Waqif Lahori
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Born in Batala, Punjab, his father Qazi Amanatullah was the chief qazi of Batala.[4] His date of birth is not given in any of his biographical sources.[4] His family was apparently well-to-do: he was described as among the nobles of Punjab by his contemporary Siraj-ud-Din Arzu.[4]
Waqif was a contemporary of Siraj-ud-Din Arzu, Azad Bilgrami, Faqirullah Afarin, and Abdul Hakīm Hākim Lahori, and except Arzu, had deep relations with all of them.[4] In 1760 (1174 hijri) he went to Deccan with Abdul Hakim where he met Azad at Aurangabad. After a short stay both travelled to Surat, from where Abdul Hakim went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Waqif stayed there until Abdul Hakim returned and both again went to Deccan, where Waqif lived in Hyderabad for a while. He returned to Punjab next year, reaching Batala in 1176 hijri (1762/1763).[4] Owing to the anarchy prevailing in Punjab at the time, Waqif later settled in Bahawalpur. He died in 1776.[5]
Poetry
Waqif was his pen name.[4] He was not connected to any royal court,[4] although Ahmad Durrani who, according to Ganda Singh, greatly admired his poetry, had invited him to his court at Kandahar, where he was welcomed and entertained as a state guest.[5] He was praised and given the title of Shamsuddin-i-Punjab by Abdul Hakim Lahori for his poetic talents.[4]
An autographed copy of Waqif's Divan was discovered in 1962 among the manuscripts from the imperial library of maharaja Ranjit Singh.[3] In the same year Punjabi Adabi Board published his Persian Divan with the aid of six of its manuscripts.[4] A collection of his poems was translated and published by Afzal Ahmed Syed in 2020.[6]