مير سپاہ ناسزا ، لشکرياں شکستہ صف
English title: A recreant captain, a battle‐line thrown back
A recreant captain, a battle‐line thrown back, | The arrow hanging target‐less and slack!
Nowhere near you that shell which holds life’s pearl; | I have dragged the waves and searched the ocean’s track.
Plunge in your self, on idols dote no more, pour our no more heart’s blood for paint to deck their shrines.
Their shrines. I unveil the courts of Love and Death: | Death—life dishonoured; Love—death for honour’s sake.
I gleaned in Rumi’s company: one bold heart | Is worth of learned heads the whole tame pack;
Once more that voice from Sinai’s tree would cry | Fear not! if some new Moses led the attack.
No glitter of Western science could dazzle my eyes: The dust of Medina stains, like collyrium, black.
Sources and translator credits
- Original text transcription: Bal-e-Jibril — مير سپاہ ناسزا ، لشکرياں شکستہ صف — Digital transcription file at commit 39d44fc0c2b8ca25769c4b36e6eac4d90cb42b35; the source dataset does not identify the underlying print edition.Verified against this pinned digital transcription file; not checked against a print edition.Source
- Iqbal Demystified source list: Bal-e-Jibril — Pinned digital dataset commit 39d44fc0c2b8ca25769c4b36e6eac4d90cb42b35; the underlying print edition is not identified by the dataset.Community dataset list; not reconciled against a print edition.Source
- Bal-e-Jibril English translation at allama-iqbal.com — — Public digital poem page, retrieved 2026-10-06; pinned to allama-iqbal.com commit 82547635bb6b758c45082084b2f152fc453a8056.Translation by V.G. Kiernan; English Translation by: V.G. KiernanSource
- Poems from Iqbal — First edition, 1955Translation by V. G. Kiernan; Published English translations attributed to V. G. Kiernan; the 231 previously imported exact passages remain, with one additional independently reviewed final standalone line at PDF page 100. Each new locator names its exact passage scope.Source