Harf
Script shown with the Urdu

سارے جہاں سے اچھا Saare Jahan Se Achha — Better Than All The World

Allama Iqbal

1877– 1938

Nazm

Almost everybody knows the first line and the tune. Far fewer have read the whole thing, and the closing couplet is not patriotic at all.

Iqbal wrote it in 1904, in his twenties, and called it Tarana-e-Hindi, the anthem of the people of Hind. Nine couplets ahead. The two that get sung at school assemblies are the least interesting ones in it.

01  — saare jahan se achchha hindostan hamara

سارے جہاں سے اچھا ہندوستاں ہمارا
ہم بلبلیں ہیں اس کی یہ گلستاں ہمارا

सारे जहाँ से अच्छा हिन्दोस्ताँ हमारा
हम बुलबुलें हैं इस की ये गुलसिताँ हमारा

saare jahan se achchha hindostan hamara
ham bulbulen hain is ki ye gulsitan hamara

Better than all the world is our Hindustan. We are its nightingales, and it is our garden.

The claim in the first line is absolute and unargued, which is what an anthem is for. Then the second line changes the terms. We are not the country's owners or its children but its birds, and what a nightingale does in a garden is sing about it. He has defined the country's people by the fact that they praise it.

بلبل bulbul
the nightingale
گلستان gulsitan
a rose garden

02  — ghurbat men hon agar ham rahta hai dil vatan men

غربت میں ہوں اگر ہم رہتا ہے دل وطن میں
سمجھو وہیں ہمیں بھی دل ہو جہاں ہمارا

ग़ुर्बत में हों अगर हम रहता है दिल वतन में
समझो वहीं हमें भी दिल हो जहाँ हमारा

ghurbat men hon agar ham rahta hai dil vatan men
samjho vahin hamen bhi dil ho jahan hamara

If we are far from home, the heart stays in the homeland. Understand us to be wherever our heart is.

Written by a man who would shortly leave for Cambridge and Munich, and it reads like somebody working out the terms in advance. The second line is the sharper one. It does not say the exile misses home, it says the exile is at home, because a person is located wherever their attachment is.

غربت ghurbat
being away from home, exile
وطن vatan
homeland

03  — parbat vo sab se uncha ham-saya asman ka

پربت وہ سب سے اونچا ہم سایہ آسماں کا
وہ سنتری ہمارا وہ پاسباں ہمارا

पर्बत वो सब से ऊँचा हम-साया आसमाँ का
वो संतरी हमारा वो पासबाँ हमारा

parbat vo sab se uncha ham-saya asman ka
vo santari hamara vo pasban hamara

That mountain, the highest of them all, neighbour to the sky — it is our sentry, it is our watchman.

The Himalaya has been put on the payroll. Both words he chooses, santari and pasban, are for men who stand at a gate on somebody's behalf, so the tallest thing on earth is given a subordinate position and a shift to work. That is the poem's method throughout. The landscape is not admired, it is employed.

ہم سایہ ham-saya
a neighbour
سنتری santari
a sentry
پاسبان pasban
a watchman, a guard

04  — godi men khelti hain is ki hazaron nadiyan

گودی میں کھیلتی ہیں اس کی ہزاروں ندیاں
گلشن ہے جن کے دم سے رشک جناں ہمارا

गोदी में खेलती हैं इस की हज़ारों नदियाँ
गुलशन है जिन के दम से रश्क-ए-जिनाँ हमारा

godi men khelti hain is ki hazaron nadiyan
gulshan hai jin ke dam se rashk-e-jinan hamara

In its lap a thousand rivers play, and it is by their breath that our garden is the envy of paradise.

The rivers are children in a lap, which makes the country a mother without the word being used. Then rashk-e-jinan, the envy of the gardens of paradise, takes the standard comparison and reverses which way the envy runs. And the mechanism is credited properly: it is the rivers doing it, not the country.

گودی godi
the lap
رشکِ جناں rashk-e-jinan
the envy of the gardens of paradise

05  — ai ab-rud-e-ganga vo din hai yaad tujh ko

اے آب رود گنگا وہ دن ہے یاد تجھ کو
اترا ترے کنارے جب کارواں ہمارا

ऐ आब-रूद-ए-गंगा वो दिन है याद तुझ को
उतरा तिरे किनारे जब कारवाँ हमारा

ai ab-rud-e-ganga vo din hai yaad tujh ko
utra tire kinare jab karvan hamara

O flowing waters of the Ganga, do you remember that day, when our caravan came down at your bank?

He addresses the river directly and asks it to confirm something, which puts the Ganga in the position of the only witness old enough to be worth asking. The caravan coming down at the bank is arrival, the moment a travelling people stopped travelling. He does not say who, or when, and the blank is what lets every community find its own caravan in the line.

آب رود ab-rud
flowing water, a stream
کارواں karvan
a caravan

06  — mazhab nahin sikhata aapas men bair rakhna

مذہب نہیں سکھاتا آپس میں بیر رکھنا
ہندی ہیں ہم وطن ہے ہندوستاں ہمارا

मज़हब नहीं सिखाता आपस में बैर रखना
हिन्दी हैं हम वतन है हिन्दोस्ताँ हमारा

mazhab nahin sikhata aapas men bair rakhna
hindi hain ham vatan hai hindostan hamara

Religion does not teach us to hold enmity among ourselves. We are of Hind; our homeland is Hindustan.

The line that gets quoted whenever somebody needs to say this plainly, and the sentence is built with care. He does not say religion should be set aside or kept out of public life. He says enmity is not what it teaches, which leaves religion entirely in place and removes the quarrel from it. That is a much harder sentence to argue with than the secular version.

مذہب mazhab
religion
بیر bair
enmity, hostility

07  — yunan o misr o ruuma sab mit gae jahan se

یونان و مصر و روما سب مٹ گئے جہاں سے
اب تک مگر ہے باقی نام و نشاں ہمارا

यूनान ओ मिस्र ओ रूमा सब मिट गए जहाँ से
अब तक मगर है बाक़ी नाम-ओ-निशाँ हमारा

yunan o misr o ruuma sab mit gae jahan se
ab tak magar hai baaqi nam-o-nishan hamara

Greece, Egypt and Rome have all been wiped from the world. Yet our name and our trace remain to this day.

Three of the largest civilisations anyone could name, listed only in order to record that they are gone. The boast is not that we were greater than them, but that we outlasted them, which is a different and stranger sort of claim. Nam-o-nishan means the name and the mark left behind, the minimum evidence that a thing existed.

یونان yunan
Greece
روم ruuma
Rome
نام و نشان nam-o-nishan
name and trace, evidence of having existed

08  — kuchh baat hai ki hasti mitti nahin hamari

کچھ بات ہے کہ ہستی مٹتی نہیں ہماری
صدیوں رہا ہے دشمن دور زماں ہمارا

कुछ बात है कि हस्ती मिटती नहीं हमारी
सदियों रहा है दुश्मन दौर-ए-ज़माँ हमारा

kuchh baat hai ki hasti mitti nahin hamari
sadiyon raha hai dushman daur-e-zaman hamara

There is something in it, that our existence has never been erased — though for centuries the turning of the age has been our enemy.

Kuchh baat hai, there is something in it, is deliberately vague, and he never fills it in. That is the honest part of the poem. He has noticed that survival on this scale needs explaining, admits he cannot explain it, and leaves the observation standing as a mystery rather than converting it into a virtue.

ہستی hasti
existence, being
دورِ زماں daur-e-zaman
the turning of the age, the course of time

09  — iqbal koi mahram apna nahin jahan men Maqta · signed by the poet

اقبالؔ کوئی محرم اپنا نہیں جہاں میں
معلوم کیا کسی کو درد نہاں ہمارا

'इक़बाल' कोई महरम अपना नहीं जहाँ में
मालूम क्या किसी को दर्द-ए-निहाँ हमारा

iqbal koi mahram apna nahin jahan men
malum kya kisi ko dard-e-nihan hamara

Iqbal, you have no confidant anywhere in this world. What would anyone know of the pain we keep hidden?

After eight couplets spoken as we, the poem ends with one man who cannot make himself understood by anybody. Mahram is the person allowed into your private life, and he reports having none. Singers almost always drop this couplet, and dropping it turns a difficult poem into a straightforward one.

محرم mahram
a confidant, one admitted to your private life
دردِ نہاں dard-e-nihan
hidden pain

Reading it whole

What people take from this poem is warmth, and the warmth is real, but the argument underneath is stranger than the tune lets on. Iqbal is not claiming his country is the best. He is claiming it cannot be killed. Greece, Egypt and Rome have gone from the world. We are still here. There is something in us, he says, that has kept our existence from ever being wiped out. He never says what the something is.

Indian public life keeps coming back to the sixth couplet: religion does not teach us to hold enmity among ourselves, we are of Hind, and Hindustan is our homeland. The sentence is built carefully. It never says religion is unimportant, and it never says religion should be kept out of things. It says only that enmity is not what it teaches, which leaves faith standing and takes the quarrel away from it. A sentence like that is harder to argue with than the secular version.

Then the last couplet stops the anthem dead. Iqbal, you have no confidant anywhere in this world; what would anybody know of the pain you keep hidden? A poem that has spent eight couplets saying we ends with one man alone and unable to explain himself. Singers almost always cut it, and the song they leave behind is a different, simpler thing.

One piece of history matters here. Iqbal wrote this in 1904. Some years later he wrote Tarana-e-Milli, which opens by calling the whole Muslim world the homeland instead, and his politics kept moving from there. Meanwhile this poem became an unofficial anthem in India, set to the tune Ravi Shankar composed in the 1940s. Both things are true. The poem on this page is the 1904 one.

The marching arrangement is how most people know it. Lata Mangeshkar sang it in the Rajya Sabha on Independence Day in 1997, using only a few of the couplets, which is what nearly everybody does.

How it rhymes

Every second line closes on the same word — ہمارا , hamara. That repetition is the radif. The rhyme falling just before it is the qafiya: The -an sound just before the refrain: hindostan, gulsitan, jahan, pasban, jinan, karvan, nam-o-nishan, daur-e-zaman, dard-e-nihan. Hearing the two land together at the close of every sher is most of what makes this form sound the way it does.

Recordings

Read next

All 128 poems, A to Z

Text and rights

Devanagari text supplied and checked by a reader who knows the language. The Urdu script and the transliteration follow that reading.

Printed here in full. Sung versions generally use four couplets and drop the closing one entirely.

Iqbal died in 1938, so the poem itself is out of copyright everywhere. The translation, the reading of each couplet and the essay around them are original work written for Harf.