'Iqbal in Masjid-e-Qartaba'

The Mosque reminded Iqbal of its builders and their keen appreciation of artistic beauty, and of the noble ideas and appreciation, call and message, they upheld in life and propagated in the world. Its tall, stately minarets revived the memory of the spellbinding Azan that once used to rise from them and which people heard every day at the beginning and the end of the stresses of life. The Azan is a symbol of the unity and solidarity of the Muslim Millet.

The call it gives and the message it conveys may, indeed, be described as the National Anthem of Muslims and it is unique to their community. At one time the soul of the universe trembled and the foundations of the citadels of falsehood shook at the sound of it. It was the Islamic Azan that announced the dawn of a new morning and dispelled the gloom that had enveloped the world in the 6th Century A.D.

Iqbal recalls the Divine message and the celestial guidance the Azans used to carry to the four corners of the world and the depth and intensity of their significance. The more he ponders over it the more is he convinced that the Millet which is endowed with this eternal call and lives according to this everlasting message is, also, imperishable.

The beautiful yet poignant scene, the historical monument, the splendid Mosque (whose pulpit for centuries had remained deprived of sermons, courtyard and arches of genuflexion and minarets of Azan) touched every chord of his heart and reactivised the unhealed wounds. The ocean of his feelings was stirred and waves if faith and awareness, ardor and eagerness and music and melody, mingled with those of pain and disappointment, grief and anguish, began to rise in it. It was in these circumstances that the enthralling poem, Masjid-i-Qurtaba, was conceived, part of which was written in Cordova itself and the rest was completed during his stay in Spain.

The poem is a masterpiece of poetic inspiration and artistic expression. For beauty of diction and richness of emotion it is unsurpassed. In it Iqbal says that the material world is not everlasting. It is transitory, and,

with it, all the wonders of art and architecture, historical buildings and ancient monuments, are heading towards ruin and destruction. But such constructions are an exception that are touched by the messianic hand of a man of God and a devoted Believer and shine with the radiance of his love.

Chain of days and nights-artificer of all events
Chain of days and nights –fountain of life and of death!

Chain of days and nights=thread of two-colored silk
Of which the Being makes the robe of His Attributes!

Chain of days and nights-sigh of eternity’s music
Where He of all possibility sounds the height and depth!

Thee it puts to test and me it puts to test,
Day and night in procession, testers of all this world.

If thou art of less value and it I am of less value,
Find in death our reward and in dissolution our wage.

Of your day and night what other meaning but this-
One long current time, devoid of dawn and sunset?

All those masterpieces of Art, transitory and impermanent;
All in this world is of sand, all in this world is of sand!

Death the beginning and end, death to the visible and hidden;
New be the pattern or old, its final halting-place is death.

Love is the plectrum that plucks songs from the chords of life,
Love is the brightness of life, Love is the fire of life.

After this long prologue Iqbal turns to the Mosque and addresses these words to it: “O Mosque of Cordova! For thy existence and thy glory thou art indebted to love, to the tender passion that is immortal. In this way, thou, too, art eternal.

“Philosophy, art and poetry, or any other form of literary or artistic activity, is shallow and insincere if it is not fed with the blood of the heart. It is no more that an empty structure of word and sound, paint and oil, or brick and stone, possessing neither life nor beauty nor freshness. Works of art, of whatever excellence they may be, cannoth endure without the intensity of inner passion, depth of love and profundity of earnestness. When a drop of love’s warm blood falls upon a piece of marble it turns it into a bearing heart and if even a man’s heart is destitute of love it is a slab of stone.

“O magnificent Mosque! In love and eagerness we both are alike. There is a mystical affinity between you and me. Man, in his creation is a handful of dust but his heart is the envy of the ninth heaven. The human heart is also lit up with the luster of Divinity and the joy of Presence. Angels, indeed are famous for unending genuflexion but the warmth and delight of human prostration has not been granted to them.Referring to his Indian and Brahmin origin, Iqbal says, “Look at the fervour and earnestness of this Indian infidel! He was born and brought up in the house of infidelity but his lips and heart are constantly engaged in prayer and invocation, benediction and salutation. On meeting you in this strange land, he has become a picture of intentness and devotion. There obtains a complete uniformity and understanding between your soul and mine!”

On beholding this marvel of architecture, Iqbal is reminded of the real Muslim, the true Believer, whom only Islam can produce and, with it, the mighty Ummat also emerges on the surface of his mind from which the splendour of the Mosque is.

In Iqbal’s view the Mosque of Cordova, in the totality of its appearance and effectiveness, is a material manifestation of the Momin. In its beauty and elegance, height and width, gracefulness and solidity, fineness and strength it is his exact replica. Its imposing pillars remind Iqbal of the oases of Arabia and in its balconies and latticed windows he sees the gleams of Heavenly effulgence. He regards its towering minarets to be the descending points of Divine mercy and the halting places of the angels. Overcome with the emotion, he cries out: “The Muslim is imperishable, he shall not die, because he is the bearer of the message of Abraham and Moses and of all the Divine Apostles.”

Iqbal asserts that the Mosque of Cordova is a true symbol of the beliefs, thoughts and aspirations of the Muslim Millet, and just as the Muslim Millet is free from all the narrow and unnatural concepts of race and nationality it, too, represents marvelous synthesis of Arab and Persian cultures and typifies a remarkable supra-national fraternity. The Muslim is above territorial limitations. and his world is boundless. The beauty and warmth of his message is all-prevading. The Tigris and the Euphrates of Iraq, the Ganges and the Jumna of Indiam the Danube of Europe and the Nile of Egypt are but a wave in his shore-less sear.

His achievements are unequalled in history. It was the Muslim Millet that gave the command to the outworn ages to depart and ushered in the modern world. Members of the Islamic Millet are the torch-bearers of compassion and fellow-feeling and true specimens of faith and fraternization.