Jihad
by Sir Mohammad Iqbal
“The pen is mightier than the sword,”
preaches an imam from the pulpit.
In our era such sermons lack virtue: Don’t
talk of a Muslim with a dagger, speak
instead of a Christian gunrunner who
smears a striving for truth as unholy.
Ask: If war is immoral for the East,
is it not so for the West, and if truth
is the path, why are Western blunders
burnished and those of Islam broadcast?
Translated, from the original Urdu, by Rafiq Kathwari