A Message from the East (2010)

A Message from the East by Iqbal; translations from A. J. Arberry, Mustansir Mir and Hadi Husain; compiled by Khurram Ali Shafique; illustrated by Natasha Saleem.

First published by Iqbal Academy Pakistan in 2010
ISBN 978-969-416-445-8
pp.48

Price: Rs.200

Order online within Pakistan: marghdeen@gmail.com (visit online Bookstore for details).

Iqbal could see the irony that so many of his generation had received inspiration for action from the writings of Western poets and thinkers in order to get rid of that fatalism which had taken roots in the East in the days of its decline. Iqbal was among those who did not stop here but also rediscovered the past masters of the East through research and finally took Rumi, the great Persian poet, as his guide. However, as he now looked back at the West, he found it to be in the grip of the same defeatist mentality which appears in nations in their periods of decline. A Message from the East was compiled against this backdrop. It reflected the best tradition of Persian poetry but also alluded to icons of Western learning. The preface aptly declared the book to be a friendly response to West-Oestlicher Divan of the great German poet-philosopher Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

The selection offered in this junior edition comprises mainly of translations by A.J. Arberry, Hadi Husain and Mustansir Mir.

Note: Since then, I have switched to "The Message of the East", which conveys the meaning of the original Persian title better.  At that time I was following Hadi Husain, who had styled it "A Message from the East" in his translation of the book.