Mohammed Ziauddin Ahmed Shakeb
Mohammed Ziauddin Ahmed Shakeb (M.Z.A. Shakeb) was a historian of the Deccan, an art connoisseur, a Sufi intellectual, and a critic of Urdu and Persian literature. He was born on 21 October 1933 and died on 20 January 2021 in London, at the age of 87.
Shakeb grew up in Hyderabad and Aurangabad. He earned a BA in Political Science from Osmania University, an MA from Aligarh Muslim University in 1956, and a PhD from Deccan College in 1976 on the relations of Golconda with Iran. Along with Vasanth Kumar Bawa, he helped establish what became the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority.
In 1962, he became an archivist at the State Archives of Andhra Pradesh in Hyderabad and created the Mughal Record Room. His works include Mughal Archives Vol I: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Documents Pertaining to the Reign of Shah Jahan (1977). He wrote for The British Library, the State Archives of Andhra Pradesh, and other institutions.
From 1980 to 1987, Shakeb taught Indian history and the history of Indo-Islamic art and culture at SOAS, University of London. He later worked as a consultant for Christie's for about 30 years, specializing in Persian and Arabic manuscripts. He also catalogued Mughal documents for the British Library, including the Batala Collection (1527–1757) in 1990.
Shakeb supervised many doctoral researchers in Mughal history, Deccan studies, and Urdu and Persian literature. He was the Director of Urdu teacher training at Middlesex University until 1998. He helped set up the Haroon Khan Sherwani Center for Deccan Studies at Maulana Azad National Urdu University and served on its first advisory board. He is regarded as a pioneer in Deccan Studies and an authority on poets such as Bedil, Amir Khusrau, Iqbal, Ghalib, and Rumi.
He is survived by his wife, Farhat Ahmed; two daughters, a son, and nine grandchildren.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 00:05 (CET).