Khalilurrahman Azmi

   (K̲h̲alīlurraḥmān Āʻẓmī)

1927 – 78

Khalilurrahman Azmi (K̲h̲alīlurraḥmān Āʻẓmī; 1927-78; also Khalilur Rahman Azmi, Khalil-ur-Rahman Azmi; 1927-78) was born Khalilur Rahman (K̲h̲alīlurraḥmān) in the village of Seda, Sultanpur, Azamgarh District, in what is today Uttar Pradesh. His was a deeply religious family of clerics, his father, Maulana Muhammad Shafi, the founder of the important Madarsatul Islah, a traditional but moderate Islamic institution of higher learning in 1908. On the death of Shafi, two of his sons successively assumed the leadership of the institution, which is continues to this day.

Azmi started writing poetry at an early age and published in the children’s magazine Payām-i ta‘līm (Message of Education). He received his M.A. in Urdu with distinction, standing first-class first from Aligarh Muslim University in 1950. At that time he was tutor of a young British ex-Army soldier, Ralph Russell (1980-2008), who had developed a keen interest in Urdu and later became a major scholar in the field. Azmi joined the Department of Urdu at Aligarh in 1952 and, under the direction of its head, Rashid Ahmed Siddiqi (1892-1977), wrote his Ph.D. dissertation, “Urdū men taraqqī pasand adabī taḥrīk” (Progressive Literary Movement in Urdu) for which he received his Ph.D. in 1957. It was revised, updated, and published in 1972 and is today a canonical text in the field. He was promoted to Reader in Urdu in 1966, and, posthumously to Professor for his outstanding contributions to teaching (one of his Ph.D. students was Akhlaq Mohammed Khan, later known as the distinguished Urdu poet Shahryar [1936-2012]), scholarship, and Urdu poetry and criticism.

He wrote two collections of ghazals and naz̤ms: Kaghazī pairāhan (Paper Robes; 1953) and Nayā ‘ahdnāmah (New Testament; 1965), the latter containing his well-known “K̲h̲vābon̲ se dar lagtā hai” (I’m Scared of Dreams),* and the eponymous “Nayā ‘ahdnāmah.” A third collection, Zindagī ae zindagī (Life, O Life; 1983), was published posthumously. He also wrote several volumes of rigorous literary criticism.

For translations of his poetry, see Many Summers Apart: Gems from Contemporary Urdu Literature, tr. Huma Khalil (2019). Also see Shakil-ur-Rehman, “Khalil-ur-Rahman Azmi,” Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Vol. 1 (1978) 319; and Afzal Usmani, “Prof. Khalil-ur-Rehman Azmi,” Aligarh Movement, undated, www.aligarhmovement.com/aligarians/Khalil-ur-Rehman-Azmi. Acc. 11 Sept. 2019.