Momin Khan Momin

Momin Khan Momin was one of the foremost ghazal poets of nineteenth-century Delhi and a contemporary of Ghalib and Zauq. Born into a family of physicians, he studied Arabic and Persian and was accomplished in medicine, mathematics, astrology, music and chess. He adopted Momin as his pen name.

Momin wrote ghazals, qasidas and masnavis, but his lasting fame rests on the ghazal. His verse is distinguished by emotional intimacy, delicate ambiguity, brevity and the psychological subtleties of the relationship between lover and beloved. He could hold several layers of meaning in an apparently simple line, and his finest couplets became part of Urdu’s distinguished literary tradition.

His poetry joins classical discipline to a deeply personal voice, in which wit, tenderness, sensory experience and inward thought appear together. He died in Delhi after injuries sustained in an accident, but even his small body of poetry was enough to secure him an enduring place among the great masters of the Urdu ghazal.