Altaf Hussain Hali (1837–31 December 1914, Panipat district, British India ) (Urdu: الطاف حسین حاؔلی – Alṭāf Ḥusain Ḥālī), known with his honorifics as Maulana Khawaja Hali, was an Urdu poet and writer.
Hali also wrote one of the earliest works of literary criticism in Urdu, Muqaddamah-i Shay'r-o-Sha'iri.
Some scholars of Pakistani nationalism also consider the Mussadas an important text for the articulation of a future Muslim nation.[2]
Hali has also written biographies of Ghalib, Saadi Shirazi, and Syed Ahmed Khan,[3] entitled respectively, Yaadgar-e-Ghalib, Hayat-e-Saadi, and Hayat-e-Javad. Hali's poem "Barkha Rut".