Abu Zafar Sirajuddin Muhammad Bahadur Shah Zafar, or Bahadur Shah II, also known as Bahadur Shah. Zafar was his nom de plume, or takhallus, as an Urdu poet, was the last of the Mughal emperors in India. He was born on October 24, 1775, and was the son of Akbar Shah II from his Hindu wife Lalbai. He became the Mughal Emperor upon his father's death on September 28, 1838.

Bahadur Shah Zafar was one of the greatest Urdu poets in Indian history. He wrote a large number of Urdu Ghazals, out of these Urdu poetry, a large chunk was lost and destroyed during the unrest of 1857-1858, yet a large collection still survive, which was later on compiled as Kulliyyat-i Zafar. The court that he maintained, arguably pretentious and decadent for a ruler whose writ extended only to Delhi's Red Fort, was home to other writers of high standing in Urdu and South Asian literature, including Ghalib, Dagh, Mumin, and Zauq (Dhawq).