Shikwa – Allama Muhammad Iqbal Pt 4

Our complaint is not that they are rich, that their coffers overflow;
They who have no manners and of polite speech nothing know.
What injustice! Here and now are houris and palaces to infidels given,
While the poor Muslim is promised houris only after he goes to heaven.
Neither favour nor kindness is shown towards us anymore.
Where is the affection you showed us in the days of yore?

Why amongst Muslims is wordly wealth rarely found?
Great is Your power beond measure, withou bound,
If it were Your will, water would bubble forth from the bosom of arid land,
And the traveller lashed by waves of mirages in the sand.
Our lot is strangers taunts, ill-repute and penury;
Must disgrace be our lot who gave their lives for You?

Now on strangers does the world bestow its favours and esteem,
All we have been left with is a phantom world and a dream.
Others have taken over the world, our days are done;
Say not then, 'None in the world believed God there is but one.
All we live for is to hear the world resound with our name;
How can it be that the saqi goes but the goblet remains?

Your mehfil is dissolved, those who loved you are also gone.
No signs through the nights of longin, no lamenting at dawn.
We gave our hearts to You, took the wages You did bestow;
But hardly had we taken our seats, You ordered us to go.
As lovers we came, as lovers departed with promise of tomorrow.
Now search for us with the light on. You radiant face does glow.

Laila's love is as intense, Qais desire her evermore,
On Najd's hills and dales, the deer swift footed as before.
The same love beats in the heart, beauty is as bewitching and magical,
Your messenger Ahmed's following still abides, your presence is eternal
Neither rhythm nor reason has Your displeasurem What does it mean?
On the faithful is Your angry eye of censure! What does it mean?

Shikwa – Allama Muhammad Iqbal Pt 3

In the midst of raging battle if the time came to pray,
Hejazis turned to Mecca, kissed the earth and ceased from fray.
Sultan and slave in single file stood side by side,
Then no servant was nor master, nothing did them divide.
Between serf and lord, needy and rich, difference there was none.
When they appeared in Your court, they came as equals and one.

In this banquet hall of time and space, from dawn to dusk we spent,
Filled with the wine of faith, like goblets round we went.
Over hills and plains we took Your messagel this was our task.
Do you know of an occasion we failed You? is all we ask.
OVer wastes and wildernesses of land and sea,
Into the Atlantic Ocean we galloped on our steed.

We blotted out the smear of falsehood from the pages of history,
We feeed mankind from the chains of slavery.
The floors of your Kaaba with our foreheads we swept,
The Quran you sent us we clasped to our breast.
Even so you accuse us of lack of faith on our part:
If we lacked faith, you did little to win our heart.

There are people of other faiths, some of them transgressors.
Some are humble; drunk with the spirit of ignorance are others.
Some are indolent, some ignorant, some endowed with brain,
Hundreds of others there are who even despair of Your Name.
Your lessings are showered on homes of unbeleivers, strangers all.
Only on the poor Muslim, Your wrath like lightning falls.

In the temples of idolatry, the idols say 'The Muslims are gone!'
They rejoice that the guardians of the Kaaba have withdrawn.
From the world's caravanserais singing camel drivers have vanished;
The Quran tucked under their arms they have departed.
These infidels smirk and snigger at us, are You aware?
For the message of Your oneness, do You anymore care?

Science and Faith

Once Science said to Faith:

"My eye can see all that is in this world;
The Entire world is within my net.
I am only concerned with material things,
What have I to do with spiritual matters?
I can strike a thousand melodies,
And openly proclaim all the secrets that I learn."

Faith said:

"With your magic even the waves in the sea are set ablaze,
You can pollute the atmosphere with foul, poisonous gases.
When you associated with me, you were light,
When you broke off from me, your light became fire.
You were of Divine origin,
But you have been caught in the clutches of Shaytan.
Come, make this wasteland a garden once again.
Borrow from me a little of my ecstasy,
And in the world set up a paradise.
From the day of creation we have been associates,
We are the low and high tunes of the same melody."

Allama Muhammad Iqbal - Jawab e Shikwa

Words spoken from the heart never fail to have effects;
Sacred and pure their origin, on lofty heights their sights are set.
They have no wings and yet they have power to fly;
They rise from the dust and pierce through the sky.
So headstrong and insolent was my love, so much on mischief bent,
So outspoken and plaint, it tore through the firmament.

The aged vault of heaven heard. 'There is someone somewhere' said he,
The planets spoke 'Here on these ancient heights someone must be'
'Not here' said the moon,'it must be someone from the earth below.'
Spoke the Milky Way, 'It must be someone hidden here we do not know.'
Only the gatekeeper of eden did some of my plaint recognise
And understood that I was the man thrown out of paradise.

Even to the angels the voice came as a complete surprise;
Now was the mystery unveiled to other dwellers of the skies.
Could celestial heights have become the aim of man's striving?
Could this pinch of dust have learnt the art of flying?
These earth dwellers, how little of manners do they know!
How cheeky and insolent are these habitants of regions down below!

He even rails against Allah, he has become so proud,
Is he the same Adam before whom the angels bowed?
He knows about things, their quantity and quality,
Yes, these  he knows; but nothing of the secret of humility.
Their power of speech men always proudly flaunt,
But of the way of speaking they are quite ignorant.

Spoke the Voise: 'your tale is indeed full of sorrow,
Your tears tremble at the brim and are ready to flow.
your cry of lament the sky has rung.
What cunning your impassioned heart has lent your tongue!
So eloquently did you word of plaint, you made it sound like praise.
To talk on equal terms with Us, man to celestial heights did raise.'

Shikwa – Allama Muhammad Iqbal Pt 2

Of all the brave warriors, there were none but only we
Who fought Your battles on land and often on sea.
Our calls to prayers rang out from the churches of the European lands
And floated across Africa’s scorching desert sands
We ruled the world, but regal glories our eyes disdained.
Under the shades of glittering sabres Your creed we proclaimed.

All we lived for was battle; we bore the troubles that came,
And laid down our lives for the glory of Your Name
We never used our strength to conquer or extend domain,
Would we have played with our lives for nothing but wordly gain?
If our people had run after earth’s goods and gold,
Need they have smashed idols, and not idols sold?

Once in the fray, firm we stood our ground, never did we yield,
The most lion-hearted of our foes reeled back and fled the field
Those who rose against You, against them we turned our ire,
What care we for their sabres? We fought against cannon fire.
On every human heart the image of Your oneness we drew,
Beneath the dagger’s point, we proclaimed Your message true.

You tell us who were they who pulled down the gates of Khyber?
Who were they that reduced the city that was the pride of Caeser?
Fake gods that men had made, who did break and shatter?
who routed infidel armies and destroyed them with bloody slaughter?
Who put out and made cold the ’sacred’ flame in iran?
Who retold the story of the one God, Yazdan?

Who were the people who asked only for You and no other?
And for You did fight battles and travails suffer?
Whose world-conquering swords spread the might over one and all?
Who stirred mankind with Allaho Akbar’s clarion call?
Whose dread bent stone idols into fearful submission?
They fell on their faces confessing, ‘God is One, the Only One!’

Shikwa – Allama Muhammad Iqbal Pt 1

Why must I forever lose, forever forgo profit that is my due,
Sunk in the gloom of evenings past, no plans for the morrow pursue.
Why must I all attentive be to the nightingale’s lament?
Friend, am I as dumb as a flower? Must I remain silent?
My theme makes me bold, makes my tongue more eloquent.
Dust be in my mouth, against Allah I make complaint.

We won renown for submitting to Your will – and it is so;
We speak out now, we are compelled to repeat out tale of woe.
We are like the silent lute whose chords are full of voice;
When grief wells up to our lips, we speak; we have no choice.
Lord God! We are Your faithful servants, for a while with us bear,
It is in our nature to always praise You, a small plaint also hear.

That Your Presence was primal from the beginning of time is true;
The rose also adorned the garden but of its fragrance no one knew.
Justice is all we ask for: You are perfect, You are benevolent.
If there were no breeze, how could the rose have spread its scent?
We Your people were dispersed, no solace could we find,
Or, would Your Beloved’s following have gone out its mind?

Before our time, a stranger sight was the world You Made:
Some worshipped stone idols others bowed to trees and prayed.
Accustomed to believing what they saw, the people’s vision wasn’t free,
How then could anyone believe in a God he couldn’t see?
Do you know of anyone, Lord, who then took Your Name? I ask.
It was the muscle in the Muslim’s arms that did Your task

Here on this earth were settled the Seljuqs and the Turanians,
The Chinese lived in China, In Iran lived the Sassanians.
The Greeks flourished in there allotted regions,
In this very world lived the Jews and the Christians.
But who did draw their swords in Your Name and fight?
When things had gone wrong, who put them right?