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PREFACE
I have
undertaken this labour of love for the great admiration I have for the
poet-philosopher of the East, Allama Iqbal, who worked with prophetic zeal
throughout his life for chalking out an ameliorative programme for mankind. Born
in very critical times when the world was cast on stormy waters of a magnitude
unprecedented in history, he, with his apostolic spirit, harnessed himself to
the arduous task of shaping a new the course of affairs and indicating the way
for achieving human destiny. He wrote with unfailing inspiration and all the
powers of his remarkable genius saturated with talents of the highest order.
With consummate ability and keen insight he made a probing survey of present-day
circumstances both in the East and West, past and present. synthesised the life
and thought of both, and offered a line of action ensuring further, steady
progress in a healthy way.
The Allama
worked with a dedicated spirit and established the ground for a further leap
forward. His poems are the outpourings of an inspired poet whose mind worked
with equal passion in all his writings, big or small. We find his heartbeats in
every line he wrote, breathing his soul into every word which pulsates with
tremendous force generating a corresponding current in our hearts. His short
poems are only nominally so. They have as much importance and forceful
impact as the long ones, the difference lying mainly in
range, scale and theme.
Considered
from this point of view, his small poem, MUSAFIR (The Traveller), which relates
to Afghanistan and in which he calls its valiant inhabitants Afghan-e-Ghayur
(high-minded, with great sense of honour) is of absorbing interest in view of
the historical background of the land and its people who, true to their
indefatigable spirit, have fought stubbornly against a formidable superpower of
the day for such a long time, close to decade.
Boundless
love for Islam and its votaries made the Allama's heart aglow with passion and
made him burst out in numbers. The Afghans, among others, were invested with
superlative love in his eyes and it was a happy chance when an invitation by
King Nadir Shah for advice regarding overhauling of the educational system of
the country along with a delegation consisting of top-notch figures of the then
India Allama Syed Suleman Nadvi and my reverend grandfather Nawab Masood Jang
Sir Syed Ross Masood, the illustrious grandson of great Sir Syed that took him
with all the zeal of a passionate lover to Afghanistan in October, 1933 and
brought him into touch with its varied attractionshills and dales, historical
places, people, the glorious departed, and past magnificence. Nothing could be
more inspiring than this rare opportunity to have close-at-hand sight of this
land of his dreams to which, among others, he looked forward to the uprise of
Islam once again as a glorious faith with a glorious destiny.
The "MUSAFIR" is a fascinating record of the
manifold sights and sounds, panorama, and varied impressions of the poet
produced by all that Afghanistan had to offer to a keen and ardent observer. It
is full of rich poetry studded with numerous purple patches, amid presents so
many matters of interest with which few of us would he acquainted but for this
miniature portrait of the country and all this poem contains.
It is this
which impelled me to present this poem in English, for strangely enough, this
pretty poem of Allama Iqbal has had no Nicholson or Arberry to bring it home to
the West so far. The task was fraught with serious difficulties because of the
linguistic and semantic qualities of the poem. I, therefore, sought the
collaboration of my friend, Mr. Rafique Khawar, an experienced translator and
outstanding Iqbalite, who has very ingeniously rendered a number of Allama
Iqbal's works into various language.
Mr. Khawar
has imparted a Fitzgeraldian touch to my draft, adding much to its readability
by writing a scholarly Foreword to the poem, for which I am grateful to him.
The poem
though small has many interesting aspects which need elaborate elucidation. For
one thing, the landscape is varied as that of the land it dwells upon, the
natural pattern being markedly varied by interesting pieces, poetic wee bits or
patches, in the main texture, imparting a complex, tapestried character to it.
It has been
rightly pointed out by Mr. Khawar in his remarkable book in Urdu on Allama's two
poems. viz. "Pas Cheh Bayad Kard"1
and "Musafir"2 that the poem "Musafir"
is an anticipation or forerunner of the monumental Javid
Namah with its chequered character so far so that, it can be easily placed
in one of the firmaments of the former. It has the architectonic character of
the larger, renowned work on a small scale, really a miniature. In fact this
vignette of poem is the earthly travelogue as compared with the celestial one of
the Javid Namah which has far larger and crowded canvas iridescent in
nature.
I hope
these few remarks about my humble effort in the field of translation of one of
Allama Iqbal's remarkable poems will draw more visitors, intellectuals or
otherwise, in this neglected region, and now unfortunately in the throes of
struggle and plunged in a terrible war, but soon emerging from it with renewed
strength and enable them to scan it more diligently, and appreciate and read the
present work with relish, drawing both pleasure and benefit.
AL-JAMIL
(Jamil Naqvi)
A-119, Block - J
North Nazimabad
KARACHI-3
(Pakistan)
1.
Namely: "Pas Cheh Bayad Kard" into English as well as Urdu; "Payam-e-Mashriq"
and "Javid Namah" into Urdu: "Shikwa and Jawab-e-Shikwa" into Persian:
and "Payam-e-Mashriq" and "Bang-e-Dara" into Punjabi.
2.
Its varied literary historical and cultural aspects have been extensively
spotlighted by Mr. Khawat in his "Pas Cheh Bayad Kard" and "Musafir" Ek Jaiza-cum-appreciative
study in Urdu, so fat the only hook in which these poems have been exhaustively
discussed.
