19 Facts About Zahir Howaida

Zahir Howaida, spelled as Zahir Huwaida, was an Afghan Hazara musician.

Muhammad Zahir Howaida was born in 1945 in Sharistan, in Daykoundi Province to a Hazara family.

The family moved back to Kabul, where Zahir Howaida attended 2nd grade at the Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan elementary school.

At the age of 13, Zahir Howaida's family moved to Booksellers Avenue in Kabul and subsequently entered the French Isteqlal High School, earning the highest ranking in his class.

Zahir Howaida didn't find the school curriculum very interesting and often cut class to walk across the school to the public library to borrow books of his interest and read them.

Zahir Howaida was a mandolin player and a backup singer for Akbar Ramish at the Isteqlal High school shows celebrating Afghan Independence Day.

Naynawaz encouraged Zahir Howaida to sing solo, but he didn't find it suitable during the live show to sing at such a short notice.

Hamid Estemadi who had a great voice but did not sing publicly since he was a member of the royal family encouraged Zahir Howaida to take his place at the Afghanistan Day show.

Zahir Howaida was dragged on stage by Hamid and he sang his first song, but was faced with the displeasure of the crowd.

Moments later Zahir Howaida appeared in costume during a play and sang another song which delighted the audience and received an endurance of applause.

At this orchestra Zahir Howaida showed immense talent as a vocalist and earned a scholarship to learn operatic and eastern classical music at Tchaikovsky Institute in Moscow in 1966.

Zahir Howaida composed all his songs except 4 songs which he often credited to their original composers Ahmad Zahir and Mashoor Jamal.

Zahir Howaida read many books about social and political issues.

Zahir Howaida often spoke out against the monarchy and the first president of the Afghan republic, Mohammad Daoud Khan.

Zahir Howaida recorded most of his songs during this tenure, hosting a variety of shows on both mediums.

Zahir Howaida toured the world with stops in North America, Europe and Australia for his farewell concert where he broke his vow and sang in Pashto.

Zahir Howaida followed the concert with the release of his final album "Ay Kash".

On 5 March 2012, as he was suffering from illness, Zahir Howaida died at the age of 67 at his home in Hamburg.

Zahir Howaida left behind five children, of which two, Arash Howaida and Qais Howaida, followed in the footsteps of their father into the music industry.