زندگی انساں کی اک دم کے سوا کچھ بھی نہیں
زائران کعبہ سے اقبال یہ پوچھے کوئیکیا حرم کا تحفہ زمزم کے سوا کچھ بھی نہیں!
English translation
Somebody should ask the pilgrims of Ka'bah, O Iqbal: Is the gift of the Haram nothing more than Zamzam?
(This verse is sarcastic and carries the lesson that the real gift of the Haram is that the pilgrim should return from there after sacrificing his arrogance, greed and jealousy, after stoning the Satan in his own self and after controlling the evil in himself by circumambulation.)
Translated by Dr M.A.K. Khalil
About this couplet
This is couplet 4 of 4 in “زندگی انساں کی اک دم کے سوا کچھ بھی نہیں” (Zindagi insaan ki ek dam ke siwa kuch bhi nahin) in the section The Ghazals 2, from Allama Muhammad Iqbal's Urdu book Bang-e-Dara (بانگِ درا), published in 1924.
Read it in the poem۴ / ۴