In memory of my late mother

Allama Muhammad Iqbal · Bang-e-Dara, Part Three

Background

Iqbal’s mother, Imam Bibi, died in Sialkot in November 1914³. This long poem is in her memory and is included in the third part of “Bang-e-Dara”¹². Beginning with personal grief, the poem moves to reflection on life and death. It ends with the prayer: “May the heavens scatter dew upon your grave”.

Kalam

Every atom of the world is a prisoner of destinyThe veil of helplessness is the helplessness of effort

The sky is helpless, the sun and moon are helplessThe restless stars are helpless in their course

The bud’s jar is destined to break in the gardenEven grass and flowers are helpless in growth in the garden

Whether it is the nightingale’s song or the voice of the silent conscienceEverything is a captive in this chain that binds the world

When this secret of helplessness is revealed to the eyeThe flowing flood of tears dries up in the heart

The dance of joy and sorrow does not remain in the human heartThe song remains, but the pleasure of its rise and fall is gone

Knowledge and wisdom rob one of the stock of tears and sighsThat is, the aware heart is a piece of diamond

Though there is no freshness of dew in my gardenMy eye is not rich in crimson tears

I know in a sigh the secret of human sufferingThe instrument of my nature is empty of the note of complaint

The tale of the world’s fickleness is not on my lipsMy heart is not astonished, not laughing, not weeping

But your picture is the herald of ceaseless weepingAh, this is a refutation of my firm wisdom

The foundation of life endures through overflowing tearsThe stony-hearted intellect is ashamed before the knowledge of pain

My mirror is lit by the wave of the smoke of my sighsMy lap is full of the treasure of brought-forth water

I am amazed at the miracle of your pictureIt has changed the direction of time’s flight

It has, as it were, set past and present side by sideIt has made me acquainted again with the age of childhood

When that frail life was nurtured in your lapWhose tongue was not yet well acquainted with speech

And now the talk is of the playfulness of his speechPriceless are the pearls of his pearl-showering eye

The grave speech of learning is the wisdom of old ageThe grandeur of worldly honour is the pride of youth

We come down from the peaks of lifeIn a mother’s company we remain simple children

We laugh without restraint, we are free from careWe live once more in that lost paradise

Ah, who will now await me at homeWho will be restless if my letter does not come

I will come to the dust of your grave with this complaintWhom will I now be remembered by in the prayer of midnight

Through your upbringing I became fortunate as the starsThe house of my forefathers became a source of honour

In the register of existence your life was a golden pageYour life was wholly a lesson for faith and the world

All your life your love served meWhen I became fit to serve you, you passed away

He who is young, tall like a lofty cypressWho benefited from serving you more than I did

In the Business of life he is my companionIn love he is your picture, he is my arm

He weeps for you like a helpless little childUnacquainted with patience, he weeps morning and evening

The seed you sowed in the field of our livesThat affection grew stronger by sharing grief

Ah, this world, this house of mourning for young and oldIn what spell of yesterday and tomorrow is man a captive

How hard life is, how easy death isIn the garden of existence death is cheap like the breeze

There are earthquakes, lightning, famines and sufferingsWhat daughters the mother of the ages has

Death is in the hut of poverty and in the mansion of wealthDeath is in desert and valley, in the city, in the garden and the wasteland

Death raises a storm in the silent seaShips sink in the embrace of the wave

There is no room for complaint, no strength of speechWhat is life but a collar that chokes the throat

In the caravan there is nothing but the cry of the bellNothing but the wealth of a tearful eye

But the period of trial will also come to an endBehind the veil of the sky there is still more distance

What if tulips and roses in this garden have torn breastsWhat if nightingales are compelled to lament and cry out

The bushes in whose cage the sigh of autumn is imprisonedThe breeze of eternal spring will make them green

What if our spark sleeps beneath a shield of dustWhat if this handful of dust is only a temporary litter

The fire of life does not end in ashesThis is not a pearl whose fate is to break

Life is so beloved in the eye of natureThe desire to preserve life is in the nature of everything

If the imprint of life could be erased by the hands of deathThe order of the universe would not have made it so common

If it is cheap, understand that death is nothingJust as sleep does no harm to living

Ah, heedless one, the hidden secret of death is something elseWhat is revealed by the impermanence of form is something else

The form of air upon water is a vision of paradiseThe restless wave breaks it and builds a bubble

Then it hides it again in the lap of the waveHow cruelly it erases its own creation

If it could not make its bubble again, the airWould not be so careless in breaking it

What effect does this way have on the shape of the structureIt is proof of the air’s power to build

Unless the nature of existence were a martyr to desireUnless it were always seeking a better form

Ah, scattered quicksilver, stars that light the skyThese playful sparks whose burning is owed to the night

The age before which reason sits with head on knees is theirsThe whole history of mankind is a single hour of theirs

Yet this man, whose gaze is beyond the skiesWho is purer in purpose even than the angels

Who, like a candle, is lit in the gathering of natureTo whose vast nature the sky is but a point

Whose ignorance is restless for truthWhose fingernail is the plectrum for the instrument of existence

Is this flame lesser than the sparks of the skyIs our sun of less worth than the stars

The eye of the flower seed is sleepless even beneath the soilHow restless it is to grow and flourish

The flame of life that is hidden in that grainIs compelled to show itself and to increase

It cannot be dampened even by the cold of the graveEven buried in dust it cannot lose its burning

It comes out of its grave as a flowerAs if it receives the robe of life from death

The grave binds together this distracted forceWhich casts its noose around the neck of the sky

Death is the name for the renewal of the taste of lifeIt is a message of wakefulness behind the veil of sleep

One used to flight has nothing to fear in flyingIn this garden death is nothing but the shaking of wings

The people of the world say the pain of death has no cureThe wound of separation is healed by the balm of time

But the heart, where the grief for the departed dwellsIs free from the chain of morning and evening

The cry of mourning does not cease by the spell of timeTime has no balm for the wound of the sword of separation

When some sudden calamity falls upon the headCeaseless tears flow from the human eye

The heart becomes attached to lament and cryThe blood of the heart flows from the tear-filled eyes

Though man is deprived of the strength of patienceIn his nature there is an unknown feeling

The essence of man is not acquainted with non-existenceIt vanishes from the eye, but it does not perish

The belongings of existence are in the flames of the dust of griefThis fire is cooled by the water of that delicate feeling

Ah, this restraint of lament is not the silence of heedlessnessIt is awareness, it is consolation of the heart, not forgetfulness

The moment morning appears from behind the veil of the eastMorning washes the stain of night from the hem of the horizon

It clothes the withered tulip in a robe of fireIt makes the tongueless bird drunk with song

Song is freed from the prison of the nightingale’s breastThe morning breeze is filled with hundreds of melodies

Those asleep in the tulip field, the mountains and the riverAre at last embraced by the bride of life

If this is the law of existence, that every evening becomes morningWhy should the night of the human grave not end in morning

My silvery net of imagination covers the horizonsWith it I have made your memory my captive

With your memory my heart, familiar with pain, is filledAs the air in the Kaaba is filled with prayers

That succession of duties which is called lifeIts stages are millions of transient worlds

The custom and way of every stage of existence differsThe hereafter too is a field of movement for life

There the harvest of death yields nothingThe climate is favourable for the seed of deeds

The light of nature is not a prisoner of the darkness of the bodyThe circle of human thought is not so narrow

Your life was brighter than the moonYour journey was finer even than the morning star

May your grave glow like the palace of dawnMay this earthen bedchamber of yours be filled with light

May the heavens scatter dew upon your graveMay fresh-grown grass keep watch over this house

Difficult words

• Dahr: time, the world
• Zindani-e-taqdeer: prisoner of destiny
• Anjum-e-seemab pa: stars restless like mercury
• Sabu: jar, flask
• Namu: growth, flourishing
• Alamgeer: covering the whole world
• Sirr-e-majboori: the secret of helplessness
• Zer-o-bam: rise and fall of a note
• Almas: diamond
• Unnabi: crimson (the colour of the jujube)
• Alam: sorrows, calamities
• Neeranggi-e-dauran: the variety and deceit of the age
• Khanda: laughing
• Giryan: weeping
• Girya-e-paiham: continuous weeping
• Payinda: enduring
• Irfan: recognition, spiritual knowledge
• Ahd-e-tifli: the age of childhood
• Muharram: acquainted
• Chashm-e-gohar bar: pearl-showering eye
• Sohbat-e-madar: a mother’s company
• Marqad: grave
• Dua-e-neem shab: prayer at midnight
• Ajdad: forefathers
• Zarreen waraq: golden page
• Subh-o-masa: morning and evening
• Matam khana-e-barna-o-peer: house of mourning for young and old
• Tilism-e-dosh-o-farda: the spell of yesterday and tomorrow
• Kulba-e-iflas: hut of the poor
• Qulzum: sea
• Tauq-e-gulu afshar: a collar that chokes the throat
• Faryad-e-dara: the sound of the caravan’s bell
• Pas-e-nuh parda-e-gardoon: behind the nine veils of the sky
• Ajal: death
• Hubab: bubble of water
• Seemab: mercury
• Qudsiyon: angels
• Mizrab: plectrum for playing an instrument
• Lahad: grave
• Sheeraza band: one who binds scattered things together
• Sarishk: tears
• Shakebai: patience
• Adam: non-existence, perishing