Modern Day ‘Shikwa / Jawab-e-Shikwa’

[deathfromabove]

A poem written by PKKH’s own Atif Qureshi, inspired by Hazrat Allama Iqbal (RA) in the style of his epic masterpiece Shikwa, Jawab-e-Shikwa. It is addressed to Pakistan by a Pakistani, with the reply from Pak Sarzameen in return.

SHIKWA (Complaint from a Pakistani)

Oh Pakistan!

Pure they did name you. Was this a lie or just jest?
For impure you turned out to be when put to the test.

How speedy, how quick, have these six decades passed.
Yet when one is in pain, time is not meant to go fast.

Oh hear our complaint, Oh land of great tragedy,
Treat this not as trivial, or an exercise in mockery.

From Makran to Gilgit, we raised your flag high,
Yet nothing did we reap save a disappointed sigh.

In your mountains you heard our cries of Pak Zindabad,
Were those echoes your reply or was it all a canard?

Frustration abounds when we hear your name,
Leaden-footed we feel as we walk your lanes.

What grief you have wrought, what trials of late.
From the tribulation of this land is there no respite or space?

We gave you our children, we gave you our souls.
What have you returned save for sorrow and woe?

A million and more perished for that 27th night.
Did they not sacrifice so we could all live in light?

But no light is there here, darkness encroaches all-round.
We struggle enchained, ever more tightly bound.

Did our fathers not create you to know freedom and peace?
Why then to their enemies have you been sold and leased?

What say you to them, those martyrs of yours?
Who died at the hands of the savages you abhor?

Those who laid down their lives for your Sacred realm,
So that Believers, and none but, could remain at the helm?

Not their children, but others, then stole,
This Promised Land that we once called home.

Do we not strive for you, are we not slain?
Yet it seems all our struggle is in naught but vain.

Did we not build an army? A force of great might?
With missiles and weapons and jets to fight?

Did we not strive bravely in Jihad in your cause?
Did we not march and fly fearlessly to wars?

What more can we do to protect your mountains and shores?
Yet you still sprout deviants who break all natural laws?

Your enemies vanquished, your protectors return home,
Yet no fruit do they find after the deeds they have sown.

Those that care for you, they see nothing but grief.
Yet why do the most corrupt gain the glory they seek?

Where is the freedom that was rightfully ours?
Why do you prostitute yourself to foreign powers?

So many failures, your achievements so weak,
Surely it cannot be that you have reached your peak?

There is no shade here from the bright burning sun,
Whatever we build, why is it always undone?

Is it so unjust of us to ask, where is order, where is law?
Why is it that your teeming masses are so scandalously poor?

It is time for you to elucidate, time for you to explain,
From your unseemly silence you have nothing to win.

You failed us, time and time and time again.
Will you ever deliver the Promise? How? When?

Jawab-e-Shikwa (Pak Sarzameen’s Response)

Oh my people!

Heedless you are, of my glorious fate.
Deniers you are of reality of late.

Pure they named not I, but you who roam above.
Yet pure I remain, it is you who lack Love.

You think I am not pure? Your mothers made wudhu from this dust.
Now you have water, yet your Masajid see rust.

And they perished not, those Mujahideen beloved.
With me they still are, in this land, pure and rugged.

How true they were, to they promise they showed.
With me they still are, and not collections of bones.

Rewards abound for those who sacrifice for me.
How blind you are, for you still do not see?

Success is for those who place others above themselves,
But you can think only of drawing first from the well.

If you expected from me, I felt entitled from you.
Did you not swear by My Lord to create Madinah anew?

Instead you ploughed nothing, and reaped only frustration.
When I call YOU to account, am I above my station?

You ask for order, but what law do you seek?
I despise this foreign law, that makes you so weak.

I did not fail. But instead you failed you.
Yet still My Lord gives, in spite of the evil you do.

Did my Lord not warn against spreading mischief in the land?
Yet still you wonder why peace will not stand?

And believe you that I was created in a single day?
How unmindful you are to think in this way.

When a pious trader crossed through Khyber was I born
It was before your dark age – it was a time of new morn.

When the Caliph heard the woman’s cry, and the young prince-general was dispatched
That, my people, is when my egg was hatched.

Because a fresh breeze did I send to that Beloved of mine.
That Prophet, that Pinnacle, that Man beyond time.

A gift it was, a mere token from me,
For I wished He would pray nightly for the absolution of thee.

Now countless believers roam this land of note.
But how many say a prayer that travels beyond their throat?

You where you tread is a Sacred place?
How confined your minds are in time and space!

What use is a nation, a mountain, a grain of sand -
If it submits not to my Lord’s Mighty Plan?

Sacred is not a word, a thought, a beard on a face,
Only the deed of the believer will cleanse an unclean place.

Do you wish for yourselves a Jannah on Earth?
Between these valleys, deserts and cities of no worth?

Then plant Jannah in your hearts, or do you not care,
For the trials and aches laid to entrap you there?

Traps they are not, nor are they jails.
Liberation lies therein from your complaints and wails.

So straighten your direction! Face Makkah I say,
Toward the House of your Lord – there is no other way!

Heedless you are, of my glorious fate.
Deniers you are of reality of late.

If not you, then let your sons and daughters come.
It is they who will see glory, once you have long-gone.