Khushal Khan Khattak
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Khushal Khan Khattak (1613 - 1690) wrote in Pashtu during the reign of the Mughal (Mongol) emperors in the seventeenth century. He lived in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains. He was a renowned fighter who became known as the Afghan Warrior Poet.
A famous Afghan warrior, poet, and tribal chief of the Khattak tribe who called on the Afghans to fight the Moghuls then occupying their land. He admonished Afghans to forsake their anarchistic tendencies and unite to regain the strength and glory they once possessed.
Khushhal Khan was born near Peshawar, the son of Shahbaz Khan, a chief of the Khattak tribe. By appointment of the Moghul emperor, Shah Jehan, Khushhal succeeded his father in 1641, but Aurangzeb, Shah Jehan's successor, kept him a prisoner in the Gwaliar fortress in Delhi.
After Khushhal was permitted to return to Peshawar he incited the Pashtuns to rebel. His grave carries the inscription: "I have taken up the sword to defend the pride of the Afghan, I am Khushal Khattak, the honorable man of the age." The Khattak tribe of Khushhal Khan now lives in the areas of Kohat, Peshawar, and Mardan.