Adil Najam
To me, the 23rd of March is a day to reflect on the message of Mohammad Iqbal, just like the 14th of August is to ponder on the legacy of Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
We, as Pakistanis, have not really been kind to the legacy of either man. We turned both into idols. And once we convinced ourselves that these were ’supermen’ we conveniently absolved ourselves of the responsibility to learn from - let alone emulate - either. We are fond of celebrating but incapable of incorporating either the actions of Mr. Jinnah nor the thoughts of Mohammad Iqbal.
After all, once we turned Mr. Jinnah into the ‘Quaid-i-Azam’ and conferred near-divine status on him it became all too easy to say that we, mere mortals, could not be expected to act in the way - or even on the principles - that he did. His blemishes were to be denied, not just because we hold him in reverence but also because to acknowledge them is to accept that maybe ordinary - even flawed - human beings can stil have principles worth following. We have done the same to Iqbal. Because his the ‘the’ Allama, he is to be put on a pedestal. His work read with respect and honor; to be savored, but not really to be understood. Certainly not to be questioned, and absolutely not to be allowed to influence that we do. After all, he is an Allama; and we are not.
The Allama-ization of Iqbal, just like the Quaid-i-Azam-ization of Jinnah has been a disservice to both. For ultimately it has turned these two giants into mere statues; the iconography of the ‘Allama’ and the ‘Quaid’ have enabled us to turn them into dieties of reverence while at the same time distancing ourselves - if not outright disowning - the thought of the first and the actions of the later.
We at ATP have been rather remiss in not paying enough tribute to Mohammad Iqbal. This is a mistake I have been wanting to rectify. Today, the eve of Pakistan Day is a good time to begin doing so. The events and the idea behind the 23rd of March owes more to Iqbal than anyone else. And as a first offering of tribute to Iqbal I offer you this wonderful video. I found it on YouTube:
I do not really know who produced it although for some reason the voice sounds familiar. The selection of poetry as well as the pictures are excellent. Indeed, I wou urge you to focus on both. The pictures are not the ones you usually see of him and many of them evoke a humanness that is lost in many of our ‘official’ portraits on the man. But also focus on the ideas. This is a work less known that, say, Shikwa and Jawab i Shikwa, but it has ideas that are so contemporary that he may as well have been talking about the events of last week. For example:
anpay watan meiN houN kay ghareeb-ud-diyar houN
Darta houN daikh daikh kay iss dasht-o-dar ko meiN
A reason why his poetry is as if not more important than his prose is because his poetry is based on philosophy. I have read his poetry quite extensively and two facts regarding his poetry have always amazed me.
1. Most of his verses can be understood at more than one level. His poetry always seem to have 1-2 to hidden meanings which one understands when one go into depth and analyzes the context of the verse.
2. Most of his verses can be traced to definite concepts and ideas in islam and sufism.
For example his verse
Taqdeer ke paband hain nabataat-o-jamadaat.
Momin faqat Ihkam-e-Ilahi ka he paband.
conveys the very important message that as Muslims we cannot modify our actions and morality to suit the prevalent currents of the time. Our actions have to be guided only by a strong sense of right and wrong and morality based on God’s orders, irrespective of the worldly opposition to these concepts.
Incidently, Ashfaq Ahmed has also discussed the same thing in some of his writings. More specifically he discusses the incident where a Wali was removed from his spiritual status because he questioned God’s wisdom in showering rain over a sea when it was full of water. I guess the point he was making was that we have to obey the will of God, its not upto us to questions his actions or orders, so irrespective of what happens or how the world shapes up around us we follow his orders.
Regarding Ghalib, yes he was a great poet and a great intellectual probably one of the best minds of his time, I dont think there can be any doubt about that. But my beef with him is as follows.
In those times the major problem with muslims was that while the best brains in the west were going for sci and tech, most of the muslim intellectuals were writing romantic poetry and associating them selves with the darbars of decrepit muslim monarchs and writing qaseedas in the favour of those monarchs. May be that was the system of those times and they didn’t have much options but some how I just cannot stomach the idea of an intellectual like Ghalib writing Qaseedas for the likes of those monarchs as well as romantic poetry.
I mean most of Ghalib’s poetry seems to be romantic which in my opinion is just a waste of time.
Jabir, there used to be an Edit button; it’s been missing for a couple of weeks now. Listen, obviously it was a typo on your part and I have repeatedly said that I have the utmost respect for Iqbal; his ideas, his philosphy, his poetry, everything. I am not a nihilist and I was only looking for facts regarding Iqbal’s leadership and why he is named in the same breath as Jinnah. I have since read up on the topic myself and I am now convinced that he does deserve the place he is afforded in our history.
Obviously you know its a typo. And not letting it go as a mistake just proves my point. Ok keep on holding it, just like thin air. If you need help as to what to make of this typing mistake, I will help you here, I meant 1400 years. I sincerely hope you are content now?
The saying goes who controls the past controls the future. For that matter,’THEY’ have been very active in manipulating and revisioning the history to pave the way for a future where humanity will be reduced a state of existing (provided the survival ensuing from the slaughter). If someone fails to notice it delibrately or otherwise is doing a disservice to himself and the people around him.
By the way I never saw the mentioned edit button in the comment policy. Can someone help?
Thank you Adil for such a nice column on Iqbal. I agree with the argument that instead of understanding the personality, struggle, philosophy and peotry of Iqbal, we (Pakistanis, his people) made him larger than life figure and ended up in idol worshiping. Iqbal(1877-1938), was a poet-philosopher with a universal message to “lay the foundation of a new world by wedding intellect with love.” But inspite of his abiding universal outlook and his compelling international concern, he was intensly preoccupied with the future of his own people and with the spirit of his own times. We worship his poetry but international world celebrate him (more) as philosopher. He was educated at the Universities of Punjab, Cambridge and Munich and became a symbol of what was best in the East and West. Do we know that his Ph.D degree was in PHILOSOPHY and his doctoral dissertation was titled “Development of Metaphysics in Persia”, which opened new doors in philosophical sciences. These doors took western philosophers to eastern/muslim phiosophies? His philosophical research articles were published in his famous book titled “Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”. To me, these philosophical writings are more powerful than his peotry!!! This is the reason that he is still being taught as a subject in University of Heidelberg, Munich, Homboldt Berlin, Tehran, Cambridge, Oxford, Penn State, Michigan, Utrech, Istambul and many more- all these universities teach IQBALIAT.
Dear Critic
Please do not disrespect Ghalib by calling him a drunk. Maybe he was, but he was a great philosopher in his own right and I certainly do not need to go into details about his contributions to Urdu poetry. Even Iqbal took a great deal of inspiration from Ghalib and admired him in the utmost esteem. Sad to see the only thing you mentioned about Ghalib was his drinking and getting paid for writing poetry. Feel free to read him.
“We are very fortunate that we have solid, hisortically proveable facts spanning last 1400 centuries”.
hmmmmm…1400 centuries ! But to be fair, all “provable” history is replete with inaccuracies such as these. So, I’ll give it a pass.
…And by Gujrat I mean Indian Gujrat.
Iqbal with his farsighted vision and Quaid with his high moral principles and strength were giants among men.
Unfortunately after their death we haven’t produced any one (except may be Mr Edhi) who even came close to their greatness.
And please don’t compare Ghalib with Iqbal. Ghalib was a drunk who used to make money by writing for nawabs and and the sort where as Iqbal’s poetry has inspired three generations towards philosophy and religion. Iqbal’s poetry really lights up the soul. Specially his following verse.
Taqdeer ke paband hain nabataat-o-jamadaat.
Momin faqat Ihkam-e-Ilahi ka he paband.
As for creation of Pakistan, It was the best thing that could have happened to us. Although we haven’t valued our country and protected our freedom (i.e. of speech, religion, financial independence etc) the way we should have yet the fact remains that have we been still part of India we would have been living a life of animals. A case in point is the plight of muslims in Gujrat.