خضرراہ

آبتائوں تجھ کو رمز آیہء 'ان الملوک'سلطنت اقوام غالب کی ہے اک جادوگری

English translation

Imperialism:
Come, I shall tell you the secret of the verse ‘Inn al-mulook’;* imperialism is an enchantment of the victorious nations.

(This alludes to The Holy Qur’an 27:34 in which the Queen of Saba (Shiba), on receiving the letter of Sulaiman A.S. inviting her to accept Islam, addressed her courtiers thus: ‘Kings, when they enter a country despoil it, and make the noblest of its people its meanest. Thus do they behave’. This verse is a clear condemnation of imperialism in Islam.)

Translated by Dr M.A.K. Khalil

Word meanings

قرآن کی سورہ نمل کی اس آیہ کی طرف اشارہ ہے جب بادشاہ کسی بستی میں داخل ہوتے ہی فساد برپا کر دیتے ہیں۔

About this couplet

This is couplet 38 of 85 in “⁨خضرراہ⁩” (The Traveler’s Guide) 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

۳۸ / ۸۵