گورستان شاہی

موت ہر شاہ و گدا کے خواب کی تعبیر ہےاس ستم گر کا ستم انصاف کی تصویر ہے

English translation

Death is interpretation of the dream of the king and the poor alike; this atrocious one’s terror is the picture of justice.*
* Allusion to the Islamic teaching that death is not annihilation but a change in location and condition. The necessary corollary of the above is the resurrection when real justice will be done to all and all injustices of the worldly life will be redressed. Both these things are ephemeral.)

Translated by Dr M.A.K. Khalil

About this couplet

This is couplet 28 of 58 in “⁨گورستان شاہی⁩” (The Royal Cemetery) in the section Poems of Period - 1908-30, from Allama Muhammad Iqbal's Urdu book Bang-e-Dara (⁨بانگِ درا⁩), published in 1924.

Read it in the poem

۲۸ / ۵۸