Ali's last collection of poems Rooms Are Never Finished (2002) was nominated for a National Book Award just a month before he died.

Ali edited the groundbreaking anthology Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English (2000), which features Arabic, Indian, and English poets writing in this traditional and challenging Arabic form.

Mystery writer M. Kaye sets her novel Death in Kashmir: A Mystery (2000) in Ali's homeland. Kaye's story evokes the haunting beauty of Kashmir's landscape and the inscrutable quality of its residents.

In Painted Mountains: Two Expeditions to Kashmir (1987), a collection of essays and stories, mountain climber Stephen Venables recounts his treks in Kashmir and other exotic locales.