HOW TO READ IQBAL? ESSAYS ON IQBAL, URDU POETRY AND LITERARY THEORY Shamsur Rahman Faruqi Edited and Compliled by Muhammad Suheyl Umar IQBAL ACADEMY PAKISTAN All Rights Reserved Publisher: Muhammad Bakhsh Sangi Iqbal Academy Pakistan Govt. of Pakistan, National History & Literary Heritage Division Ministry of Information, Broadcasting, National History & Literary Heritage 6th Floor, Aiwan-i-Iqbal Complex, Off Egerton Road, Lahore. Tel: 92-42-36314510, 99203573, Fax: 92-42-36314496 Email. [email protected] Website: www.allamaiqbal.com ISBN : 978-969-416-521-9 1st Edition : 2007 2nd Edition : 2009 3rd Edition : 2017 Quantity : 500 Price : Rs. 400 US$ 10 Printed at : Adan Printers, Lahore Sales Office:116-McLeod Road, Lahore. Ph.37357214 DEDICATION In Memory of Mushfiq Khvaja (1935-2005) Great friend, fine scholar, perfect stylist CONTENTS Preface….Muhammad Suheyl Umar i Part I Iqbal Studies How to Read Iqbal? 3 Is Iqbal, the Poet, Relevant to us Today? 49 Iqbal’s Romantic Dilemma 59 Iqbal, the Riddle of Lucretius, and Ghalib 71 The Image of Satan in Iqbal and Milton 91 Part II Review Articles: Iqbal Studies A Complaint Against Khushwant Singh’s “Complaint and Answer” 117 Iqbal—A Selection of the Urdu Verse: Text and Translation. 133 Part III Urdu Literature: Literary Themes and History The Eighteenth Century in Urdu Literature: The Contribution of Delhi 141 Conventions of Love, Love of Conventions: Urdu Love Poetry in the Eighteenth Century 157 The Poet in The Poem or, Veiling the Utterance 195 The Power Politics of Culture: Akbar Ilahabadi and the Changing Order of Things 219 PREFACE Faced with the daunting task of writing about Shamsur Rahman Faruqi one is inclined to reach instinctively to one’s betters and to latch onto hyperboles and superlatives. I would therefore try to resist both the impulses and shall proceed mundanely and work up to what I want to say. The essays collected in this slender volume under the title How to Read Iqbal?— Essays on Iqbal, Urdu Poetry & Literary Theory address a very important issue of Iqbal Studies, directly in the first and second parts of the book, namely, “How to Read Iqbal?” and “Review Articles— Iqbal Studies” and comes back to it in the third part, “Urdu Literature— Literary Themes and History”, in an indirect but wider perspective. The question has been elucidated by him in the following words. Is Iqbal, the Poet, Relevant to us Today? The answer to this question could be “Yes”, or “No”, or “Partly”, depending on what image of Iqbal one has in one’s mind and also, of course, what sort of person one is…...It is curious that the Iqbal who is talked about and discussed by one critic is so different from the Iqbal who appears in another critic’s writings that one is inclined to wonder if they are talking about the same poet. Now there is nothing bad (and in fact everything good) in a poet being approached and interpreted in as many legitimate ways as possible; the fact that a poet’s work admits of many interpretations is a sure indication of his being a good poet. The problem arises when one set of persons believes that a certain poet is good, while another would have nothing to do with him. Another problem that arises generally, and especially in reference to Iqbal is that the reasons that one set of persons, or one critic, adduces to support the view that a poet is good, are not found by another group sufficient or even valid to prove that the poet in question is good. In fact, it often happens that the reasons somebody offers to show that a certain poet is good, are considered by some others as proof enough to show that the poet is no good. As I said just now, these two states of affairs have prevailed more in Iqbal criticism (and the view of Iqbal that people have) than in any other criticism. ii How to Read Iqbal? – Essays on Iqbal, Urdu Poetry & Literary Theory In a more recent article (2004) “How to read Iqbal?” he formulated the question slightly differently. It is true that such a question would not be asked by someone who has the slightest feel for the Urdu language and the rhythms of its poetry. For even the dullest of Iqbal’s poems rings and reverberates not just in the outer ear but deep in one’s psyche and sets up vibrations of pleasure in one’s soul. But the problem arises when one is made to read Iqbal not for pleasure, but for profit. For Iqbal is also a politician’s poet, a religious thinker’s poet, and a philosopher’s poet and much more besides. Iqbal has earned a lot of praise and not a little blame as well, for being one or other of the things mentioned above. The specific issue of Iqbal Studies, that is, “why do critics judge Iqbal in nonliterary terms”? is then traced back to the perennial question in literary criticism “Is it legitimate to judge a piece of literature by extra-literary standards”? It is true that misreading a poet of the past is more acute in the case of Urdu poetry since its history, to quote him again, “suffered a major literary cultural discontinuity in the middle of the nineteenth century,” but the problem acquires still larger dimensions with “the systematic misreadings of Iqbal.” The insights Faruqi offers to the reader are seldom equaled, and never surpassed, (no escape from superlatives!) and his arguments are grounded in serene logical acumen and a tremendous wealth of literary information. The questions he raises are essential for our understanding of our literary history and the answers he provides are illuminating. As compared to his corpus of writings in Urdu these essays appear to be little more than a fragment but in terms of literary merit and depth and breadth of scholarship they outshine many a large tome on literary history and theory. Muhammad Suheyl Umar Part-I IQBAL STUDIES HOW TO READ IQBAL? * Given a small twist of inflection, the question may very easily be understood to mean: How can one read Iqbal? The implication would be that he is such an uninteresting poet, how could one read him by choice? It is true that such a question would not be asked by someone who has the slightest feel for the Urdu language and the rhythms of its poetry. For even the dullest of Iqbal’s poems rings and reverberates not just in the outer ear but deep in one’s psyche and sets up vibrations of pleasure in one’s soul. But the problem arises when one is made to read Iqbal not for pleasure, but for profit. For Iqbal is also a politician’s poet, a religious thinker’s poet, and a philosopher’s poet and much more besides. Iqbal has earned a lot of praise and not a little blame as well, for being one or other of the things mentioned by me above. It is an interesting, though sad fact of literary criticism that politics seems never to have left poetry to its own devices. Politicians love to make use of poetry, but are wise enough to leave alone poets like Shakespeare and Goethe whom they can’t exploit for their own purposes. Literary critics are less wise. They try to read politics in poets like Shakespeare and Keats even who did their best not to profess any political creed and who made their poems apparently incapable of yielding interpretations that could be converted into political currency. That Iqbal should have aroused interest and even devotion among politicians and political and religious thinkers all over the Muslim world, and particularly in those Muslim countries that were trying to come to terms with the modern age and had been under colonial domination for many long years, is quite 4 How to Read Iqbal? – Essays on Iqbal, Urdu Poetry & Literary Theory natural. For Iqbal’s poetry has strong overtones of modernity and makes serious efforts to find ways of fruitfully negotiating the postcolonial landscape in society and politics without losing what he regarded as fundamental elements of Islamic religious thought and sociopolitical identity. He was also passionately concerned with the historic reality of Islam and how its lost effects could be revived and perpetuated in the modern world. Such a project was bound to appeal to, and have uses for the Muslim politician as well as the Muslim social political reformer and activist. In the Urdu world, Iqbal was and even now is often known by two appellatives: sha‘ir-e mashriq (Poet of the East), and hakimul ummat (Sage of the [Muslim] People, or, Philosopher of the [Muslim] People.) It might be interesting to note here that the later appellative (hakimul ummat ) used to be and still is also applied for Maulana Shah Ashraf Ali Thanavi (1863/4- 1943) one of the two most influential Sufis and religious reformers and mentors of the Muslim community in South Asia during the first half of the twentieth century. Thanavi was not much interested in politics (though he favoured Jinnah and the Muslim League) but his influence can be seen and felt in the social and religious life of South Asian Muslims even today. Even the political life of Muslims especially in Pakistan, shows Thanavi’s influence through the ulema of that country, particularly those of the Deobandi School who have a strong presence in Pakistan today. A few more points are worth noting here about these appellatives: Iqbal, the philosopher-activist, political and religious thinker, active in politics though not a full-time politician, was seen by the Muslim community of South Asia as performing an ongoing, meliorist role in the Muslim society of his time which was qualitatively the same role that was being discharged by Ashraf Ali Thanavi, practicing Sufi-intellectual, and religious and social reformer.