We are quite peculiar beings. I was about to say unfortunate, but the truth is that I want to say just that. Something inside me stops me from going too far. Our behaviours, our attitudes, our lifestyles, our desires—everything is strange, even our dreams. We are a bundle of contradictions. We ignore what is important and prioritize what is secondary. I am a person of desires, but I should have been a person of God. A person of God loves His moving, living, laughing, and singing creations. But wait! Not conditional love—just pure love, with sincerity, without any expectation. Just giving, taking nothing in return, with open arms and an open heart, without any narrow-mindedness. Greed and avarice should not even touch it… just pure love. My Lord loves those who love His creation. How strange is it that I love someone but ignore His creation!
I still remember that time… At Hasan Mutahar’s place in Makkah, we had just returned from Umrah and were preparing for Madinah. A large drawing room and an old man with white hair… and his smile at the debate of some friends. I have seen many angels in human form; he is one of them, full of patience and endurance… and I have not even been touched by either.
When it took too long, he said to me, “You have understood, haven’t you? They are just debating!” I laughed a lot and said, “No Baba Ji, I have understood a bit, but not completely.” “Oh, my son! When even someone’s bad habits seem good to you, when you feel love even for their anger, when you feel ecstatic hearing their scolding, when you want to hear their reprimands and even do something to be scolded, when ‘you’ cease to exist and ‘they’ settle within you, when ‘ego’ not only dies but annihilates, when they reject you and you come closer… when they penetrate every vein, every artery, every drop of your blood, then understand, yes! This is love. If not, then it’s all futile, all a waste of time.”
Yes, I had understood. No one can deny experience. It is exactly like that. It feels strange to me. We all seek Allah’s love and yet disdain His creation. I don’t know what this is. I want to confine it when love is freedom. He is the Lord of the whole world, the Lord of the entire universe, and I consider Him only the Lord of Muslims. He is infinite, and I want to confine Him within my bottle. I divide His people into categories, while He gives to everyone, and I withhold from everyone. He is vast, and I am narrow-minded. I don’t leave the accounting of people to Him and become the enforcer myself. Instead of spreading love, I sow the seeds of hatred. Who am I to come between Him and His creation? I attack humans with sticks and guns. He forbids coercion, and I want to impose my will through force. I don’t listen to Him at all and claim to be His vicegerent. My desires have ruined me; I have become a torment for His creation and demand from the Lord to look at me with love! I am oppressive myself and ask for His mercy! I am not ready to forgive anyone and always ask Him to forgive me! I eat to my fill and remain oblivious to the dust-laden people around me!
I am strange; I have usurped the rights that my Lord has given to everyone. I enforce my will not with love but with bullying, coercion, and threats. I am so oppressive that when my family members, whom I have raised with so much effort—lying and telling the truth, toiling without regard for right or wrong—when they demand their rights that my Lord has granted them, I take up a stick and attack them. At that moment, I do not remember my Lord. I am very cruel; I have taken away the rights that the Lord has given and still claim to love my Lord!
Every person has a special relationship with the Lord, and no device has been invented to tell me how close someone is to the Lord… whether it is the person holding prayer beads or the one laying asphalt on the road, the one riding in a car or the one walking barefoot. Yes, even the one sitting in an airplane could be close to Him. What business do I have interfering between the Lord and His creation? Why don’t I look at myself and see what my relationship with the Lord is! If I pray, I look down on those who don’t. If I fast, I consider myself superior to others. How do I know what someone else’s circumstances are? That person and their Lord know… I have to mind my own business. I do not do what I should and keep doing what I shouldn’t.
When will I stop making false promises of love to my Lord! Hating His creation and claiming to love the Lord. I don’t understand it; if you do, please explain it to me.
Whenever Mian Shahbaz Sharif appears in front of cameras and microphones, he still speaks with great compassion about the sufferings of the poor due to inflation, forgetting that as Prime Minister, it is under his orders that taxes were increased in the budget, leading to a storm of inflation that has made people scream. Under his orders, electricity and gas rates were increased so much that the nation is on the brink of starvation. On the other hand, under his orders, our elected members of parliament will now receive 30 free air tickets annually instead of 20, costing the public an additional twelve and a half thousand rupees in taxes every year.
These are the same people who swore to alleviate the public’s hardships before getting votes.
On one hand, life has been made difficult for the public, while on the other, the budget for the protocol vehicles of President Asif Ali Zardari has been increased fourfold to 44 billion rupees. The nation is in despair as these elites had announced they would work without salary as a favor to the nation, yet the budget for the decoration of the Presidential Palace’s garden has been doubled to 60 million rupees. Alone, President Zardari has 85 staff members in the Presidential Palace, and meals are prepared daily for over 200 people. It is even said that during his last presidency, when he suddenly craved okra while in France, a special plane was dispatched to fulfill this desire due to the unavailability of okra in France. However, the nation is told that the budget is made according to IMF’s dictates, but does the IMF not see these luxuries? Why is the nation not told that the power plants set up by IPPs are owned by how many current elites? The nation is suffering, while the extravagance of these two families and the elite is increasing daily, foreshadowing the country’s doom.
The burden of foreign loans has increased so much that even to pay their interest, we have to resort to the curse of taking more loans. The Prime Minister tells the nation that if we do not free ourselves from the IMF now, it will be a matter of great shame. Do you know what the feeling of shame is? All these loans were taken by you, with no relation to the public. The time is soon coming when all the looted money in Western banks will be seized to repay these national debts!
May you all live prosperously, happily, and joyfully… everyone has to leave this world; no one will stay forever. Only the name of my Lord will remain. I am not saying this, Baba Iqbal is!
عجب واعظ کی دیں داری ہے یا رب
عداوت ہے اسے سارے جہاں سے
کوئی اب تک نہ یہ سمجھاکہ انساں
کہاں جاتا ہے ، آتا ہے کہاں سے
وہیں سے رات کو ظلمت ملی ہے
چمک تارے نے پائی ہے جہاں سے
ہم اپنی درد مندی کا فسانہ
سنا کرتے ہيں اپنے رازداں سے
بڑي باريک ہيں واعظ کي چاليں
لرز جاتا ہے آواز اذاں سے
Baba Iqbal’s Poetry:
O Lord, what piety is this of the preacher
That he has enmity with the entire world?
No one has understood yet where man comes from
Where does it go, where does it come from?
From the same place, night has received its darkness
Where did the star shine?
We narrate the tale of our pain
They listen to their secrets
The preacher’s tricks are very subtle,
His voice trembles at the sound of the call to prayer
