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The Caravan’s Bell, 1924) is a collection of Muhammad Iqbal’s Urdu poems. It contains some influential and popular pieces. These include “Shikva” (“Complaint”) and “Javab-e Shikva” (“Answer to the Complaint”). In the former, which consists of 93 rhyming couplets and which the poet recited at a literary meeting in Lahore in 1911 (Matthew 1993, p. 154), the poet upbraids God for his abandonment of Muslims, whose decline in the world is seen as a sign of His neglect. The poem is a consummate expression of the aesthetics of Islamic decline, invoking the geopolitical image of a once globally powerful Islamic world, now fallen into desuetude. In the “Answer” to the poet’s lament, consisting of 108 rhyming couplets, God holds the decline of faith in the…
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Citation: Majeed, Javed. "Bang-e Dara". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 July 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=30673, accessed 25 November 2024.]
