الصحافة الأردية في بهاولبور في القرن العشرين

Journalism in Bahawalpur in the 20th Century

Abstract

Bahawalpur sits in the heart of the Punjab province, which is in turn is the largest province of Pakistan. Punjab is also the home of one of the oldest human civilizations in human history and it has distinct cultural and literary features that are distinctive in the Indo-Pak subcontinent cultural landscape. Punjab is in itself divided into two parts, northern Punjab that contains several major cities of which the largest and most important of is Lahore, and southern Punjab, which contains three major cities of which Bahawalpur is the most important. This study focus on the literary scene in Bahawalpur as the city is considered one of the oldest settlements in the world, with long cultural and literary history. And it is this long and rich cultural heritage that allowed the city, and though residing in the heart of a Saraiki dominated region, to support and cherish cultural and literary work in other languages, most notably Urdu. As such, Bahawalpur was the home for various literary models in prose and poetry in the Urdu language, and this was reinforced by the effective role of thinkers and writers in this city in order to advance science and literature, such as Allama Muhammad Iqbal.