Iqbal Project

The Iqbal Project is my tribute to the single most important Muslim thinker of the past century. It will be a collection of Iqbal’s poetry from his Urdu and Persian texts translated into English from the following books.

• Bang-e-Dra (Call of the Marching Bell)
• Bal-e-Jibreel (Wings of Gabriel)
• Zarb e- Ajam (Persian Psalms)

At present there is no such collection of Iqbal available in the West, and where a rare translation of one of his books can be found, it often fails in capturing the imagination of the reader. God willing, my approach will be to deliver a version of Iqbal that comes as close as possible to the original message, as Iqbal writes in Secrets of the Self:

“arise and pour wine into my cup, pour moonbeams into the dark night of my thought that I might lead home the wanderer and imbue the idle looker on with restless impatience: and advance hotly on a new quest”.

A writer, poet and philosopher of Iqbal’s brilliance deserves a mass audience, especially in a world that is increasingly idle in its outlook. At the start of the 20^th century Iqbal shook the entire Muslim world from India, Iran, Turkey to North Africa with his message, there appears to be no good reason why a hundred years later similar reverberations cannot be felt. A small amount of support from you will allow me to dedicate a lot more of my time into this project, including research and reading of a wide body of his work that already exists in English, allowing me to consolidate, correct and produce a volume that can finally fill a much needed thirst of Iqbal.

Update (March 2021): 100% of the Translation work has been now been completed, with proofreading and review now underway. InshAllah pre-orders will be open at the start of April 2021.