Ahmad Zahir · Afghanistan Golden Era Music

Ahmad
Zahir

1946 — 1979

The Voice of a Generation, Silenced at Dawn.

Afghanistan's poet-singer who wove the ghazals of Rumi and Hafiz into the electric pulse of a modern world — forever silenced at 33.

Explore His StoryBiography
NPR · 50 Great Voices
BiographyDiscography · Songs · LegacyAfghanistan Golden Era Music

Today from the Archive

August 3

من اگر دیوانه‌ام

Man Agar Deewana Am

If I am mad, where is my chain? If I am the prisoner of wisdom, where is its solution? A poem of spiritual paradox — the self interrogating its own nature and finding that neither madness nor reason fully accounts for what it is.

Featured Recordings

سلطان قلبم

Sultan-e Qalbam

King of My Heart

A declaration of love in the ghazal tradition — the beloved addressed as sovereign over the speaker's heart. His most-recognized romantic recording.

Read History

1 of 352