Iqbal's vs Goethe's: Deja Vu in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Posted on 30 April 2009. Tags: Alama Iqbal, Goethe's

Mashriq sae oobhartay huaye Sooraj ko zara daikh

Alama Iqbal’s entire life was a rebuttal to Orientalism which portrays the East thorugh the eyes of the West and then finds solutions to that false image. Alama Iqbal writes that the Muslims have woken and the troubled times signal a great awakening of the Musslamans of the world. Wars cannot hold them down.

the main point is that the East, and more particularly, the Muslim East has woken up after centuries of slumber. This is Iqbal’s construction. This involves a revolution, but one, which starts for Iqbal with the primacy of, change in the inner self.

‘God does not change the destiny of people unless they change themselves’, holds good for the individual as well as the collective aspects of life.” ANIL BHATTI, Iqbal and Goethe.

“The Eastern people have, however, realized that life cannot effect a revolution in its environment before it has had, in the first instance, a revolution in the inner depths of its being, nor can a new world assume external form until its existence takes shape in the hearts of men. That immutable law of the Universe, which the Quran has enunci-ated in the simple but comprehensive verse: Iqbal’s message is universal and cannot be placed in the compartment of the East.

Hermann Hesse noted that Iqbal’s entire work is an East-West Divan.16 Written under colonialism, it bears a universal message clothed as a Message of the East, the And it is to the foreword to this work that we should now

These seminal lines were specifically written for the Muslims. One sees the “khanjar Hilal ka hai qaumi nishan hamara” representing the state of Pakistan

Khol aankh zameen daikh falk daikh fiza daikh

Mashriq sae oobhartay huaye Sooraj ko zara daikh
iss jalwa-e-bae-parda ko pardon mein chuppa daikh

ayam-e-judai kay sitam daikh jafa daikh
baitaab na ho marka-e-beem-o-rajja daikh

The current American and British war in Afghanistan, sabotage in Pakistan and threatening posture towards Iran is a replay of the West’s war with South and West Asia. This nothing new.

hein teray tasaruf mein yae badal yae ghatain
yae Gunbd-e-Aflak yae khamosh fizaein

yae koh yae sahra yae samundar yae hawaein
thee paish-e-nazar kabhi Farishton ki aadaein

aaina-e-ayam mein ab apni aada daikh

Alama Iqbal destroys Goethe’s Orientlaism with fantastic poems in Piyam.

“Who lost his heart to the winning ways of Iran

The rhetoric of response demands that the actors in this cross-cultural encounter should be identified and situated with corresponding attributes:

The Payam also contains a translation of Goethe’s Mahomets Gesang, and a reply to the Goethe’s Divan poem Einlasswith its treatment of the theme of the Huri and the Poet.

But the two poems in which Goethe, the Poet, is explicitly addressed or re-ferred to are perhaps the most revealing.

“He was one of Europe’s youthful ones, with the quality of lightning;

The Black plague in the 15th century destroyed much of the European Civilization (of Shanty towns, slums and ghettos of Paris and London. The Black Plaguegave rise to the ruthless White Plague that has afflicted the world with “Reconquista”, Colonialism, and neo-Imperialism. Iqbal wrote extensively about all of these.

Who painted a picture full of the beauty of sweethearts young and saucy

And sent salutations of the West to the East:

The message of the East is my response to his greeting.” 21

While my love-flame is born of the breath of the wise men of the East.

He was born and nurtured in a garden,

While I sprang from barren soil.

His melody was a paradise to the ear, as the song of the nightingale in the garden,

While I am like caravan bells ringing tumultuously in the desert.

The mysteries of the Universe have been revealed to both,

Both are messengers of life in death.

Both are like daggers, bright as the mirror and smiling as the dawn.

He is unsheathed, but I am yet in the scabbard.

Both are pearls of great price and lustre,

Born of the shoreless sea.

His insistent urge made him restless in the depths of the ocean

Till he burst forth from his shell;

While I am still striving in my shell’s confines, ANIL BHATTI, Iqbal and Goethe.

It is one thing to pick up stray grain lying on the ground;
Another to peck at gems in the Pleiades’ earrings.
It is one thing to roam the garden like the morning breeze;
Another to delve in the rose’s inmost ponderings.
It is one thing to let doubt and conjecture bog you down;
Another to look up and see celestial happenings. Alama Iqbal in Paiyam e Mashriq

Today South Asia feels the wrath of the descendants of the Crusades who ruthlessly destroyed the Jewish-Christian-Muslim symbioses of Muslim Spain and then went on to decimate the great libraries of Cordoba, and Seville–the knowledge capitals of the planet.

Wisdom, since it set foot on life’s labyrinthine way,
Has set the sea on fire and made the whole world go awry.
Its alchemy converted worthless grains of sand to gold;
But oh! it gave the wounded heart no love-balm to apply.
Alas! we were so foolish as to let it steal our wits:
It waylaid us, subjecting us to highway robbery.
It raised up much dust from the civilization of the West
To cast into that civilization’s Holy Saviour’s eye.
O how long can you go on sowing sparks and reaping flames, Alama Iqbal in Paiyam e Mashriq

The “White Plague” carrying Kipling’s White Man’s burden then took over much of the world, eliminated the American Indians, incarcerated millions of Chinese, occupied lands in South America, enslaved the Africans, killed the Aborigines of Australia and ferociously extinguished the beacons of freedom in Siraj ud Daulah’s Mysore and Tipu’s Bengal. On the way they massacred all Jews and Muslims in Spain, and killed and burned more than 250 million European women over a period of two centuries.

The White plague took over rural lands where people lived in harmony on the banks of the Indus, the Yangtse, the Hudson and the Amazon. They forced their horrible crops on the people–Tobacco, Opium, and Marijuana. The fabric of a peaceful rural life was destroyed by WW1 (European Tribal war that annihilated 15 million people), WW2 (European tribal war that killed 55 million people) and by the Greed of the East India Companies of the Dutch, the French, the British and the Germans etc. All financed by the Rothchildes, these so called “traders” took over lands and destroyed the local industry. As an example, before Lord Clive arrived on the shores of Plassey, South Asia had a 25% share in the gloabal trade. Jehangirwas the riches man in the world in the 17 century. China controlled about 25 percent of the trade. After 1947 SouthAsia had .1 percent of the trade.

What happened? Iqbal defines it succinctly.

Europe has seen with its own eyes the dreadful consequences of its scientific, moral and economic pursuits and has also heard from Signor Nitti (a former Prime Minister of Italy) the heartrending story of the decadence of the West. It is a matter for regret, however, that the intelligent but conservative statesmen of Europe have not been able to comprehend the real significance of the revolution that has taken place in the human spirit. From the purely literary point of view, the weakening of the life potentialities of Europe after the painful happenings of the World War is detrimental to the development of a sound and mature literary ideal. There is, indeed, a danger that the minds of nations may not be subjugated by that time-worn and devitalizing escapist mentality which cannot differentiate between the thoughts of the head and the feelings of the heart….. Alama Iqbal

Apart from the human cost, mother earth has also played a horrendous price for the excesses caused by the White Plague.

“At present, I am writing a reply to the Divan of a Western poet (i.e. Goethe) and about half of it has been completed. Some poems will be in Persian and some in Urdu….. Two great German poets, Goethe and Uhland, were barristers. After practicing for a short time Goethe was appointed as an educational advisor to the state of Weimar and, thus, found much time to pay attention to his artistic intricacies. Uhland devoted his whole life to the law suits, and, therefore, he could write a few poems.”

“In response to Goethe, I have written Payam-i-Mashriq that is near completion. Alama Iqbal preparing a response to Goethe.

All the straining, all the striving

Iqbal’s foreword occasionally disappoints because it is sketchy and it covers familiar territory. But we must remember that Iqbal’s strength did not lie in discursive literary criticism and his foreword is based on his general “memory” of what he calls the “oriental movement” in nineteenth century Germany. In his foreword to Payam-i-Mashriq Iqbal simply states that his work “owes its inspiration” to Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan. Goethe is the German “Philosopher of Life” who in the words of Heine, the “Israelite” poet of Germany says:

“This is a bouquet presented by the West to the East as a token of high regard. The Diwan bears testimony to the fact that the West, being dissatisfied with its own spiri-tual life, is turning to the bosom of the East in spiritual warmth.”18

Divan (1812). Iqbal draws a connection between what he calls the “political decadence of the German people” which at that time had “reached its lowest limit in every way”, and Goethe’s age (around sixty five years) and temperamental unsuitability for political activity and the search of this “lofty and restless soul” for an imaginative “refuge in the peaceful atmosphere of the East”.

In addition to the motive of ‘flight’ (Flucht), Iqbal explicitly draws the reader’s attention to the productive function of Hafiz’ poetry on Goethe’s creativity. Mujahid Zaid Hamid calls Alama Iqbal gift of god to the Mussalmans of South Asia. Iqbal, a son of the soil of Sialkot rose to the ranks of Goethe and Nietzsche.
Iqbal draws our attention to Goethe’s debt to Persian imagery, metaphors and as proof perhaps of “his indebtedness to his Persian models he does not hesitate to refer even to homosexual love.” But Iqbal is quick to reject a superficial notion of influence, or imitation and emphasizes the independence of Goethe’s poetic genius, which “owes allegiance to none”. ANIL BHATTI, Iqbal and Goethe.

Iqbal’s strategic use of Goethe in his texts is often surprising because the text could very easily proceed without the authority of a quotation. Consider for instance Iqbal’s lecture on “The Revelations of Religious Experience.” Iqbal speaks of the Creative Self to whom change cannot mean imperfection. Perfection “consists in the vaster basis of His creative activity and the infinite scope of His creative vision. God’s life is self-revelation, not the pursuit of an ideal to be reached. The ‘not yet’ of God means unfailing realization of the infinite creative possibilities of His being which retains its wholeness throughout the entire process.” and then he quotes Goethe:

“In the endless self-repeating

For evermore flows the Same.

Myriad arches springing, meeting,

Hold at rest the mighty frame.

Streams from all things love of living,

Grandes star and humblest cold,

Occasionally one wonders whether his remark on Mazzini is not self-revelatory in this sense:

“The true sphere of

Is eternal peace in God.” 10

Iqbal was a philosopher mentor of the Muslims who were deeply troubled by the malaise caused by the British occupation of Muslim lands and the usurpation of the Hindus against the Muslim power in South Asia. Alama Iqbal was a genius, and is widely read in Germany, Iran, Bharat and Pakistan.

Payam-i-Mashriq is dedicated to His Majesty Amanullah Khan, ruler of Afghanistan. The poem of dedication contains a tribute to Goethe and a self-justification. In these poetic lines Iqbal refers to Goethe the thinker, the cultural icon and in some sense also the European Other. Iqbal continues a tradition of looking upon Goethe in the context of ‘wisdom’. He simultaneously reinforces a dichotomisation between West and East in order to create a situation where his poem becomes a reply, a message returned to a salutation offered. Goethe is the “sage of the West”, the German poet Payam-i-Mashriq (1923)
Iqbal goes on to write: “Thus a comprehensive philosophical criticism of all the facts of experience on its ef-ficient as well as appreciative side brings us to the conclusion that the ultimate Real-ity is a rationally directed creative life. To interpret this life as an ego is not to fashion God after the image of man. It is only to accept the simple fact of experience that life is not a formless fluid, but an organizing principle of unity, a synthetic activity which holds together and focalizes the dispersing dispositions of the living organism for a constructive purpose.”11 The image of the stream in the quote corresponds to mystical usage. And the appellation “Zindarud”, the living stream, which Iqbal adopts in his Jawid Nama (1932) is a reference to this mystical metaphor. Such a “correspondance” derives its authority paradoxically from its fortuitous placement in the logic of an argument. Other quotes from other traditions would no doubt also have been available. The illustrative choice of Goethe is in itself a statement. ANIL BHATTI, Iqbal and Goethe.

M Iqbal clearly stylizes himself as the representative of the East who talks on equal terms to Goethe as the representative of West. The term “Philosopher of Life”, “Lebensphilosoph” would apply to both. Iqbal refers to Herder’s interest in the Orient and his interest in Sadi as against Hafiz. Given Iqbal’s own reservations concerning the undesirable influences of Hafiz and Sufism on Islamic thought, this reference is not without its significance although Iqbal’s own preference is towards Rumi. Nevertheless Iqbal emphasises that Goethe’s imagination was stirred by Hammer-Purgstall’s translation of Hafiz’

azzini was literature, not politics. The gain of Italy is not much compared to the loss which the world has suffered by his devotion to politics.” (SR 64). Anil Bhatti: Iqbal and Goethe, p. 5 His poems are inspirational, and create the vision and strategy of a nation depressed by the mass genocides of Muslims in Bengal (during the famine of Bengal) and the rise of religious extremism within the Hindu ranks.
Rastogi, Tara Charan, Western Influence in Iqbal, New Delhi 1987 (Ashish Publishing House).

It is pedagogical to realise that Alama Iqbal’s very famous address at Allahbad declaring a Muslim direction was in response to the Two Nation Theory presented by the Hindu bigots like Sarwarkar.

I need hardly say anything about the Payam-i-Mashriqwhich has been written a hundred years after the Western Divan. The reader will himself see that its main object is to bring out those social, moral and religious truths which have a bearing on the spiritual development of individuals and communities. There is a certain amount of similarity between the East of today and the Germany of a hundred years ago. The fact, however, is that the inner turmoil which the nations of the world are going through today, and which we are unable to regard objectively inasmuch as we ourselves are affected by it, is the forerunner of a social and spiritual revolution of very great magnitude.

The Great War of Europe was a catastrophe which has almost wholly destroyed the old world order. Out of the ashes of civilisation and culture nature is now building up a new humanity and a new world for that humanity to live in. We can catch a glimpse of the new world order in the works of Professor Einstein and Bergson.

….The East, and particularly the Muslim East, has opened its eyes after having slumbered for centuries. The Eastern people have, however, realised that life cannot effect a revolution in its environment before it has had, in the first instance, a revolution in the inner depths of its own being, nor can a new world assume external form until its existence takes shape in the hearts of men. That immutable law of the Universe which the Quran has enunciated in the simple but comprehensive verse:

“God does not change the destiny of people unless they change themselves.” [xiii. 11]

holds good for the individual as well as the collective aspects of life. In my Persian works I have tried to keep this truth in mind.” Alama Iqbal

Alama Iqbal new the White man well. He had seen his soul. What he saw irked him. He made fun of the Western Civilization and wrote a rebuttal to Goethe.

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http://www.allamaiqbal.com/works/poetry/persian/payam/text/index.htm

“PAYAM-I-MASHRIQ”

Iqbal’s stray remarks on Goethe and the echoes of Goethe in his poetry are character-istic of his cosmopolitan relationship to European and Indo-Persian writing. This was his constellation. He derived himself consciously from the Indo-Persian Islamic heritage and contextualised it in terms of lines of alignment with the European literature available to him through colonialism. What is remarkable is that this takes place without dichotomizing between the two heritages available to him. Instead, as we have mentioned above, he develops a mode of complaint, a sense of loss and melancholy attributable to the loss of that political power which historically had characterized the past of Islamic history. It is by returning to the original purity of Islam that Iqbal, as it were, tries to reestablishes a kind of world historical parity between the European and Islamic traditions. ANIL BHATTI, Iqbal and Goethe.

His Piyam e Mashriq should be mandatory reading for all Non-Westerners anywhere. Those who listen to the horrid message of Ayaz Mir, Ardersher Cowasjee, Ikram Sehgal, Imtiaz Alam and Asma Gilanican never see their own “nafs’. They can never achieve their own potential because these traitors are “potatoes”, brown on the outside, white on the inside. The section of the media that propagates these imbeciles is beholden to their paymasters in London and Washington.

Alama Iqbal wrote about the horrible nature of the West, as looters, highway robberers and thieves who build wealth without a soul.
Shahadaat hai matloob-o-maqsood-e-Momin

Na maal-e-ghaneemat na kishwar kushai

Iqbal has already rebutted them in Piyam e Mashriq.Iqbal has already rebutted their mentor Goethe. Today 17 milion Muslims are challenging the Neocon propaganda against Islam and Pakistan. We have many Iqbal’s among us. No matter how hard Dawn tries, it cannot hide the truth from the Pakistani people. No matter how hard the Washington Post and the New York Times try to hidetheir defeat in Afghanistan, they will never be able to obfuscate the truth.

du neem unn ki thokar sae sahra-o-darya
simatt kar pahar unn ki haibat sae rai
du Aalim sae karti hai bae-gana dil ko
ajab cheez hai lazat-e-aashnai

Select Bibliography

Schimmel, Annemarie, Gabriel’s Wing. A study into the Religious Ideas of Sir Muhammed Iqbal, Leiden 1963 (E. J. Brill).

Schimmel, Annemarie, Iqbal and Goethe. In: Iqbal. Essays and Studies, ed. Asloob Ahmed Ansari, New Delhi 1978 (Ghalib Academy), pp.271-284.

Vahid, Syed Abdul, Iqbal. His Art and Thought, London 1959 (John Murray).

Vahiduddin, Iqbal aur Maghribi Fikr, Iqbal Institute, University of Srinagar, 1981.

Iqbal, Javid-Nama, trsl. by A.J. Arberry, London 1966 (George Allen & Unwin).

Vahid, Syed Abdul, Glimpses of Iqbal, Karachi 1974 (Iqbal Academy Pakistan).

Malik, G.R., Goethe’s Faust and Iqbal. In: Iqbaliyat, 6, Srinagar 1991 (Iqbal Institute, University of Kashmir)

Iqbal aur Maghrib, ed. by A.A. Suroor, Srinagar 1981 (Iqbal Institute, University of Srinagar).

Singh, Iqbal, The Ardent Pilgrim. An Introduction to the Life and Work of Mohammed Iqbal, Delhi 1997 (O.U.P.).

Iqbal. A Selection of the Urdu Verse. Text and Translation. D.J. Matthews, New Delhi 1993 (Heritage Publishers).