Ranjit Singh - The Lion of Punjab

Once upon a time, all of Punjab was in India. Then in 1947, the British dished out the eastern portion of the banana-split to India and the western one to Pakistan. Ever since the banana-partition, the horns of the two barasinghas (swamp deer) have remained locked over possession of greener Kashmiri pastures.

Pakistani history textbooks shed no light on Maharaja Ranjit Singh whose nineteenth century Sikh empire is an important chapter of the history of Punjab. Bless our children―lovingly named after foreign military adventurists―who are now beginning to question 'uncomfortable truths' of history to lead happier lives.

Raiders of the Indus valley civilization

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
― George Santayana (philosopher)

Around 6,500 BC there existed the Mehrgarh settlement and circa 5,500 BC appeared the Indus valley civilisation. The latter’s trading cities Taxila and Mohenjo-Daro were rediscovered in 1920 and initially named Harappan civilisation after an ancient city Harappa in Punjab. Although these cities are uninhabited now but the mighty Indus River still flows over 3,200 kilometres of Pakistani territory.

India is a Greek and Latin term for 'the country of the River Indus'. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians (people of present-day northwest India and Pakistan) as Indói', literally meaning 'the people of the Indus'.

In ancient times, Sindhu meant 'large body of water, sea, or ocean'. It was shortened to Indu (Hindus being dwellers around this river), then changed to Indos, and finally became Indus. Sindhu is mentioned 176 times in the Rigveda texts. It is a great honour for Sindh, now a province of Pakistan, to have the term 'industry' included in the dictionary.

7'-4" Porus faces shorter Alexander

Successive conquests unleashed subjugation, mass murder, slavery, and economic plunder, and created a system in which local collaborators received generous rewards while the defenders lost their wives and lives. During the reign of terror of Persian Nader Shah (1688-1747), a saying in Punjabi language went thus:

Khaada peeta lagay daa

   (Whatever you've eaten is yours)
Baqi Nadir Shahay da

   (The rest belongs to Nadir Shah)

Why did they all come to India?

Pliny the Elder (79 A.D), Marco Polo (1292 A.D) and French traveller Jean Baptiste Tavernier (1665 A.D), all recorded tales about diamond mining in India. Hence, all traders and invaders descended on India because since 800 BC the land was the only source of diamonds in the ancient world.

Read: Mangoes for Django to find out what Babur (the Mughal emperor) thought of India.

1726 saw the discovery of Brazilian mines but their supposedly inferior diamonds fetched lower prices compared with those mined at Golconda (India). Then clever Portuguese traders began shipping Brazilian diamonds to Europe through Goa and sold these as genuine Golconda diamonds to obtain better prices.

Add to this hard ‘export’ the mountains of glittering gold stolen from the treasuries of princely states and Hindu temples. All proselytizing and forced conversions to install newer gods was a cover for robbery in broad daylight.

Just like diamonds, mineral salt mined at Khewra and Kalabagh (Pakistan) is cheaply ‘exported’, packed in fancy bottles, and sold at exorbitant prices as an ‘Indian’ product fraudulently labelled: "Pure mineral salt from the foothills of the Himalayas".

Khewra-salt on the wounds

"The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history."
― German philosopher Friedrich Hegel

The rise of the Sikhs

With Aurangzeb's death in 1707, the Mughal empire in India faded after centuries of Muslim dominance. Worldly power, diamonds, gold, and salt passed into new hands.

Ranjit's birthplace (Gujranwala)

The relatively new faith of Sikhism took on a Khalsa (the pure ones) militant shape after successive Mughal emperors Jahangir and Aurangzeb killed two of their gurus, Arjun Dev (1581-1606) and Tegh Bahadur (1621-1675), for refusing to convert to Islam. A peaceful religion took on to militancy. The persecuted Sikh followers formed independent Sikh regiments (misls) headed by fierce leaders.

During the administrative chaos in Punjab, a boy was born on 13 November 1780 in village Sukerchak (between Gujjaranwala and Wazirabad); his name was Ranjit Singh Sukerchakia.

Ranjit's Waraich Jatt family had converted from Hinduism to Sikhism. His grandfather, Charat Singh, was a bandit who fought against a bigger robber named Ahmad Shah Abdali. From age ten, Ranjit fought battles alongside his father, Mahan Singh, who was a local feudal lord.

A fearsome Akali (immortal) Sikh warrior

Empire of Ranjit Singh

Successive Mughal and Afghan invasions and the British threat finally produced a Punjabi Sikh leader called Ranjit Singh.

On 12 April 1801, the unlettered twenty-one years old Ranjit became Maharaja of Punjab. He would be remembered as the founder of the Sikh empire of Punjab (the land of 'five rivers'), or Sikh Khalsa Raj and Sarkar-i-Khalsa (government of the pure ones).

Through alliances and marriages, Ranjit brought all the Sikh regiments under his command. His Sikh empire stretched from Khyber Pass in the west to western Tibet in the east, and from Mithankot in the south to Kashmir in the north. During half a century of its existence (1799-1849), three percent militant Sikhs happily ruled over seventy-four percent Muslims and twenty-three percent Hindus.

Not just another pretty face

"You're one of a kind. Benevolent, they say. All castes and creeds under one roof. You haven't even the temper to order the death of one lowly thief."
― Francis Cotton to Ranjit Singh, 1839

Successive attacks by the Mongols (in 1221, 1241 and 1258) left Lahore a deserted city. During the Ahmad Shah Abdali period and before Ranjit Singh's reign, Lahore had already suffered a famine when it did not rain for eight years.

The Maharaja in traditional dress

Ranjit (meaning 'victor in battlefield') was short in stature, had lost sight in the left eye as an infant and possessed a face pitted with pockmarks. With his awesome bearded countenance and great military acumen he pushed armies of handsome Afghan invaders back to where they came from.

Because the Sikh religion considered 'all men equal in the sight of God', Ranjit rejected London’s Savile Row ‘bespoke’ suits, dressed simply in local attire, and wore no crown while seated on the famous Golden Throne.

After the Napoleonic wars, European mercenaries and ex-officers from Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Prussian armies headed for Punjab to seek employment. Men like Court, Ventura, Avitabile, and Allard became Generals and senior administrators in Ranjit's army.

One-fifth of the members of the Lahore Darbar nobility were the dispossessed chiefs and their dependants. In Ranjit’s court and administration, Muslims occupied plenty of important positions as two ministers, one governor, forty-one senior army officers (including two Generals) and ninety-two senior bureaucrats. Ghaus Khan, served as the head of artillery.

Ranjit's arms manufacturing in Punjab created self-sufficiency in weaponry, equipment, and munitions. He invested in infrastructure, established raw materials mines, cannon foundries, gunpowder, and arm factories.

With 120,000 men and 250 artillery pieces under his command, Ranjit did not follow the Mughal method of paying an army with local feudal levies but from the treasury.

Expansion, Sikh style

The Khalsa Sikh Empire at its peak (c.1839)

Ranjit's militarisation kept the British away throughout his rule. While the British wanted to keep the Afghans out through Ranjit, Ranjit desired to keep the British and the Afghans away from Punjab.

He married two widows and cleverly named the sons from them after successful capture of famous cities: Multana Singh, Kashmira Singh and Pashaura Singh.

Between 1806 and 1849 the Sikhs and the British signed several treaties. Through a treaty, the British astutely recognised Ranjit as the sole sovereign ruler of Punjab and agreed on River Sutlej as the eastern frontier of his realm.

Ranjit met with two British Governor Generals in 1831 and 1838. After initial hesitation in 1838, he agreed to the British idea of raising a tripartite army to put displaced ex-Afghan king Shah Shuja―living in exile in Ludhiana―back on the throne in Kabul.

Anglophile Muslims who never tired of cracking ‘Sikh jokes’ soon learnt that Ranjit outmanoeuvred the British during negotiations. Instead of the proposed Sikh expedition into Afghanistan for the sake of British interests, he made the British wage war for the benefit of the Sikhs.

Map of India (European 'invader' settlements 1501-1739)

Expansionism in the Ranjit era brought greater employment, enhanced security, reduction in violence, reopening of trade routes, promotion of greater freedom for commerce, religious freedom, lack of capital punishment, and absence of retaliation against Muslim rulers and Hindus who had earlier executed Sikh gurus.

Pul Kanjri (bridge of the nautch girl)

Of dance and dancers

Ishq na darda maut koloN
   (Love does not fear death)
TuR sooli chaRna pay jaway
   (Even if one faces the gallows)
Nanch nach kay yaar mana layNRa
   (Dance and gain a lover's approval)
BhaNwaiN kanjri banRa pay jaway

Jamia Masjid Moraan Wali, Lahore

   (Even if you must become a dancer)
― Sufi poet, Baba Bulleh Shah (1680-1757)

Ranjit Singh's love for merry company, liquor and dancers prompted him to build Punjab's own 'Taj Mahal' called Pul Moraan. This was a memorial dedicated to Moraan Sarkar.

Before Moraan married Ranjit and became Maharani Sahiba, the Kashmiri girl danced for him at a place between Lahore and Amritsar aptly named Pul Kanjri (dancer's bridge). Kanjri is a mutation of Persian word Kanchani (means dipped in gold and fully blossomed.

This inter-faith marriage greatly upset the Sikh orthodoxy who flogged Ranjit in public for the blasphemy but he remained determined to improve Kashmir-Punjab relations.

At Moraan's request, he built her a house in Bazaar Chowk Chakla (Lohari Gate, Lahore) and a mosque that became known as Masjid-e-Tawaifan (literally: dancer's mosque; later renamed Jamia Masjid Moraan Wali in 1998). Do appreciate how the word ‘bai’ (lady, courtesan) became ‘mai’ (old woman).

Some allege that Ranjit roamed around Lahore sitting atop an elephant with Moraan. He shocked the population by fondling her in public and angered the Muslims when he did the same—for the want of a better place—atop the minaret of Wazir Khan's mosque.

While Ranjit had no coins struck in his own name, he did so for Moraan to bestow greater privilege, power and respect; he also had gold medals for his courtiers minted in France.All that wining, dining and womanising took its toll on Ranjit's health. When the Maharaja complained and exposed his privates to French naturalist Victor Jacquemont, he wrote an historic account:

"Ranjit had advanced chronic syphilis and found it difficult to even urinate with a swollen urethra.

 Ranjit in Lahore

The qasaabs (butchers) attacked Lahore repeatedly. Some accounts mention that Lahoris themselves invited Ranjit Singh to conquer Lahore. He camped in the Baradari of Wazeer Khan and entered the city through the Lohari Gate.

Prominent citizens opened the gate at what is now Punjab Public Library and presented to him the keys of the city. This 'dacoit of Gujjaranwalla' would soon subdue three reigning dacoits of Lahore after firing cannons at the Lahore Fort from the minarets of the Badshahi mosque.

Certain accounts claim that Lahoris were sick of the Sikh bandits Lehna Singh, Sobha Singh and Gujjar Singh who robbed them of possessions, women, and money. When Lahoris left their homes, they hid the women and children inside small secret rooms of courtyard wells. Each woman had a dagger with which to commit suicide in case the Sikhs came.

The deliberately made narrow lanes of the walled-city of Lahore allowed only a lone horse-mounted Sikh attacker could enter. The roofs of all the houses were joined at the top to facilitate escape.

Another narrative claims that Maan Singh was a much-feared robber whom Ranjit subdued bravely, pardoned and made a General in the army.

What happened to the mosques?

Although the Sikhs led by Ranjit Singh never razed enemies' places of worship to the ground, Lahore's Badshahi Mosque was desecrated through conversion to an ammunition store and horse stable. They stripped bricks and marbles off two thousand buildings. Most of the mosques faced neglect, and the azaan (Muslim call to prayer) was not allowed in Kashmir for a long time and heavy taxation turned into oppression.

Badshahi Mosque (Lahore)

Lahore's Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque) was converted into Moti Mandir (Pearl Temple) by the Sikh army, and Sunehri Mosque was converted into a Sikh Gurdwara.

Lahore's Begum Shahi Mosque was also used as a gunpowder factory, earning it the nickname Barood-khana Wali Masjid (Gunpowder Mosque). When Muslims protested, Ranjit restored the mosques to them.

Randjiit Sing Baadour (by Alfred de Dreux)

After conquering Amritsar, Ranjit ordered that its Sikh Temple be adorned with copper and gold foil, hence the name Golden Temple. Since good quality marble was scarce, he ordered slabs ripped out from Lahore's Shalimar Gardens.

Mughal Empress Nur Jahan's mausoleum in Lahore too was allegedly left in ruins when the Sikhs stripped off its marble and precious stones. Someone was so obsessed with the legend of Nur Jahan that he had the coffin removed to inspect the body. The skeleton so disappointed him that he ordered it thrown to the dogs and the wolves (or in river Ravi).

Obviously the Sikhs disagree with some of these stories and claim that the first act of the Maharaja after his arrival at Lahore was to offer prayer at the Badshahi Masjid.

Jihad against the infidels

Syed Ahmad Barelvi, a fiery Wahhabi preacher from Bareilly in Hindustan, tried to stir rebellion against Ranjit Singh. He gradually replaced local leaders who opposed his ultra-orthodox Islamic ideas with pliable religious leaders (ulema). Together they worked to establish a Muslim stronghold on the north-west frontier in the Peshawar valley.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh (seated in the middle)

Syed declared jihad on the British colonialists and the ruling Sikhs but his call fell on the deaf ears of Punjabi Muslims. The Pashtuns responded but when the Yusufzais withdrew support, Syed Ahmed met a violent end at Balakot in 1831. The Sikh army beheaded him and hunted down his agents.

The clashes between him and the Sikhs took place at Akora Khattak. Oddly, it is the same place where the recently assassinated Maulana Sami-ul-Haq (Pakistani senator and ‘spiritual father of the Taliban’) had his Darul Uloom Haqqania headquarters.

"I'm innocent. I've been framed by government agencies for opposing official policies".
― Maulana Sami-ul-Haq while resigning as a Senator and denying any links with Madam Tahira, a 35-year-old former dancer, who ran a brothel in Islamabad

Ranjit Singh: an alternative view

It has been claimed that journalist Khushwant Singh created legends about Ranjit and turned him into a fairy-tale Maharaja with all good traits of a just ruler.

Other accounts insist that Ranjit Singh was liberal in extending state patronage to Sikh, Hindu and Muslim institutions. Nearly seven percent of the state revenue went to religious institutions. The following Muslim shrines received state patronage:

1) Data Darbar and Mian Mir (Lahore)

2) Hazratbal and Shah Hamdan (Kashmir)
3) Pir Mitha (Wazirabad)
4) Sakhi Sarwar (Dera Ghazi Khan)

A pupil gets the 'murgha' punishment 

Ranjit apparently supported prominent families such as the Syeds in Multan, Peshawar and Bannu, and the descendants of Shah Farid in Pakpattan and Bahauddin Zikriya in Multan.

Ranjit’s simple judicial system suited the social and political environment of Punjab. Panchayats (peoples' courts) made decisions in accordance with established customs to settle disputes in rural areas while Qazis (judges) decided cases of Muslims in accordance with Shariah laws. If there were appeals against the decisions of administrators and ministers, Ranjit himself heard these, imposing fines instead of meting out capital punishment.

The reason why many pro-British and Muslim accounts tend to be harsh on Ranjit is because like nationalist Tipu Sultan, Ranjit too was a certified thorn in the British side. Certain truths however remain:

1) Ranjit united the Sikhs under the Khalsa banner and created an empire 

2) He kept the Afghan raiders and the British colonists at bay
3) He was called Sher-e-Punjab (‘Lion of Punjab’) for his liberal patronage and multi-racial rule over Punjab for thirty-eight years

Ranjit Singh's Darbar (circa 1850)

Decline and fall of the Sikh empire

Ranjit's administrative skills and the opulence of the Durbar of Lahore created envy in the hearts of distant enemies and nearby British.

Ranjit's third wife Maharani Jind Kaur's alleged influence over the Darbar created schisms amongst the noblemen and further weakened the Sikh rule. When unhappy feudal Sikhs demanded tax cuts and the army Generals fatter salaries, they ended up conspiring with the British who arranged for a weak throne to fall like a ripe apple into waiting hands.

Power struggle

Ranjit's son, Duleep Singh, was born in 1838 to Maharani Jind Kaur. She could not retain control of the throne for her very young son, Duleep. No sooner was the five-year old declared Maharaja, conspiracies, bribery, British greed for trading concessions and attacks on the Sikhs increased.

Soon thereafter, a suspicious power-struggle ensued in which Kharak Singh was poisoned, Kharak's son Nau Nehal Singh died in a strange accident, and Sher Singh too was poisoned. Within six years, the Sikh kingdom became a sumptuous dinner for the British.

After Ranjit Singh's death, a British Resident Officer based at Lahore controlled all affairs; he ensured that young Duleep Singh remained a Maharaja only in name.

The plot sickens

"Bole so nihal, Sat Sri Akal"
(Shout aloud in ecstasy, True is the Great Timeless One)
― Tenth guru, Guru Gobind Singh

In 1830, Singh acquired the Koh-e-Noor diamond. He served as its keeper for nine years by hiding the real jewel in a secret chamber beneath his summer palace and instead wearing a copy on his wrist.

In 1839, the British Knights Templars plotted to take the diamond from Singh realizing that his successors did not share Singh's determination to protect it.

The English Queen will not return the Koh-e-Noor

 During a feast at the Maharaja's palace, General Francis Cotton poisoned Ranjit.  As the assassin Arbaaz Mir tried to prevent Ranjit from drinking more of his tea, Cotton blamed the assassin and the guards chased after Mir.

Singh's health quickly deteriorated. His granddaughter, Pyara Kaur, rushed to his aid and revealed that the Koh-e-Noor was in her possession. He implored:

"Take the Syamantaka Mani (Koh-i-Noor diamond) and go. Far from here. They will come for you. All of you. Your uncles will not have the strength to hold the empire together. The Punjab may fall, but we may still protect India herself. Go. And never return."
―Singh's last words to his granddaughter Pyara Kaur, 1839

Syamantaka Muni was a powerful 'piece of Eden' and the mythological blessed stone of Hindu mythology that possessed magical powers.

Kashmir for sale

Ranjit Singh died in 1839. In 1846, after the Sikh defeat in the First Anglo-Sikh War, the Treaty of Lahore forced the Sikhs to surrender valuable regions and pay an indemnity of fifteen million Rupees. Failure to immediately pay this large sum resulted in surrendering Kashmir, Hazara and all the forts, territories, rights and interests in the hill countries situated between the Rivers Beas and Indus to the British East India Company.

The Treaty of Amritsar allowed the pro-British Raja of Jammu (Gulab Singh Dogra) to purchase Kashmir from the East India Company for a payment of 7.5 million Rupees and be granted the title Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir.

Genealogy of Ranjit Singh

Read: Ranjit Singh's Kashmir Extensionism and Britain's Role

Samadhi of Ranjit Singh

"Truth is the highest virtue, but higher still is truthful living".
― Guru Nanak (founder of Sikhism, 1469–1539)

These days clear blue skies, with a visible horizon is an impossibility due to atmospheric pollution. There was a time when River Ravi's emerald green waters flowed next to the Lahore Fort. So clear was the atmosphere that one could see the snow-covered mountains of Kashmir. Then Ravi changed her course and with this changed many fortunes.

Ranjit Singh's Samadhi (Lahore)

I had the good fortune of attending the Sikh Vaisakhi mela inside Gurdwara Dera Sahib where Guru Arjun Dev, died in 1606. Situated in the same building is Ranjit Singh's mausoleum at the foot of the Badshahi Mosque opposite the Lahore Fort.

At the mela I met with a British-Indian Sikh dressed in turquoise from turban to toe. Sipping doodh-patti, we sat in a small room discussing politics and religion. In the hall behind us, pious reciters read aloud the Guru Granth Sahib. While huge crowds surrounded the Guru's grave there was gloom and loneliness around Ranjit's Singh's tomb located on the upper floor.

With typical Sikh candidness this dignitary expressed distaste for Indian repression of the Sikhs, 'great love for Pakistan, the land of our ancestors and gurus', and disdain for 'Mughal, Afghan and British invaders whom the Sikhs both served and opposed militantly'.

Ranjit Singh breathed his last on the night of 27 June 1839. We sat at the very spot where they cremated the Maharaja: Gurdwara Dera Sahib. Its construction was started by his eldest son from the second wife, Kharak Singh, and completed by his youngest son from the third wife, Duleep Singh, in 1848.

Smaller urns surrounding the Maharaja's funerary urn contained the ashes of four sati queens and seven concubines who immolated themselves on the pyre.

Men jealous of Ranjit's virility claim he had more than he needed: twenty wives and dozens of mistresses. Then there are those who imagine themselves modern Maharajas and lament; “They do not make wives like that anymore!”


COMING SOON (in two parts): 
Duleep Singh - The Last Maharaja Of Lahore

Duleep Singh - The Fall Of The Rebel Prince

©Tahir Gul Hasan, 2019

Reference books & photo credits

A Short Biography of Syed Muhammad Latif (pages 346-497)
History of the Panjab (Syad Muhammad Latif)

Ranjit's birthplace (Gujranwala) photo by Tipoo Fawwad

Acknowledgement
If I were to list all the references the old-fashioned away right here, this article would be twice its current size. If I were to list all the references the old-fashioned away right here, this article would be twice its current size. Included in the text are some web links (URLs). Just click on the words in blue colour and you will reach those other pages that contain either the text used (after laborious editing) or more information. I visited hundreds of web sites while researching for material on Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Omissions, if any, were unintentional. I thank those from whom obtaining permission to use some images was either impossible or who did not respond to my requests.

DISCLAIMER

No one must misconstrue the information presented here about any charachter as disinformation or insults. The information here was meticulously-collected and cross-checked from numerous sources on the internet (without the use of proxy servers in Pakistan). Please email your suggestions (with believable references) if you feel something requires correction.

e-4 (grammar, 1849/1839 dates, new photos’: 24-04-19)

Iqbal In Love With Emma Wegenast

Any sensible mother in the Indian sub-continent will be petrified if her daughter ever fell in love with a nikamma sha'ir (useless and idle poet).

Through this article we shall prove that it is possible to write material of commercial and revolutionary value even if one's belly is not always full.

How do poets do it?

Disobedience caused Adam to fall from Almighty's Grace
And until Judgement Day fallen in love must he remain.

—Yours truly

To extract poetic revenge our male poets have, over the centuries, followed three secret cardinal rules formulated by some Himalayan Rishis:

Sheikh Noor Mohammad

1) Never confuse your missus or Mrs. (the daughter of Eve) with your Muses (three or nine daughters of Zeus or Apollo).

2) The best beloved is the one whom you cannot or should not marry. 

3) The best wife (not less than one and not more than four according to Islam) is the one for whom you may pretend to live but never promise to die.

To get a complete picture of it, please read the following articles which show how a Hungarian-Indian Jewish-Sikh painter named Amrita Sher-Gil played a minor role in the poetic life of Sir Dr Allama Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal:

Imam Bibi

1) Iqbal At Close Range
2) The Artistic Youth Of Amrita Sher-Gil
3) The Fantastic Growth Of Amrita
4) The Dramatic Death Of Amrita Sher-Gil

Iqbal's lineage

Kafir-e-ishqam musalmani mara darkaar neest
(I am an infidel of love, the creed of Muslims I do not need)
—Amir Khusrow

Let us first look at the lineage of "Pakistan's national poet" whose birth and death took place in pre-partition India.

Iqbal’s mother Imam Bibi, a Sialkoti Punjabi, married Sheikh Noor Mohammad after he converted to Islam.

Khushwant Singh, in an article titled ‘Iqbal’s Hindu relations’, wrote about his Kashmiri Brahmin background:

“The family traces its origin to one Birbal. They lived in the village of Saprain (hence, the surname Sapru) on Shopian-Kulgam Road. Then the family moved to Srinagar where Iqbal and most of his cousins were born.

Iqbal (rear, second from left)

Birbal had five sons and a daughter. The third one, Kanhaya Lal, and his wife, Indirani, had three sons and five daughters.

Kanhaya Lal was Iqbal’s grandfather. His son, Rattan Lal, converted to Islam and was given the name Noor Mohammad. The Saprus disowned Rattan Lal and severed all connections with him.

There are different versions of Rattan Lal’s conversion. According to Sindh, one version came from Iqbal’s translator Syeda Hameed. In this version, Iqbal’s father Rattan Lal (Noor Mohammad) was caught embezzling money as the revenue collector of the Afghan governor of Kashmir.

The governor offered him a choice: convert to Islam or be hanged. Rattan Lal chose to stay alive. When the Afghan governor fled from Kashmir to escape its takeover by the Sikhs, Rattan Lal migrated to Sialkot."

Precocious little Iqbal

Syed Mir Hassan

Iqbal was a 'happy child' who learnt the Qur’an by heart. While Noor Muhammad was a pious Muslim tailor and embroiderer, Imam Bibi was a wise and generous woman who helped the poor and arbitrated neighbours’ disputes.

Syed Mir Hassan was so impressed by Iqbal's intellect that he persuaded Noor Muhammad to enrol his four-years old son in Government Christian High School. He remained Iqbal's professor at the Scottish Mission College until his graduation from Murray College in 1892.

There were men in those days who excelled at 'serving' Her Majesty the Queen of England by buying rare and ancient manuscripts for English libraries, and finding high-IQ children like Kim (Rudyard Kipling fame) who could be 'civilised'. Iqbal was a marked child.

Extracurricular Iqbal

Iqbal found music and poetry very appealing. Being good with words he regularly entertained friends with parodies of popular songs in impromptu shows.

In high school, he mastered arooz (the science of meter) and abjad (numerology of verses). He wrote chronograms (phrases in which Roman letters M, C, X, L, and V can be read as Roman numerals giving certain dates), composed ghazals (rhyming couplets), and learned to play the sitar.

Later in life Iqbal learnt German, Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit. While he practised the law in English, it was Punjabi that he spoke with friends. Out of 12,000 verses of poetry, 5,000 were written in Urdu and 7,000 in Persian.

Marriages and deaths

1914 was a tragic year for Iqbal; he lost a daughter (Meraj Bano) and then his mother (Imam Bibi) for whom the penned a poem titled “Valida Marhooma ki yaad main” (In memory of my beloved mother).

On 4 May 1893, Karim Bibi (1874-1947) became his first wife. She was Dr. Sheikh 'Khan Bahadur' Ata Muhammad's daughter and three years older. She bore him a daughter, Meraj Begum (1895), and a son, Aftab Iqbal (1899). The 'unsuccessful marriage' ended with a separation in 1916.

In 1913 he married Sardar Begum from whom he had a son, Javed Iqbal, and a daughter, Muneer Bano.

After Iqbal's mother expired on 9 November 1914 in Sialkot (on his birthday), in December he married his third wife, Mukhtar Begum, who died (along with a son) during childbirth on 21 October 1924.

On 17 October 1915, Iqbal's daughter, Miraj Begum (from his first wife), expired.

Iqbal's father passed away in 1930, and finally on 23 May 1935, his third wife, Sardar Begum went to her heavenly abode.

A rare photo of Emma Wegenast

Enter enigmatic Emma

Laazim hai dil ke paas rahay paas-baan-e-aql
(It’s good to keep the heart under the guardianship of wisdom)
Lekin kabhi kabhi isay tanha bhi chhoR day
(But sometimes the heart needs to be left alone)
—Iqbal

While in England, Iqbal realised that his eastern looks, sharp wit and gentlemanly charm attracted pedestal fans (ladies who placed him on a pedestal). Not an ordinary man by British standards, Iqbal kept this nuclear option (power over minds) under civil control, and thus turned all his favourite non-wife 'friends' into fluffed pillows to sob over.

Pension Scherer was a highly respectable boarding house where, for six months in 1907, Iqbal took German language lessons from Fräulein Emma Wegenast to complete his Ph.D.

Adoring Goethe and Rumi was easy, not falling in love with Emma was impossible for an eastern poet living in the romantic university town of Heidelberg.

Every boy who was ever taught a thing or two about life will faintly, if not vividly, remember being infatuated with a pretty school-teacher. Emma embodied everything he wanted in a woe-man: intelligence, beauty, education, refinement and the right balance between strength and femininity.

A curious case of the French toasts

Macron

Incumbent French President, Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron, developed the Oedipus Complex at school for his female French language teacher, Brigitte Marie-Claude ('schooled' by the Jesuits).

She later admitted: "At the age of 17, Emmanuel Macron said to me, 'Whatever you do, I will marry you!'"

At age twenty-one she had already married André-Louis Auzière, a banker who one fine day 'found her' with Macron, a classmate of his daughter. After tolerating her philandering for ten years, he divorced her.

Brigitte

Macron's parents later asked the then 40-year-old Brigitte to "stay away from their 16-year-old son, at least until he turned 18."

Brigitte, being twenty-four years and eight months older to Macron, finally became his aged wife (2007) and the First Lady of France (2017).

Macron is now the French Republic's President and one out of the two Co-Princes of Andorra (a micro-state landlocked between France and Spain).

Hide and seek in Heidelberg

The book, Iqbal: the life of a poet and philosopher, affords us a deeper look at our poet.

In 1879, Emma was born in Heilbronn. She was the fourth child of a businessman.

Emma was only two years younger to Iqbal but at at five feet seven inches, stood an inch taller than Iqbal. He was enchanted by her 'not being self-conscious of her superb beauty'.

She had blue eyes but her hair were black. Her hometown by the river Neckar had a considerable Jewish population.

Two questions arise: was she from a mixed race, and was this the reason she shied away from marrying our already married Muslim scholar from India?

Iqbal, instead of singing praises of river Ravi of Lahore, wrote a poem about river Neckar. He praised Germany, Goethe and almost anything that was dear to Emma. He condoled with her when her father passed away in 1913.

The two occasionally exchanged gifts. While in England, Iqbal asked unforgettable Emma to send him some photographs which she did, and those he displayed like a trophy on his study table. In return he sent Emma his photograph.

Upon his return to India, Iqbal wrote: 'My body is here, my thoughts are in Germany'.

Not only did Iqbal study hard at Heidelberg, he enjoyed life which seemed like a 'beautiful dream' which he wished to repeat.

Between 1907-1914, in 1919 and then between 1931-1933, he wrote Emma twenty-seven letters (including two postcards), not all of which discussed the weather or politics. He wrote seventeen letters in German language and ten in English from Munich, England and India.

Iqbal always addressed Emma very formally as ‘Mein liebes Fraulein Wegenast’ or ‘My dear Fraulein Wegenast’, with only the ‘Mein’ hinting at his fondness and respect for her. He used the formal and respectful ‘Sie’ in addressing her, and never the intimate ‘Du’. In one letter he wrote:

“It is impossible for me to forget your beautiful country where I learned so much. I wish I could see you once more at Heidelberg and from there we would make a pilgrimage together to the sacred grave of the great master Goethe.”

Despite the heavily coded longing the rendezvous never materialised. When Emma went through a personal crisis, Iqbal wrote more openly:

"Once a person has become your friend, it is not possible for him to live without you. A true friend...when hearts are fused together...distances become meaningless..."

Again in 1908, Iqbal asked Emma to meet her in Paris and yet again the attempt failed. Once in India he expressed his sadness and loneliness without her.

To Sir with love

The man responsible for the Nankana massacre, Sir Edward Douglas Maclagan (the British Governor of the Punjab) proposed in 1922 to King George V that Iqbal be knighted in recognition of his literary achievements.

Iqbal asked that his teacher, Syed Mir Hassan (who had taught Iqbal and Faiz Ahmad Faiz), too be awarded a title.

When the Governor remarked, "Mir Hassan has not written any books", Iqbal replied, "I am the book that Mir Hasan has produced." Mir Hasan received the title of 'Shams al-’Ulama’ (Sun of Scholars).

All that 'education' with Mir and in Europe finally paid off on 1st January 1923 when Iqbal's amenable behaviour towards the British interests resulted in a knighthood being conferred upon him. 

Signing the Armistice (1918) WWI, and in 1940 (WW2)

Iqbal's days continued to turn into nights in shy armour. He suffered from ailment of the kidneys from 1916 up until his death.

Courting the Young Turks

After the Ottoman Empire suffered a major military defeat in World war I, through the Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt were severed from her.

The All India Khilafat Committee in India failed to revive the Caliphate. Its Muslim-Hindu leaders (and the population in general), opposed the British designs, many were jailed but Iqbal remained free by siding with the secular Muslim League.

As one will observe today, all the 'crescent' countries have been 'liberated and democratized' by the 'lions, eagles, stars and crosses' of the British-American-Zionist nexus.

Mustafa 'Ataturk' Kemal asked for no support from Indian Muslims because he was backed by the Freemasonic 'hidden hand'. Iqbal's support for Ataturk's abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate reached its peak when he read the Turk's statements during a long speech at Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, in presence of 250,000 Muslims who gathered for Salat al-Eid al-Adha (Prayers at Feast of the Sacrifice):

“Let’s pray, brothers, that flag shall not fall down from those bastions till doomsday. May the sun of Islam remain bright; may Allah help Mustafa Kemal, the great leader who defends Muslims against Christians. May Allah bestow victory upon the last soldiers of Islam.”

The World Islamic Conference was held in Jerusalem from 7 until 17 December 1931 and which was attended by one hundred and thirty delegates from twenty-two countries. 'Without doing much at it, Iqbal wriggled out before it concluded'.

The cult of the '3G goddess of the compass and the square'

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. —Franklin D. Roosevelt (America's 32nd 'war President')

Oddly, Iqbal also supported Ghazi Rauf Pasha in India, a dissident associated with Ataturk. Was Iqbal hunting with Ataturk and running with his opposition? Was he acting both as a moving force and a controlled opposition? Today more people call Iqbal 'Allama' (great scholar) instead of 'Sir'.

The tentacles and machinations of the secret societies were everywhere. Goethe, Nietzsche, Ataturk, Sir Syed Ahmed Ali Khan, scores of other prominent men in India were Freemasons, even the first Freemason in 1775 was a Muslim Nawab of Carnatic.

Why was His (Masonic) Holiness Sir Sultan Muhammed Shah Aga Khan III buried by the Nile and close to the Pharaohs? Why is Bahaullah's tomb in Israel along with that of Maulana Muhammad Ali Johar?

Sir Aga Khan (with his 'hand' hidden)

To arrive at conclusions hidden from the masses, readers are encouraged to conduct personal research into related events and personalities.

Atiya Fyzee on Iqbal and Emma

Atiya Fyzee found Emma Wegenast to be 'extremely beautiful and Iqbal full of humility', with his ‘egotistic cynicism’ of the London all but gone. He was ‘intelligently interested’ in his studies. He liked boating, classical music, singing, gardening, and hiking.

Iqbal sang operatic songs ‘all out of tune and with no voice’ and danced clumsily to a folk tune with his tutor Frau Wegenast. He was last in a boat race, and once cooked an Indian dish. He picked knowledge from the trees that he passed by and the grass he trod.'

Iqbal was a warm and sensitive human being pinned down by multiple marriages and their accompanying emotional baggage, the turmoil in Indian politics and his higher learning created an intellectual imbalance at home.

Emma Wegenast (and Atiya Fyzee, who will be explored in a future article) were far cries from the traditionally Muslim ladies that Iqbal married. Emma and Atiya were beautiful, unveiled, bold, almost like hooris sent down from heaven.

Relationship: It's complicated

"We have biographies of Rabindranath Tagore revealing all his love affairs but none of the Allama telling us of the kind of man he was." —Khushwant Singh

The 'dirty old man of India', Khushwant Singh, wrote thus in an article titled ‘Iqbal’s Hindu relations’:

"This secret [Emma Wegenast] was divulged by the mayor of Heidelberg in a speech in which he named a part of the bank of the river Neckar 'Iqbal Weg'. The Pakistani ambassador to Germany had the mayor’s speech mentioning the girl’s name suppressed."

Problem? What problem?

"Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here." —communications between the Apollo 13 astronaut John ("Jack") Swigert and the NASA Mission Control Center ("Houston") during the Apollo 13 spaceflight

Can Pakistani SUPARCO out-space American NASA?

We have SUPARCO in Pakistan; the above sentence maybe revised to read: Islamabad, we've had a problem here since 1947.

It is easy to offer prayers at the tombs of our national heroes rather than ask probing questions. Usually the one who questions 'uncomfortable facts' of our history is labelled a 'traitor' in Pakistan.

The invention of the printing press has not liberated the entire world through publication of truthful textbooks, it has rather plagued us with systematic cover-ups of real history designed to paralyse young minds with homogenised and expensive mass brain-washing called 'education'.

Food not cooked at home

When no food is lovingly cooked at home, men tend to dine out; for dessert they rest their tired heads in cosy laps of women with sympathetic ears.

Iqbal certainly did not commit a crime by not always walking alone in European parks. Where exactly could a Rehmatullah Alayh (may Allah’s mercy be upon him) and Hakeemul Ummat (the sage of the nation) go to relieve educational and matrimonial stress?

Eros—vulgar or divine?

Socrates, in Plato's "Symposium", explained two types of love or Eros:

1) Vulgar Eros (earthly love) is a mere material attraction towards a beautiful body for physical pleasure and reproduction. 

2) Divine Eros (divine love) journeys from physical attraction towards beautiful form or body but transcends gradually to love for Supreme Beauty. It later transforms into Platonic love in which the beautiful other person inspires the mind and the soul, and directs one's attention to spiritual things. 

Men will say things to other men but they will only say 'other things' to 'other women'. Iqbal did pour his poetic heart out to other women by posting paper-based 'status updates' in an era when absence and distance made hearts grow fonder, and when envelopes took painful months across continents to arrive into physical mailboxes.

Jinnah's hidden hand

Of rich poor men

The short and unsuccessful marriage of Pakistan's 'founding father', Muhammad Ali Jinnah, cannot be compared with seesawing multiple marriages of Iqbal.

While Jinnah charged hefty fees as a lawyer to buy sprawling properties all over India, Iqbal would 'stop accepting more cases when his monthly income touched the Rupees 500 mark'.

In 1935 Iqbal owned a French automobile and, as a husband of three wives, kept meticulous notes of what came in and what was spent. Here is an interesting analysis:

Iqbal's bill for tent shouldaries (1935)

When Iqbal died in 1938, one Indian Rupee was worth 3.73 U.S Dollars, hence, Rs 500 was worth $134.

At today's exchange rate of 65 Indian Rupees to 1$, those Rs 500 would be worth Rs 8,710.

In 1938, the price of 1 troy Ounce of gold (31.1034768 grams) was $35 (Indian Rupees 130.55). Hence, Iqbal's monthly income of Rs 500 could buy him 3.8299 grams of gold.

In 2018, the price per troy Ounce of gold is Indian Rs 86,000 (worth $1,323), hence Iqbal's monthly income was substantial by this standard.

In 2018, the price per troy Ounce of gold is Indian Rs 86,000 (worth $1,323), hence Iqbal's monthly income was substantial by this standard.

Iqbal's electricity bill (February 1939)

Today 1 Indian Rupee is worth 1.7827 Pakistani Rupee. Had Iqbal been alive today in Pakistan, his monthly income would be 153,316 Pakistani Rupees.

By the time the British partitioned India, through the Indian Independence Act 1947, on 15 August, one Indian Rupee was worth one U.S Dollar. Today 65 Indian Rupees get you just one American Dollar—a devaluation of sixty-five times in seventy-one years. Blame it on mad borrowing and the insane bankers.

Doraus Lendora, the German tutor

Iqbal's encounter with Emma Wegenast cemented his faith in German ladies who seemed willing to sacrifice everything when it came to their children's upbringing. Impressed with their work ethic and culture, in 1935 Iqbal employed a German lady, Doraus Lendora, for his children Javed Iqbal and Munira.

The Indian Rupee (1918) with King George V sitting on it

The children called her 'auntie Doraus' and she stayed at Iqbal's home for twenty-eight years. We do not know if Iqbal communicated with her in German language.

Doraus died in 1962, having served for twenty-eight years. She now rests in Lahore's Christian Cemetery.

Doraus holding Munib (Iqbal's grandson)

The prodigal son: Javed Iqbal

It goes to Iqbal's credit that he was able to express pious and lofty poetic thoughts with a pen dipped in the ink of a troubled marital status. To this date, his failed romances and personal tragedies attract mud-slingers whom the majority of fans reject outright for 'national security' reasons.

Imitating somewhat the 'ascetic ideal' of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Iqbal wrote Javed Nama (The Book of Eternity) and through Baal-e-Jibrael (Gabriel’s Wing, 1932) addressed his son Javed Iqbal:

Do not be beholden to the West’s artisans
Seek thy sustenance in what thy land affords
My way of life is poverty, not the pursuit of wealth;
Barter not thy Selfhood; win a name in adversity.

Iqbal with his son Javed Iqbal (1930)

Javed Iqbal followed his father’s advice and became a noted lawyer, the Chief Justice of Lahore High Court, and a Senator. In his four-volume biography on Iqbal, he admits:

“We were always short of money. My mother wanted to buy a home instead of always renting so she wanted my father to take his law practice seriously. I can still recall my mother crying and complaining that while she was working like a servant, my father was lying on a couch and writing poetry. When upbraided like this, my father would laugh his embarrassed laugh.

Wait, the heroine has a sister!

On 16 September 1966, through Abdul Rahman Khan (Pakistan's Ambassador), a plaque commemorating Iqbal's stay at Heidelberg was unveiled.

Locating the house where Iqbal lived at the beginning of the century became possible when a Pakistani student, M. S. Boikan, wrote a letter to a local newspaper. That prompted Sofie Wegenast (then in her 80's), Emma Wegenast'a sister, to reveal the correct address.

Click HERE to see where Iqbal lived in Heidelberg.
Click HERE to see a documentary on Iqbal.

Bitten by a German love-bug

Thomas Weber (born 1974) is a German historian and university Professor of History and International Affairs at the University of Aberdeen. Himself an Oxford scholar, he challenges all preconceived notions and existing stereotypes in his book "Our Friend 'The Enemy': Elite Education in Britain and Germany Before World War I":

"In the case of Prince Rangsit of Thailand, who in 1913—contrary to convention—married the daughter of his Heidelberg landlady, the romantic image became a reality.

Moreover, Muhammad Iqbal, a poet often described as one of the spiritual fathers of Pakistan, who had studied for a few months at Heidelberg in 1907, after his return to India, wrote passionate letters to Emma Wegenast, a young woman who had taught him German at Heidelberg:

'No land and no ocean can keep us apart. We will be ever together and my thoughts like magic will run after you and strengthen our bond'.

Significantly, Iqbal recorded no similar episodes from his time at Cambridge."

It was Iqbal's captive dove status in India that made him love a female German uqaab (eagle) named Emma Wegenast.

Where are Iqbal's letters to Emma?

Now consider what Mohammad Aman Herbert Hobohm states about someone hiding the "more than 40 letters plus some photographs that were handed over by Emma Wegenast to Mr Mumtaz Hasan of the the Pakistan-German Forum in 1959".

Letters? What letters?

The forum was a bilateral cultural association of which Mumtaz Hasan was the President.

Since all governments excel at official cover-ups, the collection of Iqbal's letters to Emma possibly still remain under lock and key somewhere. Is there a dungeon where Emma's replies to Iqbal might be found? Did Iqbal, before his death, or someone later destroy that evidence?

Iqbal died in 1938. Emma never married. When Pakistan came into being in 1947, she retired from work, and at age eighty-five died in 1964.

Iqbal in the eyes of the world

A lot can be said about how Iqbal's thoughts influenced generations spread across the continents. In Iran Iqbal is known as Iqbal-e Lahori (Iqbal of Lahore) and acclaimed for the beauty of his poetry and his love for the Persian language.

The German expert on Iqbal, Professor Dr. Annemarie Schimmel (1922-2003 ) wrote:

Forget the stiff official photos, Iqbal sat this way at home

“Iqbal is an ideal example of what history of religion calls a 'prophetic' type of experience, an experience which made him soar to new heights."

Iqbal condensed his thoughts in the final lines of a poem dedicated to Emma's river Neckar: Darya-e-Neckar (Heidelberg) kay kinaray par" (An Evening On The Banks Of The Neckar, Heidelberg):

اے دل تو بھی خموش ہو جا 

You too, o heart, be still
آغوش میں غم کو لیکے سو جا 

Hold your grief to your bosom, and sleep

Where is Iqbal now?

Living on the lowly 2,918 meters high Mount Olympus, the Greek Zeus and his immoral gods and goddesses fought amongst themselves over human flesh and dominion.

Here we have, Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain that reaches 8,848 meters. The Nepalese call it 'Gauri Sankar' or 'Sagarmāthā', the Tibetans know it as 'Chomolungma', and the British labelled it 'Peak XV'. One could find greater comfort in imagining sage-poet Iqbal's contended spirit residing atop this very mountain.

* * *

©Tahir Gul Hasan, 2018

Stayed tuned for my next article: Iqbal In Love With Atiya Fyzee

An interesting video (11-11-24)

Further reading

Allama Iqbal: A Letter to The Times

Iqbal At Close Range
The Artistic Youth Of Amrita Sher-Gil
The Fantastic Growth Of Amrita
The Dramatic Death Of Amrita Sher-Gil

Acknowledgement
If I were to list all the references the old-fashioned away right here, this article would be twice its current size. The web links (URLs in blue) have been included in the text. Just click on the words in blue colour and you will reach those other pages that contain either the text used (after laborious editing) or more information. I visited hundreds of web sites while researching for material on Allama Iqbal. Omissions, if any, were unintentional. I thank those from whom obtaining permission to use some images was either impossible or who did not respond to my requests.
Photo of Goethe
Photo of Friedrich Nietzsche (1899, by Hans Olde)
Munib Iqbal's FaceBook page
Hidden hand of Mustafa Kemal

DISCLAIMER
No one must misconstrue the information presented here about Iqbal as disinformation or insults. The information here was meticulously collected (after cross-checking) from numerous sources on the internet (without the use of proxy servers in Pakistan). If you feel something here needs to be amended, please email me the suggestions with believable references. Until then, whatever is written here shall be considered correct.