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Dedication to the Muslim Community
You, who were made by God to be the Seal (i)
Of all the peoples dwelling upon earth
That all beginnings might in you find end;
Whose saints were prophetlike, whose wounded hearts
Wove into unity the soul of men;
Why are you fallen now so far astray
From Mecca's holy Kabba, all bemused
By the strange beauty of the Christian's way?
The very skies are but a gathering
Of your street's dust, yourselves the cynosure
Of all men's eyes; whither in restless haste
Do you now hurry like a storm-tossed wave,
What new diversion seeking? No, but learn
The mystery of ardor from the moth
And make your lodgment in the burning flame;
Lay Love's foundation-stone in your own soul,
And to the Prophet pledge anew your troth.
My mind was weary of Christian company,
When suddenly your beauty stood unveiled,
My fellow-minstrel sang the epiphany (ii)
Of alien loveliness, the lovelorn theme
Of tresses and soft cheeks, and rubbed his brow
Against the saki's door, rehearsed the chant
Of Magian wenches. I would martyr be
To your brow's scimitar, am fain to rest
Like dust upon your street. Too proud am I
To mouth base panegyrics, or to bow
My stubborn head to every tyrant's court
Trained up to fashion mirrors out of words,
I need not Alexander's magic glass (iii)
My neck endures not men's munificence;
Where roses bloom, I gather close the skirt
Of my soul's bud. Hard as the dagger's steel
I labor in life, my luster win
From the tough granite. Though I am a sea,
Not restless is my billow; in my hand
I hold no whirlpool bowl. A painted veil
Am I, no blossom's perfume-scattering,
No prey to every billowing breeze that blows.
I am a glowing coal within Life's fire.
And wrap me in my embers for a cloak.
An now my soul comes suppliant to your door
Bringing a gift of ardor passionate.
A mighty water out of heaven's deep
Momently trickles o'er my burning breast,
The which I channel narrower than a brook
That I may fling it in your garden's dish.
Because you are beloved by him I love
I fold you to me closely as my heart.
Since Love first made the breast an instrument
Of fierce lamenting, by its flame my heart
Was molten to a mirror; like a rose
I pluck my breast apart, that I may hang
This mirror in your sight. Gaze you therein
On your own beauty, and you shall become
A captive fettered in your tresses' chain.
I chant again the tale of long ago,
To be your bosom's old wounds bleed anew.
So for a people no more intimate
With its own soul I supplicated God,
That He might grant t them a firm-knit life.
In the mid watch of night, when all the world
Was hushed in slumber, I made loud lament;
My spirit robbed of patience and repose,
Unto the Living and Omnipotent God
I made my litany; my yearning heart
Surged, till its blood streamed from my weeping eyes
"How long, O Lord, how long the tulip-glow,
The begging of cool dewdrops from the dawn?
Lo, like a candle wrestling with the night
O'er my own self I pour my flooding tears."
I spend my self, that there might be more light,
More loveliness, more joy for other men.
Not for one moment takes my ardent breast
Repose from burning; Friday does not shame (iv)
My restless week of unremitting toil.
Wasted is now my spirit's envelope;
My glowing sigh is sullied all with dust.
When God created me at Time's first dawn
A lamentation quivered on the strings
Of my melodious lute, and in that note
Love's secrets stood revealed, the ransom-price
Of the long sadness of the tale of Love;
Which music even to sapless straw imparts
The ardency of fire, and on dull clay
Bestows the daring of the reckless moth.
Love, like the tulip, has one brand at heart,
And on its bosom wears a single rose;
And so my solitary rose I pin
Upon your turban, and cry havoc loud
Against your drunken slumber, hoping yet
Tulips may blossom from your earth anew
Breathing the fragrance of the breeze of Spring.
(i) Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) being commonly called
the Seal of the Prophets because in him God concluded His series of
revelations to manking. Iqbal borrows the term and refers to the
Islamic community as the Seal of the Peoples.
(ii) The reference is to the continuing fashion among Urdu poets to
imitate the conventional love-lyrics of Persia in which the images
mentioned are very common.
(iii) Alexander the Great is said in Persian legend to have possessed a
magic mirror in which he saw the whole world at a glance.
(iv) Friday being the day for Muslim congregational prayer.
Prelude Of the Bond between Individual and Community
The link that binds the Individual
To the Society a Mercy is;
His truest Self in the Community
Alone achieves fulfillment. Wherefore be
So far as in thee lies in close rapport
With thy Society, and luster bring
To the wide intercourse of free-born men.
Keep for thy talisman these words he spoke
That was the best of mortals: "Satan holds (i)
His furthest distance where men congregate."
The Individual a Mirror holds
To the Community, and they to him;
He is a jewel threaded on their cord,
A star that in their constellation shines;
He winds respect as being one of them,
And the society is organized
As by comprising many such as he
When in the Congregation he is lost
'Tis like a drop which, seeking to expand,
Becomes and ocean. It is strong and rich
In ancient ways, a mirror to the Past
As to the Future, and the link between
What is to come and what has gone before,
So that its moments are as infinite
As is Eternity. The joy of growth
Swells in his heart from the Community,
That watches and controls his every deed;
To them he owes his body and his soul,
Alike his outward and his hidden parts.
His thought are vocal on the People's tongue,
And on the pathway that his forebears laid
He learns to run. His immaturity
Is warmed to ripeness by their friendship's flame,
Till he becomes one with the Commonwealth.
His singleness in multiplicity
Is firm and stable, and itself supplies
A unity to their innumerate swarm
The word that sits outside its proper verse (ii)
Shatters the jewel of the though concealed
Within its pocket; when the verdant leaf
Falls from the stem, its thread of hope for Spring
Is snapped asunder. He who has not drunk
The water of the People's sacred well, (iii)
The flames of minstrelsy within his lute
Grow cold, and die. The Individual,
Alone, is heedless of high purposes;
His strength is apt to dissipate itself;
The People only make him intimate
With discipline, teach him to be as soft
And tractable as is the gentle breeze,
Set him in earth like a well-rooted oak,
Close-fetter him, to make him truly free.
When he is prisoner to the chain of Law
His deer, by nature wild and uncontrolled (iv)
Yields in captivity the precious musk
Thou who hast not known Self form Selflessness,
Therefore has lost thyself in vain surmise.
within thy dust there is an element
Of Light, whos single shaft illuminates
Thy whole perception; all thy joy derives
From its enjoyment, all thy sorrow springs
From its distress; its constant change and turn
Keep thee in vital being. It is on
And, being one, brooks no duality;
Grace to its glow I am myself, thou.
Preserving self, staking and making self,
Nourishing pride in meek humility,
it is a flame that sets a fire alight,
A spark that overshoots the blazing torch.
Its nature is to be both free and bond;
Itself a part, it has the potency
To seize the whole. I have beheld its wont
Is strife incessant, and have called its name
Selfhood, and Life. Whenever it comes forth
From its seclusion, and discreetly steps
Into the riot of phenomena
Its hear is impressed with the stamp of "he",
"I" is dissolved, converting into "thou".
Compulsion cuts the freedom of its choice,
Making it rich in love. While pride of self
Pulls its own way, humility is not born;
Pull pride together, and humility
Comes into being. Self negates itself
In the Community, that it may be
No more a petal, but a rosary.
"These subtleties are like a steely sword : (v)
If they defeat thy wit, quick flee away!"
)The "best of mortals" is Muhammad. Iqbal here paraphrases a saying
attributed to him.
ii)A verse, inPersian poetic theory, is supposed to be self-contained,
and it is taken for a blemish when the meaning of the verse is completed
by a word or jphrase in a preceding or succeeding verse.
iii)The original for "sacred well" is Zemzem, the well of Mecca at which
the Muslim pilgrims drink.
iv)The musk of the musk deer, can only be gathered when the deer is
captured alive.
v)This and the following verse form a a quotation from the mystical lpoet
Rumi.
