The Government of Jack Boots

                                  The Government of Jack Boots
 If the dacoit had not had
The village guard as his ally
Our feet would not be in chains
Our victory would not defeat imply
Mourn with turbans round your necks
Crawling on your bellies, comply
Once the jack boot government is up
It’s hard, to make it bid good-bye


By Habib Jalib 


(Written during Yahya Khan’s dictatorship
Translated from the Urdu and Punjabi by fowpe sharma.
Transliterated from the Urdu by Hasan Abdullah.
Prepared for publication by Amar Farooqui)

On Iqbal Centenary

                                                             On Iqbal Centenary 


When we arise to wake the poor, the have nots
A beeline to the police station they make, these wealthy sots
They say that God this wealth to them allots
Oh these trite excuses, oh these dusty plots
Night and day the working men’s blood they suck, o poet of the East
These congenital liars, with the vileness of a beast



Habib Jalib

To Rakhshinda Zoya:

                   To Rakhshinda Zoya
(13 April 1981, during a jail visit)
She cannot say it, but then
My little one manages to say
Father, come home
Father, come home
She cannot comprehend
Why, in prison, I continue to stay
And not return with her, hand in hand
How should I explain to her
That home, too, is like a prison 


By Habib Jalib

God Is Ours:

God Is Ours

God is not yours, to Him we have access
He does not look kindly on those who oppress 
How long, you men of pelf, will you bleed us white
Get off our backs, you who in filthy lucre take delight
You satans it is dust that you will soon bite
We believe that He treats mankind with loving tenderness
He does not look kindly on those who oppress 
Light of new wisdom we are going to see
A fire flares up, seeing our agony
In this new magical dawn will burst forth the blossoming tree
He brings hopes to those who are mired in distress
God is not yours, to Him we have access
He does not look kindly on those who oppress
We’ll break the shadowy spell of fear and dread
Onwards we will march, chains of despair we will shred
We’ll not betray the hopes of the people, our dear kindred
And long we will remember this time of duress
He does not look kindly on those who oppress


By Habib Jalib

The Garden Is A Bloody Mess 

This poem is about the oppression in East Pakistan in 1971
Our eyes yearn for greenery
The garden is a bloody mess
For whom should I sing my songs of love
The cities are all a wilderness
The garden is a bloody mess
The rays of the sun, they sting
Moonbeams are a killing field, no less
Deep shadows of death hover at every step
Life wears a skull and bone dress
All around the air is on prowl
With bows and arrows, in full harness
The garden is a bloody mess 
The battered buds are like a sieve
The leaves drenched in blood smears
Who knows, for how long
We’ll have this rain of tears
People how long do we have to bear
These days and nights of sorrow and distress
This oppressor’s blood bath is a frolicsome play
For the mighty of the world, a mark of their prowess
The garden is a bloody mess

By Habib Jalib

The Mother:

The Mother

The children were shot dead
The mother, in fury, said
These pieces of my heart
Should cry and I stand apart
Looking on from afar
This I cannot do
I should look on from afar
As the tyrants, night and day
With the blood of my children Holi* play
Besmirched in red
As the children were shot dead
The mother, in fury, said
These pieces of my heart
Should cry and I stand apart
Looking on from afar
This, I cannot do 
* Spring festival played with coloured water
She walked came down to the ground
Like lightening flashing around
The tyrant’s hand trembled
Full of fear the gun frowned
Everywhere her echo did resound
I am hereby bound, I am coming for this round
I am hereby bound, I am coming for this round 
Then oppression became evil
Panic-stricken were those who kill
When she thundered
As our children were murdered
She said, you vampires
Gold is the be all of your desires
This land belongs to us all
This land, you Dunces Esquires
Lackeys, still, to your British Sires
The sahib’s beneficence
Has not made you landlords: squires
Desist from this tyranny
Back to your barracks, flee
You, who rove ahead
With a gang of plunderers you have bred
As our children were shot dead '








By habib Jalib

Hindustan belongs to me and Pakistan belongs to me:

Hindustan belongs to me and Pakistan belongs to me
Both of these, however, are under American hegemony
American aid gave us wheat, as also their deceit
Do not ask me how long we’ve suffered their conceit
And yet the bayonets are all around this flowering valley
Hindustan belongs to me and Pakistan belongs to me
Khan Bahadur, do not follow the English, from them better keep away
Once again they are holding you by the collar, you are still their prey
Macmillan was never thine, Kennedy can never be
Hindustan belongs to me and Pakistan belongs to me
This land in fact, my dear, belongs to peasants and workers
Here will not run the writ of a few clannish marauders
The dawn of freedom is heralding the end of tyranny
Hindustan belongs to me and Pakistan belongs to me.



By Habib Jalib

Maulana:

Maulana

Too long I have heard you preach and prate, Maulana
But so far there has been no change in my fate, Maulana
Keep to yourself your preachings of gratefulness
My heart, like an arrow, they penetrate, Maulana
The truth, only you know or God knows
They say that Jimmy Carter is your pir* incarnate, Maulana
The land to the landlords, the machine to the despoilers
This, according to you, is God’s dictate, Maulana
Why don’t millions fight for Palestine
Prayers alone cannot from chains liberate, Maulana
* Sufi saint

By Habib Jalib

Islam Is Not In Danger:

Islam Is Not In Danger

Endangered are the idle rich, bursting with cash
Crumbling walls about to crash
All the centuries’ mish-mash
Islam is not in danger
Why do a few clans all the land rights enjoy
And those, who revere the Prophet, are bereft of joy
Endangered are the beasts of prey
Multicoloured cars which in the streets sashay
And for whom the American hearts sway
Islam is not in danger
Due to our slogans the palaces shake and tremble
The towering ornate shops cannot our hopes quell
Endangered are the robbers of the highway
Western traders who make hay
Thieves and tricksters who waylay
Islam is not in danger
Holding aloft the banner of peace, loving all humans, we are on the go
Loving all the world, O Jalib, is our proud credo
Endangered are the palatial predators
The kings and their abettors
Nawabs and other such traitors
Islam is not in danger.


by Habib Jalib

What Does Pakistan Mean?

Bread, clothes and medicine
A little house to live in
Free education, as may right be seen
A Muslim, I, too, have always been
What does Pakistan mean
There is no God, but God, The Rab-al-alameen
For American alms do not bray
Do not, the people, laugh away
With the democratic struggle do not play
Hold on to freedom, do not cave in
What does Pakistan mean
There is no God...
Confiscate the fields from the landowners
Take away the mills from the robbers
Redeem the country from its dark hours
Off with the lordly vermin
What does Pakistan mean
There is no God...
Sind, Baluchistan and Frontier
These three are to Panjab most dear
And Bengal lends them splendour
Anguished should not be their mien
What does Pakistan mean
There is no God...
This, then, is the basic thing
For the people, let freedom’s bell ring
From the rope, let the plunderer swing
Truly they speak, who the truth have seen
What does Pakistan mean
There is no God, but Allah...


By Habib Jalib

IQBAL's sayings:

But to rationalize faith is not to admit the superiority of philosophy over religion.

Iqbal's sayings:

But to rationalize faith is not to admit the superiority of philosophy over religion.

Iqbal's Sayings:

Why should I ask the wise men: Whence is my beginning? I am busy with the thought: Where will be my end?.

Allama Iqbal:

People who have no hold over their process of thinking are likely to be ruined by liberty of thought. If thought is immature, liberty of thought becomes a method of converting men into animals.

Iqbal's Quotations:

“"I am but as the spark that gleams for a moment,
His burning candle consumed me - the moth;
His wine overwhelmed my goblet,
The master of Rum transmuted my earth to gold
And set my ashes aflame”

Iqbal's sayings:

“"Since love first made the breast an instrument
Of fierce lamenting, by its flame my heart
Was molten to a mirror, like a rose
I pluck my breast apart, that I may hang
This mirror in your sight
Gaze you therein."”

Iqbal:

“What avails love when life is so ephemeral?
What avaiIs a mortal’s love for the immortal?

Love that is snuffed out by death’s passing blast
Love without the pain, the passion that consumes?

A flickering spark I am, aglow for a fleeting glance
Flow vain for a flickering spark to chase an eternal flame!

Grant me the bliss of eternal life, O Lord,
And mine will be the ecstasy of eternal love.

Give me the pleasure of an everlasting pain
An agony that lacerates my soul for ever.”

Sayings of Iqbal:

“Arise, and soar with the sun’s new-born rays, To breathe new life into dying nights and days.”

Faiz Ahmed Faiz:

yeh kaun sakhi haiN
jin ke lahu ki
ashrafiaaN, chhan chhan, chhan chhan,
dharti ke peham piyaase
...kashkol meiN Dhalti jaati haiN
kashkol ko bharti haiN
yeh kaun jawaaN haiN arz-e-ajam
yeh lakh~luT
jin ke jismoN ki
bharpoor javaani ka kundan
yuN khaak meiN reza reza hai
yuN koocha koocha bikhra hai
ai arz-e-ajam, ai arz-e-ajam!
kiyuN noche ke haNs haNs phaiNk diye
in aaNkhoN ne apne neelam
in hoNtoN ne apne marjaaN
in haatoN ki "be~kal chaandi
kis kaam aaii, kis haath lagi?"

"ai poochne waale pardesi!
yeh tifl-o-javaaN
us noor ke nauras moti haiN
us aag ki kachchhee kaliaaN haiN
jis meeThe noor aur kaRwi aag
se zulm ki andhi raat meiN phooTa
subh-e-baghaavat ka gulshan
aur subh hui man man, tan tan,
in jismoN ka chaandi sona
in chehroN ke neelam, marjaaN,
jag~mag jag~mag, rukhshaaN rukhshaaN
jo dekhna chaahe pardesi
paas aaye dekhe jee bhar kar
yeh zeest ki raani ka jhoomar
yeh amn ki devi ka kaNgan!"

Faiz Ahmad Faiz

ALLAMA IQBAL:

Roz-e-Hasher main be-khauf ghuss jaunga Jannat mein..!!

Wahi se aaye thy AADAM wo mere baap ka ghar hai..

ALLAMA MUHAMMAD IQBAL.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz:

Faiz Un Ko Hai Takaza-e-Wafa Hum Se Jinhen,
Ashiyane K Nam Se Pyara Hai Beganay Ka Nam!

 

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

محاورہ ما بین از خدا و انساں

محاورہ ما بین از خدا و انساں

(خدا)

جہاں را ز یک آب و گِل آفریدم
...
تُو ایران و تاتار و زنگ آفریدی

من از خاک فولادِ ناب آفریدم

تُو شمشیر و تِیر و تفنگ آفریدی

تبر آفریدی نہالِ چمن را

قفس ساختی طائرِ نغمہ زن را

(انسان)

تُو شب آفریدی ،چراغ آفریدم

سفال آفریدی، ایاغ آفریدم

بیابان و کہسار و راغ آفریدی

خیابان و گلزار و باغ آفریدم

من آنم کہ از سنگ آئینہ سازم

من آنم کہ از زہر نوشینہ سازم

( ڈاکٹر علامہ محمد اقبالؒ)

اردو ترجمہ:

(خدا انسان سے گلہ کرتے ہوئے کہتا ہے کہ اے انسان!)

میں نے تو (ساری ) دنیا کو ایک ہی طرح کے پانی اور مٹی سے پیدا کیا تھا(مگر) تو نے اِسے ایران، تاتار اور حبشہ میں تقسیم کر دیا۔ میں نے زمین سے خالص فولاد پیدا کیا تھا (مگر) تو نے اس سے تلوار، تِیر اور بندوق (جیسے مہلک ہتھیار) بنا لئے۔ تُو نے باغ کے پودوں کو کاٹنے کے لئے کلہاڑا بنایا اور گیت گانے والے پرندوں کے لئے پنجرہ بنا لیا۔

(اللہ تعالیٰ کی بات کے جواب میں انسان خدا سے کہتا ہے کہ اے خدا!)

تُو نے رات بنائی تو میں نے (اُس رات کو روشن کرنے کے لئے) چراغ بنا لیا، تُو نے مٹی پیدا کی میں نے اس مٹی سے پیالہ بنا لیا۔ تُو نے بیاباں، پہاڑ اور جنگل پیدا کیے تو میں نے پھولوں کی کیاریاں، چمن اور باغ بنائے۔ میں وہ ہوں جو پتھر سے آئینہ بناتا ہے، میں وہ ہوں جو زہر سے دوائے شفا بناتا ہے

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Sayings of IQBAL:

“I have seen the movement of the sinews of the sky,
And the blood coursing in the veins of the moon.”
ALLAMA IQBAL!

Sayings of Iqbal:

“But only a brief moment
is granted to the brave
one breath or two, whose wage is
The long nights of the grave.”

...
Allama Iqbal

Iqbal's Museum:

ہزار خوف ہو ليکن زباں ہو دل کي رفيق

ہزار خوف ہو ليکن زباں ہو دل کي رفيق
يہي رہا ہے ازل سے قلندروں کا طريق
...ہجوم کيوں ہے زيادہ شراب خانے ميں
فقط يہ بات کہ پير مغاں ہے مرد خليق
علاج ضعف يقيں ان سے ہو نہيں سکتا
غريب اگرچہ ہيں رازي کے نکتہ ہائے دقيق
مريد سادہ تو رو رو کے ہو گيا تائب
خدا کرے کہ ملے شيخ کو بھي يہ توفيق
اسي طلسم کہن ميں اسير ہے آدم
بغل ميں اس کي ہيں اب تک بتان عہد عتيق
مرے ليے تو ہے اقرار باللساں بھي بہت
ہزار شکر کہ ملا ہيں صاحب تصديق
اگر ہو عشق تو ہے کفر بھي مسلماني
نہ ہو تو مرد مسلماں بھي کافر و زنديق

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