Iqbal: One In a Million
English Essay on "Iqbal: One In a Million"
Perhaps it is the fate of great men to become the subject of unsubstantiated stories which, more often than not, emanate from those who, in the words of Dr M.D. Taseer, are more keen “to gain immortality” than place facts on record. Such attempts do not necessarily wait for a decent period of time either; they can start as soon as the great man is gone. Allama Muhammad Iqbal has been no exception.
Only one year after his death in 198, so records his nephew Ijaz Ahmed in his 1985 biography, a Lahore Urdu newspaper and a weekly published articles about Iqbal’s childhood, based on, what they claimed, were the recollections of his “childhood playmate”. This “playmate” had also supplied the papers with a photograph which ran under the caption ‘Iqbal in the lap of his father’. educationsight.blogspot.com The picture showed two children, no more than two and a half, one sitting to the left and identified as Iqbal, and the other as his cousin, more specifically, his uncle’s son. The man in the middle was clearly in his early sixties. A moment’s reflection would have shown that if this indeed was, Iqbal’s father (as he was), then at the time the picture was taken, Iqbal could not have been two and a half.
The two children, actually, were Ijaz, son of Sheikh Ata Mohammad, Iqbal’s elder brother, and Ijaz’s cousin Aftab, Iqbals eldest son. This photograph continues to appear off an on in special ‘Iqbal Numbers’ brought out on his birthday. It was, therefore, apt that Ijaz called his biography Mazloom Iqbal. Once, records Ijaz, Iqbal was told about a new commentary of the Quran being done by someone not particularly known for his adherence to Islam. Iqbal, always a man of few words, smiled and said, “There was a time when it was Hussain who was the mazloom. Today, it is the Quran.”
Then he recited a verse from the holy book and added, “Let’s see what he does with this one.” Little did he know that after his death, he would become another mazloom with “friends” galore and stories bearing no relation to truth.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz once said, “In our time, there is no poet who is more mazloom than Iqbal. Every critic and commentator has tried to make him conform to his own views, ideas and beliefs. These gentlemen are always ready with a verse or quote from Iqbal’s writings to prove their point.”
The adoption of Iqbal by state institutions, though well motivated, has practically ensured that he be feared more than read. Radio Pakistan, official organs of information, literary heavyweights, political orators and state academies have collectively managed to put Iqbal, not within, but outside the reach of the common reader. The younger generation, which Iqbal hoped would instruct the old, knows little about him or what he wrote and even less about the kind of man he was. The young see him as a colossus who is best viewed from a distance.
By projecting him as an unsmiling philosopher and an austere theologian, these institutions have done great disservice to both Iqbal the poet and Iqbal the human being. There are few poets more readable than Iqbal, especially the Iqbal of Bang-i-Dara. It is painful, despite the distance of years, to think that though Iqbal earned barely enough, yet all his life, he continued to help several members of the family who had no one else to turn to. He never wanted his poetry to be a means of earning money because he believed it to be God’s gift and not a result of his own efforts. However, so limited remained his income, dependent entirely on his legal practice, that he felt obliged to allow himself some earnings from his books, though they, were always negligible.
His heart was not in his legal work, nor was he temperamentally equipped to follow any of the techniques that turn lawyers into money-minting machines. He would have been happy to be appointed to the Lahore High Court but was denied the position because of the Chief Justice, Sir Shadi Lal, who said, “I know Iqbal as a poet, not a lawyer.” Iqbal also hoped that one of the princely Muslim states, especially Hyderabad, would grant him an annuity or stipend that would free him from day-to-day financial worries and give him time to write and reflect. Tragically, that was not to be. He made a trip to Hyderabad in 1910 with this in view but returned in some disappointment. What would it have mattered to the richest ruler in the world to set aside a minuscule sum for the greatest poet and seer of his age! In 1932, the Nawab of Bhopal wrote a personal letter to the Nizam of Hydrabad asking that the state pay a monthly stipend of Rs 1,000 to Iqbal so that he could concentrate on his literary work. The proposal was examined by one of the Nizam’s ministers who wrote, “That Sir Muhammad Iqbal is a good poet is a matter about which those well versed in the art of poetry disagree. Assuming that he indeed is a good poet, it is still not ground enough to grant him a monthly stipend of Rs. 1,000. Why does the Nawab Sahib of Bhopal who recommends his case, not pay him this stipend himself? In principle, Hyderabad funds should not leave the state, unless there is a real need for this to happen.” Iqbal, obviously, was “no real need”. Iqbal began legal practice ki 1908 and earned only between Rs 20,000 and Rs 25,000 in the next ten years. In a letter to his father lie writes, “I have so Far not been able to rent a nice house, nor buy proper furniture, nor acquire a horse and carriage.” In 1916, much as he wanted to escape the heat of Lahore in the summer and spend a few days in the hills, he did not have the money to do so. He waited years to buy a car and when he did, it was a used one which spent more time in the repair shop than on the road.
Iqbal’s will, written in 1935, lists his possessions. His books are willed to the Islamia College, Lahore, his clothes for distribution among the poor, which leaves two carpets, one cotton broadloom, one Sofa set, some chairs and a bit of money kept in the bank in the names of his two minor children. That was all Iqbal detested Mullaism and considered it a “disgrace to Islam”. However, the Mullas got their revenge when taking advantage of a statement Iqbal had made favoring Sultan Ibne Saud, the Khatib of Lahore’s Wazir Khan mosque, one Syed Deedar Mi Shah, issued a fatwa declaring Iqbal an infidel because of some of his verses. He also said that any Muslim who interacted with Iqbal would be in a state of grave sin.” Today, no one remembers Syed Deedar Mi Shah, but the “infidel’s” name shines in glorious splendour.
Only one year after his death in 198, so records his nephew Ijaz Ahmed in his 1985 biography, a Lahore Urdu newspaper and a weekly published articles about Iqbal’s childhood, based on, what they claimed, were the recollections of his “childhood playmate”. This “playmate” had also supplied the papers with a photograph which ran under the caption ‘Iqbal in the lap of his father’. educationsight.blogspot.com The picture showed two children, no more than two and a half, one sitting to the left and identified as Iqbal, and the other as his cousin, more specifically, his uncle’s son. The man in the middle was clearly in his early sixties. A moment’s reflection would have shown that if this indeed was, Iqbal’s father (as he was), then at the time the picture was taken, Iqbal could not have been two and a half.
The two children, actually, were Ijaz, son of Sheikh Ata Mohammad, Iqbal’s elder brother, and Ijaz’s cousin Aftab, Iqbals eldest son. This photograph continues to appear off an on in special ‘Iqbal Numbers’ brought out on his birthday. It was, therefore, apt that Ijaz called his biography Mazloom Iqbal. Once, records Ijaz, Iqbal was told about a new commentary of the Quran being done by someone not particularly known for his adherence to Islam. Iqbal, always a man of few words, smiled and said, “There was a time when it was Hussain who was the mazloom. Today, it is the Quran.”
Then he recited a verse from the holy book and added, “Let’s see what he does with this one.” Little did he know that after his death, he would become another mazloom with “friends” galore and stories bearing no relation to truth.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz once said, “In our time, there is no poet who is more mazloom than Iqbal. Every critic and commentator has tried to make him conform to his own views, ideas and beliefs. These gentlemen are always ready with a verse or quote from Iqbal’s writings to prove their point.”
The adoption of Iqbal by state institutions, though well motivated, has practically ensured that he be feared more than read. Radio Pakistan, official organs of information, literary heavyweights, political orators and state academies have collectively managed to put Iqbal, not within, but outside the reach of the common reader. The younger generation, which Iqbal hoped would instruct the old, knows little about him or what he wrote and even less about the kind of man he was. The young see him as a colossus who is best viewed from a distance.
By projecting him as an unsmiling philosopher and an austere theologian, these institutions have done great disservice to both Iqbal the poet and Iqbal the human being. There are few poets more readable than Iqbal, especially the Iqbal of Bang-i-Dara. It is painful, despite the distance of years, to think that though Iqbal earned barely enough, yet all his life, he continued to help several members of the family who had no one else to turn to. He never wanted his poetry to be a means of earning money because he believed it to be God’s gift and not a result of his own efforts. However, so limited remained his income, dependent entirely on his legal practice, that he felt obliged to allow himself some earnings from his books, though they, were always negligible.
His heart was not in his legal work, nor was he temperamentally equipped to follow any of the techniques that turn lawyers into money-minting machines. He would have been happy to be appointed to the Lahore High Court but was denied the position because of the Chief Justice, Sir Shadi Lal, who said, “I know Iqbal as a poet, not a lawyer.” Iqbal also hoped that one of the princely Muslim states, especially Hyderabad, would grant him an annuity or stipend that would free him from day-to-day financial worries and give him time to write and reflect. Tragically, that was not to be. He made a trip to Hyderabad in 1910 with this in view but returned in some disappointment. What would it have mattered to the richest ruler in the world to set aside a minuscule sum for the greatest poet and seer of his age! In 1932, the Nawab of Bhopal wrote a personal letter to the Nizam of Hydrabad asking that the state pay a monthly stipend of Rs 1,000 to Iqbal so that he could concentrate on his literary work. The proposal was examined by one of the Nizam’s ministers who wrote, “That Sir Muhammad Iqbal is a good poet is a matter about which those well versed in the art of poetry disagree. Assuming that he indeed is a good poet, it is still not ground enough to grant him a monthly stipend of Rs. 1,000. Why does the Nawab Sahib of Bhopal who recommends his case, not pay him this stipend himself? In principle, Hyderabad funds should not leave the state, unless there is a real need for this to happen.” Iqbal, obviously, was “no real need”. Iqbal began legal practice ki 1908 and earned only between Rs 20,000 and Rs 25,000 in the next ten years. In a letter to his father lie writes, “I have so Far not been able to rent a nice house, nor buy proper furniture, nor acquire a horse and carriage.” In 1916, much as he wanted to escape the heat of Lahore in the summer and spend a few days in the hills, he did not have the money to do so. He waited years to buy a car and when he did, it was a used one which spent more time in the repair shop than on the road.
Iqbal’s will, written in 1935, lists his possessions. His books are willed to the Islamia College, Lahore, his clothes for distribution among the poor, which leaves two carpets, one cotton broadloom, one Sofa set, some chairs and a bit of money kept in the bank in the names of his two minor children. That was all Iqbal detested Mullaism and considered it a “disgrace to Islam”. However, the Mullas got their revenge when taking advantage of a statement Iqbal had made favoring Sultan Ibne Saud, the Khatib of Lahore’s Wazir Khan mosque, one Syed Deedar Mi Shah, issued a fatwa declaring Iqbal an infidel because of some of his verses. He also said that any Muslim who interacted with Iqbal would be in a state of grave sin.” Today, no one remembers Syed Deedar Mi Shah, but the “infidel’s” name shines in glorious splendour.
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