Loud Thinking

Archive for December, 2010

 Honesty is an expensive gift, and don’t expect it from cheap people.
                                                               

Compiled by Tahir Yousaf

In English language, they say he or she fell in love. why don’t they say rise in love? Is love not a good thing?

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.
Plato

Soft copy of translation in easy urdu of letter of Dr. Iqbal (click here)

English translation of the above mentioned letter courtesy my friend Mr. Ijaz Chaudhry, world renowned international sports journalist, is also given below.

“My dear,

Salaam.

Your journal, “Arabic Tibb” is very interesting.

Till today, no one in the Islamic world paid any attention to the Islamic medicine and history.

The European languages have a number of books on every topic.

The late Professor Brown’s four lectures on the “Arabic medicine” delivered in English, which were published in his life time, are really interesting.

I think research is required to find how much the Muslims utilised the benefits of experimentation in medicine and other fields of knowledge.

Sincerely

Muhammad Iqbal

22 August, 1926″

For the benefit of the lovers of historical items, I take this opportunity to post the pictures of a  historic letter dated 22 August, 1926 written by the great poet of the East, Sir Dr. Allama Muhammad Iqbal, addressed to his friend, Hakim Khawaja Shams Uddin Ahmad ( my maternal grand father). I am lucky to be in possession of both the original letter and the envelope.

The other interesting features of these historic documents are as follows:

1. The letter was posted on 23 August, 1926 in Lahore and delivered in Lucknow on 25 August, 1926. (As is evident from the post office seals on the reverse of the envelope). What an efficiency of the British Post 83 years ago.

2. Moreover, there is no address written on the envelope except, Lucknow and Hakim Khawaja Shams Uddin Ahmad. Now, here again, we must appreciate the efficiency of the post office staff of the then British Post at Lucknow and the confidence reposed in their working by Dr. Allama Muhammad Iqbal ,or may be he was sure that he was sending a letter to a very famous person in Lucknow, whose address was not much required on the envelope.

“The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions — the
little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind
look or heartfelt compliment.”

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children.”
Charles Darwin (1809 -1882);
naturalist

“Every situation, every moment — is of infinite worth; for it is the representative of a whole eternity.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“How can we expect our children to know and experience the joy of giving unless we teach them that the greater pleasure in life lies in the art of giving rather than receiving.”

James Cash Penney (1875-1971);
founder of J.C. Penney Corporation