Allama Iqbal

qbal was an heir to a very rich literary, mystic, philosophical and religious tradition. He imbibed and

assimilated all that was best in the past and present Islamic and Oriental thought and culture. His range

of interests covered Religion, Philosophy, Art, Politics, Economics, the revival of Muslim life and

universal brotherhood of man. His prose, not only in his national language but also in English, was

powerful. His two books in English demonstrate his mastery of English. But poetry was his medium par

excellence of expression. Everything he thought and felt, almost involuntarily shaped itself into verse.

Iqbal's Works

His first book Ilm ul Iqtisad/The knowledge of Economics was written in Urdu in 1903 . His first poetic

work Asrar-i Khudi (1915) was followed by Rumuz-I Bekhudi (1917). Payam-i Mashriq appeared in 1923,

Zabur-i Ajam in 1927, Javid Nama in 1932, Pas cheh bayed kard ai Aqwam-i Sharq in 1936, and

Armughan-i Hijaz in 1938. All these books were in Persian. The last one, published posthumously is

mainly in Persian: only a small portion comprises Urdu poems and ghazals.

His first book of poetry in Urdu, Bang-i Dara (1924) was followed by Bal-i Jibril in 1935 and Zarb-i Kalim

in 1936.

Bang-i Dara consist of selected poems belonging to the three preliminary phases of Iqbal's poetic career.

Bal-i Jibril is the peak of Iqbal's Urdu poetry. It consists of ghazals, poems, quatrains, epigrams and

displays the vision and intellect necessary to foster sincerity and firm belief in the heart of the ummah

and turn its members into true believers. Zarb-i Kalim was described by the poet himself "as a

declaration of war against the present era". The main subjects of the book are Islam and the Muslims,

education and upbringing, woman, literature and fine arts, politics of the East and the West. In Asrar-i

Khudi, Iqbal has explained his philosohy of "Self". He proves by various means that the whole universe

obeys the will of the "Self". Iqbal...