Hajj and Eid, 1429 H
Yesterday, I saw a wonderful picture on a website showing too many pligrims thronging the land of Hijaz. And beneath the picture it was written:
Bana kar faqeeron ka hum bhays Ghaalib
Tamasha-e-ehl-e-Karam dekhtay hain
... And the verse went so well with the view in the picture. No explanations needed to explain this kind of love. "It is all the labour of Love." What is there which is beyond Love?
Darmiyaan-e-parda-e-khoon ishq ra gulzaarha
Aashiqaan ra ba-Jamaal-e-ishq-e-bay-chun kaarha
Aql guyad "shish jehat huddst, beeroon raah neest"
Ishq guyad "raah hast wa raftay am mann baarha..."
(Transation of Professor Lateefullah's Urdu Translation in Rumi (RA) ka payaam-e-ishq:
Between the curtains of blood, there are countless gardens of Love.
Lovers have a lot to do with the beauty of Love of the Unmatched!
Intellect says, there's no way beyond the limits of six directions
Love (Ishq) says, there is the way, for I have traversed it several times!)
... And tomorrow, it's Eid. Sacrifice. Yet another act of Love. However, I often wonder if the spirit of Ibrahim (A.S) and the submissiveness of Ismaa'il (A.S) is still there! Perhaps, had those spirits been retained, we may not have been what we are now. But then again hopelessness is never an option. Zara numm ho tou yeh mitti buhat zar-khaiz hai saaqi, as Iqbal would have it.
***
Day befor yesterday, it rained heavily in Karachi. As soon as the first drops of rain hit the ground, the electricity went off. It was a great scene indeed. Thumping of the raindrops on the ground. On the window panes. The aroma of geeli mitti (damp sand). And outside the house, high-pitched voices of children shouting and running all around, holding tight on to the reins of their bakraas (goats)... Such blessings!
Comments
Complete submission...
Tho not very relevant to the post, I have to share...Your blog reminded me an old incident...
I was in grade 6 perhaps. One of our arts teacher Ms.Shaheena used to be an enthusiastic adventurer. She once hiked all the way to Fairy Meadows (Nanga Parbat Base Camp) etc and wrote about it in the school magazine...her article was named "Sahraa Novardi"...
I asked her ma'am you went to a hill station and wrote about deserts!!! She laughed and told me how some beautiful words don't mean what they apparently convey to 6th-graders...and how useful these words can be,sometimes...
:)
Ahh! the sacrifices of those on whom Allah did his 'inam' and was 'raazi' with them. some darvesh say that since the wheel of life has come to rotate too fast people come under more burden thus if they do not keep in mind the correct principles and do not struggle they are easy to get astray. But this is an eternal problem, i.e, of struggling.
I have to ask you why with the increase in 'saholat e dunya" or facilities of life, we've come to ignore our "aitqad" or beliefs, willingness to sacrifice? after all nothing is wrong in enjoying facilities of life within limit? What do we lack? correct intrepretation, sincere leadership, education based on correct-principle? what?
Thanks for visiting, Saad. Well, you aren't a sixth-grade student anymore and I am sure you do now realise the differences between appearance an reality - the 'lafz' and 'ma'ani'... You know, Saad, your teacher was absolutely right. I don't know why but I have a feeling that I am able to relate to her experience of 'Sahra Novardi'... perhaps that's why when I returned to my blog after a long long time, I just could not help term myself as a 'Musafir-e Dasht'... :)
why with the increase in 'saholat e dunya" or facilities of life, we've come to ignore our "aitqad" or beliefs, willingness to sacrifice? after all nothing is wrong in enjoying facilities of life within limit? What do we lack? correct interpretation, sincere leadership, education based on correct-principle? what?
We've abandoned our roots. This is the most simple answer that comes to my mind. Let me narrate you an incident. Once I was too disillusioned with all that is going around in the world and I poured out my anxiety before a teacher of mine. He narrated this incident to me in reply to my queries.
At the time when he was about to get married, he went up to a scholar-cum-saint and sought some advice. The saint said something to him that I can never forget. He said that the world in all its advancement was falling apart, so the most appropriate thing to do in such circumstances was to take oneself and one's family as backwards as possible. 1400 years is not a short period of time, Umer. Things were bound to fall apart.
And I very strongly believe that we lack education based on correct principles. Almost every profession and all kinds of education are churning out individuals who derive their values from the corporate world. Something is absolutely wrong with the entire modern or rather the post-modern civilisation. And it This indeed is an etensive topic of discussion.
Thanks for visiting, though :)
Thanks a lot for a thoughtful reply.
Living in classical Islam... But it's not clear to me as to What would be the paradigm of living a life of 1400 years ago?
And, Have you read SH nasr's Islam and Plight of Modern Man?
Nasr even criticizes Iqbal's modern rational-philosophical outlook, pointing to 'The Reconstruction' Lectures. While he did expressed deep respect for his poetry in the book.
Humble regards.
Sincere Umer Toor.
I simply meant following of the Prophetic Sunnah in all matters of life.
As for Nasr's book, I have not read this particular one but I am familiar with some of his other works and his ideas. Not only Nasr but many other orthodox religious scholars too have criticised Iqbal's philosophical rational outlook. In one of my classes on Iqbal, my teacher very confidently remarked that in the later part of his life, Iqbal reviewed and acknowledged the shortcomings in his lectures on reconstruction. Unfortunately, I do not have any validation for this but I will sure try to find it out now. inshaAllah.
Personally, I have always been deeply inspired by Iqbal's poetry and in that he clearly seems tobe deviating from that philosophical rational outlook you mentioned.
"Meri tamaam sarguzasht kho'aay hu'on ki justuju!" (Iqbal)
:)
Do consider Syed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi's Naqoosh-e Iqbal if in case you haven't come across the book :)
Regards.
N.A.
I certainly wish to undertsand why Maulana Nadawi once said that he wished, Lectures would not had been published, mentions Prof Fateh Malik in Iqbal Faramoshi. And, I believe there must be some good and clear reason(s) for that. Afterall both these scholars had had profound correspondence and knew each other well.
Despsite all that Iqbal was very non-skeptical about the scope of his religiona nd Muslim's dire need of it. As faiz puts after mentioning all of Iqbal's philosophical interests, that he believed that only cure his nation can have lies in the prophetic sayings and their religion, (in a critical essay on Iqbal).
But in his final days Iqbal ventured to write a named, whose name goes as, Interpretation of Holy Quran in the Light of Modern Philosophy. Perhaps I read it in his khaqooq. He wasn't going to give interpretation of Islam from traditional perspective. However this might suffice as an evidence for your claim!
Humble regards.
Sincere Umer Toor.
___________
(Here is a reply to the comment you made on my blog.)
There it made the most sense!
I don't know anything about theory of knowldege but for a harmonious and sound learning consist with our character, I believe in a teacher's remark: Knowlegde must be learnt according to preferences. And, then, it should be limited to our preferences. Quran also mentions what to be prefered or what not...
Don't know, Umer... but I always feel that despite all his philosophical musings, Iqbal was a hard-core traditionalist himself. Specially when I read his Tuloo-e Islam, for example... And moreover, the extent to which he associated himself to Mawlana Rum (RA), that too further makes me perceive him as a traditionalist. Now that may be a personal appraisal... :)
Thanks for visiting.
Humble Regards,
Sincere Umer Toor
-nikal kar khanqahoon say ada kar day rasmay shabeeri...
And, his love for hafiz that hafiz's soul at times enters in his temporal boday...
Perhaps, we've to break the idols we make of such teachers, as Rumi said.
However, Iqbal's last years of life were kind of strange. His relationship with and reverence for various Sufis/scholars demands that we review his 'love-hate' relationship with Sufism. We've got to understand what was it that he actually did not approve of ...
Just an opinion :)