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رموز بی خودی
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That the Muhammadan Community is also Unbounded
in Time, since the Survival of his noble Community
has been Divinely Promised
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In Spring thou hast heard the clamorous nightingale,
And watched the resurrection of the flowers;
The buds arrayed like brides; from the dark earth
A veritable city of stars arise;
The meadow bathed in the soft tears of dawn
That slumbered to the river’s lullaby.
A bud bursts into blossom on the branch;
The breeze new-risen takes it to her breast;
A bloom lies bleeding in the gatherer’s hand
And like a perfume from the mead departs.
The ring-dove builds his nest; the nightingale
Takes wing; the dew drops softly, and the scent
Is sped. What though these mortal tulips die,
They lessen not the splendour of the Spring;
For all the loss, its treasure still abides
Abundant, still the thronging blossoms smile.
The season of the rose endures beyond
The fragile eglantine, yea, it outlives
The rose’s self, the cypress, and the fir;
The jewel-nourishing mine bears jewels yet,
Unminished by the shattering of one gem.
Dawn is departed from the East, and night
Gone from the West; their too-brief-historied cup
Visits no more the winevat of the days;
Yet, though the draught be drunk, the wine remains
Eternal as the morrow that awaits
When all our yesterdays are drowned in death.
So individuals, as they depart,
Are fallen pages from the calendar
Of peoples more enduring; though the friend
Is on a journey, the companionship
Still stays; the Individual is gone
Abroad, unstirring the Community.
Other each essence is, the qualities
Other; they differ both in how each lives
And how they die. The Individual
Arises from a handful of mere clay,
The Nation owes its birth to one brave heart;
The Individual has for his span
Sixty or seventy years, a century
Is for the Nation as a single breath.
The Individual is kept alive
By the concomitance of soul and flesh,
The Nation lives by guarding ancient laws;
Death comes upon the Individual
When dries life’s river, and the Nation dies
When it forsakes the purpose of its life.
Though the Community must pass away
Like any Individual when Fate [66]
-Issues the fiat- none may disobey,
Islam’s Community is a divine
Undying marvel, having origin
In that great compact, -Yea, Thou art our Lord-.
This people is indifferent to Fate,
Immovable in -Lo, We have sent down [67]
Remembrance-, which abides while there is yet
One to remember, whose continuance
Persists with it. When God revealed the words
-They seek God’s light to extinguish-, this bright lamp [68]
Was never troubled it might flicker out.
’Tis a Community that worships God
In perfect faith, a people well-beloved
By every man who has a conscient heart.
God drew his trusty blade out of the sheath
Of Abraham’s desires, that by its edge
Sincerity might live, and all untruth
Consume before the lightning of its stroke.
We, who are proof of God’s high Unity
And guardians of the Wisdom and the Book,
Encountered heaven’s malice long ago,
The unsuspected menace of the hordes
Of savage Tartary, loosed on our heads
To prove its terror. Not the Judgement Day
Shall match the staring horror of those swords,
The thunder of those legions armed with death.
Confusion sore confounded in the breast
Of that disaster slept; its yesterday
Gave birth to no glad morrow. Muslim might
Quivered in dust and blood; Baghdad beheld
Such scenes as Rome ne’er witnessed in her throes.
Purposing Fate, malignant as of old,
Proposed this holocaust; whose garden sprang
Out of the Tartar fire? Whose turban wears
The rose transmuted from those lambent flames? [69]
Because our nature is of Abraham
And our relationship to God the same
As that great patriarch’s, out of the fire’s depths
Anew we blossom, every Nimrod’s blaze
Convert to roses. When the burning brands
Of Time’s great revolution ring our mead,
The Spring returns. The mighty power of Rome,
Conqueror and ruler of the world entire,
Sank into small account; the golden glass
Of the Sassanians was drowned in blood;
Broken the brilliant genius of Greece;
Egypt too failed in the great test of Time,
Her bones lie buried neath the Pyramids.
Yet still the voice of the muezzin rings
Throughout the earth, still the Community
Of World-Islam maintains its ancient forms.
Love is the universal law of life,
Mingling the fragmentary elements
Of a disordered world. Through our hearts’ glow
Love lives, irradiated by the spark
-There is no god but God-. Though, like a bud,
Our hearts are prisoned by oppressive care,
If we should die, the garden too will die.
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That the Organisation of the Community is only
Possible through Law, and that the Law of the
Muhammadan Community is the Koran
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When a Community forsakes its Law
Its parts are severed, like the scattered dust.
The being of the Muslims rests alone
On Law, which is in truth the inner core
Of the Apostle’s faith. A rose is born
When its component petals are conjoined
By Law; and roses, being likewise bound
By Law together, fashion a bouquet.
As sound controlled creates a melody
So, when control is absent, dissonance
Results. The breath we draw within our throat
Is but a wave of air which, in the reed
Being constricted, blows a tuneful note.
Knowest thou what thy Law is, wherein lies
Beneath yon spheres the secret of thy power?
It is the living Book, that wise Koran
Whose wisdom is eternal, uncreate.
The secrets of the fashioning of life
Are therein written; instability
Is firmly stablished by its potency.
-Undoubted and unchanging- are its words, [70]
Its verses to interpretation not
Beholden; in its strength the raw desire
Acquires maturity, the bowl fears not
To dash against the rock. It casts away
The shackling chains, and leads the free man forth,
But brings the exultant captor unto woe.
The final message to all humankind
Was borne by him elect of God to be
-A mercy unto every living thing-; [71]
By this the worthless unto worth attains,
The prostrate slave lifts up his head on high.
Having by heart this message, highwaymen
Turned guides upon the road, and by this Book
Were qualified high masters of the rolls;
Rude desert-farers through one lantern’s glow
A hundred revelations to their brain
In every science won. So he, -whose load [72]
The mountains’ massive shoulders could not bear-,
Clove by his might the power of the spheres.
See how the capital of all our hopes
Is lodged securely in our children’s breasts!
The weary wanderer in the wilderness
Unwatered, eyes aflame in the hot sun,
His camel nimbler than the agile deer,
Its breath as fire, when he would look to sleep
Casting him down beneath some shady palm,
Then with the dawn awake, the caravan
Clanged to departure, ever journeying
Through the wide prairies, unfamiliar
With roof and door, stranger to fixed abodes –
When his wild heart responded vibrantly
To the Koran’s warm glow, its restless waves
Sank to the calm of a sequestered pearl.
Reading the lesson of its verses clear
He who had come a slave went forth from God
A master. Now upon his instrument
New melodies imperial were heard;
Jamshid’s high throne he trampled underfoot;
Cities sprang up out of the dust he trod,
A hundred bowers blossomed from his rose.
O thou, whose faith by custom is enslaved,
Imprisoned by the charms of heathendom,
Thou who hast -torn thy heritage to shreds- [73]
Treading the highway -to a hateful goal-, [74]
If thou wouldst live the Muslim life anew
This cannot be, except by the Koran
Thou livest. See the Sufi in his garb
Of coarse-cut wool, enraptured and entranced
By the intoxication of the song
Of mystic minstrelsy, his heart inflamed
By the fierce fervour of Iraqi’s verse! [75]
Little do his wild ecstasies accord
With the austere Koran; the dervish cap
And mat of reeds replace the crown and throne;
His boasted poverty rich tribute takes
Secured on many a hermitage endowed.
The preacher, with his wealth of anecdote
And wordy legend, little has to tell
Of Truth, for all his fine grandiloquence;
Khatib and Dailami are on his lips, [76]
In every weak Tradition he delights, [77]
The little met with, and the insecure.
It is the duty to recite the Book,
And therein find the purpose thou dost seek.
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Legendă:
[66] Arāf, 32: Spune: Cine a oprit podoaba lui Allah făurită pentru robii Săi şi cele bune pentru trai? Spune: Acestea sunt ale credincioşilor în Viaţa de Acum şi, doar lor, în Ziua Învierii. Aşa lămurim Noi semnele unui popor care ştie.
[67] Hijr, 9: Noi am pogorât Invocarea şi asupra sa veghem.
[68] Tawba, 32: Ei voiesc, cu gurile, lor să stingă lumina lui Allah, însă Allah Își va desăvârși lumina, în pofida necredincioșilor.
[69] versul de față și următorul pomenesc pilda coranică a focului în care Nimrod îl aruncă pe Avraam dar care, miraculos, este transformat în grădină cu trandafiri; Anbiyā, 68-69: Ei au spus: Ardeți-l! Ajutaţi-vă zeii, dacă sunteţi făptuitori! Noi am spus: Focule! vei fi lui Avraam răcoare şi tihnă!
[70] Baqara, 2: Aceasta este cartea cea presus de orice îndoială, călăuzire celor conștienți-de-Allah; Yūnus, 65: Vorbele lor să nu te mâhnească. A lui Allah este toată puterea, El este Cel care Aude, Cel care știe.
[71] Anbiyā, 107: Noi te-am trimis ca îndurare pentru lumi.
[72] Ahzāb, 72: Noi am înfăţişat cerurilor, pământului şi munţilor păstrarea credinţei, însă au refuzat să o ia asupra lor şi au fost cuprinşi de groaza sa. Numai omul a luat asupra sa această povară, însă el este nedrept şi neştiutor.
[73] Muminūn, 55: Ei cred că dacă le dăruim averi şi copii; […]
[74] Qamar, 6: vor ieși din morminte, cu privirile smerite grăbindu-se către Cel care Cheamă, asemenea lăcustelor răzleţite.
[75] misticul-poet persan Iraqi (1289).
[76] Khatib și Dailami numesc „purtătorii-tradițiilor”, naratorii relatărilor profetice.
[77] în acesta și versul următor, Iqbal se referă la categoriile de narațiuni respinse de critica strictă a jurisprudenței.
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Stray thoughts Reflections
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MODERN SCIENCE AND DEMOCRACY
Ideas act and react on each other. The growing spirit of individualism in politics is not without its influence on contemporary scientific thought. Modern thought regards the universe a democracy of living actions
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THE RELATIONSHIP OF IDEAS TO THEIR HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The progress of thought cannot be divorced from other phases of human activity. Our histories of philosophy tell us what various peoples have thought, but they give us no information as to the various causes – social and political – which have determined the character of human thought. To write a complete history of philosophy would certainly be a tremendous task. A mere theologian cannot fully reveal to his readers the rich content of Luther’s Reform. We are apt to isolate great ideas from the general stream of man’s intellectual activity.
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POLYGAMY
The institution of polygamy was never meant to be a universal institution. It was permitted to exist in order to meet certain difficulties which are not peculiar to Muslim society alone. The worst of permitted things, according to Islam, is “divorce.” It was partly to avoid “divorce” becoming a common social phenomenon that polygamy was tolerated. Of the two social evils – divorce and polygamy – (evils if universalised), the latter is certainly the lesser. But the avoidance of divorce is perhaps not the only justification for this institution; it is partly a concession to the nature of the male who, according to this institution, is allowed to indulge in his inclination for variety – without escaping scot-free from the responsibility arising out of this indulgence. In England the individual does in some cases indulge in such inclinations, but the law leaves him absolutely free from the responsibility which may arise from his sexual freedom. He is not responsible for the education of the children he produces. Nor can such children inherit their father. The consequences, in some cases, are awful. France has been compelled to recognise prostitution as a social institution which it is the ugly duty of the State to keep healthy. But perhaps the greatest criticism on monogamy is the existence of the superfluous women in several European countries where various forces of a social and political nature are tending to enhance the number of women who cannot secure husbands. They cannot become mothers, and consequently they are driven to seek interests other than the bringing up of children. They are compelled to “conceive” ideas instead of children. Recently they have conceived the inspiring idea of “votes for women.” This is really an attempt on the part of the superfluous woman, or, if you like, an attempt on her behalf, to create “interests” for her in the sphere of politics. If a society cannot allow their women to produce and bring up children they must give them something else to be occupied with. The Suffragist movement in Europe is at bottom a cry for husbands rather than votes. To me it is nothing more than a riot of the unemployed.
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THE SPIRITUAL IDEAL OF THE GERMAN NATION
It is Goethe’s Faust – not the books supposed to have been written by the Galilean Fishermen – which reveals the spiritual ideals of the German nation. And the Germans are fully conscious of it.
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ON LOVING ONE’S ENEMIES
Love is more than elixir. The latter is supposed to turn baser metals into gold; the former turns all the baser passions into itself. Christ and Buddha were absolutely correct in their perception of the nature of love; but in their passion for ethical idealism they ignored the facts of life. It is too much to expect of man to love his enemies. Some extraordinary individuals may have realised this maxim in their life; but as a principle of national morality the maxim clearly falls down. The results of the Russo-Japanese war would have been different if the Japanese had acted on the principles of morality associated with their religion.
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