M. D. Taseer

Muhammad Din Taseer, also known as Deen Muhammad Taseer and popularly known as Dr. M. D. Taseer, was an Urdu poet, writer, and literary critic. He is considered one of the pioneers of the progressive movement in Urdu literature.

He was born in Ajnala, Amritsar, on 28 February 1902. His father, a peasant named Mian Atta ud Din, died when he was a small child, and he was brought up by his maternal uncle Mian Nizam ud Din in Lahore. He was a friend of Allama Iqbal since his childhood.

In 1933 he started a literary journal called Karwan. After his M. A., while employed as an assistant professor in the University of the Punjab, Lahore, he went to Cambridge for a PhD in English literature, with Iqbal's letter of recommendation. He reached London in 1933 and began his M. Litt. at Pembroke College, Cambridge, with Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch as his research guide, who persuaded the University Senate to allow him to take his PhD directly without doing an M. Litt first. His PhD thesis was titled "India and the Near East in English literature from the earliest times to 1924", and is still unpublished. Taseer is said to be the first person from the Indian subcontinent to have obtained a PhD in English Literature in England.

On his return from Cambridge at the end of 1935, he joined the Muslim Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College in Amritsar as its principal. Along with Faiz Ahmad Faiz he was one of the founders of the Progressive Writers' Movement. In 1937 he fell in love with a British tourist named Christobel George, who had also been a student at Cambridge. They were married in 1938, with Allama Iqbal himself drafting the marriage-deed (nikahnama) for the couple, including the right of divorce for Christobel George, and Christobel converting to Islam and adopting the name of Balquis (also spelled Bilquees or Bilqees) Taseer. Later in 1941, Christobel's sister Alys Faiz married Faiz Ahmad Faiz. During this time (1941–1942), Taseer was temporarily in Srinagar as the principal of S. P. College. His lyrics were used in the 1942 film Khandan.

After partition he became principal of Islamia College in Lahore.

He is the father of Salmaan Taseer and the grandfather of Aatish Taseer. His daughter Salma Mahmud published a memoir The Wings of Time, recounting his life.

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