English Translations - International Iqbal Society - Allama Iqbal

2021-02-19T16:43:49+00:00

The mentor exhorted his. disciples once:
Listen to my words, in value greater than gold:
The Western wine is poison for the people,
When the offspring knows neither pride nor skill.

2021-02-19T16:43:49+00:00

Barter not thy Selfhood for silver and gold;
Sell not a burning flame for a spark half-cold;
So says Firdowsi, the poet of vision and grace,
Who brought to the East the dawn of brighter days:
‘Be not a churl for filthy lucre’s sake,
Count not thy coppers, whatever they may make.’

2021-02-19T16:43:49+00:00

THE REBELLIOUS DISCIPLE

I am not blessed
Even with a kerosene lamp;
But the pir’s home is decked
With chandeliers imported.

A Muslim is naive,
Whether urban or rural;
And the Brahmins of Kaaba
Are worshipped by him like idols.

The deceitful holy robes
Disguise a userer;
The offerings he gets,
Are interest compounded.

The pontifical throne
Is theirs by descent;
The eagles’ abodes are
In the possession of crows.

2021-02-19T16:43:49+00:00

I am a scorner of the earth—
Where life is a handful of grains.

My nature, like a hermit’s,
Loves wild solitude.

No breeze for me, no nightingale;
No song of love,. no song in the air.

I wing away from gardens,
Embowered with flowers enticing.

In wilderness the winds
Sharpen my ethereal flight.

I hunger not for birds of prey;
Mine is an austere life.

O East and west are for petty birds;
Mine is the world of boundless skies.

I stoop not to make a nest;
I am a dervish among the birds.

2021-02-19T16:43:49+00:00

Once I Saw in a vision
Satan complaining to the Almighty:

‘Man, that handful of’ dust,
Is a firebrand, indeed.

Lean in soul, and fat in body,
Dressed in fancy clothes;

With a heart ebbing away;
Ripe and cunning in reason.

Thou knowest not,
The houris of heaven
Are sad at the thought
Of heaven’s desolation.

The men of politics
Have usurped my place forever;
And I am not needed
On the earth any more.’

2021-02-19T16:43:49+00:00

Talking in signs and symbol is not for this age,
And I know not the art of artful sniggers;
No more are those who said: ‘Rise, in God’s name!’
The ones alive are sweepers and grave-digger

2021-02-19T16:43:49+00:00

THE sun is weaving with golden thread
A mantle of light about earth's head;
Creation hushed in ecstasy,
As in the presence of the Most High.
What can these know-stream, hill, moon, star—
Of separation's torturing scar?
Mine is this golden grief alone,
To this dust only is this grief known.

2021-02-19T16:43:49+00:00

STOOD by the Reformer's tomb: that dust
Whence here below an orient splendour breaks,
Dust before whose least speck stars hang their heads,
Dust shrouding that high knower of things unknown
Who to Jehangir would not bend his neck,
Whose ardent breath fans every free heart's ardour,
Whom Allah sent in season to keep watch
In India on the treasure-house of Islam.
I craved the saints' gift, other-worldliness
For my eyes Saw, yet dimly. Answer came:
'Closed is the long roll of the saints; this Land
Of the Five Rivers stinks in good men's nostrils.
God's people have no portion in that country
Where lordly tassel sprouts from monkish cap
That cap bred passionate faith, this tassel breeds
Passion for playing pander to Government.'

2021-02-19T16:43:49+00:00

CINEMA-or new fetish-fashioning,
Idol-making and mongering still?
Art, men called that olden voodoo—
Art, they call this mumbo-jumbo;
That-antiquity's poor religion:
This-modernity's pigeon-plucking;
That-earth's soil: this-soil of Hades;
Dust, their temple; ashes, ours.

2021-02-19T16:43:49+00:00

This vast gray dome,
This eerie solitude,
And this unbounded wilderness,
Hold an uncanny fright for me.

I am a wanderer, lost,
Thou art a wanderer, too,
Dost thou know thy goal, O wild flower—
Dost thou know thy goal?

These mounts and hills are empty,
Bereft of a vision-seeking Moses;
Though thou art a burning flame,
And I am a burning flame.

Why didst thou part from thy roots?
Why did I part from mine?
Was it the impulse to be born?
Was it the impulse to be unique?

May God take care of those
Who plunge into the ocean of love,
For every drop of the ocean
Has the ocean’s depth.

The whirlpool mourns the wave
Swallowed up in its abyss—
The wave that rose from the sea’s depths,
But never lapped against the shore.

It is man that has breathed
Life into this vacuous world,
The sun, the moon, and the stars,
Are silent, passive spectators

O wild, wild wind!
Bestow on me thy silence,
Thy pain and thy passion,
Thy power and thy buoyancy.