Great Urdu Mystery Writer Ibn-e-Safi Remembered in SF Bay Area
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
The Pakistan American Community Center, Milpitas CA, hosted Ahmed Ibn-e-Safi, son of Ibn-e-Safi, a writer par excellence who wrote popular mystery fiction that was, and still is, avidly read in the Indo-Pak subcontinent.
The event was held on February 24, 2019.
Muneeba Zeeshan welcomed Ahmed Ibn-e-Safi on behalf of the Community Center and the Urdu Academy of North America in the crowded hall.
Ibn-e-Safi was the brand name of the most popular literary movement of the 1950s and beyond in the domain of mystery and detective literature. Few writers have received the level of recognition and adulation from Urdu-reading masses in the subcontinent than that enjoyed by Ibn-e-Safi.
With 126 novels in the Jasoosi Dunya series and 116 volumes in the Imran series, Ibn-e-Safi has left an outstanding literary and cultural heritage.
Recently on Face Book a fan page was started for Ibn-e-Safi. Surprisingly of the 800+ members the average age is about 20 years. This shows that the generation that was born after his demise has taken to liking his work and they have gone to the extent of putting all his novels in the PDF format on the net.
Ibn-e-Safi was born on July 26, 1928, in the village of Nara in Allahabad District, UP, India. His parents, Safiullah and Nuzaira Bibi, named him Asrar Ahmed at birth. It was much later that he came to be known as Ibn-e-Safi.
In 1952 he migrated to Pakistan and settled in Karachi. He married Ume Salma Khatoon in 1953.
Ahmed Ibn-e-Safi shared many instances and anecdotes about his family life with the audience.
Ahmed said it is important to note that many technological gadgets which are commonplace today did not exist in his day, but the author has made references to similar objects in his novels.
Ahmed revealed that Bangldeshi leader Mujibur Rehman’s mother was very fond ofIbn-e-Safi’s novels. Since she couldn’t read Urdu someone had to read the novels to her.
Asghar Aboobaker, founder of the Pakistan American Community Center, amused the audience by relating his personal experience with Ibn-e-Safi’s mystery novels. Aboobaker said he is Memon and his mother tongue is not Urdu, hence during school days he was not getting good marks in Urdu subject. “Someone advised me to read mystery Urdu novels of Ibn-e-Safi. I embarked on reading these novels and within six month I was able to improve my marks in Urdu subject to 60%.”
In 1975, a film producer, Muhammad Hussain Talpur (aka Maulana Hippie), experimented with a film Dhamaka based on the Imran Series novel Baibaakon Ki Talaash.
Ibn-e-Safi started writing at a young age. When he was in seventh grade, his first story appeared in the weekly Shahid, which was edited by Aadil Rasheed.
In 1947, Ibn-e-Safi enrolled in Allahabad University.
He used pen names ‘Sanki Soldier’ and ‘Tughral Farghan’ for short stories and humor and ‘Israr Narvi’ for poetry.
In 1948, Abbas Hussaini founded Nakhat Publications. Ibn-e-Safi’s first story for Nakhat Publications was Farar (The Escape), which was published in June 1948.
On the advice of Ibn-e-Safi, Abbas Hussaini made arrangements for publishing monthly detective novels. The name of the series was Jasoosi Duniya (The World of Espionage), and it was the first time Ibn-e-Safi started writing with the pen name of Ibn-e-Safi.
In 1955, Ibn-e-Safi created a new character, Imran, and started publishing the Imran Series. The first novel of this series Khaufnaak Imarat (The Frightening Building) was published in August 1955 in Pakistan whereas the Indian edition was published in November 1955.
By June 1960, Ibn-e-Safi had written the eighty-eighth novel of Jasoosi Duniya and the forty-first novel of Imran Series.
In September 1979, Ibn-e-Safi suffered from abdominal pains. By December of that year, it was confirmed these were a result of cancer at the head of the pancreas.
On Saturday July 26, 1980 Ibn-e-Safi passed away. His incomplete Imran Series novel Aakhri Aadmi was by his bedside.
Ahmed pointed out that his father was also a poet. On the request of the audience Ahmed recited Ibn-e-Safi’s popular poem “Karachi.”
Ibn-e-Safi’s Characters
Ahmed Ibn-e-Safi’s talk preceded a presentation about unique characters developed by the great mystery writer by Zafar Afaaq Ansari, an avid reader of Ibn-e-Safi's work.
One of Ibn-e-Safi’s distinguished writing qualities includes formation and development of characters.
Ibn-e-Safi’s lead characters such as Colonel Faridi or Ali Imran appear to be thorough professionals, though with different approaches to their work. His characters reach their destinations with courage, imaginative conduct and precision in application.
Berkeley Urdu Initiative
On February 23, the Institute for South Asia Studies and the Berkeley Urdu Initiative hosted an evening of Urdu Spy literature to focus on the works of Ibn-e-Safi (1928-1980). Announcing the event, the Berkeley Urdu Initiative said:
“If any writer of Hindi-Urdu fiction exemplifies the cosmopolitan and trans-regional character of Hindi-Urdu literature it is Ibn-e-Safi (1928-1980). The novels in his Jasusi Dunya (Spy World) and Imran series have been immensely popular with Urdu readers in India and Pakistan since they appeared in the early 1950s.
“They have been similarly popular in Hindi translation. Their taut prose, thrilling plots, witty narrative, and unforgettable characters have influenced some of the most celebrated popular Hindi-Urdu writers of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Javed Akhtar (b. 1945), who has penned some of Bollywood’s greatest thrillers. The novels are also remarkable sources for discussions of gender, Hindi-Urdu literary culture, politics, translation, and the movement of texts across the porous borders of postcolonial nation-states.”
The evening also featured a conversation with Ahmed Ibn-e-Safi and stage readings of the author's works by Cal Urdu students.
The Berkeley Urdu Initiative was officially launched in September 2011 to sustain, enrich, and expand the Urdu Studies program at the University of California, Berkeley.
UC Berkeley is a global leader in the study of South Asia, and one of the few institutions in the United States to offer both undergraduate and graduate degree programs focusing on numerous aspects of this vital region.
