Muhammad Zia Ud din
Ijaz Rahim Sahib, who has also been the Chief Secretary of our province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and has also been the Secretary of the Cabinet Division at the federal level, retired from official duty in 2005. He was counted among the most successful and important bureaucrats of Pakistan and became famous because of his youth. Apart from being a bureaucrat, he is also a scholar, man of letters and writer of English poetry.
My relationship and friendship with Ijaz Rahim began fifteen years ago today and it was a great honor for me to have a heartfelt academic and literary relationship with such a great personality of our province and Pakistan. In all the meetings I had with him during this period, I saw a prominent aspect of love for the Prophet in him and his personality. From time to time, he continued to write poetry and his books remained a treasure, which he also presented to me as gifts. While reading his poetry, I felt that he wrote on the Holy Prophet, that is, he praised the Holy Prophet in English. He used to regularly perform Umrah with his family. In one of his books, when he had performed Umrah, he presented the beginning of this Umrah in his poem. He said that one day when I was sitting in the Prophet’s Mosque in a state of Tahiyah, a thread of Talaqeen got stuck on my finger and I was busy twisting the thread further with my finger when suddenly I realized that this was the Holy Prophet’s Medina, his place and everything here was a trust and I suddenly thought that this thread was also a trust and I immediately untied that thread and left it there on the carpet. If you see, it is just a small thing but in terms of its meaning, how did he relate this thing, that thing, this incident? Remembering it with the sayings and hadith of the Prophet, he returned that thread and he also described the whole situation in his poem which was in English.
It was fifteen years ago today that I read this book of his and enjoyed it so much that I translated the poem into my own Hindko language. This was my first translation of English poems, which I presented to him and he liked it very much. Recently, he wrote a book on the life of the Holy Prophet,
Titled: Beyond Dates Pomegranate An Epic Poem on the Life of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). Epic Poem means a long poem that he wrote about the Holy Prophet. This poem is so long that it has 32 topics, 32 meters and 32 chapters, and this book was published in 2023, which consists of more than 350 pages. He has written this poem in such a way that according to my knowledge and research, such a poem has not been written in the English language in the whole world. Epic Poem The nature of the Holy Prophet, his qualities, his services, and then in his book, he paid tribute to the Holy Prophet in such words that he compared every aspect of him with the study of history when he was born, before his birth, his prophethood and after his prophethood. Be it science, philosophy, theology or whatever. On these topics, he studied in great depth the philosophy, science, and religion of that time, and after studying the source books,He wrote this poem.
The beauty of his poetry is that he presents a common word as a simile and metaphor, and when someone reads it, the word becomes common. For example, let me tell you a date, a date is a date, but when used in this sense, it becomes a metaphor and simile. If we look at simile and metaphor in that context, a whole long story, a long story comes before us. Since the personality of Ijaz Rahim Sahib and the ability of insight that Allah Almighty has given him within his personality, when we see even a common thing, he presents it in such a powerful way that is beyond the reach of other people. He has presented his talent, style and technique that Allah Almighty has given him in his poetry and especially in this book in such a powerful way that a person is stunned and amazed. He has written the biography of the Holy Prophet in the form of a poem, making use of the most important sources. Among those who have written the biography of the Holy Prophet regarding the life of the Holy Prophet are Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham, and those who came in the later periods, and he made use of the authentic histories, then he made use of the hadiths.
After that, the most important thing is his source, the narrated Holy Quran itself, when he presented the life of the Holy Prophet, he also gave references to the relevant verses and he also presented the systematic translation of those relevant verses in English in a systematic manner. I got the opportunity to read all his books, he also presented his books to me as a gift, which is a great honor for me. You can be sure that whenever I read this book, I feel great pleasure. There is a need that we also find that source which is a name, an event and who has no knowledge of that name or event and even if he tries to find out about that name or event, he described the biography of the Holy Prophet through Epic Poem and I try to understand it.
I think that Ijaz Rahim has a lot of love for the Holy Prophet, he has love, he has affection for him and he has love for him. And this book is a great metaphor of that love, that affection and that love, a simile that he has presented in the form of this book. The way his heart loves him, with his teachings, with his personality and with his achievements, I think he has done justice. According to my knowledge so far, this is the only book in the world in which the biography is written in a poetic manner in English. His book was declared the best by the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Government of Pakistan and awarded it with a gold medal, and in addition, the Pakistan Academy of Letters, Islamabad, declared this book as the best book in English literature and awarded it with a gold medal.
