Iqbal’s Ideal Human:The Star that Lights Two Worlds

 

 

 بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

اقبالِ لاهوری 

 » ارمغان حجاز »
بخش ۳۰۸ - سحرها در گریبان شب اوست

Iqbal  — Gift of the Hijaz
Section 308: “The dawns are tucked into the collar of his night”

 

Armaghān-e Ḥijāz is Iqbal’s last Persian work, compact and contemplative. In this brief four-line portrait, he sketches the mard-e ḥaqq—the God-oriented person—through tight images and antithesis: dawn tucked in night, two worlds lit by one star, and a smile at death. The voice is confident and spare; the theology is Qur’anic: serenity born of certainty (cf. nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah, Q 89:27-30).

 

 

سَحَرها دَر گِریبانِ شَبِ اوست

 

دُو گِیتی را فُروغ اَز کَوکَبِ اوست

Translation: 

The dawns are tucked into the collar of his night.
Both worlds take their radiance from his star.

Explanation: 

Iqbal compresses a paradox: the friend of God carries sahar inside shab—even his darkness shelters daybreak. Trials do not extinguish him; they incubate light. The second hemistich widens the frame from the person to both worlds (this life and the next): his “star”—faith-fast character—becomes guidance across horizons. The imagery blends ethics with cosmology: an inner lamp that steadies conduct here and orients hope hereafter.

 

نِشانِ مَردِ حَق دِگَر چه گویم؟

چُو مَرگ آید، تَبَسُّم بَر لَبِ اوست

Translation: 

What more can I say of the sign of the true man of God?
When death comes, a smile rests upon his lips.

Explanation: 

The rhetorical question heightens praise before the final proof: a calm smile at death. This is not bravado; it is riḍā (contentment) and yaqīn (certainty). For one whose heart bows only to the One, the last threshold is meeting, not loss—ḥusn al-khātimah (a beautiful closing). Iqbal’s measure of sanctity is practical: courage at the edge, cheer in surrender, and a life that has already made night carry its own dawn.