Sher on Ilm

There is a kind of intoxication and delight even in learning.

But it is a paradise that lacks the beloved comforts and living charms people desire.

The couplet admits that knowledge brings pleasure and a heady satisfaction, yet calls it an incomplete ‘paradise.’ By saying this heaven has no houris, the poet contrasts cold intellectual joy with the fuller sweetness of love, beauty, and spiritual fulfillment. The emotional core is a gentle disenchantment: intellect alone cannot give total contentment.

There is a kind of intoxication and delight even in learning.

But it is a paradise that lacks the beloved comforts and living charms people desire.

The couplet admits that knowledge brings pleasure and a heady satisfaction, yet calls it an incomplete ‘paradise.’ By saying this heaven has no houris, the poet contrasts cold intellectual joy with the fuller sweetness of love, beauty, and spiritual fulfillment. The emotional core is a gentle disenchantment: intellect alone cannot give total contentment.

Reason is so busy picking faults that it gets no time to move forward.

So build your deeds on love, not on endless analysis.

Allama Iqbal contrasts intellect and love: the intellect stays stuck in criticism and doubt, while love generates conviction and motion. The couplet urges grounding life in active, sincere effort inspired by love rather than paralysis by overthinking. Its emotional core is a call to decisive, heartfelt action. Critique is shown as a distraction when it becomes an end in itself.

Reason is so busy picking faults that it gets no time to move forward.

So build your deeds on love, not on endless analysis.

Allama Iqbal contrasts intellect and love: the intellect stays stuck in criticism and doubt, while love generates conviction and motion. The couplet urges grounding life in active, sincere effort inspired by love rather than paralysis by overthinking. Its emotional core is a call to decisive, heartfelt action. Critique is shown as a distraction when it becomes an end in itself.

I realized only this: that I actually know nothing—alas.

Even that understanding came to me only after a whole lifetime.

The couplet compresses the bitter irony of learning: after long striving, the speaker’s final “knowledge” is the discovery of his own ignorance. The sigh “alas” adds grief at wasted confidence and years. Time becomes a metaphor for life’s slow lessons, where certainty fades into humility. The emotional core is a quiet, existential disappointment that turns into self-awareness.

I realized only this: that I actually know nothing—alas.

Even that understanding came to me only after a whole lifetime.

The couplet compresses the bitter irony of learning: after long striving, the speaker’s final “knowledge” is the discovery of his own ignorance. The sigh “alas” adds grief at wasted confidence and years. Time becomes a metaphor for life’s slow lessons, where certainty fades into humility. The emotional core is a quiet, existential disappointment that turns into self-awareness.

True humanity is a distinct quality, whereas knowledge is something else entirely.

No matter how much you teach a parrot, it remains an animal at its core.

Zauq distinguishes between accumulating information (knowledge) and possessing moral character (humanity). He uses the metaphor of a parrot, which can mimic human speech through training but lacks human consciousness or ethics. The verse suggests that education alone cannot transform a person's basic nature if true humanity is missing.

True humanity is a distinct quality, whereas knowledge is something else entirely.

No matter how much you teach a parrot, it remains an animal at its core.

Zauq distinguishes between accumulating information (knowledge) and possessing moral character (humanity). He uses the metaphor of a parrot, which can mimic human speech through training but lacks human consciousness or ethics. The verse suggests that education alone cannot transform a person's basic nature if true humanity is missing.