KARACHI: Allama Iqbal may be a philosopher and a thinker, but his poetry is his real identity. We have separated Iqbal from his verse.

Losing sight of that would be losing Iqbal.

This was said by eminent scholar Dr Noman Ul Haq in his speech at the Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu on Saturday afternoon. His address was part of the 139th birth anniversary celebrations ofIqbal.

Referring to Dr Fatema Hassan`swelcome speech in which she quoted a verse from Iqbal`s poem `Masjid-i-Qurtaba`, Dr Haq said the metre (bahr) in which the poet had composed it had not been used anywhere else. He expressed fondness for Iqbal`s technical prowess (sheari mahasin) and in that context gave a few examples where the poet had imparted a new rhythmic pattern to a certain bahr. He said once discussing the poet in Lahore, the writer Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi said to him that Iqbal was a `freak`, to which he replied that since Yousufi was a reputed writer he could takethat liberty, but to him (Dr Haq) he was a miracle (maujzah). Expanding on the poet`s technical mastery, he quoted a few lines from the poem `O Ghafil Afghan` from `Zarb-iKaleem`.

Rumi badle, Shami badle, badla Hindustan Tu bhi ay farzand-i-kohistan apni khudi pehchan O gh afi l Afgh an [People in Rome and Syria have changed,so toothoseinIndia You, the son of mountains, learn to know your Self O negligent Afghan]Dr Haq said he had not come to the event for a small talk therefore he would like to state that Iqbal`s real identity lay in his poetry. He said he may be a philosopher or a thinker, but his giant stature was because of his poetry. He said losing sight of his poetry meant we had lost Iqbal. He lamented that our familiarity with Iqbal (Iqbal se waagifiat) had ended. He said there were many buildings and institutions named after him, and yet we did not know about his poetry. Reverting to his wonderful poetics, he said Iqbal`s use of Hindi words amidst a host of Persian phrases was amazing.

Dr Haq said three things disturbed him. The first was the way we had distanced ourselves from languages (which was why we had also distanced ourselves from Iqbal`s poetry). He said leave aside Persian and Arabic, people were not even proficient in the Urdu language. And when it came to English, he said, the use ofstreet language was rife. The second thing that disturbed him, he said, was that the literacy culture that we had in our society declined and had now turned into an aural culture. He gave many examples of words which were mispronounced such as aman instead of amn or khatam instead of khatm.

The third thing, he said, was that we had left Iqbal in the bazaar of ideological groups. This, he said, had made Iqbal end up nowhere (darabadari ho gal). He said instead of talking about his verse,we talked about his philosophy and message. For instance, he said, the people leaning towards the Left argued Iqbal was not a poet of nature, which was wrong.

Countering the argument he read out the following couplet: Charkh ne baali chura li hai uroosi-shaam ki Neel ke paani mein ya machhli hai seem-i-khaak ki [The sky has stolen an earring from the evening`s bride Or is it a silvery fish swimming through the river]Prof Sahar Ansari was the other speaker of the day. He spoke on Iqbal`s concept of life (tasavvur-ihayat). He said every great writer and philosopher had mulled over life and death. He said all living beings go through the two phases and human beings were the only ones who thought about them. He said in a way Iqbal had responded to Rousseau`s assertion that `man is born free and everywhere he is in chains` by saying `Tor daaleen fitrat-i-insaan ne zajeerein tamam` (Man has broken all chains).