Published in 1905 in the first part of the Baang-e-Dara, “Tire ishq kī intihā chāhtā huuñ” is one of Allama Iqbal’s most well-read and well-recalled ghazals. Like most of Iqbal’s poetic writings, this ghazal can be interpreted in two ways: as a man’s adoration of a lady love or as a man’s worship of God.

Adhering to the conventions of a ghazal, the six verses do not have a title and the first line of the first verse or the matla, functions as the working title of the ghazal. This is because, unlike a poem, all verses of a ghazal do not have to be written about a single topic or concern; for instance, in this particular ghazal, the fifth and, somewhat obliquely, the last verse does not directly signal to romantic or divine love.

This ghazal talks about the condition of the poet instead of the beauty of his beloved so it was important for me to retain the ‘I’ in each sentence it was originally present in and to begin with the ‘I’ for each sentence that I could.

Many words in the Urdu lexicon, especially those associated with romantic love and divine submission, carry a gravity or charge which is hard to come by in the English dictionary. “Chāhtā huuñ”, or literally “I want” does not contain the substance that wanting in love holds. Thus, I opted for the more amorously charged ‘I desire’ to connote the presence of love. Similarly, while “intihā“ is boundary or limit, I chose “absolute” to signal to the wholeness of the love desired by the poet. While words like “complete”, “undivided” and “untarnished” came to my mind, I could not substantiate the love being faulty or incomplete from any reference in the ghazal.

Numerous words and phrases illustrate the duality of meaning in the ghazal. The word intihā’ itself points to a perfect love, one that may or may not be humanly possible; another reason why I chose “absolute” instead of “undivided” or “untarnished”, since division and wear cannot be attributed to God. “Vada-e-be-hijābī” which would literally translate to the promise of frank meetings without veils can simultaneously signal to a veiled lady love and to the metaphysical veil that divides this world and the next and makes God invisible to man. References to Heaven further strengthen both explanations. In the second half of the ghazal¸ the poet emphasizes his own insignificance by calling himself “zarā sā to dil“, “koī dam kā mehmāñ“, “charāġh-e-sahar” and “barā be-adab“. These phrases can be interpreted as submitting to the vanities of humanly affections or as the smallness of the poet in front of his divine beloved, God.

The work of a poet blurs the boundary between the world and the divine, just as the work of a translator blurs the boundary between languages. No translation can ever be perfect, unlike the love Iqbal invokes, and while it is both terrifying and an honour to translate this ghazal, my greatest hope has been to maintain both the romantic and mystic adoration to which this ghazal owes its mastery.