Anthems are the hallmark of great institutions, and Mr. Abdul Azeem, the school’s founder, knew it. It was his heartfelt wish that Shahbaaz would one day have a school anthem. Not a prayer, not a slogan, but a proper anthem, something with verse and melody and weight, something that a student could carry inside them long after they had left these walls. He had spoken of this wish more than once, in the way that a man speaks of something he hopes will outlast him. He passed away in May 2012, the wish still unspoken in any formal sense, still waiting for the right moment and the right people.

That moment came through his son. Mr. Adnan Vazir, who had taken over the reins of Shahbaaz after his father’s passing, found himself one day in conversation with Dr. Mohammed Zohair, his former professor at the Central University of Karnataka, his friend, philosopher, and guide. They spoke, as men of good faith and shared purpose often do, about the school and what it still needed. Mr. Vazir mentioned what his father had long desired: an anthem for Shahbaaz, something in the spirit of the anthem of Aligarh Muslim University, that most beloved of India’s Muslim educational institutions. He said it the way his father had said it, with longing rather than instruction, as a dream rather than a directive.

Dr. Zohair heard it as a commission.

A Banarasi by connection, his city of origin, it so happened that among his father’s circle was a poet of considerable standing: Janaab Abul Qasim Shaad Abbasi Sahaab, whose verse had enriched the Urdu literary tradition for over five decades, until his sad demise in 2025. Dr. Zohair approached him not merely with a request but with a story, the full history of Shahbaaz, its founding vision, its mission, its three decades of service to the children of this region. He wanted the anthem to contain the soul of the school, not merely its name. Mr. Abbasi listened and fortuitously agreed to write it.

He asked one further question before he began: Would it be acceptable to weave the names of the founders into the verses — Azeem and Fareeda? Mr. Adnan Vazir, when the question was put to him, was more than pleased. It was, if anything, the detail that moved him most. His father’s name and his mother’s, set into verse by a poet who had never met them, on the strength of a story told by a friend.

Before the year was out, the anthem was written, read, approved, and ready.

The Taraana-e-Shahbaaz was formally released and adopted as the school anthem on 9 December 2017 at a ceremony held at the school premises, Azeem Place, Nehru Gunj Area, Gulbarga. Janaab Shaad Abbasi Sahaab himself presided as Chief Guest, joined on the dais by Dr. Wahab Andaleeb, former Chairman of the Karnataka Urdu Academy. The function was graced by Janaab Hamid Akmal Sahaab, Editor of Iqaan Express Urdu Daily; Janaab Wali Ahmed Sahaab, Chief Trustee of the Sir Sayyed Educational Trust; Dr. Majid Daghi, President of Lok Sahitya Manch, Gulbarga; and Dr. Mohammed Zohair himself, the man instrumental in setting this state-of-affairs in motion, present to see what his quiet act of friendship had made possible. The students and faculty of both Shahbaaz English Medium School and Shahbaaz Pre-University College of Science for Girls filled the ground. Mr. Adnan Vazir received them all as a host.

The ceremony reached its moment of distinction when a ribbon was cut, and the framed Taraana was unveiled. A board of verse and calligraphy that now hangs in the open corridor of the school, where every visitor, every parent, and every child who passes through may pause to read it. It stands there still: unhurried, open to all, the names of Azeem and Fareeda pressed into its verses like flowers into the pages of a book kept for a lifetime.

Its refrain has since been committed to memory by generations of students:

رنگ و بوئے علم و فن ہیں، زینتِ شہباز ہم

The scent and hue of art and learning, the pride of Shahbaaz are we.