Bano Qudsia (born 1928) is a writer, intellectual, playwright and spiritualist from Pakistan who is regarded among the best Urdu novelists and short story writers of modern times. She is best known for her novel Raja Gidh. She writes for television and stage in both Urdu and Punjabi languages. She is the wife of famous novelist Ashfaq Ahmed. She has written a number of popular television plays.Bano moved with her family to Lahore during the Partition of India. Her father, a landlord with a Bachelor's degree in agriculture, died when Bano was very young. She attended school in Dharamsala in eastern India before moving to Lahore. Her mother, Mrs. Chattah, was an educationalist, and this inspired the youngBano to develop a keen interest in academics, which turned her into a conscientious student. Her marriage to Ashfaq Ahmed consummated the artist in her, though she says she never discussed any of her works with her husband nor has the writer-spouse ever tried to influence her writings. "We work very independently. Writing a book is like bearing a child and you do not share that with anyone. God is your only confidant. It is alsolike falling in love. You keep it personal and private.As a student, she wrote for college magazines and other journals. Her memories of her days at Kinnaird College in Lahore, from where she graduated, are still quite vivid. She talks of the literary inspiration that was a hallmark at Kinnaird's campuses during those days. Though her stay at Kinnaird went a long way in sharpening her scholarly skills, Bano felt an incessant need to polish her expressions in Urdu, the only language with which she could reach the minds of the people. So in 1951, she completed her M.A. degree in Urdu from the Government College Lahore with distinction.She has authored numerous short stories, novelettes, television and radio plays, and stage plays. Her short stories include Baz Gasht, Amar Bail, Doosra Darwaza and Twajju ki Talib. Of her novels, none has received as much recognition as Raja Gidh which centers around the forbidden truth. The plot buildsaround the symbol of a vulture, a bird of prey, that feeds on dead flesh and carcasses. The moral sought implies that indulgence in the forbidden leads to physical and mental degeneration.Some of her best plays include Tamasil, Hawa key Naam, Seharay and Khaleej. The plight of women and other socio-economic issues have often been the subject of her television serials that have inspired families wherever they have been aired. The Graduate Award for Best Playwright was conferred on Bano in 1986, followed by the same award for three consecutive years from 1988 to 1990. In 1986, she was also given the Taj Award for Best Playwright.Rather critical of the deviation of today's woman from her natural role of mother and home keeper, Bano decries what she terms 'a woman's unsolicited and disoriented escape from responsibility.' Interestingly, though, she blames men for plotting a conspiracy to push women out of the house, her only domain. "And women fall easy prey to this trap. Men of the post-industrialization era gave women a taste of luxurious lifestyles and then instigated them to step out of the house and earn that lifestyle. The woman developed a taste for what she thought was freedom for her, but which actually bonded her as a labourer and a breadwinner."She cites the example of the woman who does the dishes in her home. "This woman is more liberated than your modern women, since she does not suffer from any conflicts of the 'self'. Poverty is all that hurts her and she is not caught in a rat race to prove something to herself or carve out an identity for herself. Her existence is identity enough.Banoalso feels that what she calls women's 'strength of softness' has been lost in their struggle to prove themselves equal to men. What women take as their weaknesses are in fact their strengths, she believes.Bano Qudsia planned to co-author a book with her (now late) husband. Her obligations towards her family are much more important for her than her work. "My husband (now late), my three sons and daughter-in-law have all been very kind to me and have always showered their affections on me. So, how can I ever put anything else before them?"Having lived a fulfilling life, which Bano ascribes to the benevolence of those around her, she kept herself busy caring for her husband. She is now working on her present literary undertaking - a novel which she plans to title Dastan Serai, after her home. "I formally started work on this novel in 1992. Prior to this, I had worked on it during the 1950s. The novel is set against the backdrop of Partition and revolvesaround the theme of intention and motivation. It highlights the importance of intention as the key determinant behind every act.
Books. Aatish Zeir Pa . Adhi Baat . Aik Din . Amr Bail . Assey Passey . Bazgasht . Chahar Chaman . Dast Basta . Dosra Darwaza . Dusra Qadam . Foot Path Ki Ghaas . Haasil Ghaat, Read online . Hawwa Key Naam . Kuch Aur Nahi . Marde Abresham . Maum Ki Gallian . Naqabal e Zikr . Piya Naam Ka Diya . Purwa . Purwa and Aik Din . Raja Gidh, Read online . Saman-e-Wajood . Shehr-e-bemisaal . Sudhraan . Suraj Mukhi . Tamaseel . Tawjha Ki Talib . Dastan Sarei, forthcoming...
Ashfaq Ahmed, PP, SI (Punjabi: اشفاق احمد) (August 22, 1925 – September 7, 2004) was a distinguished writer, playwright, broadcaster,intellectual and spiritualist from Pakistan. His qualities of head and heart, in particular his ability to weave Islamic (sufi) wisdom into everyday folk experience earned appreciation across the world. He was regarded by many as among the finest Urdu Afsana (short-story) writers alongsideSaadat Hasan Manto, Qurratulain Hyder, Prem Chand, Bedi, MirzaAdeeb, Ismat Chughtai and Krishan Chander following the publication of his famous short-story Gaddarya [The Shepherd] in 1955.
Ahmed was born on 22 August 1925 in Firozpur, British Punjab. He obtained his early education in his native district. Shortly before independence in 1947, he migrated to Pakistan and made the Lahorehis abode. He completed his Masters in Urduliterature fromGovernment College Lahore. Bano Qudsia, his wife and companion in Urdu literary circles who is also one of the best novelists of Urdu, was his classmate at Government College.
After Partition, when Ashfaq Ahmed arrived at the Walton refugee camp with millions of other migrants, he used to make announcements on a megaphone round the clock. Later, he got a job in Radio AzadKashmir, which was established on a truck that used to drive around in various parts of Kashmir. He then got lectureship at Dayal Singh College, Lahore for two years. Whereafter, he went to Rome to join Radio Rome as an Urdu newscaster. He also used to teach Urdu at Rome university. During his stay in Europe, he got diplomas in the Italian and French languages from the University of Rome and University of Grenoble, France. He also got special training diploma in radio broadcasting from New York University.He started writing stories in his childhood, which were published in Phool magazine. After returning to Pakistanfrom Europe, he took out his own monthly literary magazine, Dastaango [Story Teller], and joined Radio Pakistan as a script writer. He was made editor of the popular Urdu weekly, Lail-o-Nahar [Day and Night], in place of famous poet Sufi Ghulam MustafaTabassum by the Government of Pakistan.In 1962, Ashfaq Ahmed started his popular radio program, Talqeen Shah [The Preacher] which made him immensely popular among the people in towns and villages. It was a weekly feature that ran for three decades, the longest weekly radio show in the subcontinent. He was appointed director of the Markazi Urdu Board in 1966, which was later renamed as Urdu Science Board, a post he held for 29 years. He remained with the board until 1979. He also served as adviser in the Education Ministry during Zia-ul-Haq's regime. In the 60s, he produced a feature film, Dhoop aur Saie [Shadows and Sunshine], which was not very successful at the box office.
Style
Ashfaq Ahmed's subtle sense of humour is reflected in his long-running radio programs and characters like Talqeen Shah, while several TV drama series based on his memorable plays of three decades ago are still enjoyed by the audience. Their appeal lies in the universal truths of life portrayed in human hopes, emotions, aspirations and relationships that touch the soul of people of all age groups. His popular TV plays include Aik muhabbat sau afsanay [Bunch of Love Stories], Uchhay burj Lahore dey [Barbicans of Lahore], Tota kahani [Story of the Parrot], Lekin [But],Hairat kadah [Incredibility] and Mun chalay ka sauda [Bargain of the Stubborn]. All through his life, AshfaqAhmad endeavored to reform the society through his writings. He had authored over twenty five books including a travelogue,Safar dar safar [Long Way Journey], with an atypical style. In fact, he gave a new mold to diction and locale situations, many of his fans would fondly remember. He used Punjabi literary words very well in Urdu and introduced a new kind of prose, which was unique to him. For his excellent literary work, he was awarded President's Pride of Performance andSitara-i-Imtiaz for meritorious services in the field of literature and broadcasting.Besides his personality as a great author of impressive and laudable books, Ashfaq Ahmed, in his later period of life, was greatly inclined towards sufism, which was visibly reflected in most of his works. His close association with Qudrat Ullah Shahab and Mumtaz Mufti was also attributed for this tendency. Of-late, he used to appear in a get-together with his fans in television's program Baithhakh [The Guest Room] and Zaviya[The Dimension] wherein he gave swift but satisfying responses to each and every query, placed before him, explicitly by the youth of each gender, in a mystic style.
Fatima Surayya Bajia (فاطمہ ثریاّ بجیا; 1 September 1930 – 10 February 2016) was an Urdu novelist, playwright and drama writer from Pakistan. She was awarded various awards at home and abroad including Japan's highest civil award in recognition of her works. Bajia remained Advisor to the Chief Minister of Sindh province in Pakistan, and was a member of the managing committee of the Arts Council of Pakistan. She died on 10 February 2016 in Karachi, aged 85.
A well-known personality in social welfare, literary Radio, TV and Stage, Bajia wrote for PTV Centres Islamabad and Lahore since the launch of those television channels. She wrote her first long play Mehman. She contributed to literary programmes such as Auraaq and beauty care programmes under the title Aaraish-e-Khaam-e-Kakal. Bajia also produced various children programmes...
Early Life
A native of Hydrabad, India, she was born near "Panj Bibi Mountain", in the town of Raichur in the present state of Karnataka. She migrated to Pakistan soon after independence, along with her family. She never received any formal education, and was instead homeschooled. Despite this she is ranked an eminentintellectual, reader and writer. Talking about her childhood, she said,
"I never attended a formal school. The elders of the family decided that all my education should take place at home. The teacher lived in our home where we were taught discipline along with our education. My family was settled in Hyderabad Deccan, which was then a paramount cultural center in undivided India. Although there were a few prominent schools e.g. Saint Josephs School, although my grandfather could afford the fee (which was Rs. 20), he still preferred to educate us at home. These schools were primarily attended by pampered girls from the elite families of nawabs and jagirdars. From the beginning we were taught self-sufficiency, although we employed 60 to 70 servants, we were not allowed to ask anyone of them for water. There was a huge difference between girls of the elite families and us. My grandfather felt that if we attended such schools, we would suffer from an inferiority complex, but since proper upbringing is not possible without coaching, he decided to carry out our education at home. Nevertheless, we were taught all the subjects that were taught in the formal Hyderabad schools with separate teachers for every subject e.g. calligraphy and math."
One of ten children, her siblings include: Anwar Maqsood, Zehra Nigah, ZubaidaTariq , and Mrs. Kazmi (a fashion designer).
Bajia first became involved with PTV in the 1960s when her flight to Karachi was delayed and she came to PTV Islamabad station for a visit. Director AghaNasir hired her and Bajia made her debut as an actress in 1966 in one of his plays. She began writing afterwards. Nasir is quoted to have said,
He further added that when writing a play, Bajia would literally move with her belongings to the TV station and then become an authority by default.
Most of her dramas, including Shama, Afshan, Aroosa, Ana and Tasveer, had large ensemble casts and portrayed huge families and their problems. She produced great number of women's programmes, including 'Khwateen key Meilaad'.
Haseena Moin (born 20 November 1941) is a notable Pakistani dramatist, playwright and writer for radio and television.
A native of Kanpur, the most populous city in the northern Indianstate of Uttar Pradesh, Hassena Moin received her early education in her ancestral region and, after the partition of India, migrated with her family to Pakistan. She lived for a number of years in Rawalpindi, then moved to Lahore and, in the 1950s, settled in Karachi, where she graduated from the Government College for Women in 1960 and Mastered in History from Karachi University in 1963. Her radio and television plays have earned international repute.
Selected television dramas written by Haseena Moin
Anwar Masood (Urdu: انور مسعود) is a Pakistani poet well known for his comic poetry, however, his works include other genres as well. He writes in Punjabi, Urdu and Persian language.
Biography
He was born in Gujrat, but his family moved to Lahore in 1941. He got his basic education there. Later his family moved back to Gujrat again and he studied in Public School Gujrat. He completed his secondary education there. He achieved B.A. degree from Zamidara College Gujrat. He obtained his master degree in Persian from Oriental College Lahore in 1961 and got a gold medal. He started teaching in Government Islamia High School in Kunjah. He has been teaching as a lecturer in different colleges in Punjab from 1962 to 1996 and he was also visiting faculty of Government College University and renowned department of humanities in Pakistan. He retired in 1996.
Poetry
Professor Anwar Masood is a multilingual poet of Urdu and Punjabi. His most popular poetry is Punjabi. His poetry gives the message of the original and pure culture of Punjab. Anwar Masood is the only Punjabi poet who is popular among the masses. The way he has described the different aspects of life in his poetry have never been described before. Some of his poems have become so that wherever he went people desire to listen them again and again. The most popular of them are Anar Kali Diyan Shana, Aj Kee Pakaeay, Banyan, Juma Bazaar, jehlam da pul, Umree and many more. Anwar Masood is an international level poet. He has performed in many international communities and is popular worldwide.
Anwar Maqsood Hameedi is the humor legend. He was born on 7th September,1935 in Hyderabad Deccan, India. Anwar Maqsood is a very sincere and great personality. He is the brother of very famous chef ZubaidaTariq. And Anwar Maqsood Hameedi is the Father of Bilal Maqsood, he is a Pakistani Guitarist. Bilal Maqsood work as a guitarist in the band named Strings. Anwar Maqsood married a drama writer named Imrana Maqsood. He belongs to the very educated and cultured family. Anwar Maqsood received his early education from the Gulberg Trust School, Aurangabad. After the separation of Pakistan he migrated to the Karachi with his parents and 10 siblings. Then he lived in PIB colony. Anwar Maqsood is a writer, poet and artist also.
7th September ,1935 ko Bharat ke shehar Hyderabad Deccan mein paida hone wale Anwar Maqsood Hameedi ko aik zamana sirf Anwar Maqsood ke naam se janta hai. Inho ne apni haft pehlon shakhsiyat se aik pori nasal ko sairaab kiya hai. Wo tanz o mazah ke likhari hain. In ki pehchan aik mukalma saaz aur jumlagar ki hesiyat se ki jati hai. Bazahir khamosh tabaa, apne aap mein magan dikhai dene wale Anwar Maqsood darasal zamane ko bohat gehri tanqeedi nazar se dekh rahe hote hain. Wo apne samne barhe se barha saneha hota bhi bohat tahammul se dekhte hain, magar jab qalam ka hathiyar le kar wo kaghaz ke maidan mein is saneha par awaaz uthane nikalte hain, to aesi kaari zarb lagate hain ke muaasharti sudhar ka koi pehalwan se bach kar nahi nikal sakta. Anwar Maqsood intehai simple aur mukhtasir alfaaz mein duniya ka behtareen mazah takhleeq karne ke fun par malka rakhte hain. Khas taur par Television ka script Anwar Maqsood ke zor e qalam ka marhoon e minnat hai. Inho ne TV par Fifty Fifty, Show Sha, Show Time, Studio Dhai, Studio pone teen, Silver Jubilee, Aangan Terha, Nadaan Nadaniyan, Loose Talk, Half Plate, Sawa 14 August, Pone 14 August, jaise shows aur dramas itne achote aur munfarid andaaz mein likhe hain kea b jahan bhi acha nashriyati mazah likha ja raha hai. Wo Anwar Maqsood ki chaap ke bagher likhna mushkil hai. Pichle chand saalon se Anwar Maqsood ( Almaroof Anu Bhai ) ne apne TV shows ko stage par karne ka shandar tajurba bhikiya hai. Wo in dramas ko Karachi, Lahore aur Islamabad ke sath sath Dubai, America aur duniya ke mukhtalif mumalik mein ja kar bhi stage kar rahe hain. Khusosan in ke Loose Talk ke mushaiyron ke chahne walon ki taadad bhi ab din ba din barhti he ja rahi hai.
Anwar Maqsood ko haft e pehlo shakhsiyat is liye kaha jata hai, kyun ke wo baik waqt poet, writer, drama nigaar, mussawir, maizbaan aur actor ki hesiyat se kaam kar rahe hain. Kisi ne in se kaha ke yeh to 6 khusosiyat hui, phir aap ko hift pehlo shakhsiyat kyun kaha jae, to Anwar Maqsood ne apne makhsoos tanziya andaaz mein muskurate hue kaha, aap bhool rahe hain meri 7th khusosiyat yeh hai ke main ZubaidaAapa ka bhai bhi hon.
Anwar Maqsood ka talluq aik nihayat ba salahiyat ilmi, adbi aur saqafti gharane se hai. In ki aik behan Fatima Suraiyya Bajiya Drama nigaar hain. Dosri behan Zehra Nigah famous poet hain. Teesri behan Bunto Kazmi aik aehadsaaz designer hain, jinhe khud Anwar Maqsood sharartan, ghararon ka sadqain kehte hain. ZubaidaTariq bhi Anwar Maqsood ki behan hain, jab ke in ke aik Bhai late Ahmed Maqsood Hameedi kohna mushq bureaucrat the. Anwar Maqsood ka beta Bilal Maqsood Strings jaise maqbool zamana music band ka guitarist hai aur in ki wife Imrana Maqsood bhi drama writer hain.
Hyderabad Deccan ke Gulberg trust school, Aurangabad se ibtedai taleem hasil karne wale Anwar Maqsood qiyam e Pakistan ke bad apne waldain aur 10 behan bhaiyon ke sath Karachi hijrat kar ke aae the. Yahan aa kar in ka khandan ibteda mein PIB colony ke rehaiyshi rahe. Anwar Maqsood ko aaj bhi apne un ibtedai aur ghurbat ke dino se utna he pyaar hai, jitna pyaar wo apne likhe hue jumlon se karte hain. Sureele singer, ache poet aur achi tasaweer Anwar Maqsood ki bunyadi kamzoriyan hain. Wo Qauid e Azam Mohammad AliJinnah ke aashiq hain. Inhe Madam NoorJahan, RoshanAra Begum aur Ustaad Barhe Ghulam Ali Khan se aqeedat hai. Anwar Maqsood Moin Akhter ki wafaat ke bad khud ko aadha mehsoos karne lage hain. In ka khayal hai ke aaj bhi acha adab meyari couplet aur pur asar picture, muaashre ki butaiyan khatam karne mein markazi role ada kar sakte hain.
Log yaqinan yehi samajhte hain ke Anwar Maqsood mulk ke sab se ziyada muaawza lene wale writer ya mezbaan hain, magar Anwar Maqsood inkeshaf karte hain ke aaj bhi in ke ghar ka chohla in ki banai hui pictures se jalta hai.
Syed Mohsin Naqvi was a great Urdu language poet of Pakistan. He is believed to have been murdered on 15 January 1996. He was born in a village Sadat near Dera Ghazi Khan. He did his Graduation from Govt. College Bosan Road Multan. The secret of his life is that his actual Name was Ghulam Abbas. He did his masters from University of the Punjab Lahore. Before his arrival at Lahore he was well known as Mohsin Naqvi. He was also known as the Poet of Ahl al-Bayt. His poetry is well accepted and recited all over world.
Syed AhmadShah (1931-2008), who acquired the pen name of Faraz, came to be known as Ahmad Faraz as a poet. He was born at Nav Shahra although his ancestral place was Kohat. He studied at Islamia College, Kohat; Edwards College, Peshawar; and Peshawar University from where he got his degrees of M. A. in Urdu and M. A. in Persian. He began his career as a producer in Radio Pakistan. Later, he worked as a lecturer at Islamia College in Peshawar. Faraz disapproved of the military dictatorship in Pakistan and expressed himself unreservedly for which he was arrested. On his release, he preferred to live in a self-imposed exile in Europe and Canada for six years. Back home, he took up senior positions of administrative nature as Resident Director of Pakistan National Centre, and subsequently the Director of Akademy Adabiyat Pakistan, Lok Wirsa and Chairperson of National Book Foundation. A widely respected poet, Faraz received several awards. Some of these include Adamji Award, Abaseen Award, Kamal-e-Fun Award, and Hilal-e-Imtiyaz award, which he returned registering his displeasure with the country’s governance. He was decorated with Hilal-e-Pakistan award by the Government of Pakistan posthumously.
Faraz started writing poetry while he was still a young college student. He emerged as a ghazal poet with an individual signature of his own. Even while he drew upon the traditional subjects of love and romance, he also wrote his age in his poetry with all its despairs and disappointments and produced some of the finest specimens of resistance poetry. He was a prolific poet with several anthologies to his credit. These include Tanha Tanha, Dard-e-Aashob, JananJanan, Shubkhoon, Merey Khwab RezaReza, Beaawara Gali Koochon Mein, Nabeena Shar Mein Aaeena, Pus Andaz Mausam, and Khwab-e-Gul Pareshan Hai. His translations of poetry are included in Sub Awazein Meri Hain. He also put together a selection from the poetry of Kunwar Mahinder Singh Bedi in Ai Ishq Junoon Pesha. His Kulliyat appeared with an inclusive title of Shahr-e-Sukhan Aaraasta Hai.
Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, born AhmadShahAwan, was an Urdu and English language Pakistani poet, journalist, literary critic, dramatist and short story author. He wrote 50 books on topics such as poetry, fiction, criticism, journalism and art, and was a major figure in contemporary Urduliterature. His poetry was distinguished by its humanism, and his Urdu afsana (novel) work is considered by some second only to Prem Chand in its depiction of rural culture. He was also editor and publisher of the literary magazine Funoon for almost half a century. He received awards such as the Pride of Performance in 1968 and Sitara-e-Imtiaz in 1980 for his literary work.
Background
Qasmi was born in the village of Anga(Danga) in Khushab District, British India. He matriculated from Campbellpur in 1931, around the time when he wrote his first poem. Later he studied at Sadiq Egerton College in Bahawalpur. He graduated from the University of the Punjab, Lahore in 1935. He had a brother, Peerzada Mohammad Bakhsh Qasmi, and a sister. He became an active member of the Progressive Writers Movement as a secretary, and was consequently arrested many times during the 1950s and 1970s. He died on 10 July 2006 of complications from asthma at Punjab Institute of Cardiology in Lahore.
Sir MuhammadIqbal, also spelled Muhammad Ikbal, (born November 9, 1877, Sialkot, Punjab,—died April 21, 1938, Lahore, Punjab), poet and philosopher, known for his influential efforts to direct his fellow Muslims in British-administered India toward the establishment of a separateMuslimstate, an aspiration that was eventually realized in the country of Pakistan. He was knighted in 1922.
Iqbal was born at Sialkot, India (now in Pakistan), of a pious family of small merchants and was educated at Government College, Lahore. In Europe from 1905 to 1908, he earned his degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge, qualified as a barrister in London, and received a doctorate from the University of Munich. His thesis, The Development of Metaphysics in Persia, revealed some aspects of Islamic mysticism formerly unknown in Europe.
On his return from Europe, he gained his livelihood by the practice of law, but his fame came from his Persian- and Urdu-language poetry, which was written in the classical style for public recitation. Through poetic symposia and in a milieu in which memorizing verse was customary, his poetry became widely known, even among the illiterate. Almost all the cultured Indian and Pakistani Muslims of his and later generations have had the habit of quoting Iqbal.
Before he visited Europe, his poetry affirmed Indian nationalism, as in Nayā shawālā (“The New Altar”), but time away from India caused him to shift his perspective. He came to criticize nationalism for a twofold reason: in Europe it had led to destructive racism and imperialism, and in India it was not founded on an adequate degree of common purpose. In a speech delivered at Aligarh in 1910, under the title “Islam as a Social and Political Ideal,” he indicated the new Pan-Islamic direction of his hopes. The recurrent themes of Iqbal’s poetry are a memory of the vanished glories of Islam, a complaint about its present decadence, and a call to unity and reform. Reform can be achieved by strengthening the individual through three successive stages: obedience to the law of Islam, self-control, and acceptance of the idea that everyone is potentially a vicegerent of God (nāʾib, or muʾmin). Furthermore, the life of action is to be preferred to ascetic resignation.
Three significant poems from this period, Shikwah (“The Complaint”), Jawāb-e shikwah (“The Answer to the Complaint”), and Khizr-e rāh (“Khizr, the Guide”), were published later in 1924 in the Urdu collection Bāng-e darā (“The Call of the Bell”). In those works Iqbal gave intense expression to the anguish of Muslim powerlessness. Khizr (Arabic: Khiḍr), the Qurʾānic prophet who asks the most difficult questions, is pictured bringing from God the baffling problems of the early 20th century.
What thing is the State? or why Must labour and capital so bloodily disagree?
Asia’s time-honoured cloak grows ragged
and wears out…
For whom this new ordeal, or by whose hand prepared?
(Eng. trans. by V.G. Kiernan.)
Notoriety came in 1915 with the publication of his long Persian poem Asrār-e khūdī (The Secrets of the Self). He wrote in Persian because he sought to address his appeal to the entire Muslim world. In this work he presents a theory of the self that is a strong condemnation of the self-negating quietism (i.e., the belief that perfection and spiritual peace are attained by passive absorption in contemplation of God and divine things) of classical Islamic mysticism; his criticism shocked many and excited controversy. Iqbal and his admirers steadily maintained that creative self-affirmation is a fundamental Muslim virtue; his critics said he imposed themes from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzscheon Islam.
The dialectical quality of his thinking was expressed by the next long Persian poem, Rumūz-e bīkhūdī (1918; The Mysteries of Selflessness). Written as a counterpoint to the individualismpreached in the Asrār-e khūdī, this poem called for self-surrender.
Lo, like a candle wrestling with the night
O’er my own self I pour my flooding tears.
I spent my self, that there might be more light,
More loveliness, more joy for other men.
(Eng. trans. by A.J. Arberry.)
The Muslim community, as Iqbal conceived it, ought effectively to teach and to encouragegenerous service to the ideals of brotherhood and justice. The mystery of selflessness was the hidden strength of Islam. Ultimately, the only satisfactory mode of active self-realization was the sacrifice of the self in the service of causes greater than the self. The paradigm was the life of the ProphetMuhammad and the devoted service of the first believers. The second poem completes Iqbal’s conception of the final destiny of the self.
Later he published three more Persian volumes. Payām-e Mashriq(1923; “Message of the East”), written in response to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan (1819; “Divan of West and East”), affirmed the universal validity of Islam. In 1927 Zabūr-e ʿAjam (“Persian Psalms”) appeared, about which A.J. Arberry, its translator into English, wrote that “Iqbal displayed here an altogether extraordinary talent for the most delicate and delightful of all Persian styles, the ghazal,” or love poem. Jāvīd-nāmeh (1932; “The Song of Eternity”) is considered Iqbal’s masterpiece. Its theme, reminiscent of Dante’s Divine Comedy, is the ascent of the poet, guided by the great 13th-century Persian mystic Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, through all the realms of thought and experience to the final encounter.
Iqbal’s later publications of poetry in Urdu were Bāl-e Jibrīl (1935; “Gabriel’s Wing”), Zarb-e kalīm (1937; “The Blow of Moses”), and the posthumous Armaghān-e Hijāz (1938; “Gift of the Hejaz”), which contained verses in both Urdu and Persian. He is considered the greatest poet in Urdu of the 20th century.
Philosophical Position And Influence
His philosophical position was articulated in The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1934), a volume based on six lectures delivered at Madras (now Chennai), Hyderabad, and Aligarh in 1928–29. He argued that a rightly focused man should unceasingly generate vitality through interaction with the purposes of the living God. The ProphetMuhammad had returned from his unitary experience of God to let loose on the earth a new type of manhood and a cultural world characterized by the abolition of priesthood and hereditary kingship and by an emphasis on the study of history and nature. The Muslim community in the present age ought, through the exercise of ijtihād—the principle of legal advancement—to devise new social and political institutions. He also advocated a theory of ijmāʿ—consensus. Iqbal tended to be progressive in adumbrating general principles of change but conservative in initiating actual change.
During the time that he was delivering those lectures, Iqbal began working with the Muslim League. At the annual session of the league at Allahabad in 1930, he gave the presidential address, in which he made a famousstatement that the Muslims of northwestern India should demand status as a separatestate.
After a long period of ill health, Iqbal died in April 1938 and was buried in front of the great Badshahi Mosque in Lahore. Two years later the Muslim League voted for the idea of Pakistan. That the poet had influenced the making of that decision, which became a reality in 1947, is undisputed. He has been acclaimed as the father of Pakistan, and every year Iqbal Day is celebrated by Pakistanis.
