ISLAMABAD, March 9: Prof Jilani Kamran, poet and literary critic, who died last month, was remembered at a reference organized in his memory by the Halqa-i-Arbab-i-Zauq, Islamabad, on Saturday.

Prof Aftab Iqbal Shamim, who presided over the meeting, said that Jilani Kamran not only dedicated his whole life to teaching but travelled on the difficult path of finding an identity with reference to an intuitive self-consciousness. The story of this travel, he said, is writ large all overe his books. This is the travel of a Sufi poet, and an intellectual of great merit.

Discussing the poet, critic in the context of the last forty years of the 20th century, he said that Jilani Kamran was certainly influenced by contemporary Western literary trends but he carefully kept his Eastern identity. That is why, Prof Shamim pointed out, he confined this experience to the poetic form.

Enlarging the theme of this treatment of form in his poetry, Prof Shamim thought that Jilani Kamran in his search for his ideal used the “tlazmaati” technique, the associative method which was different from his preceding poets, including Iqbal, Rashid and Majid Amjad. This at one level one finds in Masnawi Maulana Rum; and in the Ulysses of James Joyce and Wasteland of T.S. Eliot at another. He called Jilani Kamran a “powerful current” of a movement that saw Existentialism of Keirkegaard, and the Wasteland of T.S. Eliot, which, in their own ways seemed to long for a religious revival. Iqbal also thought of the futility of the present civilization and powerfully wrote and actively worked for the Islamic Renaissance.

He quoted Jilani Kamran, who in his book, Nai Nazm kay Taqazay had spoken of the static symbols, which were neither signs nor symbols; and felt that juxtaposing the static along with the living was the tragedy of the age.

Prof Jamil Azer, in his paper “Ah, Jilani Kamran” brought his quality as a teacher when he was transferred from Government College, Lahore, and became principal for the first time at Government College Asghar Mall Rawalpindi in 1973. He thought that, after Prof Ashfaq Ali Khan, Jilani was the second principal in the college who would respect the teachers from the core of his heart, and would call the teacher a light house.

Narrating the good work done by him at the college, he said that the citizens of Rawalpindi, especially students, would ever remain grateful to him for his introduction of classes for Masters in English language and literature at the college.

Sarwer Kamran spoke of Jilani Kamran’s sources like Ibn-e-Arabi and Mansur Hallaj which provided the basis of inspiration to his poetry. He also narrated the way the late poet used to encourage poets and writers who were younger in age to him.

Writer Abdur Rashid, once his student, thought that his poetry was different from his contemporaries and he drew so much from mysticism that some people even called him a “maulvi”. He said that one finds in his poetry a continuity and a chaste idiomatic unity. He also narrated various personal anecdotes about him when he was his student.

Writer Jalil Aali spoke opt the Arabi-Ajami tradition that Jilani Kamran had emphasized and spoke of the particular linguistic construction based on his creative experience. He said that during a radio interview when the interviewer suggested that it came out from his assertions that he seemed to be writing for the Muslims only, Jilani Kamran said that he felt no hesitation in admitting this fact.—Mufti Jamiluddin Ahmad