Celebration Of Great Iqbal Day In Traditional Ways

Today 140th birth anniversary of great national poet Allama Iqbal is celebrated in traditional ways.  The day dawned with special prayers for the peace and prosperity of the country.

Iqbal day is organized and celebrated on 9 November every year in all the provinces as a tribute to Allama Muhammad Iqbal, the “Poet of the East”Iqbal was born on 9 November 1877 in Sialkot, within the Punjab Province of British India (now in Pakistan).  Iqbal is considered one of the great poets and philosophers around the globe, still so many of his books are part of education in a number of institutes.

Allama Iqbal was the one who envisioned the idea of a separate homeland as a result of which we have this country today called Pakistan. Iqbal Day is celebrated every year on the 9th of November. It is a public holiday where a large number of cultural, literary, and educational organizations conduct programs in order to remember him and his work. The day starts with a guard change ceremony.

( ONCE there was a school student who turned up late in his class.

“Why are you so late?” demanded his teacher.“Sir, Iqbal (prosperity/success) always comes late,” the student gave a confident, intelligent reply. )

Iqbal also stressed the need to improve one’s spiritual side. According to him, we all are material as well as spiritual beings, we cannot ignore nurturing our spiritual side because that would render us incomplete. Only by focusing on our spiritual side, while on our pursuit of material things, can we live a better and satisfying life. In addition, by improving one’s spiritual side, one also discovers secrets and new realities about his existence and the world.

Iqbal’s Urdu poetry books include Bang-e-Dara (Call Of The Marching Bell), Bal-e-Jibril (Wings Of Gabriel) and Zarb-e-Kaleem (Powerful Strike); and Persian ones include Asrar-e-Khudi (Secrets Of the Self), ‘Ramuz-e-baykhudi’ (Hints of Selflessness), ‘Payam-e-Mashriq’ (Message Of The East), ‘Zabur-e-Ajam’ (Persian Psalms), ‘Javed Nama’ (Book Of Javed), ‘Pas Chih Bayad Kard ay Aqwam-i-Sharq’ (What Are We To Do, O Nations Of The East?) and ‘Armaghan-e-Hijaz’ (Gift Of Hijaz). He also has literary works in English, such as books ‘The Development Of Metaphysics In Persia’ and ‘Reconstruction Of Religious Thoughts In Islam’.

Muhammad Iqbal Quotes

• The ultimate aim of the ego is not to see something, but to be something.
• The wing of the Falcon brings to the king, the wing if the crow brings him to the cemetery.
• Rise above sectional interests and private ambitions… Pass from matter to spirit. Matter is diversity; spirit is light, life and unity.
• The immediacy of mystic experience simply means that we know Allah just as we know other objects. Allah is not a mathematical entity or a system of concepts mutually related to one another and having no reference to experience.