‘Ilm-e Ashyaa’ Kee JahaaNgeeree

Used to keep Kulliyaat-e-Iqbal with me always. Somehow don’t have it now. My only food for thought is the couplets shared by the respected members of our Forums. I am thankful to Dr M K Sherwani Saheb who quoted the following:

vilaayat, paadshaahee, ‘ilm-e-ashyaa kee jahaaNgeeree

yeh sub keyaa heiN? faqat ik nuktaey eemaaN kee tafseereiN

and made me think of the following:

If we keep the sequencial order of this she‘r in view the highest thing that one deciphers from it is: ‘ilm-e ashyaa’ kee jahaaNgeeree (the rulership of the knowledge of things) – beyond both vilaayat and paadshaahee. Now the question arises what is ‘Ilm-e Ashyaa’? It is the sole qualification of Adam (a.s.) for carrying out the writ of Allah on earth – put simply. It refers to a specific verse in Qur’an (al-Baqarah, 2: 31) which explains how Adam (a.s.) was given the ‘knowledge of things’ and he was able to ‘name them’. Naming the things, Iqbal explains, is in fact the ability of VISUALIZING them. Being able to visualize something implies the capability to CONTROL those things for our own purposes. ‘Knowledge is power’, therefore, isn’t a Western concept. It is borrowed from somewhere else. This is why the Book will adorn the Right Hand.