Firdos-E-Bareen by Abdul Haleem Sharar

Abdul Halim Sharar enjoys a special place among the writers who introduced the Western genre and artwork to the Urdu literature at the end of the 19^th century. Although, his historical novels contributed most in his success as a writer but also wrote non-fiction, drama, poetry, biographies and historical books.

Most of Sharar’s historical novels are based on love, romance, and tales of bravery of Muslim soldiers. Sometimes, the reader may get annoyed by his monotonous style of using romantic tales and characters. In his novel, neither could bring historical culture and environment to life nor could he create everlasting characters like the ones found in novels of Walter Scott. Similarly, his heroine always has ideal feminine characteristics. Furthermore, he has presented Islam and Muslims in a very biased and exaggerated way compared to others. Due to these reasons, most of his novels lost artistic beauty for being merely imaginary and far from reality.

Among all his novel, only 'Firdos e Bareen' can be considered a success in terms of the perfection of artwork. This is the reason why this novel is not only his most popular novel but also it is one of all time best Urdu historical novels. Sharar seems to at the peak of his skill while creating plot and characterization of this novel.

Firdos E Bareen by Asim Khan