نماز
بدل کے بھیس پھر آتے ہیں ہر زمانے میںاگرچہ پیر ہیں آدم، جواں ہیں لات و مناتیہ ایک سجدہ جسے تو گراں سمجھتا ہےہزار سجدے سے دیتا ہے آدمی کو نجات!
English translation
In different garbs and various masks the idols re-appear in every age: They e'er retain their youth and gloss though man has grown old on this stage.
Prostration 'fore God you presume as irksome, tedious, burden great but mind, this homage sets you free from bonds of men, of might who prate.
Translated by Syed Akbar Ali Shah
About this couplet
This is couplet 1 of 1 in “نماز” (Prayer (Namaz)) in the section Islam and Muslim, from Allama Muhammad Iqbal's Urdu book Zarb-e-Kalim (ضربِ کلیم), published in 1936.
Read it in the poem۱ / ۱