“Rise, Khudi, so high that before every decree, God Himself asks: tell me, what is your will?”
— Muhammad IqbalBal-i Jibril (Urdu/Persian verse); approximate English rendering, no named translator confirmed
Commentary
This couplet, from the poetry collected in Bal-i Jibril, expresses the central idea of khudi, usually rendered as selfhood or the affirmed self, which Iqbal developed most fully in Asrar-i Khudi. Annemarie Schimmel, in Gabriel's Wing (1963), argues that khudi in Iqbal's usage is not egoism but a disciplined assertion of the human capacity to act within a divine order. Javid Iqbal, the poet's son and biographer, notes in Zinda Rud that his father regarded this assertion as the foundation of a renewed Muslim consciousness. Bashir Ahmad Dar's study of Iqbal's philosophy emphasises the reversal the couplet proposes, in which the human self is granted a dignity that prompts divine address. The image of God asking the believer for his will is striking, and it has been read as a rhetorical inversion of the conventional relationship of command and obedience. Schimmel cautions that such formulations should be understood within Iqbal's mystical vocabulary rather than as a doctrine of human sovereignty. The English rendering here is an approximation of the Urdu and should be checked against a critical edition before publication.
Commentary
This couplet, from the poetry collected in Bal-i Jibril, expresses the central idea of khudi, usually rendered as selfhood or the affirmed self, which Iqbal developed most fully in Asrar-i Khudi. Annemarie Schimmel, in Gabriel's Wing (1963), argues that khudi in Iqbal's usage is not egoism but a disciplined assertion of the human capacity to act within a divine order. Javid Iqbal, the poet's son and biographer, notes in Zinda Rud that his father regarded this assertion as the foundation of a renewed Muslim consciousness. Bashir Ahmad Dar's study of Iqbal's philosophy emphasises the reversal the couplet proposes, in which the human self is granted a dignity that prompts divine address. The image of God asking the believer for his will is striking, and it has been read as a rhetorical inversion of the conventional relationship of command and obedience. Schimmel cautions that such formulations should be understood within Iqbal's mystical vocabulary rather than as a doctrine of human sovereignty. The English rendering here is an approximation of the Urdu and should be checked against a critical edition before publication.