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THE SECRETS OF THE SELF (ASRAR E KHUDI)) ALLAMA DR. SIR MUHAMMAD IQBAL POETIC RENDERING BY BASHIR SACRANIE The Secrets of the Self - Iqbal FOREWORD I can barely explain the whys and hows of this enter- prise, and its outcome that I here present. It came about without any real will or purpose on my part. It is only now that I cast my mind back and ‘join the dots’ that I can rationalise it and give readers some sense of the course and motivation of this work. Iqbal did not mean much to me. I had heard his name in my childhood when, in the early years after Pakistan’s formation, the Indian Muslims in the then Nyasaland celebrated Pakistan Day. I knew Allama Iqbal was one of its founding fathers and that he was a great poet and intellect. There were speeches and Jinnah and Iqbal were mentioned with great rever- ence. The abiding memory for me of these occasions is that, at the age of 6 years, I stood on the stage in front of a crowded cricket field and sang, “Hum dard ka afsana duniya ko suna dengeh”, an Islamic song from a 1947 Bollywood movie. This little performance significantly affected and influenced my life, but that is another matter. The next significant nudge from ‘fate’ was my meet- ing in 1975 with the man who changed the very course of my life and my ‘raison d’etre’. His name was Shaykh Al Hajj Sayyed Ali Asgar Shah Shirazi; he was called Bawa, or Baba, by all who came to know The Secrets of the Self - Iqbal him. He was Pakistani and he was the cause of my quite unlikely connection with Pakistan in my mature years. On my first visit to Bawa in Karachi at his home in the mid 70s, he took me to the shrine of Shah Abdul Latif of Bhittai in Sindh. He knew of my interest in poetry and this was his subtle way of opening my eyes to some of the most beautiful poetry ever written. In quiet moments, he would recite to me the odd verse, his eyes glistening with tears. He then mentioned to me Mawlana Jalalluddin Rumi and gave me a book of some of his poetry that had been rendered into Urdu. Despite my relatively sketchy knowledge of these languages, the poetry made a big impression on me and set me off on a quest for these works in English. A decade or so ago, I rendered some of Rumi poetry into lyrical verse and published The Ishq of Rumi. Two years ago I did the same of the Qasida Burdah of Imam Busiri. In my occasional forays into Urdu poetry, I was reminded of the Master, Allama Iqbal, and latterly found his Asrar e Khudi, The Secrets of the Self, translated from the original Persian into Eng- lish, by R A Nicholson, the eminent orientalist and scholar of Islamic ‘mysticism’. It was published in around 1920 - a hundred years ago. The Secrets of the Self - Iqbal I read the English version with mixed feelings, and also listened to some of it being recited in Urdu. Of course, the latter was much more powerful and im- passioned than the former. In the mid 90s, I had collaborated with a Pakistani living in the UK, who had a close connection with Us- tad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the great Qawwal, to bring him, for the first time, to perform at the Royal Albert Hall. This added to my education and cultural orien- tation. Here, coincidentally, I met Imran Khan, who was then still involved in cricket commentary, but rather more actively engaged in building a cancer hospital in Pakistan. We negotiated the terms on which Nusrat Khan Sahab would perform at a charity concert to raise funds for the cancer hospital Imran was building in Pakistan in memory of his late moth- er. That brief encounter with Imran Khan made me inter- ested in his career. Somewhat later, I read his book and found much that resonated with my own thoughts and experiences, and I noted that he was deeply influenced by Iqbal. I followed his slow and troubled trajectory to his eventual success and elec- tion as Prime Minister. I have since listened to his speeches and there is in them a frequent reference to Iqbal and the desire to steer Pakistan back to the ideal of the first Islamic state established by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The Secrets of the Self - Iqbal Some months ago, I downloaded R A Nicholson’s version of The Secrets of the Self, and, as a literary exercise, started rendering it into rhyming couplets, which I felt would be more suggestive of the original. Slowly, haltingly, doubtingly, I got half way; about 800 verses, after several breaks where I thought I could not sustain the effort and was drying up. Faced with still some 1000 verses to deal with, I abandoned it. I had noted that, once again, like Bawa and Rumi, people who made a big impression on me invariably .and (ﷺ) were also lovers of the Prophet Muhammad almost throughout my life, I had time and again come across people who were deeply enamoured of the Prophet and who had evinced great beauty of char- acter and conduct, thought and action, reflecting their love for and familiarity with him. Iqbal was one such person, and his influence had brought about the very existence of Pakistan. I went back to reading Rumi for a while and mar- velled at how this great 13th century saint and poet was touching and influencing lives all over the world, as well as human affairs, 700 years later. In the background was my regular review of Imran Khan’s talks. He voiced the concerns of millions of others, Pakistanis as well as Muslims abroad, of how far the country had drifted from the original ideal and The Secrets of the Self - Iqbal lost its standing and reverence in the global Muslim society. He spoke of his ambition to reestablish Pa- kistan’s original motivating force, i.e. an Islamic so- cialist state, where every individual was of equal val- ue with every other one; where there was social and economic justice, and the collective of the individual members in the society owed a duty of care and jus- tice to everyone with whom there was social inter- course or connection. Some two months ago, with Covid lockdowns in full swing, I picked up what I had done, and read through it. It wasn’t bad. To someone reading it for the first time, I dared to say to myself, it could be interesting and rewarding. I thought, let me give it a go and see how much further I can get, still not convinced that I could complete it. This now is what I have managed to produce. I have tried, as far as possible, to keep the original text of the Nicholson version, reordered, manipulated, adapted and minimally reworded to maintain the rhyme. I would guess that this applies to 90 percent at least of the text. Where the original text would simply not yield to my pedestrian efforts to extract a rhyme, I had to go a step further and reword it suffi- ciently fo achieve the object. So here it is now. I hope and pray that it does justice to Allama Iqbal and his scholars and admirers. I hope and pray that it doesn’t offend anyone, and hasten to The Secrets of the Self - Iqbal say that none is intended, and, indeed, any such of- fence is due to my ignorance and inadequacies and not due to any malign intent. May Allah and His Messenger be pleased with it. Bashir Sacranie - 14th February 2021 The Secrets of the Self - Iqbal DEDICATION Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan, whose en- lightened view of the duties and responsibilities of government has been influenced by Allama Iqbal and Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Prophet of Islam Muhammad RasulAllah (PBUH) I have a debt of gratitude to: Mawlana Jalaalluddin Rumi and his heirs, Mawlana Shaikh Nazim Al Haqqani and the Nakshbandi, Mevlevi, Qaderi Orders. Bawa Ali Asgar Shah Shirazi, his son, Kamal Shah and his progeny Allama Muhammad Iqbal and his heirs, scholars and adherents. My parents and theirs. My sister Fatima Hajat but for whom I would not have been on that stage some 70 years ago. And my sib- lings and children. The Secrets of the Self - Iqbal AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE - Bashir Sacranie I put Iqbal’s Asrar e Khudi into the context of the fol- lowing paradigms: According to the Hadith Qudsi (the inspired sayings of the Prophet quoting the words of God) God says, “I was a Hidden Treasure and I Loved to be Known, and so I created Creation so that I should be Known.” There are profound and important words in this say- ing; “Hidden Treasure”; “Loved”; ‘Known”. Within each of us is a ‘spark’ of God, which we call the soul, or ‘rooh’. This soul has certain urges and drives Divinely instilled in it. This is Khudi, the Self, in us. The fundamental urge in humans is to know, to learn. Knowledge is what distinguishes us from the rest of creation. We start life with the knowledge of our mother/father, then our name and our relationship with everything and everyone around us, and so we come to know who we are in the worldly sense. Our sense of “I am” evolves moment by moment. In this sense, we are because we know.