माहिरुल क़ादरी

Mahirul Qadri was the pen name of Manzoor Hussain (1906–1978), an Urdu poet, prose writer, and critic who spent a brief but productive spell as a Hindi film lyricist in the 1940s. Born in the village of Kesar Kalan in Bulandshahr district, Uttar Pradesh, he began writing poetry in his teens and built a reputation in Urdu literary circles well before he came to the film world.

In the early 1940s he moved to Bombay and wrote songs for a handful of films. His best-remembered film assignment is Mehboob Khan's Taqdeer (1943) — the film that introduced Nargis as a leading lady — where he was the principal credited lyricist alongside Anjum Pilibhiti and Agha Mahshar Shirazi, with music by Rafiq Ghaznavi. His Taqdeer songs, largely voiced by Shamshad Begum and Motilal, include "O Jaane Wale Aaja", "Tumse Duniya Mujhe Chhudati Hai", and the patriotic "Meri Maata Bharat Maata". He also contributed lyrics to films such as Zaban (1943), Jeevan (1944), and Zeenat (1945).

After Partition, Qadri migrated to Karachi in 1947 and left films behind, devoting himself to literature. He edited the literary journal Faran and published more than twenty books of poetry, prose, and criticism, earning recognition as a poet, critic, and biographer. He died on 12 May 1978 while participating in a mushaira in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. On this site he appears under the spelling "Meharul Qadri", as credited in Taqdeer's records.