Dr Allama Iqbal, the Poet of the East

Dear Urdu Group Members,

I wrote this essay a few years ago. It was published by Allama Iqbal Academy in 2008. A part of it appeared in local English news paper Gulf Times last year. Also it was published on the website of Iqbal Academy Scandinavia, Denmark.

Some of you might find it interesting.

----------------------------

Dr Allama Iqbal, the Poet of the East

Author: Faisal Hanif

فردوس میں رومی سے یہ کہتا تھا سنائی
مشرق میں ابھی تک ہے وہی کاسہ وہی آش
حلاج کی لیکن یہ روایت ہے کہ آخر
اک مرد قلندر نے کیا راز خودی فاش

Most of Urdu and Persian poetry lovers and others, have read Allama Muhammed Iqbal, at least some of him somewhere. His works are known far and wide. To many he remained hard-to-understand philosopher-poet and highly sophisticated philosopher. Iqbal has written pure poetry and prose too which is of a remarkable quality. Urdu poetry lovers find his poetry the most interesting, most intriguing and most touching. It leaves an indelible mark on reader's mind.

Iqbal (1877–1938) was a Persian and Urdu poet, a philosopher and a visionary of the Indian subcontinent. He is considered the spiritual father of Pakistan and is recognised as the national poet of Pakistan. November 9, his birthday, is a national holiday in Pakistan. Many non-literary people and non-Urdu-speakers would recognise him for his famous and popular poem Taraana-e-Hind.

سارے جہاں سے اچھا ہندوستاں ہمارا

(India is better than the whole wide world), it says.

I vitalise Iqbal’s style also his gift for conciseness and frugality. Some of Iqbal’s poetry is very much in the usual sense. Looks like the great influence of traditional style of poetry exercised over Iqbal's mind.

غرض نشاط ہے شغل شراب سے جن کی
حلال چیز کو گویا حرام کرتے ہیں
بھلا نبھے گی تیری ہم سے کیوں کر اے واعظ
کہ ہم تو رسم محبت کو عام کرتے ہیں
جو بے نماز کبھی پڑھتے ہیں نماز اقبال
بلا کے دیر سے مجھ کو امام کرتے ہیں

انجمن سے وہ پرانے شعلہ آشام اٹھ گیے
ساقیا محفل میں تو آتش بجام آیا تو کیا

Iqbal was a philosopher poet, not a pure poet and he freely borrowed ideas from different schools and systems in accordance with the demand of his poetry. One of them is the transformation of Nietzsche Ubermensch (superman) into his own symbols. But these symbols carry Iqbal's very own touch. Energy, intellect, and pride—these make the superman. But they must be harmonised. ‘Mard-e-moman’ and ‘shaheen’ are the classic examples where the passion becomes powers as it is selected and unified by great purposes which mould a chaos of desires into the power of a personality. Borrowing ideas does not mean that his thoughts are incoherent or entirely visionary, in point of fact his poetry is a historic product rooted in the intellectual climate of an age which witnessed the Indian war of independence and new era for Muslims of India. To write about the regeneration of the Muslim nation in such an age was by no means a quixotic venture.

The couplet,

تھا ضبط بہت مشکل اس سیل معانی کا
کہہ ڈالے قلندر نے اسرار کتاب آخر

is a typical of Iqbal’s style. This appeals to the lighter mood; simplicity combined with reasonable depth. Those who read Iqbal's poetry, at once recognise in him a devout and ardent Muslim/Easterner defending the Islamic and oriental values against the supremacy of Western culture. He certainly moralises his 'songs' and he succeeds proving true to what he advocates mostly in his poetry. But he has other sides too. In Iqbal's poetry I have noted that Iqbal had often imitated noted Urdu poet Akbar Allahabadi's style of writing. Some of Iqbal’s light couplets show the influence of Akbar in their themes, words, and the syntax. I personally believe that if this sort of poetry had been written entirely in a different style it would have been a failure as a poetry and if had been written in Iqbal's own style it would have lacked the 'desperate sense of humour 'necessary for making it worth reading.

طبع پر عبرت کی بدلی ایک دن چھا جایے گی
شوخی برق فنا ان کو بھی تڑپا جایے گی
دل نۓ ہیں اورتمنائیں ابھی کم عمر ہیں
رفتہ رفتہ نوجوانوں کو سمجھ آ جایے گی
اکبر

لڑکیاں پڑھ رہی ہیں انگریزی
ڈھونڈھ لی قوم نے فلاح کی راه
روش مغربی ہے مد نظر
وضع مشرق کو جانتے ہیں گناہ
یہ ڈرامہ دکھایے گا کیا سین
پردہ اٹھنے کی منتظر ہے نگاہ
اقبال

There is an abundance of humour and fun in Akbar's poetry and yet this is another ingredient by which Akbar added novelty to the classical poetry of his time. Iqbal succeeded in establishing the similar tone but obviously could not apply Akbar's elevated style to the trivial subjects which make the poetry humourous and elegant at the same time, though we do recognise the grand style as having a mock-serious motive whereas he too used vivid and startling language which is colloquial rather than conventional. Fortunately, yes fortunately this style of poetry did not work for Iqbal and this brought Iqbal’s work its own style and colours.

Iqbal achieved his effects largely through the generalisation of his descriptions working on the readers’ sensitivity to the religion and union being one nation. If we object, Iqbal's poetry consisting of all the obvious ideas of Islam, and thoughts enveloped in a characteristic atmosphere of philosophy then we are recognising his symbolic appropriateness, which is at its best and beautifully sustained at every point in his poetry. He avoided the smooth easy pattern of most of his predecessors e.g. Daagh Dehlvi, Ameer Meenai etc. and his contemporaries preferring to arrest attention rather than to lull the senses.

He is essentially a philosopher poet whose primary concern is purposefulness. His poetry is inspired by religious thoughts, philosophical conceptions and the role assigned to the human spirit in the great drama of existence. He directs his readers to where to look for the truth. Iqbal is aware of the clash between the old and the new, the world of faith and the world of reason and the clash between the civilisations. He combined this with two elements; the fantastic in form and style and the 'incongruous' in matter and manner.

Dr Abdul Rehman Bajnori called Dewaan-e-Ghalib the divine book for the people of India. Mirza Ghalib is the most remarkable poet of Urdu and Persian ever born in the history of Indian sub-continent. Arguably, Iqbal as a poet is the greatest after the mighty Ghalib, and as a thinker and philosopher among the very greatest. His poetry is pure inspiration, a thing of lightness, melody and grace. His ideas are incomparable. He remains a philosopher poet, the greatest that sub-continent or perhaps the modern East has produced. There is no doubt that Iqbal's poems represent the highest achievement of philosophical poetry.

اقبال نے کل اہل خیابان کو سنایا
یہ شعر نشاط آور و پر سوز و طرب ناک
میں صورت گل دست صبا کا نہیں محتاج
کرتا ہے مرا جوش جنوں میری قبا چاک

*********