He is the first Kashmiri writer to be awarded the Jnanpith, India's highest literary award for his poetic collection Siyah Rood Jaeren  Manz (In Black Drizzle).
He was awarded the Indian Sahitya Akademi Award in 1961 for his poetry collection Nawroz-i-Saba, the Padma Shri in 2000, and India's highest literary award, the Jnanpith Award (for the year 2004) in 2007.