About

"Noon Meem" Rashed (Nazri Muhammad Rashed, 1910-1975) is acknowledged to be one of the greatest Urdu poets of the 20th century, and one of the fathers of Modernism in Urdu poetry. In 2013 Rashed’s then Montreal-based daughter Yasmin Hassan allowed us to inspect a collection of Rashed’s papers and personal effects. She has generously given this extraordinary collection, consisting of valuable letters, poetry drafts, photographs and life records, into the safekeeping of the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University. For more on Rashed’s life and work, see the work of Muhammad Fakhar ul-Haq Noori and Sean Pue’s new study, I Too Have Some Dreams.

On this blog you will find digital copies of some of the most interesting material from among N. M. Rashed’s papers, selected as we digitize the N. M. Rashed Archive. This project has been funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Development Grant, and an Arts Undergraduate Research Internship Award, both from McGill. A big thank you to Sean Swanick of the Islamic Studies Library for his guidance (and driving). ISL librarian Stephen Millier also gave us important help.

This project is dedicated to Rashed’s nephew and son-in-law, the late Faruq Hassan, himself an eloquent Urdu poet, a teacher at Dawson College and at McGill’s Institute of Islamic Studies.

—Pasha M. Khan (McGill University)

Advisers
Yasmin Hassan
Prof. Muhammad Fakhar ul-Haq Noori (Punjab University)
Prof. Sean A. Pue (Michigan State University)

Graduate RA
Zahra Sabri

Undergraduate RAs
Zain Mian (ARIA Fellow)
Nusra Khan