One of the major modern poets of the Urdu language in the twentieth century, N.M. R shed lived and wrote at a time of tremendous upheaval both within and outside the Islamic world--the period between the two World Wars. Viewed as anarchic for his passionate defense of democracy and individualism, R shed was responsible for spearheading a modernist movement in Urdu literature. His many critics failed to see that his apparent religious heterodoxy was...