| January 24, 2003 | Friday | Ziqa’ad 20, 1423 |
Balance in divine design
THE Quran says: “And of His sign is the creation of heavens and the earth and the differences in your languages and colours. Lo! Herein indeed are portents for men of knowledge” (30:22). It says again: “He subjected to you all that is in the heavens and in the earth, all from Himself. There are many signs in this for those who reflect” (45:13).
Mera qalam to amanat hai meray logon ki Mera qalam to adalat meray zamir ki hai Isiliye to jo likha tapak-e-jan se likha Jabhi to loch kaman ka zaban tir ki hai
(My pen is the trust of my people My pen is the judge of my conscience. That is what makes me write with fiery zeal My writing has the spring of a bow and is sharp like an arrow)
This is the inimitable Ahmad Faraz, in the poem Muhasra, written in one of the darkest martial law days in our history; an Ahmad Faraz about whom the great Faiz once said that “he protests against injustice as passionately as he professes his love”. Yes this is Ahmad Faraz, the poet of the common man, the poet of the young and the old, the poet who gave new heights to genre of ghazal; and the poet of nazm too — which are no less lyrical in their substance and rhythm. And so when the bard came out with his common sense view of poetry, at the “Dialogue on Art” with him arranged by the Pakistan National Council of the Arts at the National Art Gallery on Wednesday evening, many a so-called theory about how great literature, nay, the poetic process itself comes about, evaporated into thin air.
“It is the entire self of the poet that is involved in the process,” said the poet in reply to the question by some one from the audience if the poet, anticipated, as it were, the reader while he was involved in the creative process.
Secure in the understanding of the overwhelming importance of the ghazal in our poetic tradition, Faraz, who himself has been writing excellent nazm came out unequivocally with the assertion that despite the various asnaf-e-sukhan, like mussadas, muqhammas, tarkeeb band, nazm, rubaayiat and now even haiko, ghazal, which described mighty and complicated thoughts in a shair cannot be eliminated for its sheer brevity and proportion with which it conveys everything. He said Ghalib’s place in Urdu mainly rests on ghazal; adding that the greatest poet of the nineteenth century was Ghalib and of the twentieth Iqbal, but it did not mean that Ghalib was not the great poet of the twentieth century and other centuries also.
Are there any topics left that the poet has not explored? The poet’s reply was that topics may be the same but the way they are explored has a dynamics of its own. There were no literary or non- literary topics. It depended upon the poet. “Some may change the stone into a flower by a simple touch; others may turn the flower into a stone.”
Do the conflicting perception of writers hamper great art? Faraz replied: “Uniformity in art is its death. Different approaches may, in fact, help in the creation of great art; so long there differences in the realm of thought and of the ideas. But they should not become personal or attain a political colouring.
Asked to narrate the reasons for his removal from government service and the hardships that he had to undergo that resulted in his exile in London, Faraz, in a real artistic nonchalance, described some of it without bitterness, but, as a poet said it all; and with real force when he read out the poem from which a quotation has been taken at the beginning of this write-up. (He also read his other poems, including why should we sell our dreams?). He thought it to be extremely personal and asked the audience to consider people who were not heard of once they were removed. These souls almost perished.
In his opening remarks, Faraz spoke of art being a way of expression in any form, quoting Josh’s famous words about dance being aaza ki shairi (the poetry of limbs). He spoke of the craftsmen — he recalled his stint in the Lok Virsa for sometime — and spoke of the hands that carve out crafts of everlasting beauty (one remembered Eliot’s stillness of the Chinese jar still, that moves in its stillness) and narrated about their economic plight. He also insisted on art and culture being our “soft” introduction to the world, and emphasized his well-known, as it were, doctrine of “cultural landscaping”. He said we earned bad name in the world not only due to the good qualities of others but also due to our own weaknesses. He thought that one should practice one’s own religion and leave others to their myth and religion. For interaction between nations the way, he emphasized was culture and art; although at one point saying that art in our country during Ziaul Haq’s Martial Law was confined to calligraphy, but said the importance of calligraphy an art form cannot be under-rated.
Faraz spoke of the necessity of creating centres where all kind of artistic and literary functions could be held at the same time. Making the (white-elephant) of the Convention Centre may be good but their should be a large number of conference halls, auditoriums, etc., where many functions could be held at the same time.
He also thought that we were neglecting art to such an extent that after either the death or the fruition of art of great artists and singers, no big names were emerging. (One just thought of the craze of the new generation for names in the new form of music in the shape of pop music which has even, as it were, roped in Iqbal’s Khudi ka sire nehan ...)
Talking of payment to the artist, he said a man like Mehdi Hassan was paid Rs50,000 for the Life Time Achievement Award by PTV, which was an amount the PTV could gain from a single performance of the artist. (He himself received Rs25 for his first programme on the radio!).
He recalled various anecdotes of great poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz with whom he lived in London during the periods of their “exile” and narrated the great qualities of the master artist, one of which was that Faiz never spoke ill of anybody. He said once in Hotel Sherzade (which, incidentally, now houses the Foreign Office in Islamabad) Faiz scolded a waiter for bringing bread slices for the breakfast completely burnt. But towards the end Faiz gave the waiter a note of Rs10 in those days when one or two rupees could have been all right. When Faraz inquired why he did so, Faiz said, “Bhai hum nay usay jhara bhi to thaa.” (I had also scolded him). He described how Faiz used to read a great deal.
Dear reader, one wished to describe it all; of how the entire dialogue was built up through discussion. But then comes the dilemma created by time and space.
And so the evening ended. An evening with a glaze of writers and intellectuals. Col S.K.Tressler and his wife were there, so were Changez Sultan, the director-general, Pakistan National Council of Arts, (who described culture as agriculture plus the quality of life and showered the praise due to the writer) and his wife, Kishwer Naheed, the former DG, PNCA, and a writer and poet; Masud Qureshi; poet Shabnam Shakil; writer Masud Mufti; the writer and poet, Parto Rohila, Ashfaq Saleem Mirza of the Islamabad Cultural Forum; mathematician and intellectual Prof Khawja Masud; poet Alamgir Hashmi, former bureaucrat Masuduz Zaman, media expert and writer Agha Nasir and such other luminaries in the jampacked hall.
No wonder Faraz belonged to all, for, like any poet of substance you can find your own interpretation in his poetic metaphor. — Mufti Jamiluddin Ahmad
Through the above verses, the Quran tells us that the creation of heavens and the earth is among the signs of Allah and in these very creations there are many other signs for those who can understand and make use thereof. If one ponders a little bit over the set-up and functioning of countless celestial bodies, the first thing that will strike his mind could be the exceptional degree of harmony in their existence and functioning in relation to each other which could obviously be the result of order and the norms of balance observed in their creation and placement.
This is clearly spelled out by the Quran when it says “He raised the heavens high and set the balance” (55:7). The verse, among other things, implies that after their creation, all the stars, planets and heavenly bodies were placed in proper order with a view to maintain necessary equilibrium and balance. Explaining it the Quran further says: “The sun must not catch up the moon, nor does the night outstrip the day. Each one is travelling in an orbit with its own motion” (36:40). “Who created the seven heavens in harmony. You will not find any fault (disproportion) in the creation of Merciful” (67:3,4). And “Such is the artistry of Allah Who arranges all things in perfect order” (27:88).
What is most common and conspicuous in all these creations and their movements and functioning is the maintenance of requisite degree of balance and the resultant harmony. The lesson that one should learn could, therefore, be that order and balance are the pre-requisites of harmony and harmony is the pre-requisite of survival. It is because of such harmony that the system has survived for billions of years. If, human beings abide by the same principle in their private lives, in inter-personal relations, in national affairs and in international relations, there is no reason as to why they should not overcome most of the problems of this age and lead a happy and peaceful life.
Take the simplest example of human body the existence of which in a healthy state mainly depends on the harmonious functioning of the entire system. Slight increase in the rate of blood circulation can disturb the balance and cause damage to such vital parts of the body as heart and kidney.
Only a balanced diet can ensure the fitness of human body. An aircraft can fly smoothly in the air only when both of its wings are balanced. The loss of one feather in either wing of a bird can affect its ability to fly. A motor car can run smoothly only when all its wheels are balanced. A business organisation can function and survive for long only when its assets and liabilities are balanced.
A good judgment or decision in a dispute between two parties can be possible only through a balanced approach i.e. when the decision maker gives equal opportunities to the parties to plead and defend their viewpoints and gives due consideration to the pleas set-up and contentions raised by them.
Many a beings and things which vanish are replaced in order to restore the balance. In this connection the Quran says: “It is He Who originates the creation and repeats it” (10:34). Likewise, many things are so linked with each other that their existence depends on their ability to co-exist which in turn depends on the maintenance of requisite degree of balance in their interaction or relationship. Any thing that loses its capability to maintain requisite degree of balance in the system loses the ability to co-exist, and cannot exist in the same form or situation for long. Inter-dependence and co-existence are only a few manifestations of balance.
Imbalance in the sphere of human activities results, among other things, from the commission of excesses. That’s why the Quran explicitly advises the human beings not to commit excesses (5:87). The Quran also advises us to be moderate (31:19). Moderation inter alia implies avoidance of excesses. The Quran further says: “and did not Allah check one set of people by means of another, the earth indeed would be full of mischief” (2:251). It means that Allah not only restores the balance when it is disturbed but has also devised ways for checking the commission of excesses, like one set of people checking the other, in order to avoid the disturbance of balance. But whenever the balance is disturbed, the Divine law sets in motion to restore it.
The Quran also tells us about many nations that were wiped out from the earth because they had disturbed the balance to such an extent that their wiping out was the only way to restore the balance. The examples of the people of Hazrat Lut and that of Pharaoh and Madyan are most glaring. The people of Madyan were commercial people whose very way of life was affected by corruption, fraud and malpractices. In fact, they had disturbed the balance to such an extent that their total elimination could be the only way to restore it (11:84-94). The Quran further says “you will not find any change in the Way of Allah, nor will you see that a power can turn the Way of Allah from its appointed course” (35:43). Since maintenance of balance is one of the Ways of Allah, it gets restored one way or the other, sooner or later, as and when it is disturbed.
The importance of balance is manifest from the fact that the Quran has not only highlighted it but has also emphasised its maintenance. It says “He raised the heavens high and set the balance” (55:7). It says again “It is Allah Who sent the Book in truth and the balance” (42:17). And again “We sent our messengers with clear signs and sent down with them the Book and the balance” (57:25). It specifically advises the human beings not to disturb the balance (55:8).
A little bit pondering over these four verses taken together would reveal that Allah first made use of the rule of balance in setting the universe in proper order and then sent it down to the earth through Prophets and the Books so that it is followed and made use of by the human beings in their own spheres of influence and activities.