Allama Iqbal's Poetry

The Gift from Hijaz-Urdu

Content

The Devil’s Conference

The Advice Of An Old Baluch To His Son

Painting and the Painter

The State Of Barzakh

A Deposed Monarch

Litany of the Damned

A Voice from Beyond

Quatrains

What fruit will the bough of my hope bear–

Set him free of this world’s affairs

Upset this world of morn and eve,

My poor estate makes proud men covetous,

Rescue me please from wisdom’s narrowness

Iqbal said to the Shaykh of the Ka‘bah:

The old flame of desires has grown cold

The talk of Muslim is interesting,

The clairvoyance of the zephyr

Of love and losing what words need be said?

Why is there no storm in your sea?

If with the heart’s eye the intellect would see aright

Sometimes by rising from the ocean like a wave

The Poetic Notebook of Mullazade Zaigham of Laulab

Your springs and lakes with water pulsating and quivering...

Harder than death is what thou call’st slavery,

Downtrodden and penniless is Kashmir now;

When the enslaved people’s rage boils and they rise in...

The partridge flies with the majesty of the falcons;

The dissolute know the Sufi’s accomplishments

Come out of the monastery and play the role of Shabbir

Thou think’st it a mere drop of blood; well

When flowers’ bookshop opened in the garden

The freeman’s veins are firm as veins of granite

All of the self dwell ignorant, whether by Light touched...

Nations in whom life marches to action

It is the sign of living nations

How heretically do you play the game of life?

The ways of the West are calculating, the ways of the East...

O land of charming and sweet flowers what need is there to...

Self-awareness has made the mujahid forget his body,

Nourish that lofty will and burning heart,

I walk lonely the earth; hear my lament,

To Sir Akbar Hyderi the Chief Minister Of Hyderabad Deccan

The Human Being

All of the self dwell ignorant, whether by Light touched or purblind.
Tell us, who can, is this Wineshop, or Mosque?
Secret our priests have hidden—the shrine is herself the moth that
Round, round the shrine’s lamp flutters. Credulity Spins webs
to make men think their religiousness Pure, unmixed with heathen delusion:
Magic, and myth are the tales alike of
Brahmin and Mullah! Grant to this country, oh
God, such a guide as hides under beggar’s rags
Prophet’s high thoughts! How long shall Woolar’s
Rarest of pearls from the world lie buried?

Translated by: V.G. Kiernan

All of the self dwell ignorant, whether by Light...

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Iqbal Academy Pakistan