Muhammad Iqbal, Bang-e Dara [The Caravan’s Bell]

Javed Majeed (King's College London)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 10.3.2: Pakistani and Bangladeshi Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Claire Gallien (Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3), Pavan Kumar Malreddy (J W Goethe University of Frankfurt), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège), Muneeza Shamsie (Independent Scholar - Asia), Niaz Zaman (Independent University Bangladesh)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1924

Places

Pakistan (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

Bang-e Dara (The Caravan’s Bell, 1924) is a collection of Muhammad Iqbal’s Urdu poems. It contains some influential and popular pieces. These include “Shikva” (“Complaint”) and “Javab-e Shikva” (“Answer to the Complaint”). In the former, which consists of 93 rhyming couplets and which the poet recited at a literary meeting in Lahore in 1911 (Matthew 1993, p. 154), the poet upbraids God for his abandonment of Muslims, whose decline in the world is seen as a sign of His neglect. The poem is a consummate expression of the aesthetics of Islamic decline, invoking the geopolitical image of a once globally powerful Islamic world, now fallen into desuetude. In the “Answer” to the poet’s lament, consisting …

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706 words

Citation: Majeed, Javed. "Bang-e Dara". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 July 2010 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=30673, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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