Credits & rights

Where the poems come from

arooz publishes the full text of every poem in its collection — by poets of every era, including poets whose work is still in copyright and poets who are living. Every poem is credited to its poet. This page sets out where the collection comes from, the licences involved, and how to ask for a poem to be removed.

Licences verified ⁦2026-09-10⁩

The poems are not ours

Every poem belongs to its poet or the poet's estate, or is in the public domain. arooz claims no rights in any of them and grants none: the licence on arooz's own code expressly excludes the poetry. We publish the poems so that they can be read and their meter studied — under their poets' names, and with a quick removal route for anyone who holds the rights.

Poets and rights status

Status is judged from the poet's year of death, as of 2026: India protects a poet's work for 60 years after death, Pakistan for 50. A poet with no recorded death year is treated as in copyright. This is our working judgement for handling requests — not a legal clearance.

Public domain (India and Pakistan)633 ghazals · 12 poets
Public domain in Pakistan only4 ghazals · 1 poets
In copyright630 ghazals · 16 poets
Status unknown — treated as in copyright10 ghazals · 1 poets

Poet	Years	Status	Ghazals
Mirza Ghalib 1797–1869	1797–1869	Public domain (India and Pakistan)	233
Akbar Allahabadi 1846–1921	1846–1921	Public domain (India and Pakistan)	50
Allama Iqbal 1877–1938	1877–1938	Public domain (India and Pakistan)	50
Bahadur Shah Zafar 1775–1862	1775–1862	Public domain (India and Pakistan)	50
Daagh Dehlvi 1831–1905	1831–1905	Public domain (India and Pakistan)	50
Jigar Moradabadi 1890–1960	1890–1960	Public domain (India and Pakistan)	50
Mir Taqi Mir 1723–1810	1723–1810	Public domain (India and Pakistan)	46
Wali Mohammad Wali 1667–1707	1667–1707	Public domain (India and Pakistan)	40
Altaf Hussain Hali 1837–1914	1837–1914	Public domain (India and Pakistan)	28
Nazm Tabatabai 1854–1933	1854–1933	Public domain (India and Pakistan)	26
Mir Anees 1803–1874	1803–1874	Public domain (India and Pakistan)	9
Amir Khusrau 1253–1325	1253–1325	Public domain (India and Pakistan)	1
N.M. Rashid 1910–1975	1910–1975	Public domain in Pakistan only	4
Ahmad Faraz 1931–2008	1931–2008	In copyright	50
Parveen Shakir 1952–1994	1952–1994	In copyright	50
Waseem Barelvi 1940–	1940–	In copyright	50
Firaq Gorakhpuri 1896–1982	1896–1982	In copyright	49
Sahir Ludhianvi 1921–1980	1921–1980	In copyright	49
Faiz Ahmed Faiz 1911–1984	1911–1984	In copyright	47
Habib Jalib 1928–1993	1928–1993	In copyright	46
Jaun Elia 1931–2002	1931–2002	In copyright	46
Mohsin Naqvi 1947–1996	1947–1996	In copyright	44
Javed Akhtar 1945–	1945–	In copyright	43
Nida Fazli 1938–2016	1938–2016	In copyright	43
Jaan Nisar Akhtar 1914–1976	1914–1976	In copyright	40
Gulzar 1934–	1934–	In copyright	35
Kaifi Azmi 1919–2002	1919–2002	In copyright	16
Naseer Turabi 1945–2021	1945–2021	In copyright	16
Fahmida Riaz 1946–2018	1946–2018	In copyright	6
Naji Shakir —	—	Status unknown — treated as in copyright	10

Sources

The texts on arooz come from public collections of Urdu poetry, most of them derived from Rekhta. A dataset's licence covers the collection, not the poems in it. Where a licence requires its notice to be reproduced, it is reproduced here in full.

Poetry collections

urdu_ghazals_rekhtaOn arooz now

Amir Raza (amir9ume)

The 1,277 ghazals now on arooz descend from this collection.

Licence: MIT — MIT licence, published with the collection.

Also published as: github.com/Shaharyar2442/NLP_UrduPoetryGeneration

Licence notice, reproduced as the licence requires

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2020 Amir Raza

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
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to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
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The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
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THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
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FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
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OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

ghazals-nazms-shers-rekhtaNot on arooz yet

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