Ayaz Amir: between ignorance and dishonesty

By Khurram Ali Shafique

Originally published at Marghdeen Learning Centre

Ayaz Amir.
Image from The News International

I have read with great interest the recent article ‘Poet of the soul, thy occasional silences’ by Ayaz Amir published in The NewsInternational on Friday, March 28. I am surprised to see that the esteemed writer is so unfamiliar with facts about the life and writings of Allama Iqbal, and has based his writing on sheer sentiment at the cost of truth.

He complains that ‘in all his work, so much of it transcendent, there is no mention of Jallianwala Bagh, an event which shook India. Nor did Iqbal take a public position on it.’ This is not true. Iqbal wrote a short but very moving poem in Urdu, in which he advised the reader not to withhold tears on the plight of those ‘martyrs’. The poem was published in newspapers at that time and has been included in several anthologies and biographies since then. It can also be found on page 460 in my Urdu biography of the middle years of Iqbal’s career, Iqbal: Darmiani Daur, which covers the period 1914-1922.

I am copying the poem here along with an English translation done by my friend, Akhtar Wasim Dar:

جلّیانوالہ باغ امرتسر

ہر زائرِ چمن سے یہ کہتی ہے خاکِ پاک

غافل نہ رہ جہان میں گردُوں کی چال سے

سینچا گیا ہے خونِ شہیداں سے اس کا تخم

تُو آنسووں کا بخل نہ کر اِس نہال سے

[Translation]: 

Jalianwalla Bagh Amritsar

The sacred land urges to every pilgrim of the garden
Not to remain inattentive in this world to the ways their destiny works.
Its seed has been watered by martyrs’ blood
Do not withhold your tears from its saplings.

Yet, Mr. Amir chooses to call the poetry of Iqbal ‘poetry at the same time silent on such a tragedy as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre’! We understand that it is really too much for some Pakistani journalists to stop telling lies, but one wonders what happened to the old-fashioned editorial discretion. I mean, seriously, does The New International not have even one well-informed person in its editorial team, who could have taken a look at Mr. Amir’s writing before it went to press? 

Mr. Amir is partially correct in suggesting that the holocaust which occurred in Punjab in 1947 was only indirectly linked to the partition of India and was more directly a result of the partition of Punjab. Yet, again I wonder from where did he get his information that Iqbal and the founding fathers of Pakistan did not foresee it (as he says, ‘Mention should also be made of a failure of the imagination or a failure of foresight, on Iqbal’s part as on that of the League leadership as a whole…the failure to see that if ever the demand for a north-west Muslim state was met, it would surely and inevitably entail the partition first of Punjab and then only of India’).

Talks about the partition of India, and the partitions of Punjab and Bengal, had started in the early 1920s. Therefore, it required neither imagination nor foresight on part of Iqbal and his club to see it – but of course it requires general knowledge and hindsight on part of Mr. Amir to know this (and how much we wish that Mr. Amir was in possession of either of these).

Ironically enough, the person who initiated the discourse about these partitions in 1921 was none other than Hasrat Mohani – the same about whom Mr. Amir has wished so melodramatically that there were ‘a few more Hasrat Mohanis’. Mohani made some bold suggestions to this end in his presidential address to the annual session of All-India Muslim League in 1921, and followed them up with even more radical propositions along these lines.

Lala Lajpat Rai, in sync with Hindu Mahasabha, answered Mohani by demanding the partition of Punjab as well as the partition of Bengal, and a partitioning of India between ‘a Hindu India and a Muslim India’. Rai did that in a series of thirteen articles, collectively titled ‘The Hindu-Muslim Problem’, which were published in November-December 1924 (apparently in view of the impending annual session of the Indian National Congress, since the annual sessions for the two preceding years had been consecutively presided over by advocates of Muslims nationalism, i.e. C. R. Das in 1922 and Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar in 1923, and their views were anathema to obscurantist leaders like Rai). 

Hence the Hindu demand for the partition of Punjab and Bengal was already on the table by the time Iqbal came out with his proposition for a consolidated Muslim state in 1930.

Mr. Amir complains that Iqbal did not say much about Bhagat Singh. Here, one cannot overlook the macabre irony that Bhagat Singh was out to take revenge for the death of the same Lala Lajpat Rai, who had originally demanded the partition of Punjab which Mr. Amir loathes so much (and given the overall quality of scholarship reflected in Mr. Amir’s writing, we cannot be sure if he is even aware of these facts). 

On a more serious note, while it is true that Iqbal did not say much about Bhagat Singh, many other freedom-fighters were also silent on that issue but this is not usually considered as sufficient ground for questioning their bonafide. Even Gandhi didn’t do much to save Bhagat Singh, and this does not bring down Gandhi from his high pedestal.

It seems that the underlying issue which Mr. Amir is trying to reach here is whether Iqbal was sufficiently opposed to British imperialism, and whether Iqbal did something to that effect. It is well-known even to the detractors of Iqbal that he took a very well-defined stand against colonialism, not only as a poet but even as a politician and social activist.

Granted that his stand was in keeping with his worldview, and anybody who disagrees with that worldview, like Mr. Amir does, is welcome to question whether Iqbal’s stand was effective or not. Unfortunately, such an exercise pre-requires a wider range of reading than Mr. Amir seems to be capable of, and therefore he takes the easier path of misleading his readers by stating, in clear contradiction to known facts, that Iqbal did not take a stand against colonialism at all. This is where Mr. Amir crosses the line between ignorance and intellectual dishonesty, in the direction of the latter.

In the passing, I would like to mention just one anecdote about Iqbal’s well-known opposition of British imperialism. The declassified documents in the archives of the former princely state of Hyderabad Deccan have revealed that when the ruler of that state was considering a proposal for granting patronage to Iqbal, he was advised by his counsellors against it on the grounds that Iqbal was too well-known for opposing British imperialism, and any patronage to Iqbal would displease the foreign rulers.

Pakistan is not suffering today because its founding fathers lacked moral courage or foresight, as Mr. Amir has tried to insinuate. It suffers today because a large majority of our educated class and our intelligentsia is unaware of the basic facts of our history, and Mr. Amir happens to be one sorry example of this. Maybe he is too old to change his habits now and start getting his facts right, but the younger lot should rise up to their moral duty and find out those truths about our history which need to be known.

Comments can be posted directly at the website of Marghdeen Learning Center.

Iqbal and the anti-blasphemy law in Russia

Picture from See It Through My Eyes 

Russian MPs have given initial approval to an anti-blasphemy law with tougher jail terms or fines for anyone found guilty of offending religious feelings... The bill says blasphemy could incur up to three years in jail or a fine of up to 300,000 roubles ($9,700;£6,300). (BBC News)

The anti-blasphemy law passed by the lower house of the Russian parliament is making headlines these days. This may remind us of what Iqbal wrote long ago, at a time when Russia was the stronghold of Bolshevism and a role model for the atheists. In an open letter to the British author Sir Francis Younghusband, published in The Civil and Military Gazette on July 30, 1931, Iqbal wrote:

I do not myself believe that the Russians are by nature an irreligious people. On the contrary, I think that they are men and women of strong religious tendencies and the present negative state of [the] Russian mind will not last indefinitely, for no system of society can rest on an atheistic basis. As soon as things settle down in that country and its people have time to think calmly, they will be forced to find a positive foundation for their system.

Whether or not the present anti-blasphemy law is a step towards "a positive foundation" for the Russian system, the bill contains a reference to religions that are "an integral part of Russia's historical inheritance" (i.e. Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism). Indirectly, this assertion corroborates Iqbal's basic assertion that Russians are "men and women of strong religious tendencies".

C. R. Das and Allama Iqbal

 اسرار خودی کا ریویو دیکھنے کا منتظر ہوں۔ سی آر داس کا خطبہء صدارت کانگریس آپ نے دیکھا ہو گا۔ اُس نے اسی روحانی اصول کو سیاسی رنگ میں پیش کیا ہے۔   

("I'm awaiting the review of Asrar-i-Khudi. You must have seen the presidential address to the Congress by C. R. Das. He has presented the same spiritual principle in a political manner.")

(Iqbal, January 6, 1923)

The excerpt is from a letter written by Iqbal to a young writer, Abdul Majid Dayabadi, in Urdu. The reference is to the presidential address delivered at the 37th session of the Indian National Congress held at Gaya on 26th December 1922.

Chittaranjan Das, better known as C. R. Das (1870-1925), was one of the most prominent Indian leaders from Bengal. Just like Iqbal, Das was also a barrister, poet and politician. He became known as "Deshbandhu" (Friend of the Country) after successfully pleading the case of Indian militants in 1909. He was later persuaded by his close friend Muhammad Ali Jauhar to join the non-cooperation movement initiated by Gandhi in 1920, but he retained some of his own terms. These were explained by him most elaborately when he presided over the Gaya session of the Congress two years later while Gandhi was in jail. Notable among the younger admirers of Das were Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy (later prime minister of Pakistan) and Subhas Chandra Bose, the beloved "Neta Ji" whose charisma was practically irresistible even for those who disagreed.

The presidential address of Das, to which Iqbal referred in the excerpt quoted above, may be summarized into four basic themes. The first of these may not be completely in sync with Iqbal's ideas, but the other three are among the finest elaborations of their common ideals:

1. "Law and order" is a fallacy promoted by tyrants and despots for enslaving people. Incidentally, this is an antithesis of what Iqbal had been promoting as "Islamic principles" of politics since 1908 (see, for instance, 'Political Thought in Islam' and 'Islam as a Moral and Political Ideal' by Iqbal). A detailed comparison of the ideas of these two great contemporaries may, in my opinion, give us insight into the roots of some very puzzling issues that face us even today.

2. It is impossible to attain freedom by violent means. Das quoted several examples from history to show that revolutions brought through violent means did not result in freedom: Magna carta, French Revolution and the Russian (Bolshevik) Revolution. Iqbal must have agreed most completely with this thesis (and it fully resonated in Iqbal's poem 'The Dawn of Islam' written less than three months later).

3. Individual, society, nation and humanity are interconnected in a spiritual manner. This is mainly the idea in which Iqbal noticed an affinity to his own philosophy. Of course, Iqbal did not presume that Das was in any way "inspired" by him or even familiar with his works (although Das was almost certainly acquainted with some of the works of Iqbal). Das actually quoted at length, with acknowledgment, from The New State (1918), a groundbreaking book by the American writer Mary Parker Follett. Follett had proposed a blueprint for a "spiritual" kind of "new democracy" in America, and a comparison of her book with the writings of Iqbal can bring a few more surprises (as I hope to show in the fourth book of Iqbal's biography which I am writing in Urdu these days).

4. A new plan of work for Congress. Das suggested seven fresh items for updating the original programme of non-cooperation. The first among these was "a clear and emphatic confirmation" of Lucknow Pact to safeguard the distinct identity of Muslims. Another interesting proposition was "the great Asiatic Federation" which, of course, would practically consist of a majority of Muslim countries. Das believed that "the Pan-Islamic movement which was started on a somewhat narrow basis has given way or is about to give way to the great Federation of all Asiatic people". Knowingly or unknowingly, Das was lending support to what Iqbal had stated a few months earlier in his Urdu poem 'The Khizr of the Way' (Khizr-i-Rah): "The salvation of the East lies in the unity of the international Muslim community, but the peoples of Asia are still unaware of this point"-  

ربط و ضبط ملت بیضا ہے مشرق کی نجات

ایشیا والے ہیں اس نکتے سے اب تک بیخبر

Postscript: This post is far from comprehensive. It is just meant to point out some resources for further study: 

• Complete text of the presidential address by C. R. Das
• Short biography of C. R. Das

My "Iqbal Week" on Express Tribune

November 9 was the birth anniversary of Iqbal, which I spent mostly revising my second Urdu biography of Iqbal for a reprint. However, two of my articles were published in The Express Tribune, and I hope that they would be of some interest to those interested in the "applied" side of Iqbal Studies.

Artwork from The Express Tribune

1. Re-Reading History: who wants to be enlightened by Iqbal? (published November 9): "Iqbal's philosophy is a tool for training the minds for looking into the conscience of nations and humanity." This is how the editor captioned the gist of the article (rightly in my opinion). You can read the complete article on ET's website, and also post comments. Personally, I was particularly amused by two of the comments because, while I disagree with them, they are succinct and honest expressions of that approach with which I beg to differ in all my writings:

• "Whatever message iqbal wanted to convey he did through his poetry. No need for further enlightenment." (Posted by ZQ)
• "Anybody should think twice before buying an idea, any idea 'for which even the least enlightened man among us can easily lay down his life.'..." (Posted by Cynical).  

Artwork from The Express Tribune

2. Breaking down the Wall (Published November 11): The editor's introduction for this piece is, "If Ravi is India, then who is Vijay? Khurram Shafique revisits the 70s’ Bollywood blockbuster Deewar, a film which has constantly been the subject of analysis, and juxtaposes it with the current state of the subcontinent." Iqbal also features in this article, as he does  in the movie itself (through his lyrics). I hope that the regular readers of this blog would be able to guess that the title of the article, however, was not suggested by me, but I think its good because it can draw more readers. I was particularly drawn to one of the comments posted there by a very polite reader, Manish, but I won't copy it here because it would be out of context then. You can read the article and comments on the website of ET.

Prologue to 2017

2017 published by
Libredux, UK

Dear friends, 

The clouds of war linger over the East and while some people there may suspect the hand of "Western powers", the people in the "West" are themselves harrowed by myriad problems, some of which are essentially similar to those elsewhere. Is it not the time for taking the first practical step towards a meaningful action based on the certainty that regardless of the odds, the intentions may not, would not and cannot fail eventually?

It is not possible for any individual to outline the course for such action, but the first step towards discovering it collectively has to be a common understanding about our past - a simple and optimistic overview of the recent history of humanity highlighting some ideals on which nations have already agreed and may cooperate in future. 

This is the aim of this serialization of my recent publication, 2017, which will appear in weekly instalments on this blog on Fridays, so that input may be gathered from everyone as "comments", and possibly also related posts on other blogs. 

The first instalment is just an attempt to raise the question: can we reclaim the goal of "an age of plenty" for "all the nations" that was a commonly held dream in a recent past?

Regards,

Khurram Ali Shafique 

On March 5 1946, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill visited Westminster College in Missouri, USA. In his speech, which later became famous for several reasons, he said:

The United Nations Organisation must immediately begin to be equipped with an international armed force… It would nevertheless be wrong and imprudent to entrust the secret knowledge or experience of the atomic bomb, which the United States, Great Britain, and Canada now share, to the world organisation, while it is still in its infancy… Ultimately, when the essential brotherhood of man is truly embodied and expressed in a world organisation with all the necessary practical safeguards to make it effective, these powers would naturally be confided to that world organisation [i.e. the United Nations].

…If the dangers of war and tyranny are removed, there is no doubt that science and co-operation can bring in the next few years to the world, certainly in the next few decades newly taught in the sharpening school of war, an expansion of material well-being beyond anything that has yet occurred in human experience… there is no reason except human folly or sub-human crime which should deny to all the nations the inauguration and enjoyment of an age of plenty.

Churchill may have been stamping his authority as a world power rather than making a prediction, but the  dreams embedded in his words were being dreamt by so many at that time, even more ubiquitously outside the English-speaking world of the British Prime Minister. Less than seventy years later, those dreams not only seem to have failed but also to be forgotten. It was said that only folly or sub-human crime could prevent an age of plenty.

Instead, we now find ourselves to be in an age where even the remembrance of such promises seems to be sub-human folly, if not also crime. 

The promised paradise may not have happened until now, but can it be reclaimed soon? Why or why not? Post your answers as comments.

Further "reading":

• Complete recording of Churchill's speech (with text) as video on Youtube
• Text of Churchill's speech as web page

Eid Mubarak, Mr. Bond

Earlier this year, James Bond escorted
Her Majesty the Queen to the Olympics in London.

The Muslim community in Britain celebrated Eid-ul-Azha on October 26. It was also the 50th Anniversary of James Bond movies. The latest, Skyfall, was released to mark the anniversary.

It may not be a coincidence that the first James Bond novel was received in the same year when Sir Winston Churchill and Dwight D. Eisenhower directed their secret agents to topple an unfavourable government in Iran.

Creative artists can sometimes assimilate a deeper current in the lives of their societies, and this may have happened to Ian Fleming. The secret agent created by him can be seen as an embodiment of the complications embedded in the post-colonial vision of the West, and perhaps also some of its apparent self-contradictions. Moreover, the continuous evolution of the famous spy also seems to be consistent with the evolution of that vision, and the present resurrection is a candid example.

In the new century, a burning issue for Great Britain has been whether it should see its participation in the much-needed action against terrorists as "a war on terror" (as believed by the American allies), or whether terrorism should still be regarded as a mere "crime" and dealt with accordingly.

The twenty-third official adventure of James Bond seems to be addressing this issue (and the high-point is the speech delivered by M to a group of decision-makers, where M ends up reciting lines from Tennyon's poem 'Ulysses').

It is beside the point whether this was actually the intention of the team who created this film. Being a creation of several minds, even a one-off film is a mystery that could be explored forever. The complexity increases where the film involves a legend that has been evolving for half a century and has brought out 22 predecessors.

As such, the surface of a popular film's narrative can always be scratched to reveal something about the collective consciousness of its parent society. What may have always lurked beneath the surface of the 007 legend has perhaps come out most succinctly in the 80-second "official teaser trailer" of Skyfall (embedded below).

James Bond: pride of a wounded empire,
or apprehensions about the future?

• "Country?" "England."
• "Gun?" "Shot."
• "Agent?" "Provocateur."
• "Murder?" "Employment."
• "Skyfall?" "[Silence]."
• "Skyfall?" "Done."
• "Some men are coming to kill us. We gonna kill them first."

Is this how the British patrols stationed at Suez Cannal thought in January 1952 when they shot down 49 Egyptian policemen and invoked the wrath of the natives ("Some men are coming to kill us. We gonna kill them first.")? Were these the very words that rang in the mind of the CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt in August 1953, when he saved his job by stirring up riots in Iran that claimed 700 civilian lives and toppled a liberal democratic government ("Agent?" "Provocateur". "Murder?" "Employment.").

The role of Western powers in the post-colonial era has generated many controversies (not to mention outrage and criticism). Skyfall might be one of the most useful resources for anybody looking for a well-rounded and honest answer, befitting the dignity of a former world power that has been known for its "sense of fact".

Nevertheless, the answer is disturbing. It gives a basis for asking: Was the immortal James Bond born out of the pride of a wounded empire, or does he stand for apprehensions about the future?

Indian Nationalism

The first session of Indian National Congress, 1885

It is extremely interesting to watch the birth and growth of a new ideal among a people. O! the enthusiasm it inspires and the force with which it attracts all the energies of a people to one common centre. The modern Hindu is quite a phenomenon. To me his behaviour is more of a psychological than a political study. It seems that the ideal of political freedom which is an absolutely new experience to him has seized his entire soul, turning the various streams of his energy from their wonted channels and bringing them to pour forth their whole force into this new channel of activity. When he has passed through this experience he will realise his loss. He will be transformed into an absolutely new people – new in the sense that he will no longer find himself dominated by the ethical ideals of his ancestors whose sublime fancies have been a source of perpetual consolation to many a distressed mind. Nations are mothers of ideals; but ideals, in course of time, become pregnant and give birth to new nations.

Iqbal, 1910

Please post comments at Selfless Devotion

The Mexican Nation

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753-1811),
the leader of the Mexican War of Independence,
executed by the Spaniards on July 30, 1811

"A disinterested foreign rule is an impossibility. Yet the tutelage of nations is a necessity. The fee paid for this tuition is sometimes a nation’s daily bread. The Mexicans had to undergo a severe training under the Spaniards before they could undertake to manage their own affairs."

Iqbal, Stray Reflections (1910) 

Post comments at Selfless Devotion

Muslims of South Asia

The last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar
being captured by the British

"To my mind, government, whatever its form, is one of the determining forces of a people’s character. Loss of political power is equally ruinous to nations’ character. Ever since their political fall the Musalmans of India have undergone a rapid ethical deterioration. Of all the Muslim communities of the world they are probably the meanest in point of character. I do not mean to deplore our former greatness in this country, for, I confess, I am almost a fatalist in regard to the various forces that ultimately decide the destinies of nations. As a political force we are perhaps no longer required; but we are, I believe, still indispensable to the world as the only testimony to the absolute Unity of God – Our value among nations, then, is purely evidential."

Iqbal, Stray Reflections (1910)

Post your comments at Selfless Devotion 

Spain

Iqbal in Spain, 1933

"A new consciousness [of the Moorish contribution] is steadily growing in the country and will further expand with the development of education. The movement of reform started by Luther has not yet exhausted itself. It is still working quietly in different European countries and the hold of priesthood, especially in Spain, is gradually loosening."

Iqbal, statement issued in 1933

The Afghan Nation

Iqbal (center) with King Nadir (2nd from left)
during official visit to Afghanistan in 1933

Stray Reflections (1910) 

The verdict of history is that buffer states have never been able to form themselves into great political units. So was the case with Syria – a buffer state between the Empire of Rome and that of the Persians. It seems difficult to forecast the future of Afghanistan.

Javid Nama (1932)

Translated by A. J. Arberry

Asia is a form cast of water and clay;
in that form the Afghan nation is the heart;
if it is corrupt, all Asia is corrupt,
if it is dilated, all Asia is dilated.
So long as the heart is free, the body is free,
else, the body is a straw in the path of the wind.
Like the body, the heart too is bound by laws—
the heart dies of hatred, lives of faith.
The power of faith derives from unity;
when unity becomes visible, it is a nation.
Imitation of the West seduces the East from itself;
these peoples have need to criticize the West.
The power of the West comes not from lute and rebeck,
not from the dancing of unveiled girls,
not from the magic of tulip cheeked enchantresses,
not from naked legs and bobbed hair;
its solidity springs not from irreligion,
its glory derives not from the Latin script.
The power of the West comes from science and technology,
and with that selfsame flame its lamp is bright.
Wisdom derives not from the cut and trim of clothes;
the turban is no impediment to science and technology.

The United States of America

America seems to be a healthy element in Western civilization, the reason for which perhaps is that it is free from the trammels of old traditions and that its collective intuition is receptive to new ideas and influences. 

Iqbal, The Message of the East (1923);

Translated by Hadi Husain

Modern Turkey

Ataturk (1881-1938)

"Hundreds of books and articles have been written on Turkey and modern Islam... however, ...not one of these writers understands the nature of the effect or of the cause that has brought about that effect. The upheaval which has come to Turkey and which is likely, sooner or later, to come to other Muslim countries, is almost wholly determined by the forces within. It is only the superficial observer of the modern world of Islam who thinks that the present crisis in the world of Islam is wholly due to the working of alien forces.

"Has then the world of Islam outside India, especially Turkey abandoned Islam? Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru thinks that Turkey has ceased to be a Muslim country. He does not seem to realise that the question whether a person or a community has ceased to be a member of Islam is, from the Muslim point of view, a purely legal question and must be decided in view of the structural principles of Islam. As long as a person is loyal to the two basic principles of Islam, i.e., the Unity of God and Finality of the Holy Prophet, not even the strictest mullah can turn him outside the pale of Islam even though his interpretations of the law or of the text of the Quran are believed to be erroneous."

Iqbal, 'Islam and Ahmadism' (1936)

 Video: Film about the life of Ataturk

Iran

Stray Reflections (1910)

Just as the Muslim Community does not recognise any ethnological differences, and aims at the subsumption of all races under the universal idea of humanity, so our culture is relatively universal, and is not indebted, for its life and growth to the genius of one particular people. Persia is perhaps the principal factor in the making of this culture. If you ask me what is the most important event in the history of Islam, I shall immediately answer—the conquest of Persia. The battle of Nehawand gave to the Arabs not only a beautiful country, but also an ancient people who could construct a new civilisation out of the Semitic and the Aryan material. Our Muslim civilisation is a product of the cross-fertilisation of the Semitic and the Aryan ideas. It inherits the softness and refinement of its Aryan mother and the sterling character of it Semitic father. The conquest of Persia gave to the Mussalmans what the Conquest of Greece gave to the Romans; but for Persia our culture would have been absolutely one-sided. And the people whose contact transformed the Arabs and the Mughals are not intellectually dead. Persia, whose existence as an independent political unit is threatened by the aggressive ambition of Russia, is still a real centre of Muslim culture; and I can only hope that she still continues to occupy the position that she had always occupied in the Muslim world.

The Blow of Moses (1936)

پانی بھی مسخر ہے ، ہوا بھي ہے مسخر 

کيا ہو جو نگاہ فلک پير بدل جائے 

ديکھا ہے ملوکيت افرنگ نے جو خواب 

ممکن ہے کہ اس خواب کی تعبير بدل جائے 

طہران ہو گر عالم مشرق کا جينوا 

شايد کرہ ارض کی تقدير بدل جائے 

[Translation from Victor Kiernan:]



An Eastern League of Nations


Conquered the waters,
Conquered the air—
Why should old heaven
Changed look not wear?
Europe’s imperialists
Dreamed—but their dream
Soothsayers soon may
Read a new way!
Asia’s Geneva
Let Tehran be—
Earth’s book of fate new
Statutes may see.

The German Nation

"In the economy of nature each nation has a function allotted to it. The function of the German nation is the organisation of human knowledge. But they have recently started on a commercial enterprise which may give them an empire, but they will have to suffer the displacement of a higher ideal by the all-absorbing spirit of trade."

Iqbal, 1910 

You may like to know:

This remark was made by Iqbal in 1910 in his private notebook, Stray Reflections. By "commercial enterprise", he may also have meant empire-building (as in Goethe's Faust: "“then commerce, war and piracy are three in one and cannot be parted.”) His remark was going to be corroborated by the history of the next 100 years, amazingly but also tragically. Eight years later, he was among those who believed that the so-called peace treaties forced upon the defeated nations at the end of the First World War could bring forth another Great War. In 1923, he tried to woo the Germans back to their "higher ideal" through Payam-i-Mashriq, or The Message of the East, a Persian sequel to Goethe's Divan.

Please post your comments at Selfless Devotion..

"My" Immortal Beloved: a Personal Interpretation

Image modified from Dick Strawser's blog

The German composer Ludwig Van Beethoven is considered to be one of the greatest in history. The opening notes of his fifth symphony have come to symbolize music itself while his ninth serves as the source for the anthem of the European Union. Along with Goethe, Wordsworth and Coleridge, he is counted among those who gave birth to the great Romantic Age. As such, his work is supposed to be repository of great ideas expressed through musical notes instead of words.

The stature of Beethoven has not declined in these two hundred years but the way we respond to him has probably changed to the worse. Reading the analyses and commentaries written in the nineteenth century, we feel as if their writers were using music as a tool for discovering something new in themselves. In the latter times we often find the music being interpreted as a mere personal expression - be it of freedom and human potential or of the agony suffered by a genius (as in the movie The Immortal Beloved and the BBC documentary The Genius of Beethoven).

It seems as if we have stopped asking relevant questions to the great masters (to ask Beethoven who his immortal beloved was or whether it felt really bad to be a deaf composer is indeed irrelevant to the quality of his music). If the music of Beethoven is to remain ageless, it must find in each age a new set of worthwhile questions to be addressed.

The nine questions listed by Allama Iqbal in his Persian poem 'The New Garden of Mystery' (Gulshan-i-Raz Jadeed) are perhaps just the kind of questions needed in our times. Since they were derived from a six-hundred years older text widely used as a textbook of Sufism throughout the Muslim world, a study of Beethoven's music in the light of these questions may turn out to be nothing less than asking Iqbal to build a gigantic bridge between the futures of the classical East and the modern West.

A biographical introduction to the great composer, 'Beethoven: the Music Within' appeared at this blog yesterday. I now intend to offer a weekly series of nine posts introducing a symphony of Beethoven in the light of the corresponding question from Iqbal every Thursday:

1. Symphony No. 1 (Question 1), June 7
2. Symphony No. 2 (Question 2), June 14
3. Symphony No. 3 (Question 3), June 21
4. Symphony No. 4 (Question 4), June 28
5. Symphony No. 5 (Question 5), July 5
6. Symphony No. 6 (Question 6), July 12
7. Symphony No. 7 (Question 7), July 19
8. Symphony No. 8 (Question 8), July 26
9. Symphony No. 9 (Question 9), August 2

It may be asked why the nine symphonies and the nine questions should be considered in their corresponding orders. They need not be, but it may appear that while deriving his set of nine questions out of the seventeen classical ones, Iqbal went for a logical sequence in which the questions would occur to most people in their search for a higher truth, especially if the search is carried out from the heart:

"But the question arises as to the what and the where of the Unseen. The Quran replies that the Unseen is in your own soul." (Iqbal, The Development of Metaphysics in Islam, p.108)

So, it would not be too much of a coincidence if we were to find that the Truth had also chosen to unfold itself through a similar path in the works of Beethoven. After all, as the German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist T. W. Adorno has said, ""We do not understand music - it understands us." The nine  symphonies have indeed been considered to have followed a "natural order" (or perhaps even the "supernatural", if one were to consider the 'Curse of the Ninth').

Of course, this is not to say that the questions cannot be applied to the music of Beethoven in any other way, or some other sequence, by some others. The purpose of the present series is to open a new door rather than close any.

I hope that whichever entrance we choose, we can still end up in front of a beautiful altar and behold the majesty of our unity as humankind. Collective consciousness, Zeitgeist and public opinion are insufficient expressions for naming that unity. Collective ego is how Iqbal defined it but the most appropriate phrase that may also capture the complexity of our relationship with this dynamic and constantly growing unity was given to us, incidentally, by none other than Beethoven himself: Meine unsterbliche Geliebte - my Immortal Beloved. 

What comes out through such un-suspected harmonies as those between the music of Beethoven and the philosophy of Iqbal is the unity of human existence. Much of what Beethoven wrote in July 1812, quite possibly to a special woman, is what may also be addressed to this human unity:

My angel, my everything, my very self. – only a few words today, and in pencil (with yours)... can our love exist but by sacrifices, by not demanding everything...  Oh God, look upon beautiful Nature and calm your mind about what must be – love demands everything and completely with good reason, that is how it is for me with you, and for you with me... 

Oh - There are moments when I feel that language is nothing at all... Wherever I am, you are with me... Pursued by the goodness of mankind here and there, the goodness that I wish to deserve as little as I deserve it. – Man’s humility towards man – this pains me – and when I consider myself in relation to the universe, what am I and what is the man who is called the greatest? – And yet, – therein lies the divine element in man... 

Oh God - so near! so far! Is not our love a true edifice in Heaven - but also as firm as the firmament. –

...my thoughts turn towards you my Immortal Beloved, now and then happy, then sad again, waiting whether fate might answer us... be patient – only through quiet contemplation of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together – Be calm; for only by calmly considering our lives can we achieve our purpose of living together.- be calm - love me - today - yesterday - What yearning with tears for you - you - you my life – my everything...

Forever yours

forever mine

forever us

Iqbal's Obituary in the Times of London, 1938

Iqbal's wall-clock
preserved at Iqbal Museum, Lahore
Photo: Iqbal Academy Pakistan

SIR MUHAMMAD IQBAL

THE POET OF ISLAM

The Times, London, Friday 22 April 1938

Sir Muhammad Iqbal, of Lahore, whose death at the age of 62 is announced by a Reuter message from Lahore, was the greatest Urdu and Persian poet of his day, and his reputation in the West might have been comparable to that of his great Indian contemporary Tagore had translations of his work into English been more frequent. He exercised an enormous influence on Islamic thought, and was an eloquent supporter of the rights and interests of his fellow Indian Muslims. 

Iqbal was greatly influenced as a student at Lahore University by that ripe Islamic scholar Sir Thomas Arnold, and for seven years he was Professor of Philosophy at the Government College Lahore. 

He went to Cambridge in 1905 and read Western philosophy at Trinity College, under the direction of the late Dr. McTaggart, for the Philosophical Tripos, in which he obtained his degree by research work. In J908 he was called to the Bar by Lincoln’s Inn and did some practice in Lahore. The Munich University conferred on him the Ph.D. for a dissertation on the development of metaphysics in Persia. He developed a philosophy of his own, which owed much to Nietzsche and Bergson, while his poetry often reminded the reader of Shelley. The Asrar-i-Khudi ("Secrets of the Self"), published in Lahore in 1915, while giving no systematic account of his philosophy, put his ideas in a popular and attractive form. Professor R. A. Nicholson, of Cambridge, was so impressed by it that he obtained the leave of the poet to translate it into English, and the rendering was published in 1920.

Western readers found him to be an apostle. if not to his own age, then to posterity, and after the Persian fashion he invoked the Saki to fill his cup with wine and pour moonbeams into the dark night of his thought. He was an Islamic enthusiast, inspired by the vision of a New Mecca, a world-wide, theocratic, Utopian State in which all Muslims, no longer divided by the barriers of race and country, should he one. His ideal was a free and independent Moslem fraternity, having the Ka’aba as its centre and knit together by love of Allah and devotion to the Prophet. In his Rumuz-e-Bekhudi ("The Mysteries of Selflessness ") (1916) he dealt with the Iife of the Islamic community on those lines, and he allied the cry "Back to the Koran" with the revolutionary force of Western philosophy, which he hoped and believed would vitalize the movement and ensure its triumph. He, felt that Hindu intellectualism and Islamic pantheism had destroyed the capacity for action based on scientific observation and interpretation of phenomena which distinguished the Western peoples and "especially the English". But he was severely critical of Western life and thought on the ground of its materialism. Holding that the full development of the individual presupposes a society, he found the ideal society in what he considered to be the Prophet's conception of Islam. In 1923 he published Piyam-i-Mashriq ("The Message of the East") and addressed the modern world at large in reply to Goethe's homage to the genius of the East. Two years later came Bang-i-Dira ("The Call to March"), a collection of his Urdu poems written during the first 20 years of the century. This was followed by a new Persian volume of which the title stood for "Songs of a Modern David." 

A poet with his gifts and his theme could not fail to influence thought in an India so politically minded as that of our day. He took some part in provincial politics being a member of the Punjab Legislature in 1925-28. He was on the British Indian delegation to the second session of the Round Table Conference in London in 1931. His authority was cited, not without some justification, for a theory of Islamic political solidarity in Northern India which might conceivably be extended to adjacent Moslem States. In 1930 he publicly advocated the formation of a North-West Indian Moslem State by the merging of the Moslem Provinces within the proposed All-India Federation. But his real interests were religious rather than political. A notable work published in 1934 reproduced a series of lectures by the poet on “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam." Therein he sought to reconcile the carrying out of modern reforms, as in Turkey, with the claims of the Shari’at. The lectures went to show "that soundness and exactitude of historical judgment were not his special endowment. The fact was that in maturity as in youth he sought to reconcile the most recent of Western philosophical systems, into which he gathered the latest scientific conclusions, with the teaching of the Koran. Like his earlier work the book was marked by penetrating and noble thought, though the connexion of his argument was somewhat obscure. 

He was knighted in 1923, and the Punjab University made him an honorary D.Litt. in 1933. He was elected Rhodes Memorial Lecturer at Oxford University for 1935. For a long time he had been in indifferent health, and he became increasingly dreamy and mystical.

Source of text: Pakistan Defence

The Message of the East

The Message of the East

Translation of an excerpt from the preface of the second book of Iqbal's poetry

first published in 1923

There is undoubtedly some resemblance between Germany as it was a hundred years ago and today’s East. The truth, however, is that the internal unrest of the world’s nations, which we cannot assess properly because of being ourselves affected by it, is the fore-runner of a great spiritual and cultural revolution. Europe’s Great War was a catastrophe which destroyed the old world order in almost every respect, and now out of the ashes of civilization and culture Nature is building up in the depths of life a new human being and a new world for him to live in, of which we get a faint sketch in the writings of Einstein and Bergson. Europe has seen with its own eyes the horrible consequences of its intellectual, moral and economic objectives and has also heard from Signor Nitti (a former prime minister of Italy) the heart-rending story of the West’s decline. It is, however, a pity that Europe’s perspicacious, but conservative, statesmen have failed to make a proper assessment of that wonderful revolution which is now taking place in the human mind.

Regarded from a purely literary standpoint, the debilitation of the forces of life in Europe after the ordeal of the war is unfavourable to the development of a correct and mature literary ideal. Indeed, the fear is that the minds of the nations may be gripped by that slow-pulsed magianism which runs away from life’s difficulties and which fails to distinguish between the emotions of the heart and the ideas of the mind. However, America seems to be a healthy element in Western civilization, the reason for which perhaps is that it is free from the trammels of old traditions and that its collective intuition is receptive to new ideas and influences.

The East, and especially the Muslim East, has opened its eyes after a centuries-long slumber. But the nations of the East should realise that life can bring about no revolution in its surroundings until a revolution takes place in its inner depths and that no new world can take shape externally until it is formed in the minds of the people. This ineluctable law, which has been stated by the Quran in the simple but eloquent words, “Verily, God does not change a nation until it changes itself” [xiii. 11] governs both the individual and the collective spheres of life; and it is the truth of this law that I have tried to keep in view in my Persian works.

In the present-day world, and especially in Eastern countries, every effort which aims at extending the outlook of individuals and nations beyond geographical boundaries and at reviving or generating in them a healthy and strong human character is worthy of respect.

Iqbal's Message to the West

The Message

A Poem from The Message of the East (1923) by Iqbal

O morning breeze, convey this to the Western sage from me:
With wings unfolded, Wisdom is a captive all the more.

It tames the lightning, but Love lets it strike its very heart:

In courage Love excels that clever sorcerer by far.

The eye sees just the colour of the tulip and the rose;

But far more obvious, could we see it, is the flower’s core.

It is not strange that you have the Messiah’s healing touch:

What is strange is your patient is the more sick for your cure.

Though you have gathered knowledge, you have thrown away the heart;

With what a precious treasure you have thought it fit to part!

The courting of philosophy is a vain quest, indeed;

For in its school Love’s lofty regimen is not decreed.

Such are its blandishments, it leads astray the pupil’s heart:

There is no mischief its coquettish glances do not breed.

But its cold fire can never set the seeker’s heart aflame:

It cannot give the heart Love’s sweet pain, though it makes it bleed.

Though it has roamed the deserts, it has captured no gazelle;

Though it has searched the garden, it has not a rose for meed.

The wisest thing that we can do is to appeal to Love;

For our desires’ fulfilment we should always kneel to Love.

Wisdom, since it set foot on life’s labyrinthine way,

Has set the sea on fire and made the whole world go awry.

Its alchemy converted worthless grains of sand to gold;

But oh! it gave the wounded heart no love-balm to apply.

Alas! we were so foolish as to let it steal our wits:

It waylaid us, subjecting us to highway robbery.

It raised up much dust from the civilization of the West

To cast into that civilization’s Holy Saviour’s eye.

O how long can you go on sowing sparks and reaping flames,

And tying up your heart in knots which bear new-fangled names?

The self-absorbed and world-regarding wisdom are two things.

The nightingale and falcon have two different kinds of wings.

It is one thing to pick up stray grain lying on the ground;

Another to peck at gems in the Pleiades’ earrings.

It is one thing to roam the garden like the morning breeze;

Another to delve in the rose’s inmost ponderings.

It is one thing to let doubt and conjecture bog you down;

Another to look up and see celestial happenings.

Blest is the Wisdom which has both the worlds in its domain,

Which calls man’s heart’s fire as well as the angels’ light its own.

We, since we issued forth out of the sacred shrine of Love,

Have burnished mirror-bright the very dust beneath our feet.

O look at our adventurousness in the game of life;

For we have robbed the wealth of both the worlds and boldly staked it.

We watch the day-and-night procession move before our eyes,

With our tents pitched right on the margin of a running streamlet.

Once in our heart, which launched a night-raid on this ancient fane,

There was a fire which we breathed into all things, dry or wet.

We were a flame; we flickered, broke down and became a spark:

And since then we burn fitfully, with yearnings vague and dark.

Love learned the greedy ways of earthly lust and burst all bounds:

It caught men in its toils as fish are caught by fishermen.

Preferring war to peace, it reared up armies everywhere,

Which plunged their swords into the hearts of their own kith and kin.

It gave the name of empire to its acts of banditry;

And heavy sat its yoke on those who lived in its domain.

Now, holding in its hand a goblet full of human blood,

It dances madly to the tune of flute and tambourine.

It is high time that we washed clean the tablet of our heart:

It is high time that with a clean slate we made a fresh start.

The royal crown has passed into the hands of highwaymen.

Hushed is the song of Darius; mute is Alexander’s flute.

Farhad has changed his pickaxe for the sceptre of Parvez.

Gone are the joy of mastership, the toil of servitude.

Freed from his bondage, Joseph sits on Pharaoh’s high throne:

The tales and wiles of Potiphar’s wife cannot win her suit.

Old secrets that were veiled stand unveiled in the market-place:

No longer are they subjects of debate for the elite.

Unveil your eyes and you will see that in full view of you

Life is creating for itself a world completely new.

In this our ancient dust I find the pure gold of the soul:

Each atom of it is a star’s eye with the power to see.

In every grain of sand lodged in the womb of mother earth

I see the promise of a many-branched fruit-laden tree.

I find the mountain as light as a tiny blade of grass,

And heavy as a mountain seems a blade of grass to me.

A revolution too big for the universe’s mind

I see, I know not how: I see it just about to be.

O happy he who sees the horseman, not the dust alone,

Who in the throbbing of the strings sees music’s essence drawn.

Life is, and as long as it lasts, will be a running stream:

This old wine’s youthful effervescense will always be new.

What has been but should not have been will not be any more:

What should have been but has not been will be— it must be so.

Love is all eyes for Beauty’s revelations yet to be:

And Beauty, fond of self-display, must always be on view:

Deep in the earth that I have watered with my blood-stained tears

My teardrops will remain embedded, gems of a rich hue.

“I see in the dark night a portent of the coming dawn.

My candle has been put out, but to greet the rising sun.”

[Translated by M. Hadi Husain]