Begum Akhtar

بيجوم أختر

7 October 1914 CE · 1332 AH – 30 October 1974 CE · 1394 AH

Indian singer (1914–1974), born Akhtari Bai Faizabadi at Faizabad, dubbed Mallika-e-Ghazal, 'Queen of Ghazals', and regarded as one of the greatest exponents of ghazal, thumri and dadra; she acted in films in the 1930s and in Mehboob Khan's Roti (1942), received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1972) and the Padma Shri (1968), and was awarded the Padma Bhushan posthumously.

Depth

At a glance

Roles: musician
Region: South Asia
Identifiers: Wikidata

Life in time

The Colonial Era · The Contemporary Era · The Modern Era Contemporaries: Abd al-Halim Mahmud · Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd al-Latif Al Shaykh · Abd al-Rahman Tsatsa · Abd Allah ibn al-Siddiq al-Ghumari · Cheikh Abdou Khadre Mbacke

In space

Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph

Place in the story

Unknown (unknown)

Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.

Summary

Akhtari Bai Faizabadi (7 October 1914 – 30 October 1974), known as Begum Akhtar, was an Indian singer born at Faizabad, the daughter of the lawyer Asghar Hussain and his wife Mushtari.¹² Trained by leading masters of the day, she was dubbed Mallika-e-Ghazal, 'Queen of Ghazals', and is regarded as one of the greatest singers of ghazal, thumri and dadra; she also acted in films of the 1930s and in Mehboob Khan's Roti (1942).¹

She married the Lucknow barrister Ishtiaq Ahmed Abbasi in 1945, received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1972 and the Padma Shri in 1968, and was awarded the Padma Bhushan posthumously.¹³ She died at Ahmedabad on 30 October 1974 and was buried beside her mother at Pasand Bagh in Lucknow.¹