When it comes to making bad allusions, nobody does it better than President Obama (reference to a previous post). In his widely televised speech in Cairo today, he illustrated the presence of Islam in the history of his country by mentioning that Morocco was the first to recognize the United States. It’s true, but more than a hundred year later the United States consented to the enslavement of this friend by European powers while “the oldest treaty of friendship” was still in tact. “The falcon of Morocco was trapped in the net of deception,” Iqbal commented (you can read the whole story in the second volume of my biography of Iqbal).I am reminded of ‘Black Saturday’. On Friday, 25 January 1952, British troops patrolling the Suez killed 46 Egyptian policemen. Riots broke out in Cairo the very next day, rendezvous of European elite were burnt down and 17 British people got killed.
Cambridge scholar A. J. Arberry (1905-69) could be just one of many who reacted. In the preface of his next book he lamented the burning of Cairo (but not the death of 46 native policemen) and suggested that the influence of Iqbal and Pakistan must be contained if Western superiority is to be maintained over the East.
Arberry suggested that Pakistani and Muslim intellectuals themselves could be enlisted for the task. He was right. Pakistani academia turned out to be so hungry for recognition that they swooned upon reading that preface: a Western scholar had mentioned their country and their national poet! Unanimously, they declared Arberry to be “Iqbal’s disciple” and invited him periodically to deliver lectures about Iqbal, Quran and Muslim civilization.
2 comments:
Obama's allusions are embarrassing and you are right to highlight these. Western illusions of superiority are continually coming home to roost. Remnants of pride may remain in war machinery (God forbid more!)- and some historical sense of democracy, fairness and rule of law. Trying to "contain" the moral and literary genius of other nations & peoples or to buy them with bombs has disastrous consequences to both the belittled & enslaved as well as the perpetrator.
Teach me about Al-Jihad bil Qualam( Jihad by Pen) -is this the right way to say this term?) as one form of Jihad. How have Iqbal and your other moral leaders used their pens? Now I need to learn Urdu.
Connie, thanks. We in Pakistan believe that our state was created through negotiation and by asserting the moral right of self-determination. I feel honored to see your interest in Urdu and would be glad to be of any help in that regards.
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