Author in Qalma
Muhammad Iqbal
1877–1938
Biography
Muhammad Iqbal was born in Sialkot, in what is now Pakistan, and studied in Lahore, Cambridge, and Munich. He wrote poetry in both Urdu and Persian, read across the Muslim world from Istanbul to Jakarta. His central preoccupation was the self: what it means to cultivate one, how communities lose their way by giving it up, and what it takes to reclaim it. He called this inner force khudi, roughly selfhood. His long poems carry lyric energy into a modern confrontation with colonialism and spiritual fatigue. In Pakistan today he is known as the national poet.
Why Muhammad Iqbal belongs in Qalma
Iqbal belongs in Qalma because his lifelong subject was the self that refuses to live small. A daily page is a modest, concrete way to practice exactly that.
“You are an eagle and flight is your purpose. Before you lie skies yet unknown.”
Muhammad Iqbal · Bal-e-Jibril · 1935
A reflection
Iqbal returned again and again to the eagle, a bird that never circles low or settles for an easy perch. It stands for a person who has woken up to their own potential and refuses a small life out of habit or fear. Think about the part of your day that feels like a cage, and pick one thing today to treat as the unknown sky in front of you. You do not need a plan for the whole flight. You just need to leave the ledge.
Source: Bal-e-Jibril (Gabriel's Wing), 1935.
Muhammad Iqbal is one of the voices behind Qalma's daily reflection app. Explore the daily reflection app, or return to the home page.
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