saw the rise of prose, criticism, and drama in Urdu literature. Writers and poets began to explore new subjects and themes and experiment with new forms. Altaf Hussain Hali was a prolific poet who left a vast amount of work behind. His major poetic works include Masnavis, Musaddas e Hali, Shikwa e Hind, and Qasida e Ghyasia. He also wrote marsias or elegies on the deaths of Ghalib, Hakim Mahmud Khan, and Sir Syed. Suroor Jahanabadi was another exponent of the new movement in Urdu poetry. He wrote patriotic poems like Khak-i-Watan (The Dust of the Motherland), Urus-i-Hubbi-Watan (The Bride of the Love of the Country), and Madar-i-Hind (Mother India). His historical and religious poems include Padmani, Padmani-ki-Chita (Funeral Pyre of Padmani), and Sitaji-ki-Giria-o-Zari (The Laments of Sita). Prose Ghalib, better known for his poetry, also wrote a considerable amount of Urdu prose during his lifetime which includes his collection of letters and three short pamphlets entitled Lataif-i-Ghalib, Tegh-i-Tez, and Nama-i-Ghalib. His letters, autobiographical in nature, were collected and published in two volumes as Urdu-i-Mualla (the Royal Urdu) and Ud-i-Hindi (Fragrant Stick of India). Fort William College writers Until the nineteenth century, Persian was the official language of the court and culture and all correspondence was carried out in Persian. The development of Urdu prose for practical purposes can be traced back to the establishment of the Fort William College in Calcutta in 1800 which was founded to instruct British officers of the East India Company in Indian vernacular languages. John Gilchrist, the head of the college, was author of many Hindustani works such as Oriental Linguist, an Introduction to the Language of Hindustani and Hindustani Grammar. He gathered a group of Indian scholars at the college who went on to write books for the use of fresh officers and also created a standard prose for Urdu and Hindi. The chief among these scholars were Mir Amman Dehelvi, Mir Sher Ali Jaafri, Mir Bahadur Ali Husaini, Sayid Haidar Bakhsh, Kazim Ali Jawan, Nihalchand, Hafizuddin Ahmad, Ikram Ali Khan, Lallujilal, Beni Narayan, and Mirza Ali Lutf. Aligarh movement Syed Ahmed Khan, the leading figure of the Aligarh Movement, was also a voracious writer and journalist who wrote various books from theological to historical subjects. His major theological work, Al-Khutbat al-Ahmadiya fi'l Arab wa'I Sirat al-Muhammadiya (A Series of Essays on the Life of Muhammad and Subjects Subsidiary Therein), was published in