Khalilullah Khalili

Khalilullah Khalili was born in Kabul and educated in the old way, in Persian and Arabic letters, and he became the leading poet writing in Dari, the Persian of Afghanistan, in the 20th century. His poetry is classical in form, the ghazal (lyric), the qasida (ode) and the roba'i (quatrain), and in the line of Sana'i, Rumi and Bedil, but its subjects are Afghanistan's landscape, history and troubles.

He was close to the royal court under Zahir Shah, taught at Kabul University and wrote histories as well as poems. Later he served as a diplomat, including as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

After the communist coup of 1978 he left Afghanistan, and his late poems are those of an exile mourning a country at war. He died in Islamabad in 1987. Many Afghans regard him as their national poet, and readers across the Persian-speaking world value him as a bridge between Kabul and the classical tradition.

Khalili's poems are in copyright. We publish them only with permission from the rights holders; until then we write about the work.