{
 "id": "person/javed-akhtar",
 "class": "person",
 "slug": "javed-akhtar",
 "label": {
  "ar": "جاويد أختر",
  "en": "Javed Akhtar",
  "ur": "جاوید اختر"
 },
 "summary": {
  "ar": "شاعر وكاتب أغانٍ وسيناريو هندي ⁦(وُلد سنة 1945)⁩ من غواليور، نال الشهرة نصفَ ثنائي «سليم–جاويد» صاحب «زنجير» و«ديوار» و«شعلة»، ثم صار من أبرز شعراء الأغنية في السينما الهندية، وعضواً مرشحاً في مجلس الشيوخ (2010–2016)، وأول هندي ينال جائزة ريتشارد دوكينز (2020).",
  "en": "Indian poet, lyricist and screenwriter (born 1945) from Gwalior who rose to fame as half of the Salim–Javed duo behind Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay, became one of Hindi cinema's foremost lyricists, served as a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha (2010–2016), and in 2020 became the first Indian to receive the Richard Dawkins Award.",
  "ur": "بھارتی شاعر، نغمہ نگار اور منظر نویس ⁦(پیدائش 1945)⁩ جن کا تعلق گوالیار سے ہے؛ انھوں نے «زنجیر»، «دیوار» اور «شعلے» کی سلیم–جاوید جوڑی کے نصف کی حیثیت سے شہرت پائی، پھر بھارتی سنیما کے ممتاز ترین نغمہ نگاروں میں شمار ہوئے، راجیہ سبھا کے نامزد رکن (2010–2016) رہے اور 2020 میں رچرڈ ڈاکنز ایوارڈ حاصل کرنے والے پہلے بھارتی بنے۔"
 },
 "stub": false,
 "wings": [
  "people",
  "living"
 ],
 "regions": [
  "south-asia"
 ],
 "periods": [],
 "tags": [],
 "aliases": [],
 "themes": [],
 "span": {
  "earliest": 1945.0439776312996,
  "latest": 1945.046715538275
 },
 "display": {
  "start": {
   "edtf": "1945-01-17",
   "hijri": "1364",
   "calendar": "gregorian",
   "precision": "day",
   "status": "historical",
   "derived": true,
   "note": "Born on 17 January 1945 at Gwalior: the English, Arabic and Urdu articles and Wikidata agree on the day. He was first named Jadoo, from a line of his father's verse, and renamed Javed soon after. The Hijri year 1364 is a tabular conversion of the followed date, marked derived.",
   "sources": [
    "source/wikipedia-javed-akhtar-en",
    "source/wikipedia-javed-akhtar-ar",
    "source/wikipedia-javed-akhtar-ur",
    "source/wikidata-javed-akhtar"
   ]
  }
 },
 "data": {
  "names": [
   {
    "value": "Javed Akhtar",
    "kind": "full"
   },
   {
    "value": "Jadoo",
    "kind": "given"
   }
  ],
  "gender": "male",
  "born": {
   "edtf": "1945-01-17",
   "hijri": "1364",
   "calendar": "gregorian",
   "precision": "day",
   "status": "historical",
   "derived": true,
   "note": "Born on 17 January 1945 at Gwalior: the English, Arabic and Urdu articles and Wikidata agree on the day. He was first named Jadoo, from a line of his father's verse, and renamed Javed soon after. The Hijri year 1364 is a tabular conversion of the followed date, marked derived.",
   "sources": [
    "source/wikipedia-javed-akhtar-en",
    "source/wikipedia-javed-akhtar-ar",
    "source/wikipedia-javed-akhtar-ur",
    "source/wikidata-javed-akhtar"
   ]
  },
  "roles": [
   "poet",
   "lyricist",
   "screenwriter"
  ],
  "faith": [
   {
    "value": "atheist-or-sceptic",
    "basis": "self-identified",
    "note": "Settled on his own repeated public self-description, carried by independent sources. In words quoted in the English biography: 'I'm an atheist, I have no religious beliefs. And I don't believe in spirituality of some kind.' The Center for Inquiry's release of 9 June 2020 styles him an atheist activist, records his answer to why he considered himself an atheist ('because I think'), and quotes his 2007 words, 'I may be an atheist but I am an atheist Muslim'; in December 2025 he debated the question 'Does God Exist?' from the atheist side. He also describes himself as a cultural Muslim — a statement of cultural identity, preserved here; it does not displace the unbelief he professes. His upbringing in a Muslim literary family is background and was not counted.",
    "sources": [
     "source/wikipedia-javed-akhtar-en",
     "source/cfi-dawkins-award-akhtar-2020"
    ]
   }
  ],
  "sources": [
   "source/wikipedia-javed-akhtar-en",
   "source/wikipedia-javed-akhtar-ar",
   "source/wikipedia-javed-akhtar-ur",
   "source/wikidata-javed-akhtar",
   "source/cfi-dawkins-award-akhtar-2020"
  ],
  "external_ids": {
   "wikidata": "Q2319562"
  },
  "provenance": {
   "layer": "own-research",
   "source": "English, Arabic and Urdu Wikipedia biographies of Javed Akhtar, the Wikidata item Q2319562 and the Center for Inquiry press release of 9 June 2020, all read in full; every Wikipedia and Wikidata revision id was fetched live from the MediaWiki API in this session and asserted before use, the QID was grounded through the English article's page properties, and the Center for Inquiry release was read on the issuer's site. Identity: the queue line's bearer is the Gwalior-born screenwriter and lyricist (born 1945) — not Shoaib Akhtar or any other Akhtar holding a record. Existence checks by name fragments (akhtar) and by QID across data/person on origin/main found no prior record for him. The queue's year (1945, living) is confirmed to the day. Relations written: none — Gwalior has no place entity, and his father Jan Nisar Akhtar, his wife Shabana Azmi and his children have no person records; the Salim–Javed partnership and his Rajya Sabha seat are never relations. Living-person care: only well-sourced public facts are recorded, and his faith entry rests on his own published words.",
   "generated_by": "Muse (Muse Spark 1.3)",
   "run": "century-additions-128"
  },
  "status": {
   "review": "published",
   "generated_by": "Muse (Muse Spark 1.3)"
  }
 },
 "prose": {
  "ar": {
   "sections": [],
   "frontmatter": {
    "id": "person/javed-akhtar",
    "lang": "ar",
    "source_lang": "ar",
    "translators": []
   },
   "updated": "2026-11-06"
  },
  "en": {
   "sections": [],
   "frontmatter": {
    "id": "person/javed-akhtar",
    "lang": "en",
    "source_lang": "ar",
    "translators": []
   },
   "updated": "2026-10-31"
  },
  "ur": {
   "sections": [],
   "frontmatter": {
    "id": "person/javed-akhtar",
    "lang": "ur",
    "source_lang": "ar",
    "translators": []
   },
   "updated": "2026-10-31"
  }
 },
 "degree": 2,
 "contemporaries": [
  "person/a-k-fazlul-huq",
  "person/abbas-ali-amid-zanjani",
  "person/abbas-kiarostami",
  "person/abbas-mahmoud-al-aqqad",
  "person/abd-al-aziz-al-ghumari",
  "person/abd-al-fattah-abu-ghudda",
  "person/abd-al-halim-mahmud",
  "person/abd-al-jabbar-al-jumurd",
  "person/abd-al-qadir-al-maghribi",
  "person/abd-al-rahman-badawi",
  "person/abd-al-rahman-ibn-nasir-al-sadi",
  "person/abd-al-razzaq-nawfal"
 ],
 "updated": "2026-11-06",
 "connections": [
  {
   "to": "person/shabana-azmi",
   "type": "spouse_of",
   "inverse": false,
   "sources": [
    "source/wikipedia-javed-akhtar-en",
    "source/wikipedia-shabana-azmi-en"
   ]
  }
 ],
 "related": [
  "person/kaifi-azmi",
  "screen/al-asiri-al-mutardid-2012",
  "person/shabana-azmi"
 ],
 "license": {
  "prose": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
  "data": "CC0 1.0"
 }
}