Books

Armaghan-i-Hijaz (Gift from Hijaz; published in Persian, 1938) was a philosophical poetry book of Allama Iqbal, the great poet-philosopher of Islam. This work, published a few months after the poet’s death, is a fairly small volume containing verses in both Persian and Urdu. It is incomplete, although this is not readily apparent to the reader; for Iqbal left some gaps in the book which he intended to fill when he made the pilgrimage to Mecca. The title means “Gift from the Hijaz.” He had long wished to undertake the journey to the Arabian Peninsula to perform the Hajj and to visit the tomb of Muhammad, but was prevented from doing so by continuous illness during the last years of his life. Iqbal began composing the Armaghan as a gift to take to the Hijaz, intending to publish it on his return to India as a “Gift from the Hijaz” to his countrymen.