Qudrat Ullah Shahab (1917–1986) is one of the most-read names in Urdu literature, and one of the least typical. He spent his working life at the very top of government — private secretary to three heads of state, ambassador, federal secretary — and wrote alongside it, in Urdu and in English. His shelf is small: one novel, three collections of short stories, a literary miscellany, an essay, and a single autobiography. That autobiography, Shahab Nama, is the reason most readers know his name at all. This guide takes his books one by one, honestly: what each one is, what it is not, and where a new reader should start.
A Life at the Top of Government
Shahab was born on 26 February 1917 in Gilgit, then in British India, the son of Abdullah Sahib, an Aligarh graduate who had studied under Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (Wikipedia). Some secondary sources give his birth year as 1920; the 1917 date is the one used by Wikipedia, Pakistan Post and Rekhta, and it is the one this guide follows. At sixteen, an essay of his won first prize in an international competition run by Reader’s Digest in London. He took an MA in English Literature from Government College, Lahore, in 1941, and that same year became the first Muslim from Jammu and Kashmir to qualify for the Indian Civil Service (Rekhta).
His civil service career put him where history was being made, and sometimes where it was being endured. During the Bengal famine of 1943, serving as magistrate at Nandigram, he shared strategic food reserves with starving locals and was criticised by the authorities for it. After Partition he served as Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Trade, as the first Secretary General of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir government, and as Deputy Commissioner of Jhang. He then became Principal Secretary to three heads of state in turn — Governor General Ghulam Muhammad, President Iskander Mirza and President Ayub Khan — before serving as Pakistan’s Ambassador to the Netherlands in 1962 and later as Information Secretary and Education Secretary. He resigned during Yahya Khan’s rule, joined UNESCO, and was elected to UNESCO’s executive board in 1968.
He also helped found the Pakistan Writers’ Guild in Karachi in January 1959 and served as its first president. His friends were the writers who defined Urdu literature in his lifetime: Mumtaz Mufti, Ashfaq Ahmed, Bano Qudsia and Ibn-e-Insha. Mufti — whose own books are covered in our Mumtaz Mufti books guide — later made Shahab the subject of his autobiography Alakh Nagri and dedicated another book, Labbaik, to him. Bano Qudsia wrote Mard-e-Abresham about Shahab’s personality, and a collection of essays about him was compiled as Zikr-e-Shahab. In 2013, Pakistan Post honoured him with a Rs. 15 stamp in its Men of Letters series. He died in Islamabad on 24 July 1986 and is buried in the H-8 Graveyard.
The Books, One by One
Shahab Nama (1986) — the autobiography
Start here. Shahab Nama is Shahab’s autobiography, published in 1986, the year he died. It is the book that made him a household name in Pakistan, and it is still the first book most readers associate with him. It covers his childhood in Gilgit and Punjab, his years in the Indian Civil Service, the Bengal famine, Partition, and his long service beside Pakistan’s first rulers — told from inside the rooms where decisions were made, by a man who was taking notes. It is also, in its final chapter, the book where Shahab disclosed the spiritual side of his life (see below). If you read one Shahab book, read this one. It is not a novel, and this guide does not present it as one.
Ya Khuda — the novel
Ya Khuda is Shahab’s novel, and his only one. That single fact matters: Shahab is often shelved with the great Urdu novelists, but his fiction output was small, and this is the whole of his novel-writing. No publication year is pinned down in the reliable sources, so this guide gives none. Read it after Shahab Nama, when you already know the man and want to see how he handled invented characters instead of remembered ones.
Maa Ji — short stories, and one famous essay
Maa Ji is a collection of short stories, and its title piece is also one of Shahab’s best-known essays: a portrait of his mother, Karima Bibi, and of the relationship his parents shared, written with a simplicity that scholars still discuss — Shafique Virani devoted a study of it to The Annual of Urdu Studies in 2004 (Wikipedia). If Shahab Nama is Shahab the public man, Maa Ji is Shahab the son. It is the warmest of his books, and the best second read.
Surkh Feeta — short stories
Surkh Feeta — “red tape” — is another collection of short stories. Its title is the world Shahab worked in every day: files, offices, approvals, the machinery of government. The stories draw on that world, and on the people caught inside it. Read it third, as the companion to the civil-service chapters of Shahab Nama.
Nafsane — short stories
Nafsane is Shahab’s third story collection. Like the others, it is short fiction rather than a novel, and it rounds out the picture of a writer who thought in stories and sketches between the demands of office. Taken together, the three collections — Maa Ji, Surkh Feeta and Nafsane — are the whole of Shahab’s short fiction, and they reward readers who come to them after the autobiography, when the settings and the people behind them are already familiar.
Shahab Nagar — literary miscellany
Shahab Nagar is a literary miscellany: assorted writings rather than a single sustained work. It belongs at the end of a reading list, for readers who have finished the books above and want the remaining pieces — the kind of book you dip into rather than read cover to cover.
Pathans — an essay
Pathans is a single essay about Pashtuns, listed among his books. It is a small, standalone piece — worth knowing about for completeness, but not a starting point for a new reader.
The “Ninety” Question
No guide to Shahab can avoid the final chapter of Shahab Nama. There, Shahab wrote of an out-of-world personality he called “Ninety”, whom he described as his spiritual guide. This is Shahab’s own account, in his own book — not a verified fact, and this guide does not present it as one. What is a matter of record is what followed: after Shahab Nama appeared, Mumtaz Mufti wrote in the foreword to Alakh Nagri that since Shahab had opened his own secrets in that last chapter, he saw no reason not to share the experiences he had witnessed of Shahab’s mysticism. Readers divide over the chapter; some take it as the book’s most honest passage, others as its strangest. Either way, it is the reason Shahab Nama is still argued about forty years later, and it is worth reading the book before forming a view.
Why the Shelf Is Small
Shahab’s output looks thin beside a writer who wrote for a living — and that is the point. His working life was the civil service, at a level where there was very little time left over. He wrote in Urdu and in English for newspapers and magazines, much of it while holding office, and the Writers’ Guild work took more of his time still. The comparison that helps is with writers like Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, a poet and short-story writer rather than a novelist, and Mushtaq Ahmad Yusufi, whose books also fit on a short shelf: in each case, a small body of work, carefully made, has outlasted far larger ones. Shahab’s five books and two shorter pieces are the complete record; nothing in this guide invents a sixth.
Where to Start: A Reading Order
First, Shahab Nama — it is the book everything else refers back to, and the only one that explains the man. Second, Maa Ji, for the personal side the autobiography keeps in the background. Third, Ya Khuda, his one novel. Then the two remaining story collections, Surkh Feeta and Nafsane, in either order. Finish with Shahab Nagar and the Pathans essay if you want the complete shelf. Readers who only want the famous book can stop after Shahab Nama and miss nothing essential; readers who finish all seven will have read everything Shahab published in book form.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Shahab Nama a novel?
No. Shahab Nama is Shahab’s autobiography, published in 1986. It is sometimes shelved with novels because it reads like a story, but it is a memoir of his own life, from Gilgit to the highest offices of Pakistan.
How many novels did Qudrat Ullah Shahab write?
One: Ya Khuda. The rest of his books are short-story collections (Maa Ji, Surkh Feeta, Nafsane), a literary miscellany (Shahab Nagar), an essay (Pathans), and the autobiography Shahab Nama.
What is “Ninety” in Shahab Nama?
In the final chapter of his autobiography, Shahab wrote of a spiritual guide he called “Ninety”. That is his own account. His friend Mumtaz Mufti discussed it openly in Alakh Nagri after Shahab’s death. Readers should treat it as Shahab’s claim about his own spiritual life, not as an established fact.
Who were Qudrat Ullah Shahab’s friends among writers?
His closest literary circle was Mumtaz Mufti, Ashfaq Ahmed, Bano Qudsia and Ibn-e-Insha. Mufti and Bano Qudsia both wrote books about him after his death.
Where is Qudrat Ullah Shahab buried?
In the H-8 Graveyard in Islamabad, where he died on 24 July 1986.
Research date: November 6, 2026. Facts verified against Wikipedia and Rekhta. Where sources disagree — his birth year is given as 1920 in some secondary sources — this guide follows 1917 and says so. A first novel titled Chandravati, named in one weak source only, is left out because it does not appear in the reliable book lists.