LETTER-WRITING is a dying art, goes the oft-repeated lament. Emails and other electronic methods are eating into traditional ways of communication and the conventional postal service is now scornfully du­bb­ed ‘snail mail’. But the old-fashioned, handwritten letters have a charm of their own, especially if a letter is written by a writer or poet, it has much to offer.

Ghalib’s letters, for instance, not only offer samples of crisp and witty prose but they also reflect on the personal life of the great bard, not to mention the first-hand account of what was going on in post-1857 Delhi — to which Ghalib was an eyewitness.

Allama Iqbal and Akber Allahabadi, two of our towering literary personalities, were on good terms with each other. They had similar views and agreed on certain issues, especially Muslims’ role in politics in British India and their future. Iqbal went to Allahabad on three occasions to meet Akber. But Akber could not visit Lahore despite Iqbal’s earnest desire and invitation, though both kept on exchanging letters.

Akber, just like Iqbal, was a prolific letter writer and had penned several thousands of letters to his dear and near ones and Iqbal was, of course, one of them. But somehow Akber’s published letters addressed to Iqbal were not as many in numbers as one would have expected. Only six such letters could be discovered and published after Iqbal’s death in 1938. It was presumed that the missing letters must have been destroyed.

What supported this sorrowful thought was a statement by Javed Iqbal, Iqbal’s son, who wrote that Iqbal, just a few weeks before his death, had ordered Munshi Tahir to sort out a large number of documents stored in three or four tin boxes. Munshi Sahib put a large portion of those papers into a burning fireplace on Iqbal’s desire. Although many scholars kept on searching for the missing letters, it was all in vain. But Dr Zahid Muneer Aamir did not agree with the idea that Iqbal could have ordered Akber’s letters to be burnt as he valued Akber’s letters much and, according to Iqbal’s own words, he would read Akber’s letters over and over in solitude. Once Iqbal wrote to Akber, I see you as my “murshid”.

So Dr Zahid Aamir had been trying to trace the missing letters and his quest finally paid off: he has come up with 133 unpublished letters that Akber had written to Iqbal between 1910 and 1921. These new-found letters have been published along with six previously discovered letters, a foreword, annotations and a detailed index. Titled Akber Banaam Iqbal and subtitled Aik Sadi Ke Ba’ad 133 Ghair Matboo’a Khutoot Ki Daryaaft (Akber to Iqbal: discovery of 133 unpublished letters after a century), the book has just been published by Punjab University’s Urdu Development and Translation Centre.

In his preface Zahid Muneer Aamir has named the collections of letters by Akber addressed to different personalities and published earlier. For instance, collections of Akber’s letters to Khwaja Hasan Nizami, Abdul Maajid Daryabadi, Mirza Sultan Ahmed, Syed Sulaiman Nadvi, Habib-ur-Rahman Khan Shervani, Kishan Prashaad Shaad, Shiekh Abdul Qadir and some others, were published. Mukhtaruddin Ahmed had been collecting Akber’s letters but could not get them published and finally Muhammad Rashid Shiekh edited and published them in 2021.

As put by Zahid Muneer in his foreword, Akber’s letters addressed to Iqbal were a treasured legacy that Saaqif Nafees had inherited. Nafees, grandson of Chaudhry Muhammad Husain (1894-1950), handed over these letters to Zahid Muneer Aamir and finally these letters were brought to light, after a century or so, in a befitting and scholarly manner. As we know, Chaudhry Muhammad Husain was very close to Iqbal and Iqbal had made him guardian of his children. After Iqbal’s death, Chaudhry Muhammad Husain devotedly managed all the matters related to Iqbal’s family, including children’s education and their wedding. In his foreword, Zahid Muneer Aamir has expressed his gratitude to Saaqif Nafees and has also dedicated the book to him. Zahid Amir’s foreword and annotations with a detailed index make the book a truly research-based scholarly work.

These letters, written between Jan 23, 1910 and Aug 15, 1921, shed new light on both the personalities and their thoughts. In these letters Akber emerges as a mentor to young Iqbal. Though at times Akber sounds pessimistic and depressed in these letters because of his own problems and a general gloom takes over him when he thinks of enslaved Muslims of India, but in Iqbal he sees a glimmer of hope and encourages him. Also, these letters offer some hitherto unpublished couplets by Akber.

Zahid Muneer Aamir is a well-known scholar and has penned over 50 books. He has been teaching at Punjab University’s Urdu department since long and now heads the university’s Urdu Development and Translation Centre.

Akber Allahabadi died on Sept 9, 1921.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2024