Imtiaz Ali Taj
Pakistani dramatist
Syed Imtiaz Ali Taj (Urdu: سیّد امتیاز علی تاؔج; Sayyid Imtiyāz ʿAlī Tāj; 1900–1970) was a Pakistani dramatist who wrote in the Urdu language. He is best known for his 1922 play Anarkali, based on the life of Anarkali, that was staged hundreds of times and was adapted for feature films in India and Pakistan, including the Indian film Mughal-e-Azam (1960).
Early life
Born Syed Imtiaz Ali in Lahore (then in British India) on 13 October 1900, he was the son of Sayyid Mumtaz Ali (1860 – 1935), who was also known as Shams-ul-Ulema (Sun of the Scholars), in recognition of his pioneering contribution to Urdu drama. His mother Muhammadi Begum lovingly nicknamed him 'Mera Taj' (my crown). His forefathers had moved to Lahore following the 1857 Indian revolt in Delhi. When Imtiaz started writing, he adopted the literary pseudonym "Taj". During his student days, his literary skill came to the fore as he translated and directed many English plays, sometimes acting in female roles at a time when girls were not encouraged to act. After studying in Lahore, he first worked in his father's publishing house, Dar-ul-Ishaat Punjab (lit: "Punjab publishing house").
He then contributed to the children's journal Phool, founded by his father on 13 October 1909 and the women's magazine Tahzeeb-e-Niswan; he wrote for Phool in association with Ghulam Abbas Ahmed and Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi. He was a co-founder (together with Maulana Abdul Majeed Salik) of the literary journal Kehkashan.
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This entry incorporates text from “Imtiaz Ali Taj” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.