O Himalayas! O Attock! O Ganges! How long shall we go on living sordidly like this?

The old lack insight, the young are devoid of love.

East and West are free, but we are slaves of others; our bricks go to the building of others’ mansions.

To live according to the wish of others; is not deep slumber; it is eternal death.

This is not a death that comes from the sky; its seed grows out of the depths of one’s soul. (‘Death from the sky’ means natural death. ‘Death from the depth of the heart’ means spiritual death as a result of wrong ideological affiliations.)

Its prey waits neither for the undertaker nor for the grave, nor for friends from far and near.

No clothes are torn in grief over his death, his hell is not on the other side of the skies.

Do not seek him among the crowd on the Day of Judgment, his tomorrow lies in his today. (These verses describe the state of spiritual death and therefore the ceremonies usually performed on the natural death of a person are not performed on this occasion. Iqbal describes in Zabur-i ‘Ajam this kind of death: ‘This is a more subtle inner death which makes me tremble! Cutting one’s shroud with one’s own hands; seeing one’s death with one’s own eyes. This death lies in ambush for thee; fear it, for that is really our death’.)

What use is there to produce before God one; who has both sown the seed and reaped the fruit in this world? (The idea that those who work for gain in this life only will be given their reward here, is based on the following verse of the Qur’an, xvii. 18: ‘Whoso desires this transitory life, We hasten to him therein what we please…’ After death, he will be deprived of the opportunity to experience Beatific Vision.)

A nation that does not relish the prodding of desire is wiped off the face of the earth by Nature.

It is through magic that the crown and the throne acquire authority; what is frail as glass becomes through magic bard as stone.

Under the influence of this clear enchantment; Muslims abjured their faith and unbelievers, their unbelief,

The Indians quarrel with one another, having revived their old differences.

Until a Frankish nation from the land of the West; assumed the role of a mediator between Islam and kufr.

Nobody knows water from mirage. Revolution, O revolution, O revolution!

O you who are always anxious for material sustenance, ask of God a living heart.

Although its seat is in water and clay, yet the nine heavens are under its authority.

Do not think it belongs to the earth; it really comes from the highest heavens.

The world is for it the Friend’s abode and gets the Friend’s smell from the tulip’s tunic.

It is constantly at war with the world, the stones on the path are broken to pieces by its strokes.

It is familiar with the pulpit and the gibbet, and keeps a strict watch over its own fire.

It is only a streamlet but has oceans in its lap; its ripples bring tidings of storms.

It is not by bread that it lives; it dies as soon as it loses its vision of the Truth.

It is like a lamp in the dark chamber of the body: it illumines both multitude and solitude.

Such a heart, ever watchful of itself and God-intoxicated, is not achieved except through Faqr.

O young man, catch hold of its skirt firmly; you have been born in slavery, now live free.