A retired Professor of History at the Saifia College, Bhopal, Ijlal sahib has been known and well regarded as a poet. His poetry and essays on poetry have been published in both Urdu and Hindi. In Bhopal -- the city of enlightened Begums who nurtured literature, among a circle of connoisseurs and rasiks who can be best described as a latter-day ‘Halqa-e-arbab-zauq’ – Ijlal sahib has enjoyed a reputation as a ba-zauq person and a poet for over five decades.