Khan Bahadur Abdul Ghafur Nassakh

Khan Bahadur Abu Muḥammad Abdul Ghafur (11 February 1834 – 14 June 1889), better known by his pen name Nassakh , was a British Indian officer, writer, literary critic and collector. He is best known for his magnum opus Sukhan-e-Shuara ( Speech of Poets) which was a biography of prominent Urdu and Persian poets. He organised mushaira in places where he worked; inspiring young Urdu poets in Bengal.

Career Ghafur joined as deputy magistrate in the British Indian government. He served as deputy collector in many places in the Bengal Presidency. In particular, he worked as deputy collector of Dacca and Backergunge from 1860 to 1888.

Literary career Ghafur mainly wrote poetry in Urdu, but he also wrote in Persian. Apart from Bengali, Urdu and Persian, he also knew English, Arabic and Hindi.

Among his Urdu poetry are Daftar-e-Bemisal (1869), Armugan (1875), Armugani (1884). Daftar-e-Bemisal was praised by Ghalib. In Sukhan-e-Shuara (1874) and Tazkiratul Muasirin he introduced Urdu and Persian poets. He translated Persian poet Fariduddin Attar's Pand Name into Urdu under the title of Chashma-e-Faez in 1874. Ganj-e-Tawarikh (1873) and Kanz-e-Tawarikh (1877) were pieces of poetry which contained biographies of great Islamic personalities. Ashar-e-Nassakh (1866) is also one of his works on poetry. His Intikhab-e-Nakam (1879) was a critique on the marsiya poetry of Mir Anees and Mirza Dabeer. Nassakh also wrote Mazhab-e-Muamma (1888) which contained his own works of Persian poetry.