At The Edge

“I regret that it is impossible to render the melody of the Sanskrit words into Urdu language. If time permits, I have decided to translate the Gita into Urdu. You must have seen the Persian translation of the Gita, rendered by Faizi. Nobody can deny the excellence of his writing. But I think that while translating the Gita, he has not done proper justice to its content and style. I am clear in my mind that Faizi has failed to understand the sprit of the Gita.” Allama Iqbal, in a letter dated 11th October, 1921 to Maharaja Kishan Prashad, writing about his wish to translate Gita. Maharaja Kishan Prashad was the Prime Minister of Hyderabad in the court of Nizam. He wrote a book, Matam-e-Husain, about Imam Hussain Also read about Iqbal's view about Sri Krishna

In Hindustan Times dated 13th October - 2007, Grand Old man Khushwant Singh , in his weekly column “ With Malice Towards One and All… ” wonders about religious belief of men like APJ Abdul Kalam, Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib and Sir Mohammad Iqbal, regarding Heaven and Hell, in a piece titled Dreaming of Paradise. A line by Iqbal surprises the prolific columnist. Khushwant Singh writes: What came as a surprise to me was poet Sir Mohammad Iqbal: He was a devout Muslim and never questioned Islamic beliefs. How do you explain these lines? “Koi ab tak na yeh samjha keh insaan, kahaan jaata hai, aata hai kaha say?” ( No one has yet understood where man goes to after he dies and from where he comes). Will some knowledgeable reader please enlighten me? No, I can’t enlightening him about these lines. But, his questioning reminded me of my little tryst with Iqbal in a little room of a shanty basti at the outer periphery of a big city. Some years ago in Nagpur, a friend of mine invited ...

Allama Iqbal in his preface to his monumental work Asrar-i-Khudi, (Secrets of the Self), has expressed eloquently his admiration for Sri Krishna: “The heart and mind of the Hindu community has been nourished by the penetrating discussion that its learned thinkers have concluded that the struggle of life which makes a man go through trials and tribulations, is directly linked with action; or, in other words, his existing human self is the result of his past deeds. And so long as this law of action operates, the result will be the same. When Goethe, the well-known German poet of the 19th century , makes his hero Faust read in the Bible the word ‘action’ instead of’ speech’, Goethe’s visionary eye detects the same point, which the Hindu pundits and Rishis had observed hundreds of years ago. In this strange way they had resolved the conflict between authority and freedom or, in other words, between coercion and responsibility. Undoubtedly, their creative ability is worth admiration, in ...