Hundred Great Muslims

Hundred Great Muslims
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mentor of the late Allama Iqbal. His work Hayat-i-Khusrou (The Life of
Khusrou) deals with the many-sided personality and poetical achievements of
this celebrated Indian savant. Khusrou was a disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin
Aulia and is supposed to be one of the greatest lyrists of Persian literature and
the pioneer of Urdu poetry.
The real fame of Shibli rests on his role as an outstanding literary critic.
His "Sherul Aiam" (The poetry of the Orient) dealing with the principles of
criticism and the brilliant criticism of Persian Poetry may be ranked as one of
the best works on literary criticism in any language. According to the famous
British orientalist Professor Browne, Sherul Aiam is undoubtedly the best
literary estimate of Persian poetry written up to the present day. It is in this
book that the Maulana has displayed his masterly hold over the literary study
of literature and his depth of knowledge. It combines the high class research
with the fluency and lucidity of expression. The fifth chapter of the book
elaborately deals with the principles of criticism, on which he has based the
poetical estimate of Persian poets. "Moazina Anis-o-Dabir'' (The Comparison
between AIDs and Oabir) is another standard book of literary criticism in which
he has compared the achievements of the two greatest elegists of Urdu poetry.
AIDs, no doubt, was greater of the two; the Maulana has fully proved with
examples the superiority of AIDs, both in thought and expression. The poetry of
Anis was known for its purity of language, simplicity of diction, novelty and
originality of ideas and graphic descriptions. Dabir, on the other hand believed
in the verbosity oflanguage and excessive flights of imagination.
The Maulana wrote some excellent essaysin "Makalat Shibli" (The Essays
of Shibli) on various topics. His book Philosophy of Islam and Al-Kalaam are
valuablecontributions to Islamicphilosophy and religion.
Shibli belongs to the modem school of Urdu Poetry. Had he exclusively
devoted himself to the service of the Muse,he would have been the second Iqbal.
Hali simply lamented the decline of the Muslim power, but could not seriously
contemplate the remedies for saving Islam from falling into the abyss. Shibli's
poetical career may be divided into two parts. Duringthe first period, when he
was employed at Aligarh, he was a close associate of Hali and Sir Syed Ahmad
Khan. His outstanding achievement of this period is his well-known poem
Subh-i-Ummeed (The Morn of Hope) in which he has chosen the theme of
Mosaddas Hali. The only difference between the two is that Hali's poem bristles
with pessimistic ideas, while a sort of optimism pervades the poem of Shibli
which concludes with a forecast of the bright future for Islam. But the poem
of Ha1i is superior of the two, as it maintains uniformity in standard which
Shibli's poem so badly lacks. This poem of Shiblicomes veryclose to the healthy
optimism preached by Iqbal in a later period. The second part of his poetical
career starts from the time, when, due to ideological differences, Shibli had to
sever his connection with the Aligarh Muhammadan College and henceforward
he devoted himself solely to the betterment of Muslim India. He was not an
opponent of Aligarh College, but he did not like the principlesof its Education