Iqbal had prayed to God: ‘Spread the light of my vision everywhere.’ This prayer which issued from a humane heart will indeed be granted but upon seeing the name of this great poet affiliated with soaps, oils, hotels and laundries, I sometimes feel that the light of his vision will keep wandering for a long time in the narrow and dark lanes of ignorance.
– Saadat Hasan Manto, ‘On Iqbal Day’
Every year, the speeches made in Pakistan on radio, television and at ceremonies on the occasion of the birth of Allama Iqbal – who passed away 80 years ago today – makes one wonder whether the sage being mentioned is the same great poet whose depth of thought and loftiness of imagination is acknowledged by the entire world.
Some personalities are known by their city, some become associated with their country, but others are so universal that they cannot be confined within place, country, language, religion, race or nation. Allama Iqbal was such a universal man, but over the past four decades, some circles in Pakistan are trying to ensconce the eagle of a man in a ‘butterfly’s net’.
As a Pakistani, I am rightly proud that Iqbal was born in the land which is now known as Pakistan. It is also true that he presented the idea of Pakistan before the Muslims of India with great clarity; however the horizon of his thought and art was much vaster than this. The beautiful map of the universe – human beings, their position and historical role – which Iqbal presented in his poetry uniformly invites people of every religion, community, nation and country towards purposeful thought and action. Iqbal is not merely a poet of Pakistan or the subcontinent but of the entire world, just like Homer, Dante, Ferdowsi, Saadi, Goethe, Shakespeare and Ghalib are. To enclose them within narrow boundaries is to hurt both their personality and poetry.
Iqbal’s idea of an evolving universe – The life perhaps is still raw and incomplete / Be and it becomes e’er doth a voice repeat – is not new. Examples of it can be found in Urdu and Persian poetry before Iqbal, but to label the world as ‘a state of change’ in a traditional and ecstatic manner is one thing, and to base the centre of one’s entire system of thought and feeling on the philosophy of change is another.
The logical result of this philosophy is the image of the ascent and greatness of human beings and humanity. This is the centre of Iqbal’s thought and art. Iqbal is our first poet who directed us towards the personal attributes of human beings and indicated the abilities which were hidden and impatient to emerge within them. Iqbal defines with great determination the miracles of the conquest of the universe which human beings have shown; and with great courage and daring compares his achievements with the creations of the Creator. (‘You created the Night, I created the Lamp.’)
After all, how can the angels measure up to the creative abilities of humans? But the condition is that humans recognize their self-respect (khudi), that this is the reality of their divinity and brings their creative abilities into motion. If not for this self-respect, humans do not deserve to be called humans, rather they become animals; and if this self-respect is high, then even the worlds beyond the stars submit to them.
Iqbal is an absolute opponent of the submission of worship and slavery because during slavery, a human being’s self-respect i.e. their personal attributes are lost. The death of self-respect is actually the death of humanity.
‘Why do your priests’, said to me after prayers
A Turkish hero of the faith, ‘drag out their genuflexions so?’
He little knew, that free-born Muslim, that plain warrior
What kind of thing slaves’ prayers are!
In this world a thousand tasks lie ready for the free
In whom the love of high deeds burns
And forges the nations and their laws
But that fire never touches the slave’s limbs
Whose nights and days stand still under an interdict
If our prostrations are long-drawn
Why should you wonder?
Today, submission and worship are part and parcel of the mood of our society. In the present system, humans have to compromise at every step for the fulfilment of their personal desires. That is the reason the ‘courage of refusal’ is not born within them, and the lack of ‘courage of refusal’ has compelled them to adopt all that which is leading to their consistent descent. We find the expression of the ‘courage of refusal’ throughout Iqbal’s poetry.
Iqbal is weary of his society because in this society, the vast majority of people do not find the opportunity to recognise their self-respect and to raise and polish their intellectual abilities. He believes that until feudalism, the capitalist system, monarchy and imperialism are destroyed, humans will continue to be oppressed. The attributes of self-respect will shine once a democratic system is established.
Sadly but not surprisingly, those in authority – and the intellectuals associated with them – have always tried to conceal the evolutionary aspects of Iqbal’s thought. It is true that for the last 71 years, the poetry of Iqbal is broadcast on Pakistani radio ad nauseam. The ulema who put fatwas of blasphemy and apostasy on Iqbal in his lifetime sway to his verses, qawwali gatherings boom with his poetry, commercial newspapers take out special editions on Iqbal Day, but all these people avoid those parts of his poetry like the plague where Iqbal talks about ordinary human beings and the revolutionary needs of society.
The attempts to reduce Iqbal by selectively pruning him and shrinking his personality means the day is not far when even ‘Pakistan’ will lose him and he will be reduced to merely being a poet of Sialkot. As Habib Jalib noted in his brief poem on Iqbal’s birth centenary in 1977,
Log Uthte Hain Jab Tere Ghareebon Ko Jagane
Sab Shehar Ke Zardar Pahunch Jaate Hain Thane
Kehte Hain Yeh Daulat Hamein Bakhshi Hai Khuda Ne
Farsudah Bahane Wahi Afsaane Purane
Ai Shair-E Mashriq! Yehi Jhute Yehi Bad Zaat
Peete Hain Lahoo Banda-E Mazdoor Ka Din Raat
(When people come forward to awaken the poor,
The rich head straight to the police station
To say but our wealth has been granted by God
It’s the same story these liars have told us before
As they drink the blood of the working people
All day and all night, O poet of the East)
Raza Naeem is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic, and an award-winning translator and dramatic reader currently teaching in Lahore. He is currently the president of the Progressive Writers Association in Lahore. His most recent work is an introduction to the reissued edition (HarperCollins India, 2016) of Abdullah Hussein’s classic novel The Weary Generations. He can be reached at: razanaeem@hotmail.com