Title: Pakistani Adab kay Memaar – ‘Prof. Dr. Sh. Muhammad Iqbal: Shakhsiyat aur Fun’
Author: Shahid Bukhari
Pakistan Academy of Letters has launched a series of biographical publications on some leading architects of Pakistani literature with a view to highlighting their person and art to the benefit of the reading public.
The instant book relates to a unique multi-talented personality widely reputed for his extra-ordinary academic, literary, social, and philanthropic ventures despite loss of his vision in early childhood. His life story is a long-winding tale of trials and tribulations suffered by his family headed by his valorous father, a matriculate (Senior Vernacular) school teacher by profession with four (postnatally) blind children to breed and tend.
The book bears forewords by Dr. Yousuf Khushk, the dynamic chairman of the Pakistan Academy of Letters, and Shahid Bukhari (b. 1949), a well known Urdu writer and literary journalist, originally from Sargodha but presently settled in Lahore. In his detailed prefatory note he has given a comprehensive introduction of Dr. Sh. Muhammad Iqbal (b. 1945), the protagonist of the tale, highlighting the journey of his life from childhood to the present times.
He has also explained his connection with Dr. Iqbal’s family, his father being a contemporary of the latter’s and he himself having studied and taught at Govt. College Sargodha where Dr. Iqbal was also teaching. He regards Dr. Iqbal as a role model besides being his friend and guide. Shahid Bukhari laments our apathy in recognizing Dr. Iqbal in the same mode and manner as did the Americans to Ms. Helen Keller (1880-1968), and Egyptians to Dr. Taha Hussein (1889-1973), both acclaimed writers, intellectuals, and politico-literary activists, having gone blind postnatally.
The biographer of the piece has further elaborated that Dr. Iqbal wears a richly feathered cap: he is the first sightless holder of the degree of Masters in English in Pakistan; the first blind lecturer in English in the country; the first such scholar around with MPhil and PhD degrees (in Urdu); the first blind poet and prose writer in more than one language emerging on the national literary scene in the formative stage of his academic-cum-literary career.
Dr. Iqbal was instrumental in introducing and popularizing the game of cricket among the blind community while he was a student of the Emerson Institute for the Blind, Sheranwala Gate, Lahore in the late 1950s. The strain of the current foreword lies on the apathetic official non-recognition of Dr. Iqbal’s social, cultural, literary, intellectual and philanthropic feats in the context of his tragic disability which he has all along braved manfully against heavy odds. Both PAL and Shahid Bukhari deserve must be commended for ‘unearthing’ a true luminary to the reading public.
The catalogue of the book comprises ten chapters which encompass the protagonist’s life story, birth, parents, education, MPhil and PhD degrees, different phases of family and marital life, employment, literary achievements, Urdu, Punjabi, Persian and English poetry, prose writing, light essay (‘inshaiya’), short story writing, translation, interest in psychology, literary activities vis-à-vis ‘Bazm-e-Fikro Khayal’, interest in music, broadcasting, and journalism besides an index of articles, books, and journals containing the ones written on Dr. Iqbal himself, views and opinions of his critics, and a list of the awards and souvenirs earned by him, followed by a list of some 171 litterateurs whose biographies have been published by PAL in the ‘Pakistani Adab kay Memaar’ series.
Dr. Iqbal’s literary achievements include nine collections of poetry, seven in Urdu, one in English, and one in Punjabi. He has also composed a few poems in the Persian language. As an Urdu poet he excels in both ghazal and nazm. Life in its variety with all the concomitant sufferings and sorrows of human existence is the central focus of his poetry. He knows the art of versification in its variegated niceties.
The book also illustrates select critical opinion of literary personages like Dr. Wazir Agha, Dr. Anwar Sadeed, Dr. Khurshid Rizvi, Dr. Asi Karnali, Raees Amrohvi, Prof. Pareshan Khattak, Dr. Rafi-ud-Din Hashmi, Amjad Islam Amjad, Riaz Ahmad Shad, Roohi Kunjahi, Naseem Sehar, Dr. Khalid Iqbal, Dr. Fakhrul Haq Noori, Dr. Ehsan Akbar, Hafiz Ludhianvi, Islam Shah, Shagufta Nazli, Prof. Syed Arif Wasti, Ashfaq Naqvi, Prof. Azmatullah Khan, Dr. Ahmad Hassan, Durr-e-Najaf Zebi, Dr. Kh. Muhammad Zakariya, Maher Allah Yar Sipra, Prof. Ghulam Sarwar, Kh. Hamid Yazdani, Dr. Agha Yameen, Dr. Muhammad Akram Chaudhry, Dr. Tahir Taunsvi, Hussain Majrooh, Dr. Zia-ul-Hassan, Karamat Bukhari, Shakir Kundan, Anwar Masood, Dr. Inam-ul-Haq Javed, Dr. Najma Iqbal Malik, Talat Sohail, Shahida Dilawar Shah, Ghulam Jilani Asghar, Javed Qureshi, Fayyaz Tehsin, Syed Zameer Jafri, Nasir Zaidi et al, on Dr. Iqbal’s brilliant academic, literary, cultural and humanitarian work.
In view of the foregoing facts and figures, one wonders why a man of Dr. Iqbal’s academic, literary, and intellectual stature with a life-long struggle against a lethal disability, has not so far been considered for grant of a national award like Pride of Performance or Tamgha-i-Imtiaz by the State, in recognition of his singular talent, calibre, and creative multeity. PAL also deserves credit for launching and continuing with the instant series for the enlightenment of the reading public.
