Iqbal: Poet, Philosopher, and His Place in World Literature

By Zafar M. Iqbal

For most Urdu speakers in the Indian subcontinent, Iqbal has long been one of the most loved and admired poets. Much has been written about his poetry and philosophy . This book stays away from his politics.
Iqbal first received recognition in the West in 1920 when his translation of Asrar-e-Khudi by R. A. Nicholson (The Secrets of the Self) first appeared. Most of the recurring criticism was on his concept of Khudi which Iqbal addressed then and later, explaining the basic nature of influence of much older Sufi philosophy on khudi versus Nietzsches bermensch.
Several authors, both from the subcontinent and the West, have translated Iqbals poetry before, and in this book have highlighted the positive outcomes over some controversies and confusion. This book presents translation of well over 150 of Iqbals Urdu poems from Kuliyaath-e-Iqbal and about 30 or so from Payam-e-Mashriq (PM), in Persian.
Iqbal offered PM as a response to Goethes West-stlicher Diwan, in German. Goethe had long been interested in Eastern (rather, Middle Eastern) culture and his Divan was inspired by the fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafez/Hafiz/Hafis, which also involved some literary traverse through a different religio-philosophical territory.
Translation from Urdu or Persian to English across a vast cultural, prosodic, and linguistic gulf presents enormous problems. Section On Translation discusses some of these issues.
Although Iqbals philosophy has been covered from by many others before, some of Iqbals own explanation of Khudi in a larger historical Sufi context are discussed here.
In addition, Iqbals own contribution to what Goethe called Weltliteratur (or world literature), is recognized in PM (mostly) and elsewhere in his Urdu Kuliyaath. Iqbal not just brought various Western themes and figures to Urdu literature, but presented them, with his own comments and interpretation, to a readership that may have been largely unfamiliar with these Western themes.
The Appendices include important recognition Iqbal received in Germany.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503530362

Zafar M. Iqbal

Author is trained as a biomedical scientist, with professional stints starting in National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, and then in the US academia as a faculty member of major medical centers and universities. In addition, he has also been a Director of a scientifi c research consultancy. He writes and publishes poetry as T. Beeth.

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CONTENTS

Preface

Biography: Selected Details

On Translation

Translations Of Iqbal’s Poetry

Selected Poetry: Translated

Caravan Call (Baang-E-Dara; Bd)

1. Complaint (Shikwa: Part 3, From 1908)

2. God’s Response To Iqbal’s Complaint (Jawab-E-Shikwa: Bd; Part 3, From 1908)

(Part 1, Till 1905)

3. The Himalayas (Himaala)

4. Mirza Ghalib (Mirza Ghalib) [1]

5. A Spider And A Fly; Adapted* For Children (Aik Mukhra Aur Mukkhi; Maakhooz*; Buchchawn Kay Liyey)

6. Mountain And A Squirrel; Adapted From Ralph Waldo Emerson*, For Children (Aik Pahaar Aur Gilhairy, Makhooz Uz Emerson*)

7. A Cow And A Goat; Adapted* For Children (Aik Ga-Aye Aur Bukri; Makhooz*, Bucchawn Kay Liyey)

8. A Child’s Prayer; Adapted*, For Children (Buchchay Ki Du-Aa; Makhooz*, Buchchawn Kay Liyey)

9. Sympathy; An Extract From A Poem By William Cowper*, For Children (Humdardi; Makhooz Uz William Cowper*, Buchchawn Kay Liyey)

10. Mother’s Dream; An Extract*, For Children (Maan Ka Khwab; Makooz*, Buchchawn Kay Liyey)

11. The Sun (Aftaab) [1]

12. A Wish (Aik Arzoo)

13. A Flower, Withered (Gul-E-Pushmerda)

14. Dawn’s Message (Payam-E- Subha)

15. Love And Death (Ishq Aur Mow-Th)

16. Good-Bye, World (Rukhsuth, Aye Bazm-E-Jahan)

17. A Baby (Thifl-E- Sheer Khaar)[1]

18. Missing You (Thinking Of Arnold*) (Nala-E-Firag, Arnold* Ki Yaad Main)

19. The Moon (Chaand)

20. Song For India (Therana-E-Hindi)

21. Morning Star (Subha Ka Sitara)

22. The House Of Prayer (Naya Shiwala)

23. The Banks Of The Raavi[1] (Kinaar-E-Raavi)

24. Ghazal (La-Oon Wo Tinkay Kaheen Say…)

25. Ghazal (Mujnoon Nay Shahr Chhora)

Part 2: 1905–1908

26. Beauty, In Reality (Haqeeqath-E-Husn)

27. A Get-Together (We-Saal)[1]

28. Human Being (Insaan)

29. An Evening[1]

30. Loneliness (Thunha-Ee)

31. Sicily, Island Of Sicily (Sakheela)

Part 3: From 1908

32. Two Stars (Do Sitaray)

33. Royal Cemetery (Goristhan-E-Shahi) [1]

34. Night And Poet (Raath Aur Sha-Er)

35. The Dew And Stars (Shabnum Aur Sitaray)

36. Queen Of Flowers (Phool-Awn Ki Shahzadi)[1]

37. Flower (Phool)

38. Shakespeare (Shakespeare)

39. You And Me (Mein Aur Tu)

40. Khizar, The Proverbial Guide (Khizar-E-Rah) [1]

41. Khizar’s Response (Jawab-E-Khizar): Abridged

42. Ghazal-1 (Ye Sarod-E-Khumri Wo Bul-Bul…)

43. Ghazal-2 (Nala-E-Bulbul Sho-Reeda…)

44. Ghazal-3 (Purdah Cheh-Ray Say Uttah…)

45. Ghazal-4 (Phir Bahar Aa-Ee…)

46. Ghazal-5 (Tahe Daam Bhi Ghazal Aashna…)

Wings Of Gabriel (Baal-E-Jibraeel; Bj)

1. Ghazal-1 (Agar Kuj Raw Hain Anjum…)

2. Ghazal-2 (Asar Karay Na Karay…)

3. Ghazal-3 (La Phir Ek Baar Wohi Bada-O-Jaam)

4. Ghazal-4 (Tujay Yaad Kiya Nahin…)

5. Ghazal—5 (Ameen-E-Raaz Hai…)

6. Ghazal-6 (Phir Chiraq-E-Lala Say Roshan…)

7. Ghazal-7 (Khudi Wo Baher Hai…)

8. Ghazal-8 (No Thoo Zameen Kay Liyey Hai…)

9. Ghazal-9 (Aflaak Say Aata Hai…)

10. Ghazal-10 (Her Shaye Musfir, Her Cheez Rahi…)

11. Ghazal-11 (Khurdmundawn Say Kiya…)

12. Ghazal-12 (Jub Isqh Sikhata Hai…)

13. Ghazal-13 (Sitarawn Say Aagay…)

14. Ghazal-14 (Khudi Ho Ilm Say Moh-Kum…)

15. Ghazal-15 (Nay Mohra Baqi…)

16. The Great Mosque Of Cordoba[1] (Musjid-E-Khurthaba) (Written In Spain, Specifically In Cordoba)

17. Spain (Hispania) [1]

18. Lenin, Before God (Lenin, Khuda Kay Hoozoor Main) [1]

19. God’s Command To The Angels (Fermaan-E-Khuda: Farish-Tawn Say)

20. Taste And Interest (Zauqh Wo Shauqh)

21. To Javed (Javed Kay Naam) [1]

22. Mullah And Paradise (Mullah Aur Ba-Hishth)

23. Faith And Politics (Deen Wo Siyasat)

24. To A Young Man (Eik Nao-Jawaan Kay Naam)

25. A Flower In The Wilderness (Lalla-E-Sehra*)

26. The Times (Zamana)

27. Angels Send Off Adam From Paradise (Farishthay Adam Ko Jun-Nuth Say Rukhsuth Kerthay Hain)

28. Earth Welcomes Adam (Roh-E-Arzi Adam Ka Istheqbal Kerthi Hai)

29. Teacher (Rumi) And Student (Iqbal) (Peer-O-Mureed)

30. Gabriel And Satan (Jibra-Eel Wo Iblees)

31. Love (Mohub-Buth)

32. Philosophy And Religion (Falsafa Aur Mazhub)

33. At Napoleon’s Tomb (Napoleon Kay Mazaar Per)[1]

34. To Punjab’s Farmer (Punjab Kay Dahekhan Say)

35. A Tatar’s Dream (Tataari Ka Kwaab)[1]

36. Satan’s Plea (Iblees Ki Arz-Daashth)

37. The Eagle (Shaheen)

38. A Rebel Disciple (Baaghi Mureed)

The Staff Of Moses (Zarb-E-Kaleem; Zk)

1. Introduction (Tumheed)

2. Knowledge And Love (Ilm-Wo-Ishq)

3. Thanks And Complaint (Shukr-O-Shikayath)

4. Mosque’s Mullah (Mullah-E-Haram)

5. Fate (Thuq-Deer)

6. Jehad (Jehad)

7. Power And Religion (Khu-Wuth Aur Deen)

8. Ghazal (Dil-E-Murda Nahin Hai…)

9. Philosophy (Fulsafa)

10. Fate (Tuqh-Deer)

11. Poverty And Abstinence (Faqr Wo Rahebi)

12. Ghazal (Thayri Mutha-E-Hayath…)

13. Ghazal (Na Mein Ajmi, Na Hindi…)

14. Indian School (Hindi Mukhtub)

15. The School (Madrassa)

16. Nietzsche [1] (Hakeem Nietzsche)

17. Ghazal (Milay Ga Manzil-E-Maqsood Ka…)

18. On Woman (Auruth)

19. The Creation (Thuq-Leeq)

20. Ray Of Hope (Shoo-Aa-E-Ummeed)

21. Interested Eye (Nigha-E-Shauq)

22. To Technical Experts (Ahl-E-Hoonur Say)

23. Ghazal (Darya Main Moti)

24. Breeze And Dew (Naseem-Wo-Shabum)

25. Fine Arts (Funoon-E-Latheefa)

26. Rumi (Rumi)

27. Originality (Jid-Duth)

28. Mirza Bedil (Mirza Bedil)

29. Prestige And Beauty (Jalaal Wo Jamaal)

30. Poet (Shaer)

31. Karl Marx’s Voice (Karl Marx Ki Awaz)[1]

32. Satan’s Command To His Political Disciples (Iblees Ka Fermaan Apnay Siyasi Ferzundawn Kay Naam)

33. Bolshevik Russia

34. Ethiopia, August 18, 1935 (Abyssinia, August 18, 1935)[1]

35. Mussolini (Mussolini) [1]

36. Complaint (Gila)

37. Politics Without Religion (La-Deen Siyasat)

38. Slave’s Prayer—Turkish Ambassador In Lahore (Ghulaa-Mawn Ki Namaz—Turki Wafd Hilal Ahmer Lahore Main)

The Gift Of Hejaz (Armaghaan-E-Hejaz; Ah)

1. The Parliament Of Satan, 1936 (Iblees Ki Majlis-E-Shora, 1936)

2. Old Baloch’s Advice To His Son (Bud-Hay Baloch Ki Naseehuth Baytay Ko)[1]

3. Portrait And Artist (Tusveer Wo Mussawoor)

4. Time Between Death And Judgment Day (Alum-E-Berzukh)

5. A Sinner’s Prayer (Do-Zakhi Ki Manajaath)

6. The Late Masood (Masood Murhoom)[1]

7. Call From Beyond (Awaaz-E-Ghaib)

8. Mullazada Zeekhum Lolabi Kashmiri’s Notebook (Mullazada Zeekhum Lolabi Kashmiri Ka Biyaaz)[1]

9. Human Being (Hazrat-E-Insaan)

10. When I Am Ready To Leave… (Choo Rukth Khwaish Bur Bustham Aazeen Khaak…)[1]

Message From The East (Payam-E-Mashriq; Pm)

1. Knowledge And Love: A Dialogue (Mahaa-Wara-E-Ilm Wo Ishq)

2. Bookworm (Kirm-E-Kithabi)

3. A Firefly (2 Parts) (Ker-Muk-E-Shub-E-Thaab, 2 Nazmain)

4. God And Man: A Conversation (Mahawera Mabeen Khuda Wo Insaan)

5. An Eagle And A Fish (Shaheen Wo Mahi)

6. Loneliness

7. The Wisdom Of The West

8. The Houri And The Poet (Hoor Wo Sha-Er)

9. Stream (Joo-E-Aab)*

10. Western Images: A Message, 9 Poems (Naqsh-E-Farang; Payam, 9 Nazmain)

11. Schopenhauer And Nietzsche (Schopenhauer Wo Nietzsche) (Murghi Za Aashiyana Ba Sayr-E-Chamun…)

12. In The Company Of The Dead In Heaven (Sohbath-E-Ruftagaan Der Alam-E-Bala)

13. Einstein (Hakim Einstein)[1]

14. Byron (Byron)

15. Nietzsche[1] (Nietsha) (Gur Nawa Khawhi Za Paish…)

16. Jalal And Hegel (Jalal Wo Hegel)

17. Patofi (Patofi) [1]

18. Auguste Comte And The Labor: A Conversation (Muhawara Mabain Hakem Francewi Auguste Comte Wo Mard Muzdoor)

19. Hegel (Hegel)

20. Jalal And Goethe (Jalal Wo Goethe)

21. Bergson’s Message (Paygham-E-Bergson)

22. Western Tavern-1 (Maikhana-E-Farang)

23. Western Tavern-2 (Kharabaath-E-Farang)

24. Messieurs Lenin—Kaiser Wilhem: Conversation (Meys-Yurz Lenin Wo Khaiser William)[1]

25. Philosophers (Hookma)

26. Poets (Sho-Ra)[1]

27. To England (Khithab Ba Inglistan)

28. The Rich And The Laborer: Fates (Khismuth-Nama Surmayey-Dar Wo Muzdoor)

29. A Laborer’s Song (Nawa-E-Muzdoor)

30. Miscellany (Khurdha)

Faiz On Iqbal’s Poetry

Symbolism In Iqbal’s Poetry

Philosophy

Khudi (Ipseity, Selfsameness, Or Essence)

Weltliteratur

Iqbal’s Participation In Weltliteratur

Selected References

Appendices

1. Iqbal’s Phd Dissertation, University Of Munich (1908), From East Lansing, Mi, H-Bahai, 2001; Excerpts.

2. The Secrets Of The Self By R. A. Nicholson, 1920 (Translation Of Asrar-E-Khudi) And Iqbal’s Letter Of Explanation To Nicholson

3. Digital Translation (Growing Influence And Use Of Digital Translation)

4. A. Book Review (Nature): The Secrets Of The Self By R. A. Nicholson, English Translation, 1920, Of Asrar-I-Khudi): Nature, Vol 109 (No. 2734): 370–371, 23 March 1922.

4. B. E. M. Forster (From His Book Review Of The Secrets Of The Self, Published In The Athenaeum, December 10, 1920]

4. C. E. M. Forster (From The Creator As Critic And Other Writings, By E. M. Forster And Jeffrey M. Heath, 1946)

4. D. Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (From His Review Of R. A. Nicholson’s English Translation The Secrets Of The Self Of Iqbal’s Asrar-E-Khudi: The Nation (London), December 24, 1920]

4. E. E. G. Browne (Review Of The Secrets Of The Self, Journal Of The Royal Asiatic Society, London, 1921, Pages 146–147)

5. Iqbal’s Letter To Dr. R. A. Nicholson* (Dated January 24, 1921, Lahore; Reproduced In Thoughts And Reflections Of Iqbal, Edited By Syed Abdul Vahid). Excerpts (With Notes Added):

6. Iqbal’s Article: The Doctrine Of Absolute Unity As Expounded By Abdul Karim A Jilani,[1] Indian Antiquary, Bombay, September 1900. (Reproduced In Thoughts And Reflections Of Iqbal, Edited By Syed Abdul Vahid, Reprinted 1992)

7. The Human Ego—His Freedom And Immortality: Lecture Iv, The Reconstruction Of Religious Thought In Islam (1930/1934)

8. Excerpts From Arthur J Arberry’s Preface To The Mysteries Of Selflessness: A Philosophical Poem (Translation Of Iqbal’s Rumuz-E-Bekhudi, 1917)

9. Iqbal’s Preface To The Reconstruction Of Religious Thought In Islam (1930 /1934)

10. Iqbal’s Preface To Payam-E-Mashriq

11. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (From Wikipedia)

12. A Street Sign In Heidelberg, Germany, In Iqbal’s Honor

13. Hafiz-Goethe Denkmal (Monument), Beethovenplatz, Weimar, Germany (From Wikipedia).

Dedicated

To the memory of my parents—particularly honoring my father’s efforts many years ago to try to explain to me Iqbal’s poetry and themes. All that regrettably failed to sink in then, but on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his passing in Chicago, IL, I offer this in deep gratitude.

Acknowledgment

I am grateful to my family for their interest, encouragement, and support.

The Author

Zafar M. Iqbal, trained in the United States as a biomedical scientist, started out on a Fogarty Scholarship at the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, and continued there as a staff fellow. He then served as a faculty member of two major university medical centers in the United States. He has been a member of various US scientific associations including American Association for Reasearch on Cancer (AACR) and Society of Toxicology (SOT). In addition, he has been a director of a scientific research consultancy.

PREFACE

For most Urdu speakers in the Indian subcontinent, Iqbal* (or Allama Iqbal, as he is affectionately referred to) has long been one of the most loved and admired poets. Much has been written about him and his poetry, philosophy, and political views. Staying away from the politics, here I present my views on other areas. He is also honored as the national poet of Pakistan and is regarded as its lasting beacon.

Iqbal first received recognition in the West in 1920, when his translation of Asrar-e-Khudi by R. A. Nicholson (The Secrets of the Self, Appendix 2) first appeared. Soon, there were reviews of this translation in the British press, for instance, by E. M. Forster (Appendix 4. b), G. L. Dickinson (Appendix 4. d) and E. G. Browne (Appendix 4. e). Most of the apparently recurring criticism was on his concept of Khudi. Some thought it was not too dissimilar from Nietzsche’s Ubermensch.

Iqbal had, in fact, addressed this criticism earlier in his January 1921 letter to Nicholson (Appendix 5) and elsewhere, but it is difficult to say how widely his explanation was known or accepted in England before another review of this translation appeared in the famous British journal, Nature, in March 1922 (Appendix 4. a). Unfortunately, the Nature review was not just cursory but also had a basic inaccuracy in Iqbal’s biographical information and did little to straighten out or resolve the controversy over the influence Nietzsche had, if he did ever have, on molding Iqbal’s philosophy of Khudi.

In his explanatory notes in Nichoson’s translation, Iqbal did try to systematically make himself and his concept of Khudi quite distinct from Nietzsche’s Übermensch, defining the nature of their basic differences, and emphasizing, instead, the influence of much older Sufi philosophy on his concept of Khudi.

Several authors, both from the subcontinent and the West, have translated Iqbal’s poetry before, and I have highlighted the positive outcomes over some controversies and confusion. This book presents my translation of well over 150 of Iqbal’s Urdu poems from Kuliyaath-e-Iqbal (Baang-e-Dara, BD; Baal-e-Jibraeel, BJ; Zarb-e-Kaleem, ZK;and Armeghan-e-Hijaz, AH). I have also included about thirty or so poems selected from Payam-e-Mashriq (PM), in Persian.

Iqbal offered PM as a response to Goethe’s West-östlicher Diwan, in German. Goethe had long been interested in Eastern (rather, Middle Eastern) culture and his Divan was inspired by the fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafez/Hafiz/Hafis, which also involved some literary traverse through a different religio-philosophical territory.

In Notes and Essays, accompanying Divan, Goethe tries to help the Western reader understand the Eastern cultural sphere, and its translation has appeared recently (Bidney, 2010).

Translation from Urdu or Persian to English across an obviously vast cultural, prosodic, and linguistic gulf presents enormous problems. In the section On Translation, I have discussed some of the issues.

Although Iqbal’s philosophy has been covered from various angles by many others before, I include here some of Iqbal’s own explanation of Khudi in a larger historical Sufi context. This, I think, readers would find quite helpful in appreciating the bases of the lingering controversy and confusion.

In addition, I have also highlighted Iqbal’s own contribution to what Goethe called Weltliteratur (or world literature), in PM (mostly) and elsewhere in his Urdu Kuliyaath. Iqbal not just brought various Western themes and figures to Urdu literature, but presented them, with his own comments and interpretation, to a readership that may have been largely unfamiliar with these Western themes.

In fact, that was what he did even before he went to England. See, for example, his tribute to Ghalib in BD-4 (written before 1905), comparing Ghalib to Goethe, a well-known German poet, but an author not quite that known to Urdu readership.

In the Appendices, I have included some important background information, particularly on Iqbal’s philosophy and his response to the criticism (Appendices 1, 5–7 and 9). I have also added how Hafiz and Iqbal have, individually, received recognition in Germany.

In recent years, my articles on Iqbal have appeared in Pakistan Link, an English weekly from Anaheim, CA. Some of that material has been included in this book.

In the end, I quote what Iqbal wrote in AH, published posthumously in 1938:

Choo rukth khwaish bur bustham aazeen khaak

Huma gufthanid ba ma aashna bood

Wa laikin kis nudanisth ayn musaffer

Chai gufth wo ba kai gufth wo uz kuja bood.

Lines he reportedly wanted as his epitaph. My translation (also see AH-10):

When I was ready to leave this dusty place,

many claimed how well they knew me. But

no one did really know this pilgrim, his destination,

who did he talk to, or where did he come from.

Zafar M. Iqbal,* Chicago, IL

March 2014

BIOGRAPHY:

SELECTED DETAILS

Name: Muhammad Iqbal

Born: November 9, 1877, at Sialkot, Punjab (eldest of five siblings; parents: Shaikh Nur Muhammad and Imam Bibi). Some controversy still exists over the exact date of his birth (1873, 1876, or 1877). In the Lebenslauf (curriculum vitae) included in his PhD Thesis, University of Munich, 1908, he mentioned: Third of Dhi-Qa’d, which is reported to correspond to November 9, 1877.

Education

1893: High School, Scotch Mission School, Sialkot

1895: Intermediate

1897: B. A. (Arabic & Philosophy), Government College, Lahore

1899: M. A. (Philosophy), Government College, Lahore

1907: B. A., Trinity College, Cambridge University, UK

1908: PhD, University of Munich, Munich, Germany. Thesis: The Development of Metaphysics in Persia (Friedrich Hommel, Advisor); its excerpts in Appendix 1.

1908: Called to the Bar, Lincoln’s Inn, London

Employment

1901–1905: Government College, Lahore

1908–1911: Government College, Lahore

1926–1929: Punjab Legislative Council, Lahore

Honors: Knighthood, British Empire (1923)

Books (U, Urdu; P, Persian; E, English)

1903: Ilm ul Iqtisad/The knowledge of Economics (U).

1908: The Development of Metaphysics in Persia (E; his PhD Dissertation; University of Munich, Munich, Germany)

1915: Asrar-i Khudi (P)

1918: Rumuz-e- Bay-khudi (P)

1923: Payam-e- Mashriq (P)

1924: Bang-i Dara (U)

1927: Zabur-i Ajam (P)

1930: The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (E); Oxford University Press

1932: Javid Nama (P)

1935–8: Baal-i Jibril (U)

1936: Musafir (P)

1936: Zarb-i Kalim (U)

1936: Pas cheh bayed kard ai Aqwam-i Sharq (mostly P; some U)

1938: Armughan-i Hejaz (P, U); published posthumously

Letters and Statements: Hundreds of his letters and statements in Urdu and English have been published, including many reproduced in Thoughts and Reflections of Iqbal edited by Syed Abdul Vahid (1985).

Died: April 21, 1938, Lahore

ON TRANSLATION

Were it not for translation, the English literature would have none of the vast number of authors such as Homer and Ovid, Pushkin and Tolstoy, Goethe and Nietzsche, Hugo and Rimbaud, Dante and Petrarch, Cervantes and Neruda, or Khayyam and Rumi.

We know all too well, however, that no native Russian, German, French, Spanish or Persian/Iranian would want to wait for an English translation to know or appreciate what a non-English author wrote in a language that the reader already knew and did not need to have it translated to appreciate or do so better or more fully. Same also applies to Urdu-speakers.

Why another translation of Iqbal’s poetry, when a few are already available? I see at least a couple of different reasons: First, each effort at translation, no matter how linguistically and culturally faithful, effective or not, continues to bring into English literature from a different language and thus enriches it. Second, even in Urdu-speaking parts of the subcontinent, many would find Iqbal’s heavily Persianized, metaphorically rich Urdu not easy to understand. For the younger generation, this is a bigger problem because Urdu no longer receives academic emphasis as given to the more prevalent English. And for the progeny of the vast diaspora that may be interested in preserving some cultural ties that Iqbal’s poetry offers, it gets still harder without a translation in a more prevalent language.

In this attempt at translating Iqbal, I hope to give some idea of the difficulties, controversies, and other problems in an English translation from a culturally and phillogically distant language across a wide prosodic gulf.

The very idea of translation has never been free of controversy, however. If Ezra Pound thought [a] great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations, and Walter Benjamin believed that translation confers some kind of eternal life and spiritual significance to the original, we cannot ignore some dissonant voices at the other end of the spectrum. For instance, Schopenhauer was convinced that [p]oems cannot be translated; they can only be transposed, and that is always awkward, and Frost once remarked, Poetry is what is lost in translation (and I would go a step farther to say that it is the poetry that often gets suffocated or killed in translation).

Then, there are some ever-so-unsatisfactory and controversial issues arising from the literal-versus-free translation. V. Nabokov, who had complained about English translations of Pushkin, also felt that the clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase, but others prefer the fluency of free verse translation, unrestricted by the rigidity of literal translation that sucks out everything poetic in the process. Sartre introduces another factor by suggesting that the poet may want to consider words as things and not signs, something that may, in turn, also help a translator.

Simple poetry in English may even surprise some over-inquisitive English readers. It is best illustrated by T. S. Eliot’s response to someone asking him about any allegorical reference implied in a line from Ash Wednesday. Repeating the line, Eliot said, Lady, ‘[T]hree white leopards sat under a juniper tree in the cool of the day,’ meant just that, implying nothing else.

The burden invariably lies on the translator who must act not just as a mediator between two languages but also an efficient interpreter of one culture to another very different one, such as bringing Urdu and Eastern poetry and culture to English readers.

Eric Ormsby, in an article on a new English translation of Rainier Maria Rilke’s poetry (The New Criterion, April 2010) sheds some interesting, perhaps unintended, light on the problems, also shared by translators of Urdu poetry. His comments have to be considered in view of Ormsby’s own expertise as a professor and chief librarian at the Institute of Ismaili Studies (London) who has published widely on Islamic thought and theodicy. Particularly relevant in this context are Ormsby’s essays on poetry and English translations of Arabic literature and his 2007/2008 book on Ghazali or Algazel (1058–1111), a Persian Sufi-mystic who had significant influence on Iqbal’s own thinking and philosophy.

In this article, Ormsby talks about Rilke’s resonant abstractions, which are abetted by the German language. He says, German likes nothing better than to couple dodgy antinomies in precarious compounds. Rilke had to deal with the heaviness of the German language itself. Before him, Nietzsche and Heine had longed for a German with the lightness of French.

In Rilke’s abstractions, what Ormsby calls heaviness (die Schwere) is a major factor, besides the aural texture of his verses. This German heaviness may have something in common with what is generally seen in Urdu poetry, more particularly that of Iqbal, with elliptic word choices, cultural allegories, metaphors, and multi-layered connotations in Persianized Urdu vocabulary. This could well be Urdu die Schwere.

Iqbal, while getting his doctoral degree from Munich, also became familiar with German (in particular, he admired Goethe’s Faust just as much he did Ghalib’s poetry), and it is difficult to say whether this experience had any particular influence on his Urdu poetry, apart from Iqbal’s Urdu poetry on Western themes, personalities and events. More notably this is seen in his PM, which was Iqbal’s response in Persian to Goethe’s West-östlicher Diwan. Goethe in his 1828 letter to the British author Thomas Carlyle wrote, [T]he translator is working not for his own nation alone but also for the nation from whose language he takes the work, emphasizing the idea further in his journal Kunst und Altertum (Art and Antiquity): Left to itself every literature will exhaust its vitality, if it is not refreshed by the interest and contributions of a foreign one.

In addition, Ormsby quotes a noted Rilke translator, Christopher Middleton: [I]f the tonal texture of a poem is altogether lost in translation, or it is not supplied by anaphony (an auditory analogy of the original sound patterns in a different language, not just an echo of the original), then almost everything is lost. Ormsby expects a translator to hear, and make us hear, to borrow [T. S.] Eliot’s phrase, ‘the complete consort dancing together’. Ormsby also recalls what Rilke, a well-known translator himself, remarked in 1924. Rilke said that translation was akin to alchemy or to the art of the greatest actors. A translator must listen first, Ormsby says, and, for that matter, a translator must learn the flow of the original voice but also its hesitations, its pauses, its expressive silences. Translation must also have a rhythmic coherence. These factors, along with the heaviness alluded to earlier, present a significant challenge to a translator of Iqbal.

Perhaps because of their divergent linguistic-lineage, Urdu (Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Central Indic, Hindustani) and English (Indo-European, Germanic, West, Anglo Frisian) bring in different idiomatic and metaphoric traditions, each with a multilayered subtext that make smooth, faithful yet meaningful translation a contest, if not a problem. And all this, within the poetic terms of each language, makes the entire process challenging. Another important factor is to make sure that, in translation, one culture gets filtered well into another.

There are different requirements for translating prose and poetry, stresses Thomas Kaminski, Professor of English, Loyola University, Chicago, based on years of study in this area. He elaborates as follows:

For much prose, especially if it is stylistically undistinguished, a bare-bones rendering into the modern idiom of the translator’s own language is acceptable. In such cases, the original author was probably doing little more than attempting to express himself clearly and competently, and a similarly clear and competent rendering should suffice. But it is a more complicated process to translate the work of an author who has added some stylistic elements that make his prose artful. A fine translation of such material should capture in some manner the distinctive style of its author.

Professor Kaminski continues,

In an author like Cicero, this artfulness is often found in long periodic sentences in which phrases or clauses are balanced against one another; in Seneca we find balanced phrases or antitheses, but generally in tighter or denser sentences; and Tacitus often expressed himself in language so compressed that his meaning has to be divined as much as interpreted. (There is an old commonplace about Tacitus often repeated by Latin teachers: Tacitus leaves out all unnecessary words—and some of the necessary ones as well.) I dislike translations of any of these authors that obscure these stylistic qualities. In Cicero, I want to see his periods elaborated; in Seneca I look for the combination of terseness and formal structure; in Tacitus—in Tacitus I despair. All of this and more applies to poetry. The meters of Latin and English have little in common; Latin, for instance, avoids rhyme, but it demands a rigorous arrangement of long and short syllables. An English translator cannot replicate the meters, but he should attempt to capture as many of the formal qualities of the poetry as possible. Like some of the artful prose I mentioned, Latin poetry often employs balanced or antithetical phrases, especially using the rhetorical figures of chiasmus and zeugma. Any respectable English version should include at least some of these formal structures.

Professor Kaminski adds,

And finally, in Latin verse certain words often had symbolic or suggestive meanings. For instance, the Latin word virtus (the root of the English word virtue) originally meant manliness, not goodness. But over time it took on a philosophical tinge: it tended to suggest the way in which a true man would behave in a given situation. It is often impossible to capture that precise meaning using either of the English words virtue or manliness, neither of which is liable to have the proper connotations. In such cases one is often forced into one of two equally unpleasant compromises: to choose a single word that misstates the poem’s precise meaning, or to elaborate that meaning in many words, thus losing the artfulness of the poet’s own concise expression. In translation, nothing is easy.

Exploring the prosodic gulf, specifically between Urdu and English, Frances Pritchett and Khaliq Ahmed Khaliq (1987) make an interesting general observation: "Urdu meter [Ba-her] is not like English meter! . . . English metrical theory is retrospective fancy icing on the cake. By contrast, Urdu meter is a large part of the cake itself. It tells you exactly and reliably how the verses are made, and helps you enjoy them to the fullest. Another important point they describe is that [v]irtually all existing accounts of Urdu meter start with the elaborate metrical systems of Arabic and Persian poetic theory. These systems are