-S) and Nuzhat for pouring her words.  She published her poems in different journals, magazines, dailies etc.

 

Zahida Khatun Sherwani was born into a rich family of landholders on 18 December 1894. She was born in Bhikampur of Aligarh State, British India, now a part of Uttar Pradesh. Her father Nawab Sir Muhammad Muzammilullah Khan was a noted Zamindar and politician from United Province of British India. There were many scholars in her clan. However women were not granted much freedom then. Sherwani's father supported women education and ensured that she and her siblings learned Islamic theology. He was also active in Aligarh in establishing a girls' school and women's school, and also upgrading the Aligarh College into a Muslim University.

 

Zahida continued writing poems and published in different journals under different pseudonyms. Some of her early works were published in Khatun of Aligarh, Ismat of Delhi and Sharif Bibi of Lahore. She wrote about the conditions of Muslims in other places, and also wrote 4-line poems in Urdu on social conditions, wars, history etc. Once she had to discontinue her writings because of her father’s warnings, and later resumed it without his knowledge. She died on Thursday 2 February 1922 at 27. As her fiancée, with whom her marriage was fixed in her childhood, died young, she remained unmarried throughout her life.

Published: October 16, 2018

Updated: October 16, 2018

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