LITERARY magazines are regarded as harbingers of new literary, aesthetic and linguistic trends, signalling emergence of new writers, new themes and the changing parlance. Social, cultural and political trends, too, first announce their arrival, albeit silently, in literary journals. So, literary periodicals serve as barometers that measure new tastes and shifting trends long before they appear on the horizon.
In post-independence Pakistan, literary magazines were all the rage and in the 1950s and 1960s the literary circles saw a large number of Urdu literary magazines being launched, a sure sign that the society deeply valued arts and literature — a totally different literary landscape from today’s bleak and dreary milieu. In that thriving environ, Urdu Academy was established at Bahawalpur in 1959 with an aim to promote Urdu language and literature as well as highlighting local literature, indigenous culture and region’s history. In January 1961, the academy launched Az-Zubair, an Urdu literary magazine. But gaining a foothold in literary world was a daunting task because giants — such as, Nuqoosh, Mah-i-Nau, Adabi Dunya, Saqi, Urdu, Naya Daur, Saheefa —roamed the world of literary journalism. Breaking into that world was easy as a new entrant, surviving was not. But Az-Zubair not only survived but while most of its peer publications closed down for good with the passage of time, it is still being published, despite the fact Bahawalpur was never considered a literary centre nor a developed area.
Syed Shabbir Bukhari was the first editor of Az-Zubair. In 1962, Syed Masood Hasan Shahab Dehlvi (Oct 22, 1922-Aug 29, 1990) took over and edited the magazine till he breathed his last. Shahab Dehlvi made Az-Zubair a research-oriented journal. Its special issues namely Safranama Number (on travelogues) and Adabi Ma’arka Number (on literary feuds) were pioneering efforts and Nuqoosh’s special issue on literary feuds was published much later. Az-Zubair’s other special issues that became reference material include the issues on aap beeti (autobiographies), kutub khana (libraries), tehreek-i-aazaadi (independence movement) aasaar-i-qadeema (archaeological remains), Cholistan, Quaid-i-Azam, Iqbal, asnaaf-i-adab (literary genres), Bahawalpur, Khwaja Ghulam Fareed, intiqadiyaat (criticism) and an issue on 100 years of journalism in Bahawalpur. These issues prove the academy and the magazine kept the promise they had made at the outset.
After Shahab Dehlvi, his son Shahid Hasan Rizvi took the helms and has been steering the ship through choppy waters. Shahid Rizvi has kept Az-Zubair afloat, though literary magazines are not commercially viable these days. All in all, during the last 65 years of publication, Az-Zubair has published 124 issues that have tons of material and finding any specific material had remained cumbersome. But now with the publication of Az-Zubair’s index, it is easy to trace and find any article or piece of creative writing ever published in it.
Magazine indexing is a systematic way of cataloguing the contents published on different topics and/or works by specific writers, making the information easily searchable. An index of a magazine arranges the entire contents of the magazine’s all issues alphabetically and chronologically under different categories, for example, author-wise and subject-wise, along with the issue number and volume number of the magazine, date of publication and page numbers. It facilitates researchers and general readers looking for some specific information or article. Az-Zubair’s just-published index fully conforms to the standards of magazine indexing and is a boon for all, in particular for researchers, academicians and students.
Compiled by Muhammad Shahid Haneef and titled Majalla Az-Zubair Ka Painsath Sala Ishariya (1961-2025), or magazine Az-Zubair’s 65-year index, it is published by Urdu Academy, Bahawalpur. The 770-page index, published on a large-size format, lists the subjects under headings and sub-headings, such as, Islam, education, literature, literary genres, fiction, poetry, linguistics, culture, civilisation, personalities, organisations, institutions and many more, mentioning the magazine’s issue and page numbers. The author-wise section of the index lists in alphabetical order all the pieces, published in the issues of the magazine, by authors’ names and another section organises the information in chronological order, giving the contents of each and every issue.
The index shows that some of the bigwigs of literary and academic world have been contributing to Az-Zubair. It is also a testimony to the magazine’s policy to encourage the budding writers and the writers, poets and scholars hailing from Bahawalpur, Multan and other adjoining areas. It has preserved the history and culture of the region.
Compiler Muhammad Shahid Haneef, born on June 23, 1975, is a Lahore-based researcher and holds degrees in Library Science. He has compiled a large number of magazine indexes and has several books to his credit.
Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2026
