Amongst the massively splendid works of Iqbal, if I were to read only “a portion”, I believe this would be it!
Amidst this havoc of confusion having been unleashed upon us, The direction we need is imperative and Iqbal precisely provides us with it, when he writes for his son, Javid.
Disclaimer: This is the English translation of last section of Javid Nama by the translator: B. A. Dar, taken from his Article, Reference: IQBAL REVIEW: Journal of the Iqbal Academy, Pakistan, April 1971. Editor: Abdul Hameed Kamali. Article: ADDRESS TO JAVID (Talk to the New Generation) by B. A. Dar.
.
If I say it, it becomes all the more knotty,
Words and sounds make it more mysterious;
Catch its warmth from my look,
Or from my morning lamentation.
You got your first instruction from your mother;
It was her breeze which helped open your bud.
It was her breath that made you what you are;
O dear one, your worth is all due to her.
You gained immortal riches (of the spirit) through her,
And learnt lā ilāh through her lips.
O Son, have from me the joy of vision,
And burning in (the fire of) lā ilāh.
If you say lā ilāh, speak it from the depth of your heart,
So that your body may smell of soul.
The sun and the moon revolve through the burning of lā ilāh;
I have seen this “burning” in mountains and grass.
These two words, lā ilāh, are not mere words;
La ilāh is but a sword from which there is no escape.
To have this burning is to attain power;
Lā ilāh is a stroke very telling and effective.
A believer and to pay obeisance to others!
A believer and to be disloyal, beggarly and hypocrite!
He sold away his religion and community for a trifle,
And burnt away the household goods as well as the house.
His prayers were once inspired by lā ilāh though not now;
His submission (to God) had once a grace of its own.
His prayer and fasting have lost all (spiritual) light;
No longer is there any (divine) manifestation in his universe.
He whose source of strength was only God,
Has fallen prey to love of money and fear of death.
He has lost ecstasy, ardour and zest that once characterised him;
His religion is in the Book and he is in the grave.
The modern age has adversely affected him ;
He learnt his religion from two prophets;
The one was from Iran, the other from India;
The former disapproved of Hajj(pilgrimage), the latter, of Jihad.
When Hajj and Jihad (holy war) are no larger religious duties,
Prayers and fasting lose their inner essence.
When prayers and fasting are deprived of their soul,
Individual loses his balance and society becomes disorganised.
When the hearts lack warmth of the Qur’an,
There can be no hope of good from such people.
The Muslim lost his Khudi ;
O Khidr! Help us, for the situation has gone beyound our control.
Prostration which causes tremours to the earth,
And to whose bidding the sun and the moon revolved,
If it casts its imprint on the stone
It would melt into thin air like smoke;
That prostration these days is nothing but bending down of the head,
And is but symbol of old age’s weakness.
It no longer has the grandeur of: God is High;
Is it (due to) our fault or any defect in it?
Everybody is moving fast on his path,
Like a bridleless dromedary and without any goal.
The upholder of the Qur’an, with no zest for search,
How strange it is!
If God grants you insight,
Look at the times in which you live.
Reasons are impudent and hearts impervious to compassion,
Eyes lacking in modesty and immersed only in appearances.
Art and science, religion and politics, reason and heart—
Each dealing only with water and clay.
Asia, that land of the Rising Sun,
Looks towards others, and is hidden from herself.
Her heart has ceased to have new experiences,
Her (intellectual) products are not worth anything;
Her life in this ancient world
Is stationary, frozen and without any urge for movement.
She has fallen prey to Mullas and Kings ;
Her thought, being lame and cripple, can’t soar high.
Her reason, faith, wisdom and honour
Are all tied to the apron-strings of the lords of the West.
I made an assault on her world of thought
And tore the veils from over her secrets.
My heart has bled within my breast,
Thus have I been able to revolutionize her world.
I have said a few words for the people of the age;
Two oceans have been condensed in two cups.
I have expressed my ideas in a technical language,
That I may win applause from the people;
It is in the difficult language, using the terminology of the West:
Ecstatic songs from the strings of a harp.
The origin of one is contemplation, the origin of other is thought,
May you be the inheritor of both these!
I am a rivulet, my water comes from both these sources;
My separation is both separation and union.
As the demands of the present age are different
I laid the foundation of a different phenomenon.
The young of today are thirsty and yet have an empty cup,
Charming to look at, with a clever mind but with dark soul;
Lacking in insight and conviction and hopeless of future,
Their eye didn’t see anything in the world.
Poor in spirit, lacking faith in themselves, dependent on others,
The architect of the temple uses bricks made of his earth.
The school is unaware of its objective,
Hence it does not appeal to their innermost heart.
It robbed their souls of the light of nature;
Not a single graceful rose grew on its branch.
Our architect lays the foundation stone awry:
He cultivates the habits of a duck in the young of a falcon.
Unless knowledge gets warmth of burning from Life,
Heart remains empty of new experiences.
Knowledge is nothing but exposition of your stations,
And commentary of your manifestations.
One must burn oneself in the fire of sense-impressions,
That one can distinguish between one’s silver and copper.
Knowledge of truth starts with sense impressions and ends in
vision. Its end can’t be comprehended by reason.
A hundred books have you learnt through efficient teachers,
Far better is the lesson that you receive through sight.
From that wine that d in his own way; Everybody gets
The morning breeze puts out the lamp
But it fills the tulip’s cup with wine.
Eat little, sleep little, talk little:
Move round yourself like a compass.
He who denies God is an unbeliever in the eyes of a theologian.
To me, he who denies himself is a greater unbeliever.
The one was called “hasty” because of denial of Being;
The other was “hasty” as well as “unjust” and “ignorant.”
Be steadfast in the way of sincerity
And free yourself from fear of kings and landlords.
Don’t swerve from the path of justice whether in anger or in peace,
Stick to the golden mean in affluence or in poverty.
The Law may be difficult; don’t seek escape from it;
Let none but your own heart be your guide.
Soul’s welfare: limitless remembrance (of God) and rational thinking.
Body’s welfare: self control in youth.
Position of authority in the world below and above
Cannot be attained except through body’s and soul’s welfare.
The object of journey is to enjoy moving about,
If your object is to return to the nest, then don’t start flying.
The moon revolves that it may attain its station,
For man’s journey, staying at any place is disallowed.
Life is nothing but enjoyment of flight;
Nest is incompatible with its nature.
The food of’ vultures and crows is in the earth of the grave,
The food of hawks is in the neighbourhood of moon and sun.
The essence of religion is: truthful speech and lawful food;
To took at Beauty in solitude and in company.
Live as hard as diamond in the path of religion,
Be in constant touch with God and live without anxiety.
I tell you of the essence of religion
And relate to you an episode from the life of Sultan Muzaffar.
He was unique in his acts of sincerity,
A king enjoying the spiritual states of Bayazid.
He had a horse whom he loved as a dear son;
Like his master, the horse was hard hitting in war;
A black steed of Arab breed,
Faithful, faultless and of pure stock;
O man of intelligence! for a believer, there is nothing more dear
Than the Qur’ān, a sword and a horse.
What can I say about that horse of noble stock !
He was like a mountain and moved over rivers like a wind.
On the day of battle, he was swifter than eye-sight;
A stormy wind encircling mountains and rocks.
Several tumults of Resurrection lie in his swift running;
Stones break into pieces under his hoofs.
One day, the horse, as noble as man,
Suffered from acute pain in his stomach.
A veterinary doctor treated him with wine
And thus the horse was relieved of pain;
The righteous king no longer used that horse;
The ways of taqwa are different from our way.
May God grant you sincere heart!
See the submission of a true Muslim!
Religion is burning from head to foot in search,
Its end is love and its beginning, correct behaviour.
The beauty of the rose lies in its colour and smell;
One who is disrespectful is without honour.
When I see a young man, lacking in correct behaviour,
My days become dark as night.
It increases pain in my heart
And I remember the testament of Mustafa.
I feel ashamed of my own deeds
And hide myself in days gone by.
A woman’s protection is her husband or the grave,
A man’s protection is security from bad company.
It is wrong to speak ill of others;
Believer and unbeliever—all are God’s creatures.
Manliness is to respect man;
Be aware of the true position of man.
Man prospers by maintaining proper relationship with others,
Set your foot on the path of friendship.
Man of love tries to follow in the Ways of God,
Is kind to all, believer and unbeliever alike.
Let belief and unbelief find room in the expanse of your heart;
If your heart feels ill at ease, then God protect you!
Although heart is confined within water and clay,
This whole world is the world of heart.
Even if you are a lord of the land.
Don’t give up the attitude of faqr.
The ardour (of this faqr) lies hidden in your soul:
This old wine is an inheritance from your ancestors.
In this world seek nothing but pangs of the heart,
Ask blessings from God and not from kings.
It so often happens that a man of insight and God-oriented
Becomes blind through affluence.
Abundance of wealth dries the springs of compassion,
Produces pride and destroys submissiveness.
I have moved round the world for years,
I have never seen tears in the eyes of the rich.
I love him who lives like a dervish;
Woe to the man who lives forgetful of God
Don’t expect to find in Muslims that rapture and ecstasy,
That faith, conviction and power (which were once their characteristics).
Scholars are forgetful of the knowledge of the Qur’an,
Sufis with their long hair are predatory wolves.
Although there is much activity in the monasteries,
There is hardly a person there who has wine in his cup.
On the other hand, the West-oriented Muslims
Are seeking sweet water from mirage.
All are ignorant of the essence of religion,
They are men of deceit and malice.
Good and virtue are hardly to be found in the elite;
Sincerity and truth are found only among the masses.
Distinguish people of religion from the people of malice;
See the man of God and sit in his company.
The vultures have their own law and custom;
The grandeur of the flight of the hawk is a different thing
Man of truth comes down from the heaven like lightening;
His fuel is cities and towns of east and west.
We are still (wrapped) in the darkness of the universe;
He partakes in its management.
He is like Kalim, Messiah, Khalil;
He is Muhammad, the Book and the Gabriel.
For the people of the heart he is like the sun
And his rays impart life to them.
First he burns you in his own fire Then teaches you kingship.
We are all people of the heart through his ardour,
Without him, we would be unreal images of water and clay.
I fear, the time in which you were born
Is immersed in body and is hardly aware of the soul.
When through the dearth of soul, body becomes everything,
The man of truth hides himself within himself.
Search does not bring such a man to your view
Although you see him face to face. Still you don’t give up your search,
Although you have to face a hundred difficulties.
If, however, you don’t find company of such a wise man,
Get from me what I have inherited from my forefathers.
Make Rūmi your guide on the path.
That God may grant you ardour and compassion.
For Rūmi knows kernel from the shell,
He is steadfast in the way of the Beloved.
People have written commentaries on his works but none him,
His real intent like a deer missed our grasp.
People learnt from him bodily dance;
They closed their eyes from the dance of the soul.
Bodily dance leads to the movement of the earth,
Soul’s dance upsets the skies.
From soul’s dance comes knowledge and judgement,
Earth as well as heaven are caught in the net.
The individual through it achieves Moses’ ecstasy,
society becomes inheritor of a great kingdom.
To learn soul’s dance is a difficult task;
To burn other-than-God is not a child’s play.
so long as the heart does not burn in the fire of avarice and grief
O Son, the soul does not dance till then.
Grief is the sign of weak faith and affliction,
O young man! grief is half old age.
Do you know that avarice is modern faqr,
I am slave of him who controls himself.
You will be a source of comfort to my impatient soul,
If you chance to learn soul’s dance.
I tell you the essence of Mustafa’s religion,
And shall pray for you in the grave too!
.
.
The article can be accessed here. Article 3- page 22.
