Khan Bahadur Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdul Ghafūr (11 February 1834 - 14 June 1889), better known by his pen name Nassakh (Urdu: نساخ), was a British Indian officer, writer, literary critic and collector.^[1] He is best known for his magnum opus Sukhan-e-Shuara (Urdu: سخن شعرا Speech of Poets) which was a biography of prominent Urdu and Persian poets.^[2] He organised mushaira in places where he worked; inspiring young Urdu poets in Bengal.^[1]

This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (November 2016)

Abdul Ghafur was born on 11 February 1834 to the Qadi family of Rajapur in Faridpur district. His father, Qazi Faqir Muhammad, was a lawyer at the Calcutta civil court and a Persian author best known for his Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh (جامع التواريخ Compendium of Chronicles), a history book published in 1836. Reformer Nawab Abdul Latif was his elder brother and Nassakh's two other brothers were Abdul Hamid and Abdul Bari Sayd who were also poets.^[1][3] This family was founded by Kazi Abdur Rasool, son of Shah Azimuddin, who was said to have been descended from the Arab Muslim general Khalid ibn al-Walid and have been appointed as Kazi in Mughal Bengal.^[4][5]

Abdul Ghafur joined as deputy magistrate in the British Indian government. He served as deputy collector in many places in the Bengal Presidency. In particular, he worked as deputy collector of Dacca and Backergunge from 1860 to 1888.^[1] In 1868, Elayechiram Talib of Jalalabad, Amritsar migrated to Bakerganj (Barisal) to become a student of Nassakh, who would suggest edits to Talib's poetry. Talib would also write poetry in praise of his teacher Nassakh.^[6]

Abdul Ghafur mainly wrote poetry in Urdu, but he also wrote in Persian. Apart from Bengali, Urdu and Persian, he also knew English, Arabic and Hindi.^[1]

Among his Urdu poetry are Daftar-e-Bemisal (1869), Armugan (1875), Armugani (1884). Daftar-e-Bemisal was praised by Ghalib. In Sukhan-e-Shuara (1874) and Tazkiratul Muasirin he introduced Urdu and Persian poets. He translated Persian poet Fariduddin Attar's Pand Name into Urdu under the title of Chashma-e-Faez in 1874. Ganj-e-Tawarikh (1873) and Kanz-e-Tawarikh (1877) were pieces of poetry which contained biographies of great Islamic personalities. Ashar-e-Nassakh (1866) is also one of his works on poetry. His Intikhab-e-Nakam (1879) was a critique on the marsiya poetry of Mir Anees and Mirza Dabeer. Nassakh also wrote Mazhab-e-Muamma (1888) which contained his own works of Persian poetry.^[1]

• Zaigham, his teacher