Knowledge Crowned by Character

        بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

وَٱلْعِلْمُ إِنْ لَمْ تَكْتَنِفْهُ شَمَائِلٌ

تُعْلِيهِ كَانَ مَطِيَّةَ ٱلْإِخْفَاقِ

لَا تَحْسَبَنَّ ٱلْعِلْمَ يَنْفَعُ وَحْدَهُ

مَا لَمْ يُتَوَّجْ رَبُّهُ بِخَلَاقِ

Meaning: 

If knowledge is not surrounded by noble traits

that elevate it, it becomes a mount toward failure.

Do not imagine that knowledge benefits by itself

unless its bearer is crowned with character.

Language:

Arabic

Transliteration:

Wa-l-ʿilmu in lam taktanif-hu shamāʾilun

Tuʿlīhi kāna maṭiyyata l-ikhfāqi

Lā taḥsabanna l-ʿilma yanfaʿu waḥdahū

Mā lam yutawwaj rabbuhū bi-khalāqi

Origins:

These lines are from Hāfiẓ Ibrāhīm’s poem تَرْبِيَةُ ٱلْبَنَاتِ — “The Education of Girls” — printed in al-Muqtabas, issue 47, dated January 1, 1910. The text names the author as حافظ أفندي إبراهيم and gives these couplets after lines contrasting wealth, learning, and noble character.

The poem is also widely circulated under titles such as ٱلْعِلْمُ وَٱلْأَخْلَاقُ — “Knowledge and Character.” Hāfiẓ Ibrāhīm himself was an Egyptian poet known as شَاعِرُ ٱلنِّيلِ — “the Poet of the Nile.”

Brief Explanation:

This is one of the clearest lines for anyone entrusted with education.

Hāfiẓ Ibrāhīm does not attack knowledge. He honors it enough to say that it must be protected. Knowledge is not safe merely because it is knowledge. It needs شَمَائِل — noble traits, beautiful qualities, habits of character that stand around it and raise it.

That image matters.

Knowledge alone can sharpen the mind while leaving the soul unformed. It can make a person clever without making him truthful. It can make him skilled without making him just. It can give him language, status, and power, while the inner life remains undisciplined.

So Hāfiẓ gives a severe warning:

If knowledge is not surrounded by noble traits
that elevate it, it becomes a mount toward failure.

The word مَطِيَّة is powerful. A mount carries you. It moves you from one place to another. Hāfiẓ is saying that knowledge without character does not merely sit unused. It carries a person somewhere. But where? Toward ٱلْإِخْفَاق — failure, collapse, disappointment.

This is the danger.

An educated person without character does not simply lack something decorative. He may become more dangerous because of what he knows. His knowledge gives him reach. His words carry weight. His decisions affect others. His intelligence becomes a tool in the service of pride, ambition, manipulation, or coldness.

In a school, this should make us pause.

What are we really trying to form?

A child who can read but cannot speak truthfully is not yet well-educated.

A child who can calculate but cannot restrain greed is not yet well-educated.

A child who can argue but cannot listen with humility is not yet well-educated.

A child who can succeed outwardly while looking down on others inwardly has been given tools without enough light.

The second couplet completes the matter:

Do not imagine that knowledge benefits by itself
unless its bearer is crowned with character.

To my ear, the key word is يُتَوَّج — crowned.

Character is not an ornament placed at the edge of education. It is the crown. It gives dignity to what is learned. It tells knowledge where to go, how to speak, when to be silent, and whom to serve.

Without character, knowledge may still impress people. It may still win marks, prizes, positions, and praise. But it does not necessarily benefit. Hāfiẓ is very exact: لَا تَحْسَبَنَّ ٱلْعِلْمَ يَنْفَعُ وَحْدَهُ — do not imagine that knowledge benefits by itself.

That is a hard word for modern schooling.

Much of education is built around measurement. What can the child answer? What can he produce? What can he score? What can he perform? These things have their place, but they are not the whole child. They are not the whole trust.

The deeper question is: what kind of human being is being formed through this learning?

Is knowledge making the child more truthful?

More reverent?

More responsible?

More awake to beauty?

More useful to others?

More careful with power?

More able to bear difficulty without becoming cruel?

If not, then the learning has not yet been crowned.

This does not mean that every lesson must become a sermon. Character is not formed only by speeches about character. It is formed by the atmosphere of the room, the justice of the adult, the beauty of the work, the honesty expected, the care taken with words, the way mistakes are handled, the way strength is used to protect rather than crush.

A child learns character from the hidden curriculum of adult behavior.

If the teacher speaks of respect but humiliates, the lesson is humiliation.

If the parent speaks of truth but excuses his own dishonesty, the lesson is hypocrisy.

If the school speaks of goodness but rewards only display, the lesson is ambition.

If the adult speaks of service but lives for recognition, the lesson is self-importance.

Children read all of this.

That is why knowledge must be surrounded by noble traits. Not mentioned once. Surrounded. Held on every side by adab, mercy, discipline, humility, courage, and sincerity.

A note about the wording:

The word خَلَاق here carries the sense of moral character and noble disposition. I have translated رَبُّهُ as “its bearer,” meaning the one who possesses the knowledge. So the line does not only ask whether knowledge exists. It asks what kind of person carries it.

That is often the real question.

The same knowledge in two different souls can produce two very different fruits. In one person, it becomes service. In another, it becomes vanity. In one, it becomes healing. In another, it becomes control. In one, it becomes wisdom. In another, it becomes argument.

The crown is character.

Moral Use:

These lines are useful before planning a lesson, designing a school, correcting a child, praising a student, or measuring success.

They remind us that learning must not be separated from formation.

The aim is not merely a bright mind.

The aim is a truthful soul carrying a bright mind.

A school that forgets character may still produce achievement. But achievement without nobility can become another form of failure.

Hāfiẓ Ibrāhīm’s warning is simple and difficult:

Knowledge must be raised by character.

Otherwise, the very thing we thought would carry the child upward may carry him in the wrong direction.

Begin With Yourself

       بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

لَا تَنْهَ عَنْ خُلُقٍ وَتَأْتِيَ مِثْلَهُ

عَارٌ عَلَيْكَ إِذَا فَعَلْتَ عَظِيمُ 

اِبْدَأْ بِنَفْسِكَ فَٱنْهَهَا عَنْ غَيِّهَا 

فَإِذَا ٱنْتَهَتْ عَنْهُ فَأَنْتَ حَكِيمُ 

فَهُنَاكَ يُقْبَلُ مَا وَعَظْتَ وَيُقْتَدَى 

بِٱلْعِلْمِ مِنْكَ وَيَنْفَعُ ٱلتَّعْلِيمُ

Meaning: 

Do not forbid a trait while committing its like;

great shame is upon you if you do so.

Begin with yourself and restrain it from its error;

when it ceases, then you are wise.

Then your counsel will be accepted, your knowledge followed,

and your teaching will be of benefit.

Language:

Arabic

Transliteration:

Lā tanha ʿan khuluqin wa-taʾtiya mithlahu

ʿĀrun ʿalayka idhā faʿalta ʿaẓīmu

Ibdaʾ bi-nafsika fa-nhahā ʿan ghayyi-hā

Fa-idhā intahat ʿanhu fa-anta ḥakīmu

Fa-hunāka yuqbal mā waʿaẓta wa-yuqtadā

Bi-l-ʿilmi minka wa-yanfaʿu t-taʿlīmu

Origins:

These lines are commonly attributed to Abū al-Aswad al-Duʾalī. Ibn Ḥazm quotes them in Mudāwāt al-Nufūs wa-Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq, introducing them with “Abū al-Aswad al-Duʾalī said,” and the text there reads: لَا تَنْهَ عَنْ خُلُقٍ وَتَأْتِيَ مِثْلَهُ through بِٱلْعِلْمِ مِنْكَ وَيَنْفَعُ ٱلتَّعْلِيمُ. (Shamela) Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr also cites the poem in Jāmiʿ Bayān al-ʿIlm wa-Faḍlih, while noting that it is also narrated for al-ʿArzamī; his version has slight wording differences, including بِٱلْقَوْلِ مِنْكَ instead of بِٱلْعِلْمِ مِنْكَ. (Islam Web)

The meaning also stands close to the Qur’ānic rebuke: أَتَأْمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلْبِرِّ وَتَنسَوْنَ أَنفُسَكُمْ — “Do you preach righteousness and fail to practice it yourselves?” (Quran.com)

Brief Explanation:

This poem is important because it does not attack teaching. It attacks false teaching.

It does not say: do not correct others. It says: do not correct others while you are comfortably living inside the very thing you forbid. Do not make your tongue strict while your own soul remains undisciplined. Do not demand from another person what you have not even begun to demand from yourself.

The first wrong in the poem is not simply the bad trait. It is the contradiction.

Do not forbid a trait while committing its like.

That line should make every parent, teacher, elder, speaker, and leader pause. A child hears our instruction, but he also studies our life. He watches the way we handle anger after telling him to be calm. He watches the way we speak of others after telling him not to gossip. He watches whether we apologize after demanding apology from him. He watches whether truth is a rule for everyone, or only a rule for the young.

Children have a very sharp sense for this. They may not always have the language for it, but they feel it. When the adult’s words and conduct separate, the child may obey outwardly, but inwardly something weakens. Respect becomes fear. Guidance becomes pressure. Moral language begins to sound like control.

That is why Abū al-Aswad calls it عَارٌ — shame.

Not a small mistake. Not merely poor presentation. Shame.

Because the one who teaches without self-accounting damages more than his own character. He damages the dignity of the teaching itself. He makes truth look unfair. He makes discipline look like power. He makes goodness look like something imposed by the strong upon the weak.

The second couplet gives the cure:

Begin with yourself and restrain it from its error;
when it ceases, then you are wise.

The order matters. Begin with yourself.

Not end with yourself after everyone else has been corrected. Not remember yourself only when someone exposes your inconsistency. Begin there.

This is not a call to wait until one is perfect before speaking. That would be another deception. If only the faultless could advise, no one would advise. The issue is not imperfection. The issue is comfort with contradiction. The issue is correcting others while refusing correction oneself.

There is a difference between a struggling person who says, “I too am trying,” and a careless person who says, “You must change,” while making peace with his own wrong.

The first person may still guide. The second person has lost the moral weight of his words.

To my ear, the heart of the poem is in the word حَكِيمُ — wise. Wisdom is not merely knowing what others should do. Many people have that kind of knowledge. Wisdom begins when the self becomes the first student.

The wise teacher is not the one with the sharpest criticism. The wise teacher is the one whose own life has been brought under some discipline. His words carry weight because they have passed through his own struggle. He is not speaking from above the wound. He is speaking from within the work.

That is why the last couplet is so important:

Then your counsel will be accepted, your knowledge followed,
and your teaching will be of benefit.

Teaching becomes useful when the life behind it supports it.

A word may be true and still fail to enter the heart because the speaker has made it heavy with hypocrisy. But when the speaker has done the work inwardly, even a simple sentence can reach deeply. The child senses sincerity. The student senses fairness. The listener senses that the one correcting is not merely using truth as a tool against him.

This belongs very much in homes and classrooms.

A school cannot be built on adult contradiction and still expect children to love truth. If adults demand respect while speaking disrespectfully, demand calm while living in irritation, demand honesty while hiding behind excuses, demand responsibility while blaming everyone else, then the children are not confused. They are learning exactly what we are teaching.

They are learning that words are for the weak and power is for the strong.

So the adult must become careful.

Before I correct, I have to ask: have I begun with myself?

If I am asking a child to speak gently, is there gentleness in my correction?

If I am asking for truthfulness, am I truthful about my own mistake?

If I am asking for self-control, am I controlling the tone, face, and force with which I speak?

If I am asking for humility, can I apologize when I am wrong?

This does not weaken authority. It purifies it.

There is a kind of authority that depends on position. The adult speaks, so the child must listen. The teacher commands, so the student must comply. That has its place, but it is not enough. The deeper authority is moral authority. It is the authority of a person who has not exempted himself from the rule.

That kind of authority is quieter, but stronger.

A note on the text:

I have vocalized the second couplet as فَٱنْهَهَا — “then restrain it,” following the common transmitted wording found in Ibn Ḥazm and Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr. The version with وَٱنْهَهَا — “and restrain it” — carries the same basic meaning, but فَٱنْهَهَا gives the line a clear movement: begin with yourself, then restrain it.

Moral Use:

These lines are useful before any correction.

Before advising a child.

Before speaking to a student.

Before correcting a spouse, colleague, friend, or community member.

Before posting a criticism.

Before giving a lesson on character.

They ask one clean question:

Have I begun with myself?

Not, “Am I perfect?”

No.

Have I begun?

That is the door of wisdom.

Correction Without Injury

      بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

آزَارکَشِی کُن و مَیازَار؛

 

کآزُرْدَهٔ تُو بِهْ کِه خَلْق بِه‌آزَار.

 

Meaning: 

Endure hurt, but do not inflict it;

better that you be the one wounded

than that people should suffer harm through you.

Language:

Persian/Farsi

Transliteration:

Āzār-kashī kun o mayāzār;

K-āzurdeh-ye to beh ke khalq be-āzār.

Origins:

This couplet appears near the end of section 8 of Niẓāmī’s Laylī u Majnūn, titled “در شکایت حسودان و منکران” — “On complaining of the envious and the deniers.” In the received text, Niẓāmī moves through the pain of being opposed, envied, copied, and misrepresented, and then ends not with revenge, but with this rule of restraint. Ganjoor’s text gives the couplet as: “آزار کشی کن و میآزار / کآزرده تو بِه که خلق به‌آزار.” (Ganjoor)

Laylī u Majnūn is one of the five long narrative poems of Niẓāmī’s Khamsa. Encyclopaedia Iranica describes it as a narrative poem of about 4,600 lines, composed in 584/1188, and as the third poem in that five-part collection. (Encyclopaedia Iranica)

Brief Explanation:

This couplet is short, but it cuts very deeply. The first word is āzār: hurt, injury, harm. Niẓāmī does not pretend that hurt is unreal. He does not ask the heart to become stone. He says: bear the hurt, but do not become the cause of hurt.

That distinction is the whole teaching.

Many people think that being hurt gives them permission to hurt. They say it with words, with silence, with harsh correction, with public shaming, with a tone that wounds more than the actual sentence. Niẓāmī closes that door. The fact that pain entered you does not give you the right to pass it into someone else.

To my ear, the power of the line is in the movement from آزُرْدَهٔ تُو to خَلْق بِه‌آزَار. It is better that you carry a wound than that a whole circle of people become wounded through you. The self is asked to become the place where harm stops, not the channel through which it spreads.

This is especially important for the adult entrusted with correction.

Correction is necessary. Children need boundaries. Students need guidance. A younger person sometimes needs to be stopped, redirected, and made responsible for what he has done. But correction is not the same as humiliation. Firmness is not the same as cruelty. Discipline is not the same as the adult releasing his own anger under the name of teaching.

Once correction becomes a way of satisfying our wounded pride, it is no longer guidance. The child is not meeting wisdom anymore. He is meeting our unhealed pain.

Niẓāmī’s line asks the adult to pause at that exact doorway. Am I correcting because this child needs truth? Or am I striking because I feel disrespected? Am I protecting the order of the home or classroom? Or am I protecting my ego? Am I trying to restore goodness? Or am I trying to make the child feel small enough that I can feel large again?

The answer may be uncomfortable. But that discomfort is part of the medicine.

The adult who cannot bear hurt will often become harsh. A child’s defiance, mistake, carelessness, or sharp word touches something raw, and the adult answers from that raw place. But the mature soul does not hand its wound to the child. It holds the wound before God, before conscience, before silence, until the response becomes clean.

That is not passivity. It is moral strength.

There is a form of patience that is cowardice, but this is not that. Niẓāmī is not saying, “Let wrong continue.” He is saying: do not correct wrong by becoming wrong. Do not answer disorder with your own disorder. Do not let the injury done to you become an injury done by you.

A note about the wording:

I have vocalized the final phrase as بِه‌آزَار — be-āzār, “in hurt” or “in affliction.” In unvocalized copies, this can look close to بازار, but the meaning of the couplet clearly turns on āzār, harm. The two halves mirror each other: آزارکشی and میازار, then آزُرْدَه and به‌آزار.

Moral Use:

This is a line to remember before correcting anyone.

Before raising the voice.

Before writing the message.

Before punishing.

Before making an example of someone.

Before speaking in the name of truth while secretly enjoying the sharpness of the truth.

The couplet teaches a simple rule: let the harm stop with me.

That one rule can change a home. It can change a classroom. It can change the way authority feels to those who live under it. A child corrected without humiliation may still feel the weight of his mistake, but he will not have to carry the extra wound of being crushed by the one who was supposed to guide him.

The adult’s task is not merely to stop wrong behavior. It is to preserve the soul while correcting the behavior.

That requires restraint.

And restraint is not a small virtue. It is the difference between correction that heals and correction that leaves another hidden injury in the world.

Counsel Without Exposure

     بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

تَعَمَّدْنِي بِنُصْحِكَ فِي ٱنْفِرَادِي 

وَجَنِّبْنِي ٱلنَّصِيحَةَ فِي ٱلْجَمَاعَةْ

فَإِنَّ ٱلنُّصْحَ بَيْنَ ٱلنَّاسِ نَوْعٌ 

مِنَ ٱلتَّوْبِيخِ لَا أَرْضَى ٱسْتِمَاعَهْ

وَإِنْ خَالَفْتَنِي وَعَصَيْتَ قَوْلِي 

فَلَا تَجْزَعْ إِذَا لَمْ تُعْطَ طَاعَةْ

 

Meaning: 

Come to me with your counsel when I am alone,

and spare me advice in the gathering.

For counsel among people is a kind of rebuke,

whose hearing I do not accept.

And if you oppose me and disobey my request,

then do not be upset when obedience is not given.

Language:

Arabic

Transliteration:

Taʿammadnī bi-nuṣḥika fī infirādī

Wa-jannibnī n-naṣīḥata fi l-jamāʿah

Fa-inna n-nuṣḥa bayna n-nāsi nawʿun

Mina t-tawbīkhi lā arḍā stimāʿah

Wa-in khālaftanī wa-ʿaṣayta qawlī

Fa-lā tajzaʿ idhā lam tuʿṭa ṭāʿah

Origins:

These lines are widely transmitted under the name of Imām al-Shāfiʿī. They appear in modern collections of Dīwān al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī; Adab World lists the poem under his dīwān and gives the same six lines, while Shamela quotes the lines in a section on giving counsel privately and cites Dīwān al-Shāfiʿī, p. 56. Because many poems in the collected dīwān are transmitted through later literary tradition, the cautious wording is: attributed to Imām al-Shāfiʿī.

Brief Explanation:

The poem is about one of the most neglected forms of mercy: the manner of correction.

Advice is not only a matter of truth. It is also a matter of timing, tone, place, and intention. A person may speak the right words in the wrong setting and turn medicine into a wound. That is the force of the first couplet:

Come to me with your counsel when I am alone,

and spare me advice in the gathering.

The speaker is not rejecting correction. He is asking for it to arrive with adab. There is a difference between helping a person return to what is right and making him stand exposed before others. One seeks healing. The other often satisfies the ego of the one speaking.

That is why the second couplet is so precise:

For counsel among people is a kind of rebuke,

whose hearing I do not accept.

The word نُصْح is noble. In the well-known ḥadīth, the Prophet ﷺ says, الدِّينُ النَّصِيحَةُ — “Religion is sincere counsel.” So counsel is not a small matter. It belongs to the very structure of faith. But when counsel is placed in front of an audience, something changes. The listener no longer hears only truth; he hears humiliation, exposure, and loss of face.

To my ear, the poem is not defending pride. It is exposing the pride that often hides inside public correction.

Sometimes we say, “I am only advising,” while the self is enjoying the power of being right. Sometimes we say, “This is for their benefit,” while we have not taken the trouble to protect their dignity. Sometimes the advice is sound, but the method has already closed the heart.

The last couplet is firm:

And if you oppose me and disobey my request,

then do not be upset when obedience is not given.

This is not stubbornness. It is human nature. If you correct me in a way that feels like public defeat, do not be surprised when I resist you. You may win the moment and lose the person. You may prove the point and harden the heart.

A necessary caution:

This adab does not mean that every public wrong must be handled privately. If harm is public, if others are being misled, if someone is unsafe, or if silence would protect wrongdoing, then truth may need a public answer. But even then, the intention should be repair, not performance. Shamela’s discussion makes this same distinction: where the matter does not require public announcement, private counsel is more likely to bring acceptance.

A note for the self:

Before I advise someone, I have to ask:

Am I trying to guide, or am I trying to be seen as the one who knows?

Have I chosen the place that will make acceptance easier?

Would I speak the same words, with the same force, if no one else were watching?

And if I were the one being corrected, would this method help me soften or make me defend myself?

This poem belongs in homes, classrooms, staff rooms, masjids, and friendships. Much harm is done in the name of honesty because people confuse bluntness with sincerity. But sincerity has mercy in it. It does not enjoy unnecessary exposure.

Devotional Use:

These lines are useful before correcting a child, a student, a friend, a spouse, or a colleague. They slow the tongue down. They remind us that advice is an amānah. A trust.

The goal is not to empty the chest of what we want to say.

The goal is to help the other person receive what is true.

Private counsel preserves dignity. Public shaming often awakens defense.

And sometimes the difference between the two is not the content of the words, but the mercy with which they were carried.

Beyond the Waterwheel

     بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

گَر بِه «ٱللَّهُ ٱلصَّمَدُ» دِل بَسْتِه‌ای 

اَز حَدِّ اَسْبَاب بِیرُون جَسْتِه‌ای 

بَنْدَۀ حَقّ بَنْدَۀ اَسْبَاب نِیسْت 

زِنْدَگَانِی گَرْدِشِ دُولَاب نِیسْت 

مُسْلِم اَسْتِی، بِی‌نِیَاز اَز غَیْر شَو 

اَهْلِ عَالَم رَا سَرَاپَا خَیْر شَو

Meaning: 

If your heart is bound to Allah al-Ṣamad,

you have passed beyond the limits of mere causes.

The servant of Truth is not the servant of causes;

life is not the turning of a waterwheel.

If you are a Muslim, become free of need from all besides Him;

become, for the people of the world, goodness through and through.

Language:

Persian/Farsi, with a Qur’anic Arabic phrase.

Transliteration:

Gar ba “Allāhu ṣ-Ṣamadu” dil bastah-ī

Az ḥadd-i asbāb bīrūn jastah-ī

Bandah-yi Ḥaqq bandah-yi asbāb nīst

Zindagānī gardish-i dūlāb nīst

Muslim astī, bī-niyāz az ghayr shaw

Ahl-i ʿālam rā sarāpā khayr shaw

 

Origin:

These lines are from Muḥammad Iqbal’s Rumūz-i Bēkhudī, in the section titled “Allah al-Ṣamad.” Ganjoor gives this section as part 29 of Rumūz-i Bēkhudī and preserves these opening lines; the International Iqbal Society page also gives the same passage in its text of Iqbal’s Persian works.

The title is drawn from Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ: ٱللَّهُ ٱلصَّمَدُ. Quran.com renders it as “Allah—the Sustainer needed by all,” while Saheeh International gives, “Allah, the Eternal Refuge.” The core meaning is that all are in need of Him, while He is in need of none.

Brief Explanation:

Iqbal begins not with the hand, but with the heart: دِل بَسْتِه‌ای — “you have bound your heart.” That is the real question. Not merely what do I use, or where do I work, or what plans do I make, but where is the heart tied?

The phrase ٱللَّهُ ٱلصَّمَدُ is not just a name placed beautifully into a poem. It is the center of the whole argument. Al-Ṣamad is the One to whom every need rises. The One who is sought, depended upon, returned to. So if the heart is truly attached to Him, Iqbal says, it has gone beyond the limit of causes.

This does not mean that causes are denied. The Muslim does not despise bread, work, planning, medicine, learning, money, tools, or people. These are all from the wisdom of Allah. But there is a difference between using causes and being used by them. There is a difference between taking the means and bowing inwardly before the means.

That is why the second couplet is so strong:

The servant of Truth is not the servant of causes.

Life is not the turning of a waterwheel.

The image of the waterwheel is painful because it is movement without ascent. It turns and turns, but remains bound to the same circle. Many lives become like that: income, anxiety, comparison, exhaustion, reputation, fear, relief, and then the same turn again. Iqbal refuses to call that life. A human being was not made only to be rotated by circumstance.

To my ear, the heart of these lines is the third couplet:

If you are a Muslim, become free of need from all besides Him;

become, for the people of the world, goodness through and through.

This is the part that prevents misunderstanding. Iqbal’s bī-niyāzī is not coldness. It is not arrogance. It is not withdrawing from people and calling that spirituality. The one who becomes free from dependence on creation must become more useful to creation, not less.

That is the beauty of the line: اَهْلِ عَالَم رَا سَرَ ا پَا خَیْر شَو — become wholly good for the people of the world.

The one who needs praise from people cannot serve them cleanly. The one who fears people cannot speak truth to them cleanly. The one who depends inwardly on people will resent them when they disappoint him. But the one whose need is carried to Allah can turn back toward people with open hands.

A note for the self:

Where have I confused the means with the Provider?

Where has fear of circumstance become a hidden form of worship?

Do I take causes in my hand while keeping Allah in my heart, or have the causes entered the heart and pushed trust out?

And when I say I want freedom, do I mean freedom to serve Allah and benefit people, or only freedom from discomfort?

Iqbal’s freedom is demanding. It does not make a person passive. In the surrounding lines he immediately moves toward dignity, action, and self-respect: do not complain before the Benefactor, do not sell yourself cheaply, live free and die free. The freedom he wants is not laziness. It is the freedom of a soul no longer begging from every hand, no longer trembling before every door.

Devotional Use:

These lines are useful when the heart feels trapped by circumstances. They can be read before work, before a difficult conversation, before asking someone for help, or in any moment when means begin to look larger than Allah.

They teach a balanced path: take the means, but do not become their servant. Work, but do not worship work. Ask, but do not lower the soul before creation. Serve people, but do not make people the source of your worth.

The heart has to be tied somewhere.

If it is tied to causes, life becomes a wheel.

If it is tied to al-Ṣamad, even the causes become servants.

The Freedom That Becomes Bondage

    بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

 هَرَبُوا مِنَ الرِّقِّ الَّذِي خُلِقُوا لَهُ 

 فَبُلُوا بِرِقِّ النَّفْسِ وَالشَّيْطَانِ

 

 لَا تَرْضَ مَا اخْتَارُوهُ هُمْ لِنُفُوسِهِمْ 

  فَقَدِ ارْتَضَوْا بِالذُّلِّ وَالْحِرْمَانِ

 

Meaning: 

They fled the servitude for which they were created,

so they were afflicted with servitude to the self and Satan.

Do not be pleased with what they chose for themselves,

for they have accepted humiliation and deprivation.

Language:

Arabic

Transliteration:

Harabū mina r-riqqi alladhī khuliqū lahu

Fa-bulū bi-riqqi n-nafsi wa-sh-shayṭāni

Lā tarḍa mā ikhtārūhu hum li-nufūsihim

Fa-qadi-rtaḍaw bi-dh-dhulli wa-l-ḥirmāni

Origins:

These lines are from Ibn al-Qayyim’s famous Nūniyyah, also known as  al-Kāfiyah al-Shāfiyah . The Shamela entry identifies the work as  Matn al-Qaṣīdah al-Nūniyyah  by Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn Ayyūb, Shams al-Dīn Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, who died in 751 AH. The same printed text places these couplets in the section on what Allah has prepared in Paradise for His close servants who hold fast to the Book and Sunnah. 

In the surrounding lines, Ibn al-Qayyim contrasts those who spend themselves in the pursuit of the world with those who live for Allah. Just before these couplets, he speaks of bodies in toil, hearts burning with desire and regret, and souls buried inside living bodies. Then comes the sharp diagnosis: they ran from the servitude they were made for, only to fall into a worse servitude. 

Brief Explanation:

The force of these lines lies in their reversal of the usual idea of freedom. A person may imagine that he becomes free by refusing servitude to Allah. Ibn al-Qayyim says the opposite. The human being does not cease to be a servant. He only changes masters.

That is why the first word matters: هَرَبُوا — “they fled.” They did not merely forget. They ran. But the tragedy is that their flight did not lead them into open space. It led them into another kind of captivity: the captivity of the lower self and Satan.

The word الرِّقّ is severe. It means bondage or servitude. But here Ibn al-Qayyim is using it with a moral and spiritual contrast. Servitude to Allah is not humiliation in the ugly sense. It is the only servitude that restores the human being to his true dignity. The Qur’ān gives this foundation clearly: “I did not create jinn and humans except to worship Me.” 

So the “servitude for which they were created” is not degradation. It is purpose. It is the soul standing where it belongs: before its Creator, not before its appetites.

To my ear, the most painful part of the poem is that the second servitude pretends to be freedom. The self says, “Do what you want.” Satan says, “No one should restrain you.” But very soon the person discovers that desire is not a gentle ruler. Anger commands. Jealousy commands. Reputation commands. Appetite commands. Fear commands. The person who refused one Merciful Master becomes divided among many harsh masters.

That is why the second couplet is not merely a warning. It is a refusal to glamorize a false choice:

Do not approve what they chose for themselves.

There is compassion in that refusal. Ibn al-Qayyim is not saying: look down on them. He is saying: do not call this freedom. Do not praise a bondage simply because it has decorated itself with the language of choice. Some choices are not noble merely because they are chosen. Some choices strip the human being of inward honor.

The words الذُّلّ and الْحِرْمَان complete the meaning. Dhull is humiliation, lowliness, the loss of spiritual dignity. Ḥirmān is deprivation, being cut off, being denied what the soul truly needs. This is a very exact pairing. The one who serves the self is humiliated, because the self is never satisfied. He is deprived, because appetite can consume the body while starving the heart.

A note for the self:

This is not a verse to throw at others first. It is safer to begin with oneself.

Where am I calling something freedom simply because I want it?

Where has the self trained me to obey before I even notice?

Where do I resist the command of Allah, only to obey a mood, an insecurity, a craving, or a fear?

The poem teaches that every heart has a direction of servitude. The only question is whether that servitude ennobles it or breaks it.

Devotional Use:

These lines are useful for moments of self-accounting. They can be read when one feels the pull of a desire and wants to name it honestly. They are also useful after a fall, not to crush the heart, but to return it to clarity.

The path back begins by admitting the truth: I was not made to be ruled by my nafs. I was not made to be led by Satan. I was made to belong to Allah.

And that belonging is not the loss of freedom. It is the beginning of freedom.