KARACHI: Scholars remembered the contribution of poet Amjad Hyderabadi (1878-1962) to Urdu literature at an event organised by the Bahadur Yar Jang Academy on its premises on Saturday evening.

Prof Sahar Ansari lauded the academy for regularly arranging programmes in honour of noted figures of the world of literature. He said if such events were not held in a decadent society, it would quicken the process of decadence.

Focusing attention on Amjad Hyderabadi, he said Hyderabad Deccan was not just a state; it encompassed a whole civilisation. He said recently a university in the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, India, had been named after educationist Dr Abdul Haq, not Maulvi Abdul Haq. He said incidentally Amjad Hyderabadi had established a college in the same Kurnool area.

Prof Ansari said Amjad Hyderabadi lived near the Musa river in Hyderabad. He said when he was young he lost his family members and all of his earlier work in floods. He said the tragedy hurt him badly, the effects of which could be felt in his poetry. He said the poet wrote quatrains in Urdu and Persian. He said the quatrain, or rubayee, was not an easy genre to dabble in. One of the most difficult forms of the rubayaee, he said, contained 24 syllables and Amjad had penned many such quatrains. He said practitioners of the rubayee included the likes of Omar Khayyam, Shirazi and Sarmad.

Prof Ansari said Amjad Hydyerabadi was given the title of Hakeemul Shura’a in which word hakeem had a philosophical connotation. He said the poet wanted to translate the works of Rumi, Shirazi and Bedil and had even worked quite a bit on the Masnavi-i-Maulana Rum. But then, he said, complying with his friends’ suggestion he focused on translating Gulistan-i-Saadi. He said the translation that Amjad did of the great work was simple but effective. Apart from that, he said, Amjad’s autobiography was written with such poignancy that no reader could stop his eyes from getting welled up (because it had reference to the loss that he suffered due to floods). He said the Sufi aspect in his poetry and life did not leave aside the worldly aspects of existence.

President of the academy Prof Mir Hamid Ali said there was a lot of debate on where the Urdu language originated. He said one view was that it emerged in Hyderabad Deccan. He said Amjad Hyderabadi was a Sufi soul who never hankered after fame. He said since he lived in Deccan, people in north India couldn’t recognise his worth. This is the reason and referring to an earlier speaker, he said, a lot of the naats that he had written were not attributed to him. He said Amjad started writing poetry at the age of 13 and wrote in all genres. He said even in Deccan he wasn’t acknowledged the way he merited. He said the poet acquired mastery over writing the rubayee and recited a few of them, one of which was:

Her cheez musabbab-i-sabab se maango

Minnat se khushamad se adab se maango

Kuon ghair ke aage haath phailate ho

Bande ho agar Rab ke to Rab se maango

[Ask anything of Him

And do it with respect and affection

Why do you beg before someone?

If you are His creature, seek His blessings]

Prof Dr Syed Wasimuddin reminded the audience, which had turned up in a very thin number, of the great individuals that Hyderabad Deccan had produced. They were Prof Dr Raziuddin Siddiqui, Dr Hameedullah, Nawab Bahadur Yar Jang, Makhdoom Mohiuddin, Khawaja Mir Dard and Amjad Hyderabadi.

Prof Dr Yasmin Sultana said in the early phase of his life Amjad Hyderabadi wrote ghazals, but later on he moved towards writing aarifana kalaam. She quoted a verse from one of his ghazals:

Jab tak raha firaq rahi unn ki justuju

Ab hain keh unn ko dhoond rahey hain wisaal mein

[I longed for her when she wasn’t around

Now I look for her, even when she’s with me].

Prof Sultana named a few of the poet’s books, including Hikayat-i-Amjad and Payam-i-Amjad.

Prof Khawaja Qutubuddin welcomed the guests and while introducing Prof Sahar Ansari he congratulated him for getting the sitara-i-imtiaz.

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2016