Iqbal: Selected Poetry

~*IQBAL*~ SELECTED POETRY Translation & Introduction by Paul Smith Muhammad Iqbal (1873-1938) was born in Sialkot, Punjab. He graduated from Government College, Lahore with a master’s degree in philosophy. He taught there while he established his reputation as an Urdu poet. During this period his poetry expressed an ardent Indian nationalism, but a marked change came over his views when he was studying for his doctorate at Cambridge, visiting German universities and qualifying as a barrister. The philosophies of Nietzsche and Bergson influenced him and he became critical of Western civilization that he regarded as decadent. He turned to Islam and Sufism for inspiration and rejected nationalism as a disease of the West. These ideas found expression in his long poems written in Persian, presumably to gain his ideas an audience in the Moslem world outside India. Becoming convinced that Muslims were in danger from the Hindu majority if India should become independent, he gave his support to Jinnah as the leader of India’s Muslims. In his final years he returned to Urdu as his medium with ghazals inspired by his on-and-off Sufism. Here is the largest collection of his poems in English in book form, in the correct rhyme-structure and meaning. Introduction on his life, times & poetry and the forms he wrote in. 183 pages. COMMENTS ON PAUL SMITH’S TRANSLATION OF HAFIZ’S ‘DIVAN’. “It is not a joke... the English version of ALL the ghazals of Hafiz is a great feat and of paramount importance. I am astonished. ” Dr. Mir Mohammad Taghavi (Dr. of Literature) Tehran. “Superb translations. 99% Hafiz 1% Paul Smith.” Ali Akbar Shapurzman, translator from English into Persian, knower of Hafiz’s Divan off by heart. “Smith has probably put together the greatest collection of literary facts and history concerning Hafiz.” Daniel Ladinsky (Penguin Books author). Paul Smith is a poet, author and translator of over 80 books of Sufi poets of the Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, Pashtu and other languages… including Hafiz, Sadi, Nizami, Rumi, ‘Attar, Sana’i, Jahan Khatun, Obeyd Zakani, Mu’in, Amir Khusrau, Nesimi, Kabir, Anvari, Ansari, Jami, Omar Khayyam, Rudaki, Yunus Emre, Mahsati, Lalla Ded, Bulleh Shah, Shah Latif, Makhfi and many others, as well as his own poetry, fiction, plays, biographies, children’s books and a dozen screenplays.