فقر

بر نیفتد ملتی اندر نبردتا درو باقیست یک درویش مرد

English translation

No nation suffers defeat in the battle of life as long as it has a single dervish.*
* Iqbal seems to think that nations rise and fall in relation to the treatment meted out by people to the men of God.

Translated by Bashir Ahmad Dar

Urdu translation

جب تک کسی قوم کے اندر ایک درویش باقی ہے؛ وہ جنگ میں کسی سے شکست نہیں کھاتی۔

About this couplet

This is couplet 15 of 72 in “⁨فقر⁩” (Asceticism), from Allama Muhammad Iqbal's Persian book Pas Chih Bayad Kard (⁨پس چہ بائد کرد اے اقوامِ شرق⁩), published in 1936.

Read it in the poem

۱۵ / ۷۲