Habib Wali Mohammad

Habib Wali Mohammad (Urdu: حبیب ولی محمد) is a very senior and highly regarded Pakistani ghazal singer.

Habib Wali belongs to the Tabani family, an industrial house with large business holdings in Pakistan. (His brother Ashraf Tabani was governor of the province of Sindh around 1988.)

Biography

Born in 1921, he received his MBA from Syracuse University in 1947, and then lived in Bombay for about 10 years before moving to Pakistan. He is practically from the very second group of singers to ever record the art from and is still at his peak today. But probably because of his background and place as a member of a well-established family, Habib Wali has never pursued as aggressive and mainstream a career as a singer as others, though is still very highly regarded.

He is especially well known for singing famous ghazal of last Moghul Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, "Lagta Nahin Hai Jee Mera Ujray Diyar Mein".Habib Wali Mohammad is a rare ghazal singer who managed to be a singer and a businessman.

His family name was Tabani, though he became famous as Habib Wali Mohammad. His family migrated to Bombay, where he took classical music lessons from Ustad Latafath Husain, nephew of Ustad Fayyaz Khan. But due to economic reasons, he gave priority to academics. His musical activities were limited to singing ghazals in college functions. After completing bachelors in Bombay, he studied for his MBA in USA. In mid 1940s he returned to Bombay.

In Bombay he participated in a large music competition, where he won the first prize. This propelled him to release his first album of ghazals. This record was to make him a celebrated singer. After partition, his family migrated to Pakistan and established an industrial group. He gave most of his time to the family business, recording ghazals and geet-s for films in his spare time. Concerts though were limited. In the eighties he released an album of ghazals composed by Nisar Bazmi.

He has been awarded the Nigar award. His famous ghazals include Bahadur Shah Zafar's "Na kisi ki Aankh ka noor hoon" and Qamar Jalalavi's "Kab mera nasheman ahelay chaman". He is now retired and lives in California with his family.

His other well known ghazal includes "Aaj jane ki zidd na karo"". He also sang the famous national song, "Roshan-o-Rakhshan, Nayyar-o-Tabaan, Pakistan rahay".