The Secrets of the Self (Asrar-i Khudi)

The Secrets of the Self (Asrar-i Khudi)
By Muhammad Iqbal (trans. Reynold A. Nicholson)

The Secrets of the Self is the first major philosophical poem of Muhammad Iqbal, the poet-philosopher who became the intellectual father of Pakistan. Composed in Persian in 1915, it lays out Iqbal's central concept of khudi (selfhood) — a call for the individual and the Muslim community to develop strength, will, and creative selfhood rather than the passive self-negation he associated with certain strands of Sufi quietism.

This edition is the landmark 1920 English translation by Reynold A. Nicholson, the Cambridge orientalist whose rendering introduced Iqbal's thought to Western readers and remains the standard English version of the poem. Nicholson's extensive introduction and notes situate the work within Islamic philosophy and the intellectual currents of early 20th-century India.

A public-domain work, offered as a free digital edition by Nile Book Store.

Excerpt

When the world-illuming sun rushed upon Night like a brigand,
My weeping bedewed the face of the rose.
My tears washed away sleep from the eye of the narcissus,
My passion wakened the grass and made it grow.
The Gardener taught me to sing with power,
He sowed a verse and reaped a sword.
In the soil he planted only the seed of my tears
And wove my lament with the garden, as warp and woof.
Tho' I am but a mote, the radiant sun is mine:
Within my bosom are a hundred dawns.