MUHAMMAD IQBAL: INTRODUCTION TO THE SECRETS

Long ago Muhammad Iqbal's poetry crossed the boundaries of his motherland and now one can say that it belongs to mankind as a whole alongwith many masterpieces by other prominent men of culture of international repute.

Iqbal's poetry is well-known in the Soviet Union and it is dear to the peoples of my country because of its humanism and strong belief in the unlimited potentials of a human being. Iqbal's love for freedom and his passionate desire to see his people prosperous and happy are also revered by Soviet readers.

His poems, translated from Urdu and Persian, into the various languages of the Soviet Union, are widely published in Moscow, Tashkent and Dushanbe. If one takes into account the fact that the USSR is a country of complete literacy, and that the usual circulation of any book is not less than several thousand copies, one cannot but draw the conclusion that Bang-i-Dare, Payam-i-Mashriq, Zarb-i-Kalim, Bal-i-Jibril are no less popular in the Soviet Union than in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent, and the Persian and Arabic speaking world.

There are also eleven original research works on Iqbal's poetry and philosophy written by Soviet scholars and it gives me pleasure to present one of these works to the Pakistani public. The article “Muhammad Iqbal : Introduction to the Secrets of the Self” by N. Prigarina is the first work on Iqbal by a Soviet scholar to be translated from Russian and published in Pakistan. I am sure that it will not be the last.

It is necessary to mention here that this translation has become possible due only to the energetic efforts of Mr. B. A. Dar, Director, Iqbal Academy, Karachi, who has been instrumental in establishing contacts between Soviet and Pakistani scholars engaged in research on Iqbal's heritage.

I fail to find words suitable to express my deepest gratitude to Mrs. Alys Faiz and Lt. Col. K.A. Rashid whose kind help and guidance were of great value when I worked on this translation.

I must confess that I am not a professional translator and readers, therefore, may be indulgent if in the translation they meet some errors.

This article deals with some features of Muhammad Iqbal's lyrics of his early years in Persian, namely the Introduction to his poem Asrar-iKhudi. The poem was first published in 1915, though some extracts of it had been recited by the poet at the session of Anjuman-i-Himayat-i-Islam in Lahore in 1914. It was Iqbal's first work published in Persian. Before this he had written his poems in Urdu and by that time was well-know in the literary circles of India.

As far as the genre of the Introduction is concerned it occupies a particular place in the poem. The lyric fragments can be read in all sixteen chapters of the poem which differ in their content hut the poem as a whole should be considered as an epic work of a philosophical and didactic nature. Being an account of religious and philosophical doctrine it has some genre features of a sermon or treatise.

The genre of the philosophical and didactic poem and the accounts of religious and philosophical doctrine in a poetic form was a widespread phenomenon of classical literature in Persian.[1] Jalaluddin Rumi, the author of the philosophical and ethic code in six volumes, Masnawi-i-Manavi,[2] was .Iqbal's favourite poet.

As to the philosophical subjects of the poem The Secrels of lhe Self, analogies from the classical Persian Literature would not help much. Its subjects were created by a new age and seem to be the answer to “the social demand” of the Indian Society of Iqbal's period. Hence it is clear that his contemporaries highly appreciated the poem, for they found in it the substantiation and development of the ideas of the value of a human personality, an appeal to an inner perfection and an active creative works.[3]

The problem of personality and the question of the perfect man, connected with it, emerged and developed in Iqbal's work as the reflection of those changes which look place in India in the beginning of the twentieth century. It was not incidental that Iqbal was the first who introduced a new term, Khudi (Khud,خود self).[4]

Considering the individuality of a human being as a result of the development of God's individuality, Iqbal speaks about the stages a human being goes through to obtain the features of “God's vicegerent on earth”. The poet assigns to religion, poetry and philosophy considerable imp )stance ; he is inclined to explain the decay in the countries of the Muslim East as the consequence of the oblivion of original “pure” Islam, by the dissemination of pentheistic philosophy and its reflection in literature. According to Iqbal it was equal to advocating of slavish obedience and indifference towards the tasks presented to a human being by life.

Now to speak in more detail on Iqbal's attitude towards pantheism and pantheistic sufism on the one hand and on the idea of returning to”pure” Islam on the other neither pantheism nor early Islam is spoken about in the “Introduction” chosen for the analysis; nevertheless it would be difficult to understand some features of Iqbal's lyric without understanding what part these problems played in Iqbal's outlook when he wrote his poem.

The Secrets of the Self marks the beginning of a new stage in Iqbal's creative work and is connected with the turning point of his outlook which took place after the poet's return from Europe where he had gone to complete his education.

The period when he worked on his thesis[5] for which he obtained his Ph.D., the years spent in Europe were fruitful and influenced his entire life. During that period (1905-1908) Iqbal studied western philosophy and established contacts with European scholars. However, he could not but notice the true face of Europe going speedily towards war. Since then the constant theme of all Iqbal's poems on the West became the theme of the immorality of sciences and technology which so easily could be used against a human being. After coming back from Europe the poems Iqbal wrote appeared to be prophetical — he compared pre-war Europe to a nest built on the points of bayonets, and its militarism, with preparations for suicide.

As a thinker and a man to whom the fortunes of his mother land were dear, Iqbal with all his heart and soul was prepared to accept any state system which would make the people happy and ensure .he most favourable conditions for the flourishing of the human personality. But he did not find it in Europe, and in search of such a system which would bring about the equality of all people, as Iqbal wrote in a letter to one of his friends, he turned his face towards Islam. Being a deeply religious man, Iqbal could not accept Marxism because of its atheism, although heonce said that Islam was Bolshevism plus God.

This turning to religion was not surprising, for, before Iqbal, in Muslim India any attempt to present any new idea on the social life, on man and his attitude towards society, etc. was, in fact, within the limits of Islam. In the first instance it can be explained by the very strong influence of feudalism and feudal institutions upon the social thought of the country as well as by the fact that Islam had maintained the whole complex of lawful social and political functions.[6]

And the idea of the revival of Islam also had a well-grounded and sound tradition in the Muslim community of India.[7] The work on his Ph.D. thesis provided Iqbal with the facts corroborating the view about the change in the originally monotheistic nature of Islam. As a consequence of the further spread of this religion and the development of its later mystic interpretations, sufism of a pantheistic nature (Vandat al-Vujud) sprung up and rapidly spread all over the Muslim world.

For Iqbal to raise his voice against pantheism meant the rejection of the enormous heritage of the classical literature in which the pantheistic disposition has its poetical interpretation. While Iqbal, the philosopher, broke through his aesthetic feelings and was even able to denounce Hafiz whom he considered as an advocate of philosophy of renunciation, Iqbal, the poet, failed to free himself from the fascination of Hafiz's poetry.

The pantheistic concept of “Unity of reality”, in short, is contained in the thesis: the entire reality is God. The cognition of Truth is described in a given order. The highest stage of it is Fana, non-existence, ecstasy of self-denial, self-dissolution, spontaneous (direct) contact with the divine. Pantheistic sufis attach great importance to the ecstatic unity with God. R. Nicholson writes, “So for as Vali or saint is considered as a type of a perfect man among the people it should be taken into account that the essence of Muslim sanctity, as the institution of prophesy, is none other than the divine illumination, instantaneous vision and understanding of the things that are invisible and unknown, when the veil of common sense suddenly lifts and an intellectal [T] disappears in the stunning grandeur of the sole true light. An ecstatic feeling of unity with God shapes Vali. This is the end of Path, Tariqa.[8]“ So long as Truth is obtained in the state of ecstasy, complete self denial, dissolution and disappearing in the uniformity are required from those who want to obtain it. This is pantheistic sufism (universe= God).

In the beginning of his literary and philosophical career Iqbal was inclined towards pantheism and by the time he completed The Secrets of the Self he became its violent enemy. He considered Plato whose ideas transformed in the later teaching of Plotin, influenced the philosophy of sufism, as an ascetic, as the pastor of obedient rams and as the deadly enemy of a life of activity. A separate chapter of The Secrets of the Self is devoted to the criticism of Plato's theses. As the sufi doctrine of “unity of reality”, as it is known, adopted a great deal from the philosophy of neo-Platonism, Iqbal directly connected “the decay” of the Muslim society with the dissemination and the very existence of this doctrine.

The culmination of the doctrine, viz., the teaching on Fana fi-1 Haq (non-existence in God) is unacceptable to Iqbal. As a matter of fact this point is the beginning of the break with Vandat al-Vujud because the non-recognition of this point is equal to the non-recognition of the doctrine as a whole.

Envisaged by this doctrine the comprehension of Truth through the annihilation of human personality in God (according to R. Nicholson, connection in the absence of any connection) was to Iqbal equal to the loss of this personality for society, to the annihilation of the unique human individuality for which the poet himself was ready to give up “the whole universe with all its stars “[9]

The return to the original Islam and the banishment of pantheism, according to Iqbal, would have also established such relations between man and God when God would have remained the ideal, the Supreme Individual and the amalgamation of man with God would have meant the discharge by man of his terrestrial duties of God's vicegerent on earth (read : the master of terrestrial matters), e.g. the active creative work, the perfection of inner life, the acquiring of the features of God, ideal, etc.

Iqbal denied the state of ecstasy as a method of cognition of Truth through the denial of somebody's individuality. According to him, the moment of cognition of Truth is the highest creative act, the mobilization of all human being's strength. It demands complete exposition of human personality and by no means is it his dissolution in God.[10] He glorifies such inner enthusiasm inspired by the contiguity with Truth which makes the blaze of Truth itself more vivid and gives the light to its essence.

Jalalud-din Rumi, the greatest poet-mystic of the thirteenth century, was the only one from the whole galaxy of the poets who wrote in Persian in the middle ages who professed such “dialectical monotheism”. According to him a searcher for Truth is separated from Truth forever. And Iqbal was one of the first thinkers who drew attention to this distinction between Rumi and other mystics. His spiritual proximity to Rumi could be also explained by this fact. It is because of the same reason Rumi became Vergii of a new Dante, his spiritual leader and preceptor in the celestial journey (Jawid-Nama). Rumi is one of the most favourite heroes of Iqbal. As a sage and an old man, a “connoisseur of secrets,” he also appeared in the introduction to Iqbal's first philosophic poem.

As an epigraph to the whole poem Iqbal takes the verses by Rumi from his most popular ghazal:

This ghazal is very dear to Iqbal, and it is not accidental that he quoted it more extensively in his other poem Jawid Nama. Two lines from another Poet, Naziri Nishapuri (seventeenth century), are taken as an epigraph to the introduction to The Secrets of the Self There is no dearth in my forest of dry and green shrubs.

While the epigraph from Rumi defines the conception of the poet as a whole, human being's search, the lines from Naziri go well with the mood of 'Introduction”.

Sincere, full of emotion, confused to a certain extent in the beginning, the Introduction is a narration of passion, the great passion of a human being who has become aware of his prophetic gift, who has discovered, as it seems to him, the secret of life and “eternal mirth”. Perhaps, that is why Iqbal likes Naziri's passion for building mimbar s — rostrums for sermons. He himself wants to come to the people with his own sermon. It is a stormy monologue from which the reader comes to know about the formations of a poet-prophet. At the same time the new, unprecedented awareness of his prophetic gift is a deeply personal event for the poet, and he brings us into his inner world, opens it before us in his confession.

In short, the content of the Introduction is as follows. The poet's night is full of thoughts about human beings. The thoughts are sorrowful. But the poet has a powerful weapon — words. They have been put to the test by a mystic gardener of life : the striking sword has grown up out of the line planted in the soil, and then the poet has found confidence in the enigmatic strength that was planted in his soul.

In Iqbal's poetry Zurwan, the jinn of time and space, and God possess the same strength which makes it possible to penetrate into the essence of things, to comprehend their potentialities and their future.

The poet speaks about himself as about the Sun which has not yet been born. He considers the whole universe around him as a potential possibility of the universe. This Sun has not learnt the order and the customs of the firmament. It has not driven the stars of the night away from the sky; its rays have not yet been painted in red henna at the moment of its appearance. It is as if this Sun that shows its first rays from the horizon in the vibrant false dawn is afraid of its appearance. The poet is filled with an inner tremble: he fears to put his thoughts and feelings on trial before the people, for he is afraid of not being understood:

Why does it happen? Only because of the fact that our poet is a new Sun ? No, his epoch can also be blamed, the epoch which will fail to appreciate the charm of Joseph Beautiful if an old egend is revived — the legend about the prophet who “was sold at the market for miserable price, for a few dirhems ; they did not value him much.[11]

According to the legend, Moses — “collocutor of Allah” was on his way in solitude to obtain commandments. The fire which caught the Sinai mountain blocked his companions' way.

The poet finds himself in the same loneliness. His companions, his collocutors, do not feel sacred emotions, their apathy is expressed through the image of the silent Red Sea — a symbol of storms in Persian poetry. The poet compares their souls with the Red Sea — soundless like the modestdew that leaped on the cold leaf of the grass.[12]

But in the poet's soul every dew drop is like the roaring ocean caught by the storm:

But the solitude does not frighten the poet, for the recognition does not always come during the lifetime. It will not make the poet to retreat. He brings his word to the people :

The poet cannot keep silent. One theme is vividly heard in the Introduction. Later on Iqbal was to develop it in his subsequent works in Persian — it is associated with the role the poet allots to any manifestation of life. Ill is the theme of anxiety. If one cannot do anything more, the poet says, he should cry, for the scream is the evidence of non quietness, the burning of desires, the proof that a human being is still alive, but doesn't keep silent . The poet exclaims in the Introduction:

A new poet and prophet emerges in the world like a powerful melody filling the entire world. It is immeasurably bigger than a thin string from which it has come. As if it is like the Indian Ocean which cannot be restricted within the tight banks of an ordinary streamlet. The poet is like a spring cloud from the vivifying rain of which one bud urns into a whole garden.

The enormous strength has emerged in the poet's soul because he as come to know “the secrets of life”. He also appeals to others to obtain the knowledge of the secret:

And then there is a traditional appeal to a wine-distributor. But the poet does not ask for the wine of oblivion which takes the person away from troubles and burdens of life; he needs the life-giving moisture — “moist flame” that turns a beggar into a king from a fairy tale. He wants the wine which brightens up the thought and makes the sight keen.

As in other parts of the “Introduction” and the poem itself here are subtle polemics against Hafiz, the Persian poet of the fourteenth century.

In the first edition of the poem, Hafiz was called leader of tipplers whose bowls are filled with the sweet bane of oblivion. In subsequent editions Iqbal omitted the name of Hafiz but retained his attacks on the poet whose poems “take away from us passion of life.”[15]

The wine-distributor has given to the poet such wine that makes him again and again glorify a noble old man — “master of the sealed book of secret love” — Rumi. Rumi's image and the impact of his poetry are similar to the flame of a candle which attacks the moth. The strength of .his feelings breathes life into dead clay, which a human being is moulded from. It has given birth to the inspiration of the lyric hero. Rumi's appearance before the inner sight of the poet is the culminative point of the “Introduction”.

The poet has been gravely disappointed by the incomprehension of the people around him, by their deafness and indifference. The description of the state of despair seems to implement the task of colours — creation of contrast between the bottomless gloom of man's weakness and prophetic lucidity of Rumi who appears before the poet in dreams:

The guiding star which Rumi lit up for the poet is Love. In the share of poetical images Rumi's monologue contains the wisdom which Iqbal advocates henceforth. Rumi demands that the poet should kindle in his heart such love as would lead him to Truth without meditation and hesitation, without retreating before the requirements of reason. The obstinate brain, the eyes burdening the feelings with observations on which reason builds its proof, should not be a hindrance.

And the main thing, Rumi says, is to shout at the top of your voice after speaking of your feelings. How long will you keep silent like an unopened flower ? The words by Rumi which show his attitude towards Love and Reason, two outstanding features of a human being, seem to be the recurring, constant theme of Iqbal's poetry :

Setting off Love and Reason is the traditional theme of Persian lyrics in general, and of Rumi's poetry in particular.

This theme has been elaborated by Iqbal in his other works in Persian. For instance, in his book Payam-i-Mashriq (the Message of the East)', Zabur-i-Ajam (the Persian Psalms) and others, and the theme of the West emerges very often along with it. According to Iqbal the West is the embodiment of odd and immoral reason. But it is very important to keep in mind that Iqbal's Love does not have anything in common with gross sensuality. Love is the aspiration, creative activities and eternal pulsation of life, and it is as if because of the words of Rumi, the poet has achieved a second birth, revived his spirit and at last explains to the reader what “the secret of existence” is:

The ecstatic affection for Rumi, the wisdom of his admonitions, gave a new birth to the poet. It is reflected even in his verses which are now devoid of the nervous impetuosity that was peculiar to them in the beginning :

“Introduction” ends with the explanations of the causes which made the poet change his mother tongue, Urdu, and turn to Persian. It must be mentioned that the Persian language was known to the educated Indian Muslims because it was a compulsory part of school education, along with Arabic.

This explanation, however, does not seem to be comprehensive. Of course, the sincerity of this explanation is beyond all doubts — “the way of exposition in Persian is sweeter”. Farsi Dari is the language of the richest literature of the world. It is the language of Rumi — the favourite poet and spiritual preceptor. But there is also no doubt the desire to share the idea of the formation of personality with all the peoples of the near and middle East who at that time suffered the shocking consequences of the feudal servitude and the colonial domination of the Western powers in one way or another. Iqbal meant the countries where Persian was a literary language or the language of literary tradition (for example, in Turkey). It was however after a number of years that Iqbal's creative works were understood in Iran in this particular way.[17]

Having turned towards the Persian language, Iqbal continued the tradition of literature in Persian that had already existed in India. This literature had existed for many a century and had produced such masters of poetry as Amir Khosrow Dehlevi, Makhfi, Bedil who belong to the entire Persian-speaking world. Apparently, Iqbal happened to be its last brilliant representative.

The poetics of the classical literature in Persian and that of Indo-Persian literature greatly influenced Urdu poetry. Changing from one language to the other (it is a very frequent phenomenon of the literature in Urdu), the poet continues to remain in the world of habitual images, means of expression and style. Thus he is able not to change his creative manner.

Iqbal's works in Persian continue the traditions of both literatures (the classical Persian as well as the Indo-Persian) and it can be seen particularly in the assimilation of stylistic devices elaborated in those literatures. While using the formal means and devices accumulated by those literatures, Iqbal, however, inevitably finds himself under the influence of the features connected with their content. One can judge it even by the extract which is being analyzed here.

It is well-known that almost all the Persian and Indian poets who can be considered as most talented ones, paid a tribute of respect to Sufi mysticism. A great number of traditional settled images of poetry in Persian continue to live on in literature not only due to all the literary reminiscences connected with them, but due to the religious and mystic tradition which secured them.[18]

The broad range of vocabulary, for example, such words as Ishq (Love) Mai (Wine), Saki (Wine-Distributor or to be exact, a sort of a toast-master of regales, the life of the party); some images (for instance, the passion of the moth for the candle, the yearning of a drop for the ocean, etc.) had a more or less settled mystic interpretation.

The tangible mystic undercurrent of Iqbals poetry in Persian is closely connected with this tradition. Some research workers taking this fact as the ground state that Iqbal was one of the greatest mystics of our time.[19] In his later philosophical works and statements Iqbal resolutely rejected the mystic method of cognition but in his poetry the mystic undercurrent was almost always to be seen to more or less extent. The thing is most likely not merely because of the influence of the forms and tradition mentioned above but also due to the inner inclination of the poet towards poetic mysticism, due to the so called particular mood of the poet's soul.[20]

Any how, we meet in the “introduction” the image of Saki (Wine-Distributor), and his mystic. Wine of love. The poet is caught with the mystic ecstasy. (We have already mentioned that Iqbal's interpretation of this state differs from the interpretation of it in the spirit of Vahdat al-Vujud). And finally, one can see the strong influence of Sufi poetry on the images of Iqbal's poems. For example, we can meet very often the conception of the substance of a human being as a handful of dust, as a lump of clay, etc. And the poet likes this conception and tries to play it up.[21] Hence we find in his works a great number of poetic and symbolic images, in complete accordance with the Sufi traditions clay-divine mystic potter — pitcher, vessel for wine. When the pitcher made out of a lump of clay, is filled with wine, the vessel finds the soul, a handful of dust becomes a human being who is now caught forever with the fire of dissatisfaction.

Therefore, when Rumi appears to our hero with the words of parting, he says to him:

The meaning of this metaphor is: Become a human being. There are some other images of Sufi lyrics in the “Introduction”. It is significant that Iqbal is indifferent to the Sufi images which are being interpreted, as a rule, in the spirit of the pantheistic Sufism, but he does not change the habitual link between Divine Beloved and Lover. In his works of the later period, particularly in Payam-i-Mashriq (The Message of the East), the habitual poetic images were transformed by the poet in accordance with his views on the man-God relationship. And mere mentioning of those images is enough to produce a whole series of particular associations of ideas. In his later works the poet stressed the initiative of Lover, though according to the tradition (by the way, it also relates to the early mystic tradition of Dhunnun), only the sign given by the Beloved can give courage to the Lover.

According to Iqbal the dew itself flies to the Sun in a state of “blissful oblivion” without waiting for its call. The moth hovers round the candle to burn a new light in its own soul, the drop in the ocean is proud of its destiny to become a pearl. It does not accept this destiny as an award for its own insignificance if it is compared with the ocean. (Compare Saadi's Bustan, chapter 4, parable on “A drop and the ocean”) Those images have not been yet changed and are used in accordance with the tradition. But in this work, it is interesting to note, the image of the atom has already been elaborated — the image of the insignificant, of a speck of dust which is attracted by the Sun-Lover In the beginning there is some sort of acquaintance with the exposition of the image: the poet speaks about himself as if he is a tiny speck of light, an atom which can bear hundreds of downs.

While reading Rumi, the poet again begins to feel the power of attraction for the Sun-Love. A tiny mute speck of dust feels a fresh surge of energy and is ready to undertake a journey:

There the purpose of the journey of a speck of dust is very significant. There is not a striving for the return to the beginning of all beginnings and to its origin (neo Platonism, pantheistic Sufism) but it is an attempt to obtain the features of the Sun-Ideal.

Almost at the very end of the Introduction we again meet theme of the atom. But this time it is like a mass scene completing the theme of the formation of the poet-prophet who had passed through the state of ecstasy of the mystic love:

Undoubtedly, such apotheosis of Atom (ذرہ) is the apotheosis of personality which managed to utilize its abilities.

There is one more theme in the Introduction which is not directly connected with the one being analyzed above. It is the theme of music. Almost twenty verses of the Introduction out of one hundred are connected with musical images. The lines about music intersperse the Introduction without visible system and they are born by the sensation of the contrast between the deaf silence of the night and inner alarm tearing at the heart of the poet. And the poet seems “to listen” better than “to see” in this deaf silence of the night — that is why he is so sensitive to the sounding of the night. The frequent usage by him of the musical and “acoustic” terms, images, comparisons creates the additional effect — the night comes to life, and sounds in various voices for the reader. The images of music, the creation of musical associations grow into the music of the verses themselves. Even the silence turns into something material, a sort of “anti-sound”:

In spite of visibly unsystematic nature of musical, or as we have called them, “acoustic” images, they play their specific organizing part in the introduction. They permeate the entire text like gigantic Tanasub (the name of method to put in a verse in one row the words with conjugated semantics'.

In The Secrets of the Self and in its lyric, the Introduction in particular, the poet displayed an outstanding command of writing technique in the Persian language. His Persian sounds graceful and natural. The Introduction creates great interest, for many features of Iqbal's lyrics in Persian had been based on it. Those features were developed later on in his lyric collections: The Message of the East, The Persian Psalms and The Gift of Hejez.

The literary merits of Iqbal's poetry in Persian create no doubts and have been recognized not only by his country-men but by the entire Persian speaking world and by the admirers of Iqbal's poetry in other countries.

1. “Question” and “Creator and Man” — Zvezda Vostoka (The Star of the East) No. 9, 1958.

2. “Question” and “The night and the poet” — Inostrannaya Literatura (The Foreign Literature), No. 9. 1958.

3. The Ring of the Bell, translation by N. Voronel — Vostochny Almanakh (The Eastern Almanac) Vol 4, Moscow, 1961.

I. The Latest History of India, ed. by V.V. Balabushevich and A.M. Dyakov, Oriental Literature Publishing House, Moscow, 1959

2. The Modern History of India, ed. by K.A. Antonova, N.M. Goldberg, A.M. Osypov, Oriental Literature Publishing House, Moscow 1961.

3. History of Pakistan, by Y.V. Gankovsky, L.R. Gordon — Polonskaya, Oriental Literature Publishing House, Moscow, 1961.

4. The Muslim trends in the social thought of India and Pakistan, by L.R, Gordon-Polonskaya — Oriental Literature Publishing House, Moscow, 1963.

5. N.P. Anikeev, “The Social and Political views of Muhammad Iqbal” — Sovetskoye Vostekovtuedenie (The Soviet Oriental Studies) No. 3, 1958.

6. 6. N.P. Anikeev, “Muhammad Iqbal — an outstanding thinker and poet” in Znaniye (The Knowledge), Moscow 1959.

7. N.P. Anikeev, “Iqbal” — Philosophskaya Entsiklopediya (The Philosophical Encyclopaedia), Vol. II, Moscow, 1963.

8. N.P. Anikeev, S.M. Kedrova, “Muhammad Iqbal — Singer of a human being” — Vestnik Istoriyi Mirovoi Kulturi (The Herald of the History of World Culture) No. 4, Moscow, 1958.

9. N. Glebov, “The Poet of the East” — Sovremenry Vostok (The Modern East) No. 5, Moscow, 1958.

10. L.R. Polonskaya, “Muhammad Iqbal” — the article is included in the book The Ring of the Caravan Bell, Moscow, 1964.

11. N. Prigarina, “While reading Iqbal”. On the occasion of the 25th death anniversary — A ziya I Afrika Segodnya (Asia and Africa Today) No. 6, 1963.

12. N. Prigarina, “Muhammad Iqbal. Introduction to The Secrets of the Self” — Kratkiye Soobshcheniya Instituta Narodov Azii (Brief Proceedings of the Institute of the Peoples of Asia) No. 80, Moscow, 1964.

13. A. Sukhochev. “An outstanding Urdu poet” (On the occasion of the 20th death anniversary of Mr. Iqbal) — Uchitel^skaya Gazeta (The teachers' Newspaper), April 19, 1958.

14. M. Mirshakar, “Muhammad Iqbal'' — Introduction to the book Ikbol She'erho, Stalinabad, 1958 (in the Tajik Language).

15. M. Mirshakar, “Muhammad Iqbal” — Shar-i-Surkh, No. 8. 1958 (in the Tajik language).

[1] See M. Zand, Six Centuries of Glory, Moscow, 1964, p. 180 (Russian)

[2] Ibid., p, 186.

[3] Muhammad Ali, My life, a fragment. An Autobiographical Sketch. (Lahore, 1964), p. 167 ; R. Nicholson, An introduction to Muhammad Iqbal's The Secrets of the Self (London, 1920).

[4] M. Sharif asserts that Khudi in the works of 1908-1920 is the dynamic centre of desires, efforts, actions and it is moved in its development by Time. The entire inner life of a hum in being and the whole world that surrounds him were created by this Khudi. See M. M. Sharif, "Iqbal's Concept of God" in Iqbal as a Thinker (Lahore, 1944), p. 111. Later on the poet uses the term in a double sense : the individuality of a human being and an individual in his relations with society, God nd religion. See Houben, "The Individual in Democracy and Iqbal's Conception of Khudi" in Crescent and Green (Lodon 1955), p. 152,

[5] M. Iqbal. The Development of Metaphysics in Persia (London, 1908). Iqbal speaks in this work "with tremendous sympathy to sufism". See A. Krimsky, The History of Persia, her Literature and Darvish Theosophy, II (Moscow, 1912), p 111 (Published in Russian),

[6] A Massaux, Islam (Moscow, 1961), p, 93.

[7] L. Gordon-Polonsykaya writes about it in details as well as about trends connected with Islam (reformism, modernism, pan-islamism) in his work Muslim Trends in the Social Thought of India and Pakistan (Moscow 1963). Later on, Iqbal advocated not only for return to original Islam but for re-construction of its principles in the light of changed conditions of life.

[8] R.A. Nicholson. Studies in Islamic Mysticism (Cambridge, 1921), p. 78,

[9] Muhammad Iqbal, Zuboo-i-Ajam, p. 153.

[10] M. M Sharif, Iqbal's Concept of God"; A Bausani, "Gulshan-i-Raz-i Jadid di Muhammad Iqbal" in Annali di lstituto universitario oreintale (Napoli. 1958), Vol. VIII, 6,.

[11] The Quran (xii.20) translated by Sablukov. Kazan (1907)

[12] The explanation of Moses’ experience at the Mount Sinai as given by the author is not correct. Similarly it is wrong to translate Qulzam as Red Sea: Qulzam here signifies any sea. (Ed.)

[13] The Correct translation, as done by Nicholosn, would be:

And journeyed again from nothingness, (Ed.)

[14] The Correct translation, as done by Nicholson. Would be:

But I am lover: loud crying is my fiath:

The Clamour of Judgement Day is none of my minions. (Ed.)

[15] Asrar-e-Khudi, p. 39.

[16] This line has something in common with the well-known quatrain by Baba Tahir, the last bait of which is as follow:

بسازم خنجرے نوکش از فولاد

ز نم بر دیدہ تا دل گردد آزاد

[I] shall make a dagger-Damascus steel edge.

[I] will strike it on my eyest to set my heart free

[17]مجتبیٰ مینوی، اقبال لاہوری پارسی گوئے پاکسان، ۱۹۴۶۔

[18] On the religious and mystic tradition in the usage of the vocabulary, see Louis Massigon, Essai sur les origenes technique de la mistique musulmane, Paris, 1922.

[19] Said Nafisi, "Mysticism in Iqbal's poetry," in Iqbal Review, Vol. I No. 1., April, 1960.

[20] "Was the philosophy of Iqbal merely a variety of mysticism and was he himself a mystic ? By no means, if what is meant by "mystic" is a person who rejects the value of reason and the scientific data...Iqbal believes that some aspects of substance can be expressed only through the language of the poetic metaphor". See R. Whittemore, "Iqbal's Panentheism" in Review of Metaphysics. New Haven, 1956, Vol. 9, No. 4.

"Once Iqbal called himself a combination of contradictions. His natural inclination towards mysticism and his hostile attitude towards it (his words are obvious proof of it) are a good illustration for this combination. He inherited his mystic mood from his father and felt the subconscious bent for mysticism in his early years", points out Sheikh Abdul Qadir, a friend of the poet. See Sheikh Abdul Qadir, "The leer and mystic" in The Pakistan Time.. April, 21, 1950

[21] In accordance with the mystic interpretation of the Quranic legend on the creation of men. See V.A Zhukovsky. Man and the Cognition of the Persian Mystics, St. Petersburg, 1895 (published in Russian).