Message from the East
Versified English

Translation

A SELECTIVE VERSE RENDERING
OF

IQBAL’S

"PAYAM-I-MASHRIQ"

BY

M. HADI HUSSAIN

FOREWORD

IN the first decade of this century, Iqbal had become a name to conjure with in Indo-Muslim literature. In the context of the socio-political renaiscence of the Muslim community in the sub-continent, he was hailed as a veritable Messiah. It was however only in 1920 that he was first introduced to western readers, by the translation of his Persian work, the Aarar-i-Khudi, into English by the late Prof. R. A. Nicholson of Cambridge under the title "Secrets of the Self". He was later to become the ideological inspirer of the concept of Pakistan and to win wider recognition in Iran, the Middle East, Egypt, Italy, France, Germany, England, and Russia. The august assemblage of his translators includes Mr. Victor Kiernan and Prof. Arberry from England, Abdul Wahhab Azzam from Egypt, Prof. Baussoni from Italy and Prof. Anne Marie Schimmel from Germany. The latest to join this distinguished group is Mr. Hadi Hussain with his rendering into English verse of the major portion of Iqbal’s Persian Payam-i-Mashriq the Message of the East". The Payam-i-Mashriq was published in 1922. It was intended as the response of the East to Goethe’s "West Oestlicher Divan". During his productive period, extending over almost half a century, Iqbal was very much concerned with the human situation in the phenomenal world. The Faustian element in the human drama engrossed his attention no less than the voluntaristic urges manifested in the cosmos. His robust optimism, born of a lifelong study of his Islamic heritage, led him to formulate a melioristic philosophy of the perfectibility of the human ego in an existential setting of ceaseless struggle and striving. The egalitarian system of Islam, which cuts across the barriers of colour, race and geography, was regarded by him as the base for the emergence of a universalist democracy of unique individuals presided over by the most Unique Individual God. But his was not a mere dry-as-dust philosophy. Richly endowed with the poetic sensibility, his genius burst forth into songs of exquisite beauty and power. The Payam-i-Mashriq, par excellence, bears witness to his wide range of interests and sympathies. To translate the work of such a genius is an arduous enterprise and its difficulties can properly be appreciated only by one who has attempted to transmute the magic element of poetry in one language to that of another. The elusive quality of thought, peculiar diction and imagery steeped in eastern tradition, of the ghazal in the Payam-i-Mashriq would have been specially difficult to transmit in a form intellgible to the western reader. Mr. Hadi Hussain has therefore wisely omitted them from his translation and confined himself to the other verse forms.

It is a truism to say that a competent translator has to be fully conversant with the two languages he seeks to work in. For the genre of poetry, the translator must himself have the gift of poetic expression. Mr. Hadi Hussain fortunately possesses both these qualifications In abundant measure. lie is an acknowledged litterateur who is at home both in Persian and English. with a number of scholarly publications to his credit. He has also an established reputation as an accomplished poet. He is moreover an experienced translator. While preserving to a great extent the charm and grace of the original, he has produced an elegant translation which should be regarded as an achievement of a very high order. He has successfully avoided the twin danger besetting such a venture a literal and prosaic translation on the one hand and a free rendering which reeks little of the form and content of the original, on the other. His is a faithful translation which reads well. Indeed, at places in some of his rhymed translations he has attained Fitzgeraldian heights. I feel sure that his translation of the Payam-i-Mashriq will rank among the major efforts made to introduce Iqbal to sophisticated western audiences.

S. A. Rahman, H. PK.

Lahore

21st June, 1977.

THE TULIP OF SINAI

(1)

The world is under His proud power’s sway
Whom all things were created to obey.
The sun itself is nothing but a mark
Of long prostration on the brow of day¹.

(2)

My heart is lit up by an inner flame;
Tears of blood lend my eyes a cosmic frame.
May he stray farther from life’s mystery
Who thinks that madness is Love’s other name.

(3)

Love breathes spring breezes upon garden bowers,
And it star-spangles hills and dales with flowers.
Its sunbeams pierce the darkness of the sea
And give the eyes of fish path-seeing powers.

(4)

Love humbles falcons’ proud, predaceous might,
And it makes tiny quails put them to flight.
However carefully we guard our hearts,
Love ambushes them in the quiet night.

(4)

Love humbles falcons’ proud, predaceous might,
And it makes tiny quails put them to flight.
However carefully we guard our hearts,
Love ambushes them in the quiet night.

(6)

On very few men is Love’s wealth bestowed;
Not all men find it does their system good.
The tulip’s breast glows with a purple heart,
But cold and sparkless is the ruby’s red.

(7)

I roam this garden like its flowers’ scent,
Not knowing on what quest my heart is bent.
Whatever be the fate of my desire,
Its fire in my breast never will be spent.

(8)

This world is mere dust and the heart its fruit–
A drop of blood at all its troubles’ root!
If we had not a double vision, we
Would find our world within our heart’s retreat.

(9)

"O gardener", said the nightingale one morn,
"No plant but grief has this soil ever borne.
The rose dies as soon as it reaches youth;
To a ripe old age lives the desert thorn."

(10)

From nothing did this world originate.
Loss and gain are twin principles in it.
Destroy the old: on its foundations build
Afresh. For Time’s sweet will we cannot wait.

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