Virtue and Vice

A Mullah (I tell you his tale not a bit With any ambition of airing my wit)

By ascetic deportment had won high repute, In his praise neither gentle nor simple were mute.

God’s will, he would say, just as meaning is latent In words, through pure doctrine alone becomes patent.

His heart a full bowl: wine of piety worked there, Though some dregs of conceit of omniscience lurked there

He was wont to recount his own miracles, knowing How this kept his tally of followers growing

He had long been residing not far from my street, So sinner and saint were accustomed to meet

‘This Iqbal,’ he once asked an acquaintance of mine, ‘Is dove of the tree in the literary line,

but how do religion’s stern monishments seem To agree with this man who at verse beats Kalim?

He thinks a Hindu not a heathen, I’m told, A most casuistical notion to hold

And some taints of the Shias’ heresy sully His mind—I have heard him extolling their Ali

He finds room in our worship for music— which must Be intended to level true faith with the dust!

As with poets so often, no scruple of duty Deters him from meeting the vendors-of-beauty;

In the morning, devotions—at evening, the fiddle I have never been able to fathom this riddle.

Yet dawn, my disciples assure me, is not More unsoiled than that youth is by blemish or spot

No Iqbal, but a heterogeneous creature, His mind crammed with learning, with impulse his nature

In divinity, doubtless, as deep as Mansur;

What the fellow is really, I cannot make out— Is it founding some brand-new Islam he’s about?’

Thus the great man protracted his chatter, and in short made a very long tale of the matter.

In our town, all the world hears of every transaction: I soon got reports from my own little faction

And when I fell in with His Worship one day In our talk the same topic came up by the way.

If,’ said he, ‘I found fault, pure good-will was the cause, And my duty to point out religion’s strict laws.’

‘Not at all,’ I responded, ‘I make no complaint, As a neighbour of mine you need feel no constraint

In your presence I am, as my bent head declares, Metamorphosed at once from gay youth to grey hairs

And if my true nature eludes your analysis, Your claim to omniscience need fear no paralysis;

For me also my nature remains still enravelled, The sea of my thoughts is too deep and untravelled

I too long to know the Iqbal of reality, And often shed tears at this wall of duality.

To Iqbal of Iqbal little knowledge is given; I say this not jesting—not jesting, by God