Habib Wali Mohammad (), (16 January 1921 – 3 September 2014) was a Pakistani ghazal and film playback singer. Early life Habib Wali Mohammad was born on January 16, 1921 in Rangoon in the Burma province of British India (now in Myanmar) into a conservative Memon family, which later moved to Bombay where he grew up. His family, Tabani, an industrial house has large business holdings in Pakistan. During his childhood, Habib Wali Mohammad often listened to Qawwali music. But due to economic and business reasons, he gave priority to academics. He received his MBA from Syracuse University, New York in 1947, and then lived in Mumbai for about 10 years before moving to Pakistan. His brother Ashraf W. Tabani was the governor of the province of Sindh, Pakistan during 1988. He died on 3 September 2014 in Los Angeles, US. The Tabanis belong to the Gujarati-speaking Memon community. Career As a youth, Habib Wali received classical music lessons from Ustad Latafat Ali Khan, a nephew of noted musician Ustad Faiyyaz Khan (1880 – 1950). In college, he became active in the musical functions of Ismail Yusuf College, gaining the nickname 'Taan Sen'. He completed his bachelor's degree in Bombay. In 1941, Habib Wali was awarded first prize in a Bombay music competition with 1200 contestants, including the singer Mukesh Chand Mathur. His winning performance was singing the ghazals of the last Moghul Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, Lagta Nahin Hai Jee Mera Ujray Diyar Mein and Yeh Na Thi Hamari Qismat by Mirza Ghalib. He recorded his first LP in the 1950s for Radio Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. Interestingly, the LP record did not have his real name. Instead, he used his stage name of Kamal Roy and the music was composed by Saraswati Devi. Encouraged by this recognition, at a young age, he took more interest in ghazal singing. During his stay in America, he had been out of touch with music. Hence, he felt lonely and missed his earlier college functions in Bombay. In his own words, "He was not happy in ‘Ujray dayar mein’, the same ghazal which had won him an award of a lifetime. He put a lot of effort and came out with a gramophone record of ghazals in his voice. On one side of the record, he dubbed Bahadur Shah Zafar's ghazals and on the other side, Ghalib's ghazals.