[01] Robina Kausar, Government Islamia College for Women, Department of Urdu, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan. [02] Muhammad Sarwar, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Nuclear Institute for Agriculture & Biology, Department of Plant Protection, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan. [03] Muhammad Shabbir, Government College for Boys, Department of Statistics, Chak Jhumra, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan.

Urdu literature has a long and colourful history, and it is perhaps the only language that can be enjoyed even if anybody does not understand it. Pakistan’s quest for new ideas on Urdu literature produced some of the most powerful prose and poetry from many excellent writers and poets including women. Although important women writers have appeared before creation of Pakistan, yet the present era saw a proliferation of prose and poetry by women which critiqued the cultural, social and political systems with profound insight and great passion. Speculatively, the reason for the existing of many fine women writers in Pakistan, as compared to almost rare in subcontinent, may be owing to the different ways in which women in Pakistan and Muslim women elsewhere are members of civil society and participate in the public sphere. Within the scope of this paper the main theme is to indicate the key role of women writers and poets, they have played in creating awareness among the folks not only what the womanhood passes through, but also the social constraints that mars their own development. The women faced severe restrictions some decades back to express their thoughts and feelings. But, now many of them have emerged as leading voices in literature and honoured accordingly. Within a lot of cases, the women writers surpassed their male counter parts. The major writers to write as a women appeared before and soon after independence of Pakistan. Among these personalities, Ada Jafri is a first writer who wrote of her experiences as a wife and a mother in a modified traditional idiom. She has been followed by Zehra Nigah, who attempts to portray a desire for a degree of equality of emotional expression in women’s relationships. The two most influential and important women poets who have written deliberately are Kishvar Naheed and Fehmeedah Riyaz, both of whom started writing in the sixties. A younger generation of women writers such as Parveen Shakir, Bano Qudsia and many more took their cue from these predecessors, but more closely examined the subtleties of human and social relations in their writings. This information on Urdu literature would not only create the journalism consciousness among the women, but also open a wide range scope for them to participate in practical lives.

Urdu Prose, Poetry, Education, Muslim Women, Society, Literature, History, Female

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