Remembering Allama Iqbal

#132 by mantra

The emphasis on nationalism was only ``For the present`` till individual nation-state problems were resolved. The ultimate objective though is clear in the following verses. Iqbal was vehemently against politics and called for return of Khilafat.

Rabt-o-zabt-e-millat-e-baiza hai mashriq ki nijaat
Asia waley hain iss nuktey say ab tak baykhabar

Phir syasat chor ker daakhil hisaar-e-deen main ho
Mulk-o-dolat hai faqat hifz-e-haram ka ik samar

Nas`l Muslim ki agar mazhab per muqaddam ho gayi
Urr gaya duniya say tu manind-e-khaak-e-reh guzar

Aik hon Muslim, Haram ki paasbani kay liyey
Neel kay saahil say ley ker ta-ba-khaak-e-Kashghar

Ta Khilafat ki bina duniya main ho phir ustawaar
La kaheen say dhoond ker islaaf ka qalb-o-jigar

Aey kay nashnasi khafi ra az jali, hoshyaar baash
Aey giraftar-e-Abu Bakar-o-Ali, hoshyaar baash

(Meanings: Rabt-e-zabt-e-millat-e-baiza = unity of Muslim nation; nijaat = freedom; nuktey = point; baykhabar = ignored; syasat = politics; hisaar-e-deen = Islam; hifz-e-haram = by product of religion; Nas`l = Race; muqaddam = priority; manind-e-khaak-e-reh guzar = Like dust of the road/being worthless; pasbanai = protection; Ta ba khak-e- Kashghar = Land of Kashghar; Ta Khilafat ki bina = Referring to Pious Caliphs and their system; ustawaar = reactivation; Islaaf = Ancestors; qalb-o-jigar = Strength and Faith; giraftar-e-Abu Bakar-o-Ali = Referring to those Muslims who always praise Abu Bakar and Ali for their bravery, but never follow them; hoshyar baash = Attention)

How was Iqbal a pan-Islamist, exactly? From the below he doesn`t seem to want an Islamic supra-state.

http://www.yespakistan.com/iqbal/reconstruction/6-2.asp

For the present every Muslim nation must sink into her own deeper self, temporarily focus her vision on herself alone, until all are strong and powerful to form a living family of republics.

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Was it something that happened to him later on?

#130 by aslam644

No! no evidence. not even 1 male witness.

echooboom
``The poetry composed by a bevy of german girls who surrounded him on his farewell picnic showering him with flower-petals. Strangley, no men were invited.``

WHAT EVIDENCE IS THERE THAT THIS EVENT ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE.
I KNOW FROM BRITISH HISTORY AROUND THAT TIME GIRLS WENT TO SEPARATE COLLEGES, I`M NOT SURE ABOUT GERMANY.

#120 anil
anil jii

I have also Kashmiri Brahmin ancestory b/c of my maternal grand mother and I have also Pathan ancestory b/c of my father(I am half Pathan and half Kashmiri Brahmin). This is the main reason I got interested in Iqbal and Khushal Khan Baba. In my comparsion I found out that Iqbal stole all his ideology from Khaushal Khan Baba and also he abused Islam and mis guided Muslims. He was a dishonest so called pseudo scholar who sadly plagiarized.

I read Iqbal and Khushal Khan baba when I was in my 10th grade. Latter, I didn`t have much time to read`em now.

anil jii

Here are some headings for you from Khan Baba`s poetry. Most of his poetry has been destroyed in Afghan war with Russians.

((From C. Biddulph, Afghan Poetry Of The 17th Century: Being Selections from the Poems of Khushal Khan Khattak (London, 1890)))


``Adam Kheleh Afridei``
Life`s no life when honor`s left
The knowing, the perceptive man
The coming of winter

Here is one poem for you by Khan Baba`s poetry.

As I look on I am amazed
At this worlds denizens,

Just seeing what these dogs will do

To satisfy the flesh.

Such dealing as are brought about,

Men being what they are,

Satan himself could not devise,

Still less consider fair.

They place before them the Koran,

They read aloud from it,

But of their actions not a one

Conforms with the Koran.

In which direction should I go?

Where should I seek for them?

Wise men have now become as rare

As the alchemists stone.

Good men are like garnets and rubies,

Not often to be found,

While other common, worthless men,

Like common stones, abound.

It may be that in other lands

Good men are to be found

But they are few and far between,

I know, among Afghans.

However much he counsels hem

And gives him sound advice,

Not even his own fathers word

Does he consider good.

And yet Afghans, in all their deeds,

Are better than the Moguls;

but unanimity they lack,

and there`s is the pity of it.

For six or seven generations

They ruled in such a way

That all the people were amazed

At their accomplishments.

Either they were another kind

Than these Afghans today,

Or else it is by Gods command

That things have reached this pass.

I once Afghans acquire the grace

Of unanimity

Aged Khushal will thereupon

Become a youth again.


#121 nasha dear

I agree with most of your valid points about Iqbal`s poetry. I am not harsh on him, I am just telling the facts.

#125 Naqshbandi sahib jii

Well, that is exactly what I pointed out in my previous posts. Majority of Pakistanis are unaware of this fact that your Iqbal was fooling all of you guys . All his ideas were not his own. He was, but genius. How can you be genius if, you lack originality of your thoughts?

If you steal someone else`s ideology then it is called PALGIARISM in civil society. This is what this man, called Iqbal did by committing intellectual and scholarly dishonesty.

Why he did not admit right from the beginning that He is copying all his main themes revolving around shaheen, mard-e-momin and khudi from Khan Baba`s. Not only that this man abused Islam in a totally convoluted way and left Pakistanis in CONFUSION.

Thank you

re: echoboom # 127

Very interesting! As proof of my ignorance, I had placed Iqbal and Amrita Shergil in different eras!

Iqbal seemingly had the same kind of appeal to women as did Hemingway :)

Kalachakra:126
Well maybe it is not so simple & ordinary

She & her sister were only in their early teens when Iqbal took them to show the Shalimar Gardens, Lahore. Umrao Singh had made a personal request. Umrao himself was an accomplished & acknowledged litterati (?) & a great afficiondo of Urdu farsi & particularly of Iqbal.

Amrita, in a rush of her love & admiration for Iqbal plucked a flower and presented it to him. Iqbal composed this poem right there, jotted it down , recited , and later presented itto her.

Those who understand urdu a bit above the average and are also familiar with the poetic urdu will surely notice the refrain of his transparently-innocuous love/passion.

echoboom

That rasik kanhaiya persona of Iqbal isn`t common knowledge. Who would have imagined him serenading Amrita Shergil!!

A very humanizing and wonderful facet of Iqbal`s life. Thanks for the info.

Re: # 117

With all due respect Zeena, Iqbal has had more research done on him by both desis and orientalists than any other Urdu poet by far; the literature on him is huge and, having read quite a bit of the literature on him, there has never been this ludicrous suggestion made by anyone that he plagiarised Khushal Khan Khattak`s ideas.

He was influenced more by Nietzsche than any Pushtun writer. As for his imagery it is taken from the classical Persian poetic tradition.

*rolls eyes*

Hindus and Muslims of India and their unities and strifes are much like elephant in that children`s story in which five blind men are trying to figure out by groping different body parts of the pachyderm. The accident of which body part they happened to have access informed them and based on which people like Jinnah and Iqbal formed their ideas. These people were not supermen. They had limited lifespan and limited intellectual span. Once they became old they were incapable of revising their views which by that time had become solidified and which had at that time lions share of most recent influence they received.

Evolution will someday let men live more than 200 years and make them less averse to revisions of their views. But that is in future. When that future arrives it would be even more difficult to analyze as to what these people really stood for. If Iqbal was fickle then he would have changed more often in 200 years` lifespan. I guess in such circumstance the people to whom they provided leadership would be forced to discover what they ``really`` stood for from many twists and turns of their evolving ideas. So you we are back to where we were: that you have to think through with your own mind and separate wheat from chaff. Which anyways everyone should do. No matter how much you are in love with a thinker, accepting his ideas requires basic minimum thinking on your part. Noone can do the hard work of your thinking except you.

Dear Nasah, Rsridhar, BJKumar, NHK, Zeena etc

Guys,

I feel obliged to read your posts.

Thanks for making my day.

Ashwani

in other words -- in his poetic naivety Iqbal wished if he could produce a Muslim `Murde Momin` -- what Iqbal ended up producing was a ``Murderer-e Momin``.......

my dear Zeena -- you are a little too harsh on Iqbal --

an intellectual is not an island -- an intellectual without influencing intellects of others is a village idiot -- Iqbal was a man who took so much from both East and West -- yet was indeed a uniquely ORIGINAL poet --

he was influenced by many currents and counter currents during his life time. His poetic genius was that he clothed Urdu with a new language of poetry that poor Urdu prior to Iqbal had never experienced before...

for example -- now who could enclose an ocean of Darwin`s Evolution with added Mutation -- in one couplet in Urdu -- or in any language of any advanced or less advanced culture:

hazaaroN saal nargis apni bay noori pe rotee hai
kaheeN tub jaa kay hota hai chaman meiN deedawar paidaa.....

now we wouldn`t call Iqbal Plagiarizing Darwin`s concept of Evolution --

Iqbal was NOT --``the biggest plagiarist of the century`` --

Iqbal`s ``kum naseebi`` was that all his genius of poetic ``Nai-nawazi`` did him NO GOOD -- when he entered the gutters of MIXING Religion with Politics......

in his poetic naivety Iqbal wished if he could produce a Muslim `Murde Momin` -- in the mold of all powerful European Fascist `Superman` -- in other words a kind of an Islamic Mussolini.....that will once again conquer and rule the world from Sumatra to Spain.....for Islam.

in the process Iqbal messed himself up by tearing his Indian and Punjabi roots -- opted for Hijaz and Cordoba instead of Sialkot and Gujranewala -- messed himself politically and messed up his community into Aadha Teetar-Aadhi Batair Muslims -- jo ghar kay nu rahay ghat kay ........for decades to come.....

Re: # 117

Zeena:

Why don`t you post some from Khushal Khan Khattak transliteration and Enlgish translations also?

I find Iqbal intriguing because of his Kashmiri Brahmin ancestory, and his ``Saare jahan se accha.... `` and then his turn around from Pakistan.

Anil

Kalachakra:Further to #108

..........[the poem he has written for the young daughter of some-singh, a raja--the girl later became India`s most famous painter then { I`m forgetting the name of the Raja & his two daughters--sometime when Dilip Singh returned from France]. the poem is ``Voh must naaz jo Gulshan meiN jaa nikaltee hai.].........

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Here I found the sikh girl. Amrita shergil!, daughter of Umrao Singh. This link givers her picture as well.


http://hinduonnet.com/thehindu/lr/2002/06/02/stories/2002060200280400.htm

#107 by kaalchakra on April 14, 2006 1:20pm PT

It will be great if you or anyone else could summarize Iqbal`s major theoretical and philosophical contributions to advancing human understanding.

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You might find this {http://www.shariati.com/iqbal.html``} to be somewhat close to what you enquired about. A lot of material is out there & Iqbal`s own ``Reconstruction....`` is the most authoritative work , in prose & that too in english, but it is very pithy as well as profound. One has to ``read`` it over over & over again [like Ghalib or Bedil & others] to complement the osmosis-like process along with ones own mental/spiritual development & ``extra-curricula`` studies & readings.

The reference page & site I gave earlier would be sufficient for now. I, personally, believe that poetry is far more `logical` & effective than dry discourse--though it definitely depends on one`s disposition.

``khirad kee gthhiyaaN suljhhaa chukaa meiN
miray maula mujhhay sahib-junooN kar``--Iqbal

O I`ve unravelled the knotty-tentacles of the intellect-logic
My master! give me now the gift of an unbridled passion*

*meaning to become a wild risk-taker, the crazy one who takes the hitherto uncharted route rather than an analyser, an accountant, or a weigher of ``benefits/losses``{ in short you-know-which-type}

Ali Shariati writes:

........``The greatest advice of Iqbal to humanity is: Have a heart like Jesus, thought like Socrates, and a hand like the hand of a Caesar, but all in one human being, in one creature of humanity, based upon one spirit in order to attain one goal. That is, to be like Iqbal himself: A man who attains the height of political awareness in his time to the extent that some people believe him to be solely a political figure and a liberated, nationalist leader who is a 20th century anti-colonialist. A man who, in philosophical thought, rises to such a high level that he is considered to be a contemporary thinker and philosopher of the same rank as Bergson in the West today or of the same level as Ghazzali in Islamic history``
.......

Ali Shariati: on Iqbal

http://www.shariati.com/iqbal.html

It might interest you to know:
1) He was a calligraphist par-exellence. In fact better than the professional who composed his collection. He got them done under his personal supervision & reviewed each letter & emended & edited as well. This despite the fact that he only one of his eyes worked. The other was `false`, after a childhood illness.

2) He had a tremendous voice & was an amazing reciter with tarranuum.

3) He was the first poet who started public poetry reading. Before him poetry was only read among poets themselves. It was an considered an insult by the arts-pursuers to read, sing, or dance to entertain non-practioners.i.e general public. Iqbal, other than the mushairas of his forming years, never ever went for vah vah mushairas.[only once in Lucknow he was roped in & ridiculed thoroughly for his innovative `poetry`]. He also did not consider himself a poet & wanted to spend his time more ``actively``

4) He was failed on medical grounds for the civil service

5) He was awarded a doctorate for the work which he had already done before he left for higher studies. He also remarked later that that tract had lots of `loose-ends` & `mistakes` which he wanted to clear up later. That is why he discouraged those who wanted to translate it.

6) His first book, even when he was a student, was on economics. It was the standard elementary economics texbook at least in the undivided Panjab for a long time.

7) He was a bar-at-law & practised law--but he was ``lazy`` in that he had set himself a certain amount to earn a month. If that amount he would make in the first few days then he would not take any more assignment. He, despite a nagging wife called him alazy & good-for-nothing [she was college graduate--eeenglish-knowing ] enforced the rule.

8) His sense of humour & his ``popularity`` with women. Unlike our melodramatic poets who croon for the ones beyond their reach, Iqbal was always a Krishna among gopis. Yet he also was not a lecher or an exploiter. The poetry composed by a bevy of german girls who surrounded him on his farewell picnic showering him with flower-petals. Strangley, no men were invited. the poem he has written for the young daughter of some-singh, a raja--the girl later became India`s most famous painter then { I`m forgetting the name of the Raja & his two daughters--sometime when Dilip Singh returned from France]. the poem is ``Voh must naaz jo Gulshan meiN jaa nikaltee hai...``

9) He was a member of parliament: His debates there are a treat to read for their humour, law, history, culture & clarity.

10) His role for an independent home for muslims ( not necessarily partion--I stay away from these subjects) has been greater, behind the scenes, than that of Jinnah . It is important to not that throughout he was clean & clear with no ambigousness & mealy mouthedness of a barrister or politician...one visage for public & another one for ``intellectuals & PaRRhay-likhhays``.

11) He was very much involved in establishing the education system of Afghanistan.

12) His pro-active role in curbing & curtailing the Quadiani collaboration with Nehru is evident from his letters & missives.

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And all this was happening when his family life was never ever peaceful & his involvement in all those matters personally & still retain his sanity is truly mind-boggling.