Long before Artificial Intelligence began to spread across the world, Pakistan had already started falling into the grip of artificial literature. This process began nearly three decades before the emergence of AI, in the years following the deaths of Nasir Kazmi and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. It was a period when the literary landscape gradually began to change, and not always for the better. A new breed of writers, some of whom had made an abrupt leap from one literary platform to another without the necessary intellectual or creative grounding, began to occupy spaces that had once belonged to serious writers and genuine literary voices. Through literary pages in newspapers, literary journalism, and positions of authority within literary institutions, these people set about constructing the image of great writers, treating literature less as a calling of the soul than as a factory for generating money, influence, and personal recognition.
I was among the earliest and most vocal critics of this tendency. Among those who gave me the greatest courage, strength, and moral support in standing against it were Ali Nawaz Shah, Shafiq Ahmed Khan, and Ijaz Rizvi. They understood that literature was not merely a matter of words, publications, and public appearances. It was a question of integrity, intellectual honesty, and fidelity to the deeper values that sustain a literary culture. We believed that literature could not survive on pretence alone, and that genuine creativity must ultimately be distinguished from the manufactured reputations built through manipulation, patronage, and self-interest.
Ijaz Rizvi was not merely an individual. He was, all at once, a family, an entire city, and an age. The world knew him as a friend, a brother, a poet, and a sketch writer. I called him "Walid e Muhtram", a relationship of profound affection and reverence that, in my heart, meant a respected father figure.
There may have been only four to six years between our ages, yet the difference in our human stature was immense. In dignity, social grace, generosity of spirit, and spiritual elevation, Ijaz Rizvi occupied a height at which I found a sense of honour in regarding him as my elder. His greatness did not arise from wealth, status, or the trappings of worldly success. It came from the way he lived, the manner in which he treated people, and the values he upheld when circumstances made it easier to compromise.
In an age dominated by the race for personal gain, shifting priorities, and the relentless pursuit of advantage, encountering a genuinely pure-hearted human being has become almost as difficult as finding truth and sincerity. Yet Ijaz Rizvi remained steadfast in such an age. He knew how to honour relationships. He knew how to stand firmly by his convictions and how to distinguish between right and wrong, truth and falsehood. He also possessed the rare ability to wrap the sorrows of his own life in a smile and continue living with grace, sparing others the burden of his suffering.
He was made of the soil of affection, love, and hard work. The Almighty could have allowed him to devote his energies to building mansions and acquiring material comforts, but instead, He kept him among the last custodians of human values. Ijaz Rizvi remained a labouring man until the very end of his life. He lived his final days with the dignity of honest earnings and the moral grandeur that comes from refusing to surrender one's self-respect to worldly temptation. There was something deeply sacred about this aspect of his life. His labour was not simply a means of earning a livelihood, it was an expression of his independence, his character, and his commitment to living honourably.
As a poet, Ijaz Rizvi was writing modern poetry at a time when many other poets were still struggling to understand what modern poetry was supposed to be. He did not merely follow the emerging trends of his time, he entered the creative field with an instinctive understanding of the possibilities of the modern poem. Similarly, he entered the domain of literary sketches with remarkable confidence, force, and distinction at a time when the genre needed writers capable of restoring its vitality. His sketches were not simply written portraits of individuals. They captured common men, social habits, temperaments, and the subtle details through which an entire culture reveals itself. He possessed the ability to look beyond the surface of a person and recognise the human world concealed beneath it.
It was I, Faisal Zaman Chishti and Shafiq Ahmed Khan who drew him towards the ghazal. Once he entered that field, he progressed with such confidence and distinction that he eventually moved ahead of us all. His journey as a poet was not one of imitation or calculated ambition. It was the natural unfolding of a creative personality that possessed its own rhythm, sensibility, and inner direction.
Manqabat and Salaam, the devotional forms of poetry expressing reverence for the family of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), were deeply embedded in every fibre of his being. For a person of genuine perception, the moral and spiritual greatness of the Ahl-e-Bayt represents not merely a historical or religious inheritance, but a profound responsibility. To be associated with such a noble family is to be reminded constantly of the obligations of truthfulness, compassion, sacrifice, justice, and steadfastness.
In all the years of my life, I have encountered very few people among the Saadaat who have made a sincere effort to preserve the moral character of their ancestors in their own conduct. Ijaz Rizvi was one of those rare individuals. By observing him, feeling the warmth of his presence, and spending thirty-six years of my life alongside him, I came to understand something essential about his character. He did not have to struggle to tell the truth, to do good, to stand firmly for what was right, or to make sacrifices for others. These qualities seemed to belong to his very nature. It was as though they had been bestowed upon him as a spiritual inheritance from the people of Madinah Munawwarah.
He maintained a loyalty to Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi that was exceptional in its sincerity and constancy. His relationship with Khalid Ahmed and Najib Ahmed was marked by a rare combination of affection, respect, and steadfast companionship. He understood that relationships were not temporary arrangements to be maintained only when convenient. They were moral commitments, and their true worth was revealed when circumstances tested them.
The same integrity was visible in his role within the Halqa-e-Arbab-e-Zauq. During the last ten years, he stood firmly against a group of people who, in my view, had reduced the literary circle to a platform for personal interests and appearances. Against this artificial and self-serving representation of literary activity, he defended a circle of genuine, disinterested, and serious creative writers. He did not undertake this responsibility for personal advantage. He did it because he believed that literary institutions belonged to literature itself, not to those who sought to exploit them. The courage with which he protected the dignity of genuine creative work is also a part of our literary history, and time will not erase it.
Ijaz Rizvi was the last heir of the Lahore that belonged to authentic literature, living traditions, and genuine human relationships. A city is not created by bricks, buildings, roads, and monuments alone. Cities are shaped by their social values, collective temperament, and the conduct of the people who inhabit them. Their true character does not emerge from the artificial sophistication of the elite, but from the diversity, warmth, humour, and humanity of ordinary people.
Lahore was never merely a geographical location to those who understood its deeper spirit. It was a way of living, a manner of speaking, a culture of hospitality, a particular kind of wit, and an instinctive ability to make room for others in one's life. Ijaz Rizvi embodied this spirit. He was both the collective impression of Lahore's individuality and the individual portrait of its collective character. In him, the city appeared as a living human being, with all its contradictions, tenderness, humour, generosity, and dignity.
If we were to decode the literary sketches he wrote about the characters of old Lahore, we would find Lahore on one side and Ijaz Rizvi on the other. His subjects belonged to the city, but the sensibility through which he observed and portrayed them was unmistakably his own. He was recording more than the lives of individuals. He was preserving a civilisation of everyday relationships, a social world whose values could not be adequately captured by official histories or architectural descriptions.
There was a simple habit of his that revealed this entire world, Ijaz Rizvi never visited anyone's home empty-handed. Such a small gesture might appear insignificant to someone unfamiliar with the social traditions of Punjab and the East, but it carried within it an entire philosophy of human relations. It reflected the instinct to give, to share, and to arrive with something that could bring pleasure to another person. In that single habit, one could recognise the social temperament of Lahore, the warmth of Punjab, the hospitality of the East, and the spirit of sacrifice associated with Karbala.
Whenever someone among his friends or relatives fell ill, he would assume responsibility with a concern that often exceeded even that of the immediate family. In moments of difficulty, he was there. In times of grief and celebration, he would be among the first to arrive and among the last to leave. He was not simply a friend who offered sympathy or exchanged words of concern. He was a relationship made tangible through action. He understood that affection acquires meaning when it becomes responsibility, and that loyalty is proven not through declarations but through presence.
He always met people with a smile. In the company of friends, he was armed with an extraordinary sense of humour. His wit was sharp, spontaneous, and memorable. There was a saying I often felt applied perfectly to him: Ijaz Rizvi might sacrifice a poet, but he would never waste a punchline. His ability to produce a devastatingly funny remark without losing the warmth of the gathering was one of his distinctive gifts. He could transform an ordinary conversation into an occasion that people would remember long afterwards.
I saw him become angry on many occasions, but I never saw him become an enemy. There is a profound difference between anger and enmity. Anger may arise from disagreement, hurt, or a sense of injustice; enmity requires a more lasting surrender of the heart to bitterness. Ijaz Rizvi could be displeased, but he did not allow displeasure to destroy the human bond. Even in disagreement, he retained something that is becoming increasingly rare: the capacity to distinguish between an opposing view and the person who holds it.
What makes him even more remarkable is that, despite his outward laughter and apparent light-heartedness, he possessed an almost apocalyptic seriousness within him. A true devotee of Karbala may appear cheerful, sociable, and full of life, yet deep inside, he remains the custodian of an immeasurable discipline of grief, endurance, and patience. The memory of Karbala is not merely a source of sorrow; it is a moral commitment to truth in the face of adversity, dignity in the face of suffering, and steadfastness when compromise seems easier.
Anyone who had the privilege of seeing Ijaz Rizvi for the last time will bear witness to what I am saying. The expression on his face in death possessed a solemn dignity and a majestic composure that one rarely encounters. There was no need for words to explain the depth of that presence. His face seemed to carry the gravity of a life lived with conviction, the silence of suffering borne with patience, and the serenity of someone whose deepest loyalties had never been surrendered.
He is like that. He was like that.
I find myself compelled to use the past tense because he has departed from this world. Yet even as I write that he "was", my heart refuses to accept the limitations of the word. We all know that he has not truly gone. A person like Ijaz Rizvi does not disappear in the ordinary sense of departure. His presence was never confined to the physical boundaries of his body, nor was his existence dependent solely on the time he spent among us.
He will remain here, in his poems and literary sketches, in the memories of old Lahore, in the relationships he nurtured, in the laughter he left behind, and in the moral courage of those who witnessed his life. He will remain in every act of kindness that reminds us of him, in every friendship honoured without calculation, and in every principled stand taken when it would be easier to remain silent.
Another horizon has faded away, but the light it cast has not been extinguished. Lahore has lost one of its last authentic heirs, and we have lost a friend, a brother, a guide, and a father figure whom I called "Abaji". Yet the Lahore he represented and he himself cannot be erased as long as his words continue to be read and his values continue to be lived.
