Instead of colouring Iqbal red or green, Faiz has tried to
contextualise Iqbal's message. Placing Iqbal among "poets of affirmation'' like
Dante, Milton and Goethe, Faiz described Iqbal as a product of his period whose
"work reflected all the inner intellectual contradictions, all the conflicting
impulses, all the confused dreams and aspirations of the middle strata of
Indo-Pakistani Muslims.'' "It is precisely because of this," says Faiz, "that
his work is popular among progressives and reactionaries alike.'' --
Farooq Sulehria
( A tribute to Iqbal on his 72nd death
anniversary)
By Farooq Sulehria
Few
students of Pakistani literature know that Faiz Ahmed Faiz translated Allama
Iqbal's Payam-e-Mashriq into Urdu. An equally little-known fact is Iqbal's
presence at the founding conference of the Progressive Writers Association.
While Iqbal, being the national poet of a confessional state, has been
"Islamised" beyond recognition, a section of the left has written Iqbal off as
reactionary. However, many progressives, notably Ali Sardar Jafri, glorified
Iqbal as a neo-progressive.
But Faiz
finds these evaluations "far from satisfactory.'' He criticises writers who put
a "great deal of stress on the religious element in Iqbal's work without
clarifying that Iqbal's concept of religion was in many ways opposed to the
concept of the orthodox Muslim theologian.''
On the
other hand, Faiz disagrees with progressive commentators who make much of
Iqbal's admiration for Marx and Lenin. These progressives, Faiz thinks, "ignore
that Iqbal's approach to social and economic problems was idealistic and
abstract, and the scientific basis of Marxist materialism did not enter into his
concept of socialism.'' For Faiz, Iqbal was neither a reactionary ("The mullah
or the orthodox religious preacher is the subject of some of the bitterest
satirical verse written by Iqbal''), nor a socialist ("He frequently confused
the materialist and capitalist points of view").
Instead
of colouring Iqbal red or green, Faiz has tried to contextualise Iqbal's
message. Placing Iqbal among "poets of affirmation'' like Dante, Milton and
Goethe, Faiz described Iqbal as a product of his period whose "work reflected
all the inner intellectual contradictions, all the conflicting impulses, all the
confused dreams and aspirations of the middle strata of Indo-Pakistani
Muslims.'' "It is precisely because of this," says Faiz, "that his work is
popular among progressives and reactionaries alike.''
Despite
the fact that Iqbal benefited from Western philosophies, according to Faiz, he
devoutly believed that it was only the authority of Islam that could truly
validate the message he carried. However, to drive home his message, Iqbal, as a
first step, "sought to cleanse the House of God of all false idols, of scribes
and Pharisees, the obscurantist mullah, the withdrawn mystic, the charlatan and
the demagogue.'' Faiz finds in Iqbal a believer in the process of never-ending
cosmic creation signified by constant change. To quote a line by
Iqbal:
Sabaat
aik taghayyur ko hai zamanay main."
("Only
change has permanence in this world.")
Iqbal
applies this change, Faiz claims, "as much to the subjective and the ideological
as to social and material factors'' and "the principal agent in this creative
process is the human Ego, or Personality or Self--Khudi, as Iqbal calls it.'' To
meet the challenge of creation, Khudi has to be fortified by "perceptual
knowledge of the physical world and intuitive passion (or love, 'Ishq' in
Iqbal's terminology).''
Only
Iqbal's Perfect Man (Mard-e-Kamil) is capable of meeting this challenge.
However, Faiz finds the Perfect Man different from Nietzsche's Superman, as this
Perfect Man does not develop in isolation but "in the context of the totality of
social relationships.'' Hence, unlike the Superman, the Perfect Man negates "all
forms of nationalist chauvinism, imperialist domination, racial discrimination,
social exploitation and personal aggrandisement, since all of them make for the
debasement and perversion of human personality.'' For Faiz, "Iqbal is a humanist
not only in the formal but in the literal sense of the word.''
Unlike
many critics, Faiz attaches great importance to Iqbal's style too. After all, it
is Iqbal's "vibrant and impassioned verse and the persuasive appeal it carried
which accounts for much of his influence.'' But before analysing Iqbal's style,
Faiz warns: ''First of all I might clarify that Iqbal himself was deadly opposed
to art for art's sake and, therefore, we cannot study his art or his style or
his technique or his other poetic qualities in isolation from his theme.''
Faiz
believes that Iqbal's thought, and hence his style, went through a four-phase
evolution influenced by the political milieu in the Indian Subcontinent. In his
younger days, Iqbal's themes are either descriptive and colourful delineations
of natural phenomena or "subjective experiences typical of adolescent years,
experiences of nostalgia and romantic melancholy.'' Iqbal is "obviously under
the influence of Bedil, Naziri and Ghalib.'' The style is "a bit florid, a bit
diffuse, a bit undefined.''
In the
early twentieth century, "as the first wave of nationalist anti-imperialist
sentiment, after the great uprising of 1857, arose in undivided India and saw
the birth of various political organisations,'' Iqbal's verse enters the second
phase as Iqbal "transferred his attention from personal subjective observations
and experiences to the collective sentiments and experiences of his country –
his nationalist, patriotic phase.'' Now his style becomes monolithic. "It
becomes almost uniform, having no ups and downs, practically keeping the same
pace and same level.'' This is second progression.
In the
period before and immediately after the First World War, when the subcontinent
was convulsed by a series of widespread anti-imperialist movement, the "Indian
Muslim, while fully participating in these movements shoulder-to-shoulder with
non-Muslims, had some additional emotional and political motivations which were
distinctly their won, and which found expression in what came to be known as the
Khilafat Movement.'' This struggle took a Pan-Islamic character. Hence, notes
Faiz, "Iqbal's poetry, correctly reflecting the emotional and political impulses
of his people, also turned from Indian patriotic to Pan-Islamic anti-imperialist
themes, which is the third important phase of his poetic
evolution.''
The same
period also witnessed the abolition of the Khilafat and the birth of Soviet
Russia as first socialist state. "For Iqbal these were the years of deep study
and meditation, resulting in the fourth and last phase of his work, the most
mature and most valuable, the phase of his philosophical humanism.'' This final
theme is Man and Universe. As Iqbal goes Pan-Islamic, one witnesses the third
progression in his work and style, "the progression which integrates disjointed
phenomena, disjointed experiences into a single whole, through a process which
is both intellectual and emotional.'' And the fourth progression, as Iqbal goes
universal, is "transition in emotional climate'' when Ishq (passion) replaces
Mohabbat (love as a sentiment).
This is
no coincidence. After all, the entire universe is man's domain and "each stage
of evolution is merely a step to the next stage.'' Hence, Faiz observes, "the
dynamics of this evolutionary struggle are provided firstly by what Iqbal calls
'Ishq,' or passion, in the sense of dedication to a humanist ideal, and,
secondly, by what he calls 'amal,' or action, as opposed to the more passive
contemplation or meditation advocated by mystics and idealist philosophers.''
Faiz
admits that "Iqbal's approach to these themes was abstract and philosophical,
which frequently gave use to contradictory expositions by his followers and
admirers.'' However, he points out, Iqbal's poetry "contributed a great deal to
the rise of the progressive movement in the Urdu language, firstly because its
high and purposeful seriousness demolished many decadent notions regarding the
function of poetry as trivial entertainment, like the notion of art for art's
sake, and, secondly, because the core of his humanist thought held up admiration
for the great human ideals of freedom, justice, progress and social
equality.''
The
writer is a freelance columnist. Email: mfsulehria@hotmail.com
Source:
The News, Pakistan
12:50 AM
Sultan Shahin
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