Although it is a continuation of the discussion on Noor Salik’s talk on Iqbal’s sixth lecture on November 29th, 2015, but I am posting it separately because I think it is a bit different subject.  

I think poetry is like a one liner islated thought and is not necessarily a well thought out comprehensive opinion. For example take the following verses;

Judda Ho Deen siyasaat se to……………………………

Jis khait se Kissan ko muyassir…………………………

These are so powerfully written inspirational one liner isolated thoughts that one spontaneously feels like clapping and rising up in praise, but reader has to complete this thought with one’s own imagination. It does not necessarily mean that the poet has the capability or has fully thought out opinion in detail as is required in prose. Although one is always curious to know more, but it is not fair either to ask the poet to express his thought in detail in prose or in speech even if that thought is related to religion or politics. The poet, like an artist, portrays only the snipes of circumstances with big gaps to be filled by the observer or reader’s own imagination.

The public at large, in awe by the power of Iqbal’s poetry, thought that he must have comprehensive opinions behind the one liner thought poetry, and pressed him to explain in detail his thoughts from religion to politics during uncertain times. Even though Iqbal was not an Islamic scholar and has ventured from Wahabbism to Sufism, he agreed to do so and the result was his six lectures on Reconstruction Of Islamic Thought. It was natural to have contradictions not just between his poetry, which represented snipes of thought without full picture, and speeches but also within the speech itself because he was not a scholar on the subject he was venturing into.  

How much importance one should give to six lectures of Iqbal? I think it depends on one’s personal motives and whether one looks at Iqbal more than a poet.        

Fayyaz Sheikh