By Humaira Ahad
Whereas visiting any metropolis throughout Iran, together with the capital Tehran, one can continuously see streets, colleges, or establishments named after the legendary Pakistani poet, Allama Dr. Muhammad Iqbal.
It testifies to his stupendous recognition within the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Beginning his literary journey in Urdu, Iqbal later turned to Persian, surprisingly publishing his magnum opus within the nationwide language of the Islamic Republic, which is a Persian masterpiece.
Muhammad Iqbal, popularly often called Iqbal Lahori in Iran, is remembered as one of many biggest intellectuals of Islamic tradition and civilization.
Often called the “Poet of the East”, he’s extensively admired by literary aficionados in Iran. As a non-native Persian poet, he’s particularly revered by the mental class of the nation.
Chief of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has described Iqbal as a “poetic genius”.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s affiliation with Iqbal
Ayatollah Khamenei has typically expressed his admiration for Iqbal in his speeches and writings. The Chief has additionally authored a guide on the well-known poet named “Iqbal: Manifestation of Islamic Spirit.”
“I’ve been a disciple of Iqbal for years now, Iqbal has inhabited my thoughts. I’ve lived emotionally in his firm and am significantly indebted to him,” Ayatollah Khamenei mentioned in one in all his speeches on the South Asian poet and mental.
For Ayatollah Khamenei, Iqbal is way over a poet or thinker. Chief of the Islamic Revolution, who is a good admirer of arts and literature, considers him a reformer, revolutionary, and an unrelenting warrior.
“The opposite dimensions of his life are so vibrant that if we take into account him to be only a thinker and a scholar, I really feel we’ve belittled him,” Chief mentioned in regards to the Pakistani poet-scholar.
At a convention in Tehran within the Nineteen Eighties, Javed Iqbal, the son of Muhammad Iqbal expressed his amazement at Ayatollah Khamenei’s understanding of the famend poet.
“I used to be stunned after I discovered that Ayatollah Khamenei had memorized about two thousand verses of Iqbal’s poems. Even I, because the son of Iqbal, don’t keep in mind such an enormous chunk of my father’s poetry,” the previous judiciary chief of Pakistan was quoted as saying at an occasion to commemorate Iqbal.
Iqbal’s fascination with Iran
Iqbal admired Iran and Iranians for his or her refinement of manners, philosophical bent of thoughts, historic civilization and pristine tradition. In his assortment of essays and articles, Maqaalaat-e-Iqbal, he noticed that a very powerful occasion within the historical past of Islam was the conquest of Persia because it performed a significant function within the subsequent mental and cultural improvement of the faith.
“The conquest of Persia gave the Muslims what the conquest of Greece gave to the Romans; however for Persia, our tradition would have been completely one-sided,” he wrote.
Iqbal longed to go to Iran however his want by no means materialized. The then-Iranian monarch Reza Shah Pahlavi invited Bengali poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore to go to Iran however the well-known Muslim Persian poet was ignored. Iqbal felt slighted.
“The particular scenario of our nation, particularly the dominance of the evil insurance policies of colonialism, precipitated Iqbal to by no means see Iran, and the identical insurance policies that Iqbal fought towards, didn’t let the concept of Iqbal, the best way of Iqbal, and the teachings of Iqbal attain the individuals of Iran,” Ayatollah Khamenei writes in his guide on Iqbal.
Nonetheless, Iqbal’s love and a tender spot for Iran is mirrored in his illuminating poetry. In one in all his well-known Persian poems devoted to the youth of Iran, the poet writes:
I’m burning like a tulip’s lamp in your path,
O youth of Iran, I swear by my very own life and yours.
The person is coming who shall break the chains of the slaves,
I’ve seen him by means of the cracks within the partitions of your jail.
Zabur-e-Ajam (Persian Psalms)
“Iqbal belongs to this nation and this nation. It was for that reason that he turned his consideration to Iran in order that the flame that was burning inside his coronary heart could possibly be transformed right into a vibrant blaze in Iran. He was ready for a miracle to happen right here,” Ayatollah Khamenei writes about Iqbal’s love for Iran.
Iqbal’s works additionally served as a supply of inspiration for Iranian youth through the 1979 Islamic revolution, after they toppled the West-backed despotic regime.
Famend Iranian sociologist and scholar, Dr. Ali Shariati performed a key function in popularizing Iqbal in Iran.
“Shariati closely quoted Iqbal in his lectures at Hosseniyeh-e-Ershad, a non secular heart that grew to become the epicenter of revolutionary exercise through the Nineteen Seventies. Iqbal’s evocative and transferring Persian elegy for Imam Hussein (AS) additionally adorned the partitions and pillars of Hosseniyeh-e-Ershad,” Keywan Iranzadeh, a scholar of Iranian historical past and a scholar of the Urdu language, advised the Press TV web site.
In line with Ayatollah Khamenei, the philosopher-poet emphasised that conviction to the “Quran and Islam are to be made the premise of all revolutions and actions and Iran was precisely following the trail that was proven to us by Iqbal.”
A famous knowledgeable on Iqbal’s works, Professor Sayed Habib Rezavi, who has written a number of books on the Pakistani poet spoke in regards to the poet’s affiliation with Iran in a dialog with the Press TV web site.
Prof Rezavi, who relies in Indian-administered Kashmir, mentioned, Iqbal needed Hussain’s (AS) martyrdom to be the summum bonum of his religious poetry, and additionally of freedom from ecclesiastical bounds that had gripped Islam to kill its inventive spirit on account of greed and lust for worldly possessions and energy.
“Pushed by the libertine mystic ardour he sought the falcon’s spirit flying over the unending heights of perfection. His supply of perfection was the Home of the Prophet (peace be upon him) which later took the symbolic type of Madina and Najaf in his poetic thought,” he said about Iqbal.
Specialists imagine that Iran’s coverage based mostly on the precept of “Neither the East nor the West” conforms with what Iqbal advocated and wished to pursue. The nation’s self-reliance doctrine is an identical to Iqbal’s political and religious views.
In one in all his lectures, Chief of the Islamic Revolution talked about that Iqbal would have discovered contentment in seeing the progress of Iran after the Islamic Revolution.
“Had he been alive in the present day, he would have seen a nation standing on its toes, infused with the wealthy Islamic spirit and drawing upon the inexhaustible reservoirs of Islamic heritage, a nation that has grow to be self-sufficient and has discarded all of the glittering western ornaments and is marching forward courageously, figuring out its targets and transferring to realize them, advancing with the frenzy of a lover, and has not imprisoned itself throughout the partitions of nationalism and racialism,” he mentioned.
In one in all his well-known and often-quoted verses, Iqbal writes:
If Tehran might grow to be the Geneva of the Orient
The fortunes of this world may change
(Jamiyat-e-Aqwam or League of Nations)
Iranzadeh says Iqbal was prophetic in seeing Tehran because the “Geneva of the Muslim world.”
“The one nation that’s preventing towards imperialism on the earth is Iran. We’re utilizing all our sources to battle hegemony and oppression. Iqbal noticed the spirit of uprightness in Iran,” he advised the Press TV web site.
Iqbal’s Poetic Genius in Ayatollah Khamenei’s phrases
Though the language of Hind is good as sugar
But sweeter is the style of Persian speech
My thoughts was enchanted by its loveliness
My pen grew to become a twig of the Burning Bush
Due to the loftiness of my ideas
Persian alone is appropriate for them
(Asraar e Khudi or Secrets and techniques of the Self)
Iqbal has been reckoned among the many biggest poets of the Persian language within the subcontinent. His revolutionary poetry through the early many years of the 20th century when the subcontinent was below the management of the British offered impetus and motivated Muslims to rise towards overseas rule.
For Ayatollah Khamenei, Iqbal’s Persian works stay one of many miracles of poetry. Chief regards Iqbal’s poetic themes and their renderings as chic, requiring extraordinary genius to be composed in a language that’s not the poet’s mom tongue.
“There are numerous non‑Persian talking poets within the historical past of our literature, however none of them reaches the excellence of Iqbal’s Persian poetry,” he notes.
Born right into a Punjabi-speaking household, Persian was a overseas language for the Pakistani poet.
Iqbal research specialists are of the opinion that selecting the Persian language as a medium for literary expression was a aware choice taken by the nice philosopher-poet.
He believed that Persian was the one language by means of which he might successfully categorical his concepts.
“Iqbal as soon as selected to surrender writing verse. However his instructor, Professor Arnold, feared this may deprive humankind of Iqbal’s distinctive common poetry. He agreed to proceed however with a special medium, Persian, as Urdu didn’t bear the burden of his mature thought,” Prof Rezavi advised the Press TV web site.
“Great modifications had occurred in his philosophical speculations and spiritual thought which he needed to reconstruct. He knew that the Persian language has seen many nice Persian poets, philosophers, spiritual thinkers and students of numerous disciplines. Thus, he desired to make his thought a gathering place of the East and the West as of classical traditions and modernity.”
In “Iqbal: Manifestation of Islamic Spirit,” Ayatollah Khamenei writes in regards to the poet’s nice mastery in casting essentially the most delicate, the subtlest and radically new philosophical themes into the mildew of Persian poetry, a few of that are nonetheless unsurpassable.
“Studying the prefatory word to Iqbal’s Mathnawi, ‘Rumuz‑e Bikhudi‘ (The Secrets and techniques of the Selflessness) and ‘Asrar‑e Khudi’ (The Secrets and techniques of the Self), it may be discovered that even the Persian-speaking persons are hardly in a position to perceive it,” states Ayatollah Khamenei within the guide.
Consciousness of ‘Self’, a binding pressure for Muslims
The motif of Iqbal’s poetry is “self” (khudi) or “ego”. He urges his readers to find their individuality by means of contemplation, introspection, self-cognition, and self-realization.
In line with Ayatollah Khamenei, “self” was first conceived by Iqbal as a sociological and revolutionary notion.
“Iqbal considers love and fervour important for human society. Man has the aptitude of strengthening his ‘self’, which in flip strengthens the ‘social ego’. Iqbal believes that the ‘ego’ of a person and the society can’t be strengthened with out love,” Chief mentioned at a convention on Iqbal within the late Nineteen Eighties.
By means of his poetry, Iqbal reveals how love is the fundamental pressure that empowers man and lifts him from his frail place to a state the place he turns into the middle of the Universe.
His verses deal with the love of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) because the essence of real love, and this love guides weak undirected egos, and helps them to search out clues that would join them with the Final Ego.
Iqbal expresses his intense love for Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He considers the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) as a non-duplicable exemplar of being the beholder of the deepest that means of “self”.
“Remarkably, he determines the Prophet of Islam (PBUH)as an object of affection, a degree round which the Muslim Ummah has to rally. His need to see Muslims united led him to imagine that the love of the Prophet Muhammad al‑Mustafa (PBUH) was the one ardour that would encourage and rally the Muslim Ummah round a brand new consciousness,” Ayatollah Khamenei mentioned in one in all his lectures on Iqbal.
We belong to the Hijaz and China and Persia
But we’re the dew of 1 smiling daybreak
We’re all below the spell of the attention of the
cup-bearer from Makkah
We’re united as wine and cup
(Asrar-e- Khudi, The Secrets and techniques of the Self)
