"Begum" by Ibn-e Sa'id (1924 – 2005)

M.H. Askari alias Ibn-e-Sa’id was a veteran journalist and a political analyst. He was born on 12 December 1924 in Ludhiana, in undivided India. His father Professor Mirza Mohammed Sa’id, was a distinguished scholar serving as the principal of Government College Ludhiana, at that time. M.H. Askari wrote under the pen-name Ibn-e-Sa’id from 1945-58. His work was published by leading literary magazines such as Saqi, Naya Daur, Mah-e Nau among others. He passed away in 2005 in Karachi.

Ibn-e-Sa’id’s work was largely forgotten. It was under the aegis of Dr Asif Farrukhi that I embarked on a journey rediscovering Askari’s writings, and discovered two manuscripts of his unpublished novellas as well as numerous short stories in several magazines. A compilation of his Urdu short stories titled Intiḳhāb Series, and his novellas Mehvar and Raushnioñ kā Sheher were published by Oxford University Press, Karachi, in 2017.