Bazm-e-Iqbal

A few days ago, a self-righteous made the claim: “What is Iqbal, after all? He can be derived from a single verse of Ghalib.” In the world of scholarship, such a statement would not normally be surprising. Intellectual traditions often evolve through influence and continuity; one lamp lights another. However, when the same self-appointed authority goes on to suggest that “fortunately, only two or three beggars at Iqbal’s doorstep remain, and now our age begins,” the matter becomes much clearer. There is no need for rhetorical embellishment: this is simply an enterprise of diminishing Iqbal. Why this is happening is both an interesting and a cautionary story. In contemporary times, Iqbal has often been associated exclusively with the political right or religious circles. The conduct of certain hardline clerics has, unfortunately, caused considerable damage to his public image. Yet Iqbal was not always so unfortunate. Poets such as Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ali Sardar Jafri, and, closer to our own era, Ahmad Faraz, all regarded themselves as admirers and beneficiaries of Iqbal’s intellectual legacy. These towering literary figures were not merely sympathetic to the political left; they were deeply committed to their ideological convictions and, when necessary, paid a personal price for them. In other words, they possessed clear and well-defined ideological identities. Yet none of them displayed hostility, resentment, or bitterness toward Iqbal. On the contrary, they paid him poetic tribute. Faiz’s tribute, in particular, stands among the finest examples. He wrote: A melodious faqir came to our land, Came, sang his ghazals in his own tune, and passed on. Desolate pathways filled with people, And abandoned taverns found renewed fortune. This is part of a longer poem in which Faiz praises not only Iqbal’s poetry but also his thought. Reading it today, one feels that Faiz had already sensed what the future might hold. In the same poem he lamented: That kingly mendicant has long de