Khushal Khan Khattak

Khushal Khan Khattak (1613–1689; Pashto: خوشحال خان خټک‎) was a prominent Pashtun poet, warrior, charismatic personality and tribal chief of the Khattak tribe of the Pashtuns. He wrote a huge collection of Pashto poems during the Mughal Empire in the 17th century, and admonished Pashtuns to forsake their divisive tendencies and unite against the Mughal Army. Promoting Pashtun nationalism through poetry, Khushal Khan Khattak is the first Afghan mentor who presents his theories for the unity of the Afghan resistance against the foreign parts, and the creation of a nation-state.

His life was spent in struggling against the oppressive Mughal Empire who had fluctuating relations with the Afghans of modern-day Afghanistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. In order to restore Afghan freedom, Khushal Khan challenged Mughal Aurangzeb powers. He defeated the Mughal troops in many engagements. Khushal Khan wrote many works in Pashto and Persian, ten of them are very popular. The "stand and fight" attitude of Khushal Khan Khattak was an important stance in Afghan history. His thoughts form the basis of the political and literary movements in Afghanistan. The opinions and ideas of Khushal Khan Khattak form a new stage in the ideological and intellectual development of the Afghans. What he has done for his language and his people is unprecedented in the cultural development of the Afghans. His theories and thesis correspond to those of many of large thinkers of the world and he can be considered an international personality . He also has written Persian and Hindi and written books on other important languages. He was a renowned military fighter who became known as an Afghan warrior-poet.Western scholars regard Khushal Khan Khattak as a national hero and poet of Afghanistan. Khushal is also the author of a number of prose works. Besides Pashto, Khushal also wrote verses in Persian and Urdu, and various translations from Persian and Arabic.