Tareekhi Shaoor

The causes of literary stagnation can be political as well as economic. However, among other factors, a major reason is that the demands the current era is making on intellectuals are highly unexpected, leaving them in a state of dilemma. Voices from all sides are demanding the creation of a new kind of constitution, (1) a new economic system, and a new literature. Yet, no one defines the word new in clear and specific terms. Perhaps such a definition is not even possible, but the alarming fact is that no large-scale effort is being made to provide even a working definition, if nothing else. This constant chanting of the new has only made matters more ambiguous. Our current political status may be new, but we are increasingly forgetting that we are far more old than we are new. Simply because we lack a profound and comprehensive realization of this fact, or because we deliberately neglect it, our intellectual difficulties have multiplied unnecessarily.

(1) This essay was written keeping in view the Pakistani situation of that time, but it also discusses matters that hold significance here and today. (M. 1)

However, the people who constantly remind us of our oldness are even more disastrous. They argue that we must revive authentic Islam. In their view, the entire history from the end of the Rashidun Caliphate down to the present day is a continuous tale of deviation. They claim that after the Companions of the early Islamic era, it is only now that we have truly understood Islam. Consequently, they insist that everything in Pakistan must align with their specific interpretation. This implies that the thirteen-hundred-year history of Muslims is rendered invalid, and the invaluable contributions Muslims have made to human culture during this period are deemed fit only for the fire. This tendency receives support from another direction as well. One group argues that since Islam is fundamentally a democratic religion, the establishment of monarchy is tantamount to apostasy. Therefore, whatever occurred under the influence of Muslim kings is excluded from the history of Islam and does not form part of the cultural heritage of a democratic Pakistan. The sweeping nature of this argument engulfs everything from the Alhambra and the Taj Mahal to the Alif Laila and the poetry of Mir and Ghalib. Whatever the Arab kings did might still be somewhat tolerable to them, simply because those kings were Arabs. However, the creative achievements that took place during the era of the Muslim kings of India are entirely out of the question, because those kings were Indian. Even the creative endeavors of a scholar and Sufi like Amir Khusro fall into this discarded category, for according to this logic, neither Amir Khusro nor Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya truly understood Islam. Apparently, authentic Islam has only just now been grasped by a handful of individuals.

This ideology is not confined solely to Islamic parties; even some important departments of our government are caught in this very trap. For instance, Radio Pakistan wishes to invent a distinctly Pakistani music. Consequently, the idea being floated is to send a few people to Iraq to import music from there. All the hard work that Muslims have poured into Indian music over the past six hundred years is simply written off as a loss! Thanks to this lack of historical consciousness, our national radio is ready today to let all our past achievements turn to dust, forcing us to start counting from zero all over again. If such apathy continues to be shown toward the history of Muslims, who knows what other absurdities will come to pass.

Reflect on this single incident, and so many things become clear. At present, we have two historical moments before us: one is the era of Amir Khusro, and the other is our own. In Khusro’s time, the intellectual class of the nation was truly alive. Its creative faculties were awakened; it was fully aware of its values and possessed absolute faith in them. For them, the foremost priority was creation. They did not consider religion to be an unbaked clay pot that would shatter at the slightest tap. Amir Khusro was a Turk, yet he was not intimidated by Hindu music. He established such mastery over it that he effectively wrested it from their hands. Eventually, the day arrived when Muslims became the masters and Hindus the disciples, to the point where Muslims began to taunt them, saying, This is our art, what do you know of it? Such was the state of affairs in an era when the creative faculties of the nation were at their absolute peak.

In stark contrast stands our own era, where a profound despondency has overcome the intellectual class. They lack complete faith in their own values, possess no real familiarity with their nation, and harbor no genuine love for it. Yet, unable to live in isolation from the nation, they are terrified to utter a single word, fearing the nation might take offense. Having heard that the masses hold a deep belief in Islam, they seek to appease the nation by constantly invoking the name of Islam. When this is the disposition of those tasked with creative work, it is obvious that music, too, will have to be imported from Iraq. In fact, it brings to mind the verse:

Aayen ge ghassal Kabul se, kafan Japan se

[The corpse-washers will arrive from Kabul, and the burial shroud from Japan]

Why should a nation that has produced architectural marvels like the Alhambra and the Taj Mahal, epic tales like the Alif Laila and the Tilism-e-Hoshruba, poetry like that of Hafiz and Mir, and musicians like Amir Khusro, ever be afraid of creation? Perhaps the nation itself is not afraid; rather, the fear lies within those individuals in whom the vitality of life has dwindled to a mere shallow stream. If the nation truly is afraid, then it too needs to be retold the history of the Muslims. Those who claim that authentic Islam perished alongside the Rashidun Caliphate effectively reduce Islam to something incredibly trivial. Had Islam been a mere literary movement, this argument might have made sense. For such movements, a lifespan of twenty or thirty years is akin to the exceptionally long life of Noah. But if an idea emerges as a universal system of life, only to be practiced for a mere thirty-six years, then what kind of idea is it anyway? If deviation crept into the Muslims after the Rashidun Caliphate, it is hardly surprising. What is truly astonishing is that, despite a thousand flaws, Muslims have survived to this day, and they still harbor within their hearts the burning desire to live with magnificent grandeur.

What is truly surprising is that, despite their waywardness, Muslims guided millions onto the path of creativity. Even more astonishing is that, despite the presence of absolute monarchies, the fundamental democratic spirit of Islam shone brightly wherever it found an opportunity. Those who wish to separate Islam from the history of Muslims are, in fact, enemies of Islam. Islam had unified thought and action. These individuals want to reduce a living reality like Islam into a mere set of dogmas. America and Communist Russia are often taunted for being newly rich upstarts with no past, and therefore, no clear sense of their future. We, on the other hand, possess a history spanning thirteen hundred years, yet some people advise us to consign it to oblivion. If we fail to benefit from the collective experience of our nation, we will continue to wander in the dark, forced to borrow the vision of others. Over these thirteen centuries, our nation has witnessed unimaginable things: it has risen and fallen, laughed and wept, lived in piety and indulged in debauchery. In short, there is nothing we have not experienced. The impact of all these phases has seeped into our very veins. Even if we wished to rid ourselves of this influence, we simply could not.

We are not merely the heirs of Umar bin Abdul Aziz; we are equally the heirs of Wajid Ali Shah and Muhammad Shah Rangeela. If the history of Muslims is indeed our history, we must accept it in its entirety. We may judge a particular era of this history as good or bad, but we cannot claim that we have no connection to it. If Pakistan is to become a great nation, every Pakistani must carry the weight of their entire history upon their shoulders. Each of us must realize that the virtues of Umar bin Abdul Aziz are our virtues, and the vices of Wajid Ali Shah are our vices; the responsibility for all these triumphs and failings rests upon us. There are undoubtedly many shameful episodes in our history, but acknowledging them as such is only beneficial if we accept that these shameful acts were committed by us. Furthermore, if we truly believe in our future, we should not be excessively ashamed of these past transgressions. A nation destined to live for centuries must occasionally endure fifty or a hundred years of degradation and humiliation.

Ultimately, the greatest intellectual challenge facing Pakistanis today is to fully absorb the thirteen-hundred-year history of Muslims into their consciousness. The answers to hundreds of our questions lie in this single endeavor. We must understand our history anew and make it our guide in even the most minute aspects of our national life. Whenever the intellectual dilemmas of our nation appear overwhelmingly complex, I find great solace in the thought that my nation was not born in 1785 or in October 1917. We have accomplished a great deal over thirteen centuries, and now we must undertake those same endeavors once again, adapting to new circumstances. We have no shortage of role models. We simply need to ask our history one question: Did Islam enter the world merely as a rigid set of dogmas, or as a formidable creative movement?

Wherever we look, we see that while Muslims certainly held fast to their fundamental values, in their passion for creation, they never paused to worry whether a particular idea belonged to them or to outsiders. They unhesitatingly adopted raw materials from wherever they found them and molded them according to their own vision. They learned from the Greeks, the Iranians, the Hindus—they learned from everyone. Yet, in the end, their distinct individuality always shone through. Similarly, they were never afraid of human psychology. The mere mention of sex did not break their ablution. Saadi did not shy away from bawdy humor, yet he remained a revered saint (Rahmatullah Alaih). Muslims only learned to be fearful when their creative impulse began to wane.

Quaid-e-Azam once stated that the creation of Pakistan had liberated the human soul, allowing it to engage fully in its creative struggles. But what kind of captivity is this, that some among us are terrified of our own history? If our souls possess vitality and vigor, even the history of our era of decline can teach us a great deal. As the proverb goes, even a dead elephant is worth a fortune. When a Muslim falls into decadence, he does so in his own unique style; even in his decline, there is a distinct grace. The culture of Lucknow had undoubtedly taken on an artificial hue, and whatever derogatory labels one might assign to it would be justified. However, through these exercises in extreme formality, certain aspects of the human soul were genuinely refined. We find such startling examples that prove the sophistication of Lucknow was not merely limited to fine clothing. Take, for instance, this couplet by Aatish:

Meri taraf se saba kahiyo mere Yusuf se

Nikal chali hai bohat pairahan se boo teri

[O morning breeze, tell my Yusuf on my behalf:

The fragrance of your garment has begun to spread far and wide.]

The poetry of Lucknow is generally quite infamous, but composing a couplet like this was beyond the capacity of the poets of Delhi. If a complaint about a beloved's fickleness can be expressed with such subtlety and refinement, with such caution and nobility, then I would consider it a tremendous contribution to culture. This couplet may belong to an era of decline, but does a democratic Pakistan not require spiritual refinement? And if the revelries of royal courts can be distilled and purified into something like this:

Dimagh apna bhi ae gul-badan muattar hai

Saba hi ke nahi hissay mein aayi boo teri

[My mind, too, is perfumed, O rose-bodied one;

The morning breeze is not the only one to inherit your fragrance.]

—then will a fresh and youthful Pakistan refuse to cultivate its soul through such poetry?

Historical consciousness is essential for us for another reason as well. Unless events have a context—a before and an after—they hold no meaning. If an event occurs in our national life and we can find its precedent in our history, we can understand its meaning. Then, that event begins to become a symbol. Meaning in our lives comes by virtue of our past. I will give an example of this from poetry as well. The Riots are a massive chapter in our national history. But the Riots have not found their rightful place in our literature. Saadat Hasan Manto has certainly written some successful short stories about the Riots, but the Riots have not dissolved into our literature in a way that they cease to be mere events, that their details fade from memory, and they are absorbed into our national consciousness as a collective experience. Our afsana (short story) cannot do this yet because we had severed our connection with our prose tradition. This is only possible when the experiences of the past and the experiences of the present merge into one another. This happens through words. But our words are different; the words of the true prose writers of Urdu were different. The same is true for the nazm (poem); however, the ghazal can absorb the Riots into our consciousness, and the ghazal has already begun this work. The ghazal possesses words so much like the Jam-e-Jahan Numa (the world-revealing goblet) that it seems as if the ghazal came into existence solely to express the Riots, or that the Riots occurred so that the ghazal could be breathed back to life. I first realized this upon hearing a ghazal by Hafeez Hoshiarpuri, and then the couplets of the young poet Nasir Kazmi. It seems that the complaint about the ghazal's limited canvas is actually due to poetic inadequacy or a lack of immersion in the form; otherwise, the ghazal pulls taut the very tent-ropes of time and space. Now, listen to two couplets by Nasir Kazmi:

Dete hain suraagh fasl-e-gul ka

Shaakhon pe jale hue basere

[The burnt nests upon the branches

Give a clue to the season of spring]

Jangal mein hui hai shaam hum ko

Basti se chale the munh andhere

[Evening has fallen upon us in the wilderness

We had set out from the settlement at the crack of dawn]

The way these couplets blur the boundaries of past, present, and future is beyond the capacity of a short story writer. These couplets are a product of the experience of the Riots, but they are not about the Riots. What remarkable work the tradition of the ghazal—and the collective experience preserved within it—has extracted from this young ghazal poet! Now we can say that our consciousness has begun to understand the meaning of the Riots. But this only became possible when the poet's intuition dissolved the experiences of the past and the present into one another.

If our artists begin to interpret our present and past in this manner, historical consciousness will very easily awaken within the nation. But there is also a need to draw the attention of the artists themselves toward this. A conscious effort must be made for this. It is true that this task requires immense knowledge, and even more so, it requires a great man, who is not present at this time. We writers are but ordinary people, but it is possible that our collective effort, aided by the will of a living nation, might accomplish the work of a great man. In any case, the salvation of Muslims is impossible without history, because the Quran is the first religious book that has given extraordinary importance to history.

(Saqi. January 1949)

The causes of literary stagnation can be political as well as economic. However, among other factors, a major reason is that the demands the current era is making on intellectuals are highly unexpected, leaving them in a state of dilemma. Voices from all sides are demanding the creation of a new kind of constitution, (1) a new economic system, and a new literature. Yet, no one defines the word new in clear and specific terms. Perhaps such a definition is not even possible, but the alarming fact is that no large-scale effort is being made to provide even a working definition, if nothing else. This constant chanting of the new has only made matters more ambiguous. Our current political status may be new, but we are increasingly forgetting that we are far more old than we are new. Simply because we lack a profound and comprehensive realization of this fact, or because we deliberately neglect it, our intellectual difficulties have multiplied unnecessarily.

(1) This essay was written keeping in view the Pakistani situation of that time, but it also discusses matters that hold significance here and today. (M. 1)

However, the people who constantly remind us of our oldness are even more disastrous. They argue that we must revive authentic Islam. In their view, the entire history from the end of the Rashidun Caliphate down to the present day is a continuous tale of deviation. They claim that after the Companions of the early Islamic era, it is only now that we have truly understood Islam. Consequently, they insist that everything in Pakistan must align with their specific interpretation. This implies that the thirteen-hundred-year history of Muslims is rendered invalid, and the invaluable contributions Muslims have made to human culture during this period are deemed fit only for the fire. This tendency receives support from another direction as well. One group argues that since Islam is fundamentally a democratic religion, the establishment of monarchy is tantamount to apostasy. Therefore, whatever occurred under the influence of Muslim kings is excluded from the history of Islam and does not form part of the cultural heritage of a democratic Pakistan. The sweeping nature of this argument engulfs everything from the Alhambra and the Taj Mahal to the Alif Laila and the poetry of Mir and Ghalib. Whatever the Arab kings did might still be somewhat tolerable to them, simply because those kings were Arabs. However, the creative achievements that took place during the era of the Muslim kings of India are entirely out of the question, because those kings were Indian. Even the creative endeavors of a scholar and Sufi like Amir Khusro fall into this discarded category, for according to this logic, neither Amir Khusro nor Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya truly understood Islam. Apparently, authentic Islam has only just now been grasped by a handful of individuals.

This ideology is not confined solely to Islamic parties; even some important departments of our government are caught in this very trap. For instance, Radio Pakistan wishes to invent a distinctly Pakistani music. Consequently, the idea being floated is to send a few people to Iraq to import music from there. All the hard work that Muslims have poured into Indian music over the past six hundred years is simply written off as a loss! Thanks to this lack of historical consciousness, our national radio is ready today to let all our past achievements turn to dust, forcing us to start counting from zero all over again. If such apathy continues to be shown toward the history of Muslims, who knows what other absurdities will come to pass.

Reflect on this single incident, and so many things become clear. At present, we have two historical moments before us: one is the era of Amir Khusro, and the other is our own. In Khusro’s time, the intellectual class of the nation was truly alive. Its creative faculties were awakened; it was fully aware of its values and possessed absolute faith in them. For them, the foremost priority was creation. They did not consider religion to be an unbaked clay pot that would shatter at the slightest tap. Amir Khusro was a Turk, yet he was not intimidated by Hindu music. He established such mastery over it that he effectively wrested it from their hands. Eventually, the day arrived when Muslims became the masters and Hindus the disciples, to the point where Muslims began to taunt them, saying, This is our art, what do you know of it? Such was the state of affairs in an era when the creative faculties of the nation were at their absolute peak.

In stark contrast stands our own era, where a profound despondency has overcome the intellectual class. They lack complete faith in their own values, possess no real familiarity with their nation, and harbor no genuine love for it. Yet, unable to live in isolation from the nation, they are terrified to utter a single word, fearing the nation might take offense. Having heard that the masses hold a deep belief in Islam, they seek to appease the nation by constantly invoking the name of Islam. When this is the disposition of those tasked with creative work, it is obvious that music, too, will have to be imported from Iraq. In fact, it brings to mind the verse:

Aayen ge ghassal Kabul se, kafan Japan se

[The corpse-washers will arrive from Kabul, and the burial shroud from Japan]

Why should a nation that has produced architectural marvels like the Alhambra and the Taj Mahal, epic tales like the Alif Laila and the Tilism-e-Hoshruba, poetry like that of Hafiz and Mir, and musicians like Amir Khusro, ever be afraid of creation? Perhaps the nation itself is not afraid; rather, the fear lies within those individuals in whom the vitality of life has dwindled to a mere shallow stream. If the nation truly is afraid, then it too needs to be retold the history of the Muslims. Those who claim that authentic Islam perished alongside the Rashidun Caliphate effectively reduce Islam to something incredibly trivial. Had Islam been a mere literary movement, this argument might have made sense. For such movements, a lifespan of twenty or thirty years is akin to the exceptionally long life of Noah. But if an idea emerges as a universal system of life, only to be practiced for a mere thirty-six years, then what kind of idea is it anyway? If deviation crept into the Muslims after the Rashidun Caliphate, it is hardly surprising. What is truly astonishing is that, despite a thousand flaws, Muslims have survived to this day, and they still harbor within their hearts the burning desire to live with magnificent grandeur.

What is truly surprising is that, despite their waywardness, Muslims guided millions onto the path of creativity. Even more astonishing is that, despite the presence of absolute monarchies, the fundamental democratic spirit of Islam shone brightly wherever it found an opportunity. Those who wish to separate Islam from the history of Muslims are, in fact, enemies of Islam. Islam had unified thought and action. These individuals want to reduce a living reality like Islam into a mere set of dogmas. America and Communist Russia are often taunted for being newly rich upstarts with no past, and therefore, no clear sense of their future. We, on the other hand, possess a history spanning thirteen hundred years, yet some people advise us to consign it to oblivion. If we fail to benefit from the collective experience of our nation, we will continue to wander in the dark, forced to borrow the vision of others. Over these thirteen centuries, our nation has witnessed unimaginable things: it has risen and fallen, laughed and wept, lived in piety and indulged in debauchery. In short, there is nothing we have not experienced. The impact of all these phases has seeped into our very veins. Even if we wished to rid ourselves of this influence, we simply could not.

We are not merely the heirs of Umar bin Abdul Aziz; we are equally the heirs of Wajid Ali Shah and Muhammad Shah Rangeela. If the history of Muslims is indeed our history, we must accept it in its entirety. We may judge a particular era of this history as good or bad, but we cannot claim that we have no connection to it. If Pakistan is to become a great nation, every Pakistani must carry the weight of their entire history upon their shoulders. Each of us must realize that the virtues of Umar bin Abdul Aziz are our virtues, and the vices of Wajid Ali Shah are our vices; the responsibility for all these triumphs and failings rests upon us. There are undoubtedly many shameful episodes in our history, but acknowledging them as such is only beneficial if we accept that these shameful acts were committed by us. Furthermore, if we truly believe in our future, we should not be excessively ashamed of these past transgressions. A nation destined to live for centuries must occasionally endure fifty or a hundred years of degradation and humiliation.

Ultimately, the greatest intellectual challenge facing Pakistanis today is to fully absorb the thirteen-hundred-year history of Muslims into their consciousness. The answers to hundreds of our questions lie in this single endeavor. We must understand our history anew and make it our guide in even the most minute aspects of our national life. Whenever the intellectual dilemmas of our nation appear overwhelmingly complex, I find great solace in the thought that my nation was not born in 1785 or in October 1917. We have accomplished a great deal over thirteen centuries, and now we must undertake those same endeavors once again, adapting to new circumstances. We have no shortage of role models. We simply need to ask our history one question: Did Islam enter the world merely as a rigid set of dogmas, or as a formidable creative movement?

Wherever we look, we see that while Muslims certainly held fast to their fundamental values, in their passion for creation, they never paused to worry whether a particular idea belonged to them or to outsiders. They unhesitatingly adopted raw materials from wherever they found them and molded them according to their own vision. They learned from the Greeks, the Iranians, the Hindus—they learned from everyone. Yet, in the end, their distinct individuality always shone through. Similarly, they were never afraid of human psychology. The mere mention of sex did not break their ablution. Saadi did not shy away from bawdy humor, yet he remained a revered saint (Rahmatullah Alaih). Muslims only learned to be fearful when their creative impulse began to wane.

Quaid-e-Azam once stated that the creation of Pakistan had liberated the human soul, allowing it to engage fully in its creative struggles. But what kind of captivity is this, that some among us are terrified of our own history? If our souls possess vitality and vigor, even the history of our era of decline can teach us a great deal. As the proverb goes, even a dead elephant is worth a fortune. When a Muslim falls into decadence, he does so in his own unique style; even in his decline, there is a distinct grace. The culture of Lucknow had undoubtedly taken on an artificial hue, and whatever derogatory labels one might assign to it would be justified. However, through these exercises in extreme formality, certain aspects of the human soul were genuinely refined. We find such startling examples that prove the sophistication of Lucknow was not merely limited to fine clothing. Take, for instance, this couplet by Aatish:

Meri taraf se saba kahiyo mere Yusuf se

Nikal chali hai bohat pairahan se boo teri

[O morning breeze, tell my Yusuf on my behalf:

The fragrance of your garment has begun to spread far and wide.]

The poetry of Lucknow is generally quite infamous, but composing a couplet like this was beyond the capacity of the poets of Delhi. If a complaint about a beloved's fickleness can be expressed with such subtlety and refinement, with such caution and nobility, then I would consider it a tremendous contribution to culture. This couplet may belong to an era of decline, but does a democratic Pakistan not require spiritual refinement? And if the revelries of royal courts can be distilled and purified into something like this:

Dimagh apna bhi ae gul-badan muattar hai

Saba hi ke nahi hissay mein aayi boo teri

[My mind, too, is perfumed, O rose-bodied one;

The morning breeze is not the only one to inherit your fragrance.]

—then will a fresh and youthful Pakistan refuse to cultivate its soul through such poetry?

Historical consciousness is essential for us for another reason as well. Unless events have a context—a before and an after—they hold no meaning. If an event occurs in our national life and we can find its precedent in our history, we can understand its meaning. Then, that event begins to become a symbol. Meaning in our lives comes by virtue of our past. I will give an example of this from poetry as well. The Riots are a massive chapter in our national history. But the Riots have not found their rightful place in our literature. Saadat Hasan Manto has certainly written some successful short stories about the Riots, but the Riots have not dissolved into our literature in a way that they cease to be mere events, that their details fade from memory, and they are absorbed into our national consciousness as a collective experience. Our afsana (short story) cannot do this yet because we had severed our connection with our prose tradition. This is only possible when the experiences of the past and the experiences of the present merge into one another. This happens through words. But our words are different; the words of the true prose writers of Urdu were different. The same is true for the nazm (poem); however, the ghazal can absorb the Riots into our consciousness, and the ghazal has already begun this work. The ghazal possesses words so much like the Jam-e-Jahan Numa (the world-revealing goblet) that it seems as if the ghazal came into existence solely to express the Riots, or that the Riots occurred so that the ghazal could be breathed back to life. I first realized this upon hearing a ghazal by Hafeez Hoshiarpuri, and then the couplets of the young poet Nasir Kazmi. It seems that the complaint about the ghazal's limited canvas is actually due to poetic inadequacy or a lack of immersion in the form; otherwise, the ghazal pulls taut the very tent-ropes of time and space. Now, listen to two couplets by Nasir Kazmi:

Dete hain suraagh fasl-e-gul ka

Shaakhon pe jale hue basere

[The burnt nests upon the branches

Give a clue to the season of spring]

Jangal mein hui hai shaam hum ko

Basti se chale the munh andhere

[Evening has fallen upon us in the wilderness

We had set out from the settlement at the crack of dawn]

The way these couplets blur the boundaries of past, present, and future is beyond the capacity of a short story writer. These couplets are a product of the experience of the Riots, but they are not about the Riots. What remarkable work the tradition of the ghazal—and the collective experience preserved within it—has extracted from this young ghazal poet! Now we can say that our consciousness has begun to understand the meaning of the Riots. But this only became possible when the poet's intuition dissolved the experiences of the past and the present into one another.

If our artists begin to interpret our present and past in this manner, historical consciousness will very easily awaken within the nation. But there is also a need to draw the attention of the artists themselves toward this. A conscious effort must be made for this. It is true that this task requires immense knowledge, and even more so, it requires a great man, who is not present at this time. We writers are but ordinary people, but it is possible that our collective effort, aided by the will of a living nation, might accomplish the work of a great man. In any case, the salvation of Muslims is impossible without history, because the Quran is the first religious book that has given extraordinary importance to history.

(Saqi. January 1949)