{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/iq/iq06.htm","path":"isl/iq/iq06.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/iq/iq06.htm","text":"The Secrets of the Self, by Muhammad Iqbal, tr. by Reynold A. Nicholson, [1920]\nShowing that the Self is strengthened by Love. 1\nThe luminous point whose name is the Self\n Is the life-spark beneath our dust.\n 325 By Love it is made more lasting,\n More living, more burning, more glowing.\n From Love proceeds the radiance of its being\n And the development of its unknown possibilities.\n Its nature gathers fire from Love,\n 330 Love instructs it to illumine the world.\nLove fears neither sword nor dagger,\n Love is not born of water and air and earth.\n Love makes peace and war in the world,\n The Fountain of Life is Love's flashing sword.\n The hardest rocks are shivered by Love's glance: 335\n Love of God at last becomes wholly God.\n Learn thou to love, and seek to be loved:\n Seek an eye like Noah's, a heart like Job's!\n Transmute thy handful of earth into gold,\n Kiss the threshold of a Perfect Man!\u00a01 340\n Like R\u00fam\u00ed, light thy candle\n And burn R\u00fam in the fire of Tabr\u00edz!\u00a02\nThere is a beloved hidden within thine heart:\n I will show him to thee, if thou hast eyes to see.\n 345 His lovers are fairer than the fair,\n Sweeter and comelier and more beloved.\n By love of him the heart is made strong\n And earth rubs shoulders with the Pleiades.\n The soil of Najd was quickened by his grace\n 350 And fell into a rapture and rose to the skies.\u00a01\n In the Moslem's heart is the home of Mohammed,\n All our glory is from the name of Mohammed.\n Sinai is but an eddy of the dust of his house,\n The sanctuary of the Ka\u2018ba is his dwelling-place.\nEternity is less than a moment of his time, 355\n Eternity receives increase from his essence.\n He slept on a mat of rushes,\n But the crown of Chosroes was under his people's feet.\n He chose the nightly solitude of Mount Hir\u00e1,\n And he founded a state and laws and government. 360\n He passed many a night with sleepless eyes\n In order that the Moslems might sleep on the throne of Persia.\n In the hour of battle, iron was melted by his sword;\n In the hour of prayer, tears fell like rain from his eye.\n When he was called to aid, his sword answered \"Amen\" 365\n And extirpated the race of kings.\n He instituted new laws in the world,\nHe brought the empires of antiquity to an end.\n With the key of religion he opened the door of this world:\n 370 The womb of the world never bore his like.\n In his sight high and low were one,\n He sat with his slave at one table.\n The daughter of the chieftain of Tai\n was taken prisoner in battle\u00a01\n And brought into that exalted presence;\n 375 Her feet in chains, unveiled,\n And her neck bowed with shame.\n When the Prophet saw that the poor girl had no veil,\n He covered her face with his own veil.\n We are more naked than that lady of Tai,\n 380 We are unveiled before the nations of the world.\nIn him is our trust on the Day of Judgement,\n And in this world too he is our protector.\n Both his favour and his wrath are entirely a mercy:\n That is a mercy to his friends and this to his foes.\n He opened the gates of mercy to his enemies, 385\n He gave to Mecca the message, \"No blame shall be laid upon you.\"\n We who know not the bonds of country\n Resemble sight, which is one though it be the light of two eyes.\n We belong to the Hij\u00e1z and China and Persia,\n Yet we are the dew of one smiling dawn. 390\n We are all under the spell of the eye of the cupbearer from Mecca,\n We are united as wine and cup.\nHe burnt clean away distinctions of lineage,\n His fire consumed this trash and rubble.\n 395 We are like a rose with many petals but with one perfume:\n He is the soul of this society, and he is one.\n We were the secret concealed in his heart:\n He spake out fearlessly, and we were revealed.\n The song of love for him fills my silent reed,\n 400 A hundred notes throb in my bosom.\n How shall I tell what devotion he inspires?\n A block of dry wood wept at parting from him.\u00a01\n The Moslem's being is where he manifests his glory:\n Many a Sinai springs from the dust on his path.\nMy image was created by his mirror, 405\n My dawn rises from the sun of his breast.\n My repose is a perpetual fever,\n My evening hotter than the morning of Judgement Day:\u00a01\n He is the April cloud and I his garden,\n My vine is bedewed with his rain. 410\n I sowed mine eye in the field of Love\n And reaped a harvest of delight.\n \"The soil of Medina is sweeter than both worlds:\n Oh, happy the town where dwells the Beloved!\"\u00a02\n I am lost in admiration of the style of Mull\u00e1 J\u00e1m\u00ed: 415\n His verse and prose are a remedy for my immaturity.\n He has written poetry overflowing with beautiful ideas\nAnd has threaded pearls in praise of the Master\u2014\n \"Mohammed is the preface to the book of the universe:\n 420 All the world are slaves and he is the Master.\"\n From the wine of Love spring many qualities:\n Amongst the attributes of Love is blind devotion.\n The saint of Bist\u00e1m, who in devotion was unique,\n Abstained from eating a water-melon.\u00a01\n 425 Be a lover constant in devotion to thy beloved,\n That thou mayst cast thy noose and capture God.\n Sojourn for a while on the Hir\u00e1 of the heart,\u00a02\nAbandon self and flee to God.\n Strengthened by God, return to thy self\n And break the heads of the L\u00e1t and Uzz\u00e1 of sensuality.\u00a01 430\n By the might of Love evoke an army,\n Reveal thyself on the F\u00e1r\u00e1n of Love,\u00a02\n That the Lord of the Ka\u2018ba may show thee favour\n And interpret to thee the text, \"Lo, I will appoint a vicegerent on the earth.\"\u00a03\n28:1 For the sense which Iqbal attaches to the word \"love,\" see the Introduction, p. xxv.\n29:1 A prophet or saint.\n29:2 See note on l. 95. Tabr\u00edz is an allusion to Shams-i Tabr\u00edz, the spiritual director of Jal\u00e1lu\u2019dd\u00edn R\u00fam\u00ed.\n30:1 Najd, the Highlands of Arabia, is celebrated in love-romance. I need only mention Laud and Majn\u00fan.\n32:1 Her father, H\u00e1tim of Tai, is proverbial in the East for his hospitality.\n34:1 The story of the pulpit that wept when Mohammed descended from it occurs, I think, in the Masnav\u00ed.\n35:1 When, according to Mohammedan belief, the sun will rise in the west.\n35:2 A quotation from the Masnav\u00ed. The Prophet was buried at Medina.\n36:1 B\u00e1yaz\u00edd of Bist\u00e1m died in a.d. 875. He refused to eat a water-melon, saying he had no assurance that the Prophet had ever tasted that fruit.\n36:2 Mohammed used to retire to a cave on Mount Hir\u00e1, near Mecca, for the purpose of solitary meditation and other ascetic observances.\n37:1 L\u00e1t and Uzz\u00e1 were goddesses worshipped by the heathen Arabs.\n37:2 F\u00e1r\u00e1n, name of a mountain in the neighbourhood of Mecca.\n37:3 Koran, ch. 2, v. 28. In these words, which were addressed to the angels, God foretold the creation of Adam.","title":"The Secrets of the Self: III. The Self is Strengthened by Love","type":"page"}