Paper version of my interview with Musician and Poet Azad Iqbal, eldest grandson of Pakistani poet-philosopher Mohammed Iqbal. The interview was published on Aug 1 on Saudi Gazette, Saudi Arabia's daily newspaper in English language.

1. 4
KINGDOM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2013
From grandfather to grandson:
The legacy of Mohammed Iqbal
Harmonium Player, Singer and Poet Azad Iqbal (right) poses after a private
performance in Jeddah with Tabla Maestro Ustad Ahmed Khan, his longtime
music partner.
Azad Iqbal with his family. — Courtesy photos
By Roberta Fedele
Saudi Gazette
JEDDAH — Eldest grandson and
only descendant of Pakistani poet-philosopher Mohammed Iqbal
(1877-1938) blessed with the gift
of writing poetry, Azad Iqbal is
today a 67 year-old legal counsel,
poet, singer and father of two who
lives in Jeddah with his wife Farida and dedicates most of his time
to playing and composing Eastern
classical music, writing poetry
and breathing new life into the
poems of his illustrious grandfather through musical adaptations
of his works.
In this interview with Saudi
Gazette, Azad revealed more
about his walk of life, his passion
for jazz and blues, his practice
of Eastern classical music, his
fruitful musical cooperation with
Tabla Maestro Ahmed Khan and,
obviously, his grandfather.
Western influences
Equipped with a natural talent for
poetry and music inherited from
both sides of his family, Azad was
brought up in Karachi in an artistically and intellectually stimulating environment that together
with his studying experience in
London played a determinant role
in shaping his artistic talent at a
later stage of his life.
“My mother Rashida Begum
(1925 – 2005) belonged to a family of poets and music lovers and
was herself a great singer,” said
Azad.
“My early childhood memories are related to hearing her
beautiful voice resounding all
over the house.
“I also remember lots of poets
and intellectuals regularly visiting our home, reading poetry and
discussing with my father Aftab
Iqbal (1898 – 1979) who was the
eldest son of Mohammed Iqbal
and, like him, a philosopher and
barrister.
“At that time I wasn’t a musician or poet nor had a real understanding of Eastern classical
music but poetry and music have
always been there, affecting me
unconsciously,” he added.
Born in Lahore in 1946, Azad
received his primary education
at the British Karachi Grammar
School and was influenced since
an early age by both Eastern and
Western music and culture.
“I adopted a Western lifestyle
first. I spoke and wrote English
better than my own language. I
dressed in Western clothes, became fond of rock bands and
started playing guitar much to my
father's anger,” he said.
In 1964, Azad went off to England for 10 years. He got a degree
in law at the University of London
and followed the footsteps of his
father and grandfather becoming
a barrister from Lincoln’s Inn.
“For some reasons, the legal
profession seems to be the favorite profession of the Iqbal family,” said Azad.
“During the period of my studies in London,” he added, “I was
mainly focused on my university
and social life but I continued to
listen to Western music and went
through all the phases of pop,
rock, funk and soul music.
“Later in life, as my musical tastes became more refined,
I discovered the charm of genres
like blues and jazz. I became particularly fond of soft fusion experiments between jazz and other
genres like R&B, soul, funk and
rock.”
Today Azad plays piano and
guitar, has a 3,000 CDs collection
of traditional and contemporary
jazz and blues, knows several
jazz clubs all over the world and
never misses the opportunity to
discover new ones whenever he
travels abroad.
Eastern Classical music
and “Ghazals”
In 1974, enriched by a wealth of
experiences and diverse Western
musical influences, Azad went
back to Pakistan entering the
world of Eastern classical music
and Urdu poetry.
“In this period, I was in my
30s and had no knowledge about
Eastern classical music in terms
of notes, scales and harmonic
compositions,” said Azad.
“However I became so curious
about it that I purchased a secondhand harmonium and started to
take lessons from a noted musicologist in Karachi, the late Baba
Inayatullah.
“I used to spend nights practicing the notes. It was frustrating
and enjoyable at the same time,”
he added.
Azad, whose passion for Eastern music has been inherited by
his 28-years-old daughter Jini,
discovered later in life that also
his grandfather took music lessons in Sialkot in his younger
days and loved singing and listening to Eastern classical music.
Gradually, Azad was also introduced to the art of writing and
performing “Ghazals,” a centuries-old popular form of poem and
song in Iran, Pakistan and India.
“At the beginning it was just
an interest on the poems’ structure
and how the rhyming took place
but slowly my curiosity grew
deeper and deeper.”
During the years, he gave birth
to an important collection of Urdu
and English poems that he would
like to publish one day.
His very first Urdu poem
“Amad-ey-Jihad (The Arrival Of
Jihad)” was written on May 17,
1983, the day his son, Jihad Iqbal,
was born.
Saudi Arabia and a discipline of
daily vocal practice
In 1984, the time came for Azad
to move to Saudi Arabia where he
was offered a very good position
as a legal counsel in Al-Khobar
and later Jeddah.
“Everyone thought I would
abandon Eastern classical music. In fact, at the beginning I just
couldn’t find time to practice. I
was new, young and wanted to
work hard to make a career. At the
same time, I didn’t want music to
disappear from my life.
“I still loved Western music
and kept jealously all my jazz records but Eastern music was really
affecting me deep. I just couldn’t
leave it.”
Since 1984, Azad wakes up every day at 5.30 am exercising for
two hours and a half before going
to work to keep his throat vibrating
and preserve his lungs’ power.
“Gradually I got addicted to
my breathing and singing exercises. They turned into a sort of
pleasant meditation, an injection
of energy every morning and the
best moment of my day,” he said.
After 10 years of hard practice,
Azad got to a point in which he
started composing music and turning his attention to the philosophical works of his grandfather.
“I had experimented with all
sorts of ragas and notes and was
hungry for more. Music is a very
strange field, no matter to which
tradition it is associated. There is
no end to it. The more you learn,
the more you feel you don’t know.
“Not only I started to compose
music to my collection of Urdu
and English poems but also asked
my uncle to seriously introduce me
to my grandfather’s philosophy
and poetry.”
“Today, although I have no
personal memories of my grandfather who passed away when I was
not yet born, I can say that I know
him through his poetry and that no
one else had such a deep influence
on me.”
Azad is proud to have composed music to over forty of his
grandfather’s works including
selected verses from his famous
epic works in Urdu “Shikwa” and
“Jawab-ey-Shikwa” (Complaint
and Answer to the Complaint).”
These verses, translated in Arabic by Farida’s father and titled
“Hadeeth Al Rouh (Utterances
of the Soul),” were sung in 1967
by the most distinguished singing
diva of Egypt, Um Kulthoum.
Fusion experiments
Azad’s stay in Saudi Arabia was
also marked by an admirable effort to write down six volumes of
Eastern classical music and find a
synthesis between the Eastern and
Western musical traditions, the
two passions that stayed with him
since his childhood.
“Unlike Western music, Eastern music is not written and has
been transmitted orally from father to son and master to disciple
throughout the ages. Being a very
systematic person, I did all my
best to record it and write it down.
“Generally speaking, what
jazz, blues and Indian ragas have
in common is that they all require
intense instrumental and musical
mastery. They are characterized by
a basic structure of notes that can
be combined in infinite ways and
around which musicians are free to
improvise for hours.”
Azad experimented a lot trying to blend these worlds and is
always available to fusion experiments with foreign musicians.
However, he still believes that
Eastern and Western music give
their best when standing alone.
“Hybrid experiments are beautiful and interesting but do not
penetrate the inner chambers of
my heart,” he said.
When asked about his favorite
musical tradition, he answered:
“There is no better or worst. It all
depends on how your soul accepts
these melodies. What makes Indian music intensely special to me
is its spiritual dimension. I can seat
for hours in meditation listening to
it.”
The Iqbal-Khan duo
A part from writing poetry and
composing music, Azad also gives
a number of private concerts and
appeared publicly on various occasions accompanied at the tabla by
his longtime music partner Ustad
Ahmed Khan with whom he plays
in perfect synch following a secret
language capable of hypnotizing
the audience.
“Khan has been my music
companion for the past 23 years.
We are perfectly blended together
and I feel blessed to have known
him. This cooperation has helped
The picture composition shows Azad Iqbal in his early years, his father Aftab Iqbal and his grandfather Mohammed
Allama Iqbal (right).
both of us to keep our music
alive,” said Azad.
Well-known musician in India boasting 40-year experience
as a percussionist, Khan was born
in Hyderabad and held his first
public performance at the age of
14. Drummer of incredible skills,
he has also enthralled audiences
in Europe and Canada receiving
many recognitions, including the
Indira Gandhi Academy Award.
The Iqbal-Khan duo took part,
amongst others, in three “Allama
Iqbal Tribute Concerts” in Pakistan, in an “Indo-Pakistani Friendship Concert” at the Indian Consulate General in Jeddah (2004)
and was invited to perform in
Oman by the Indian Ambassador.
My Grandfather Mohammed Iqbal
Mohammed Iqbal is internationally renowned for having explored
with a critical approach the political, scientific and philosophical
heritage of the West and having
answered through classical Islamic
philosophy to questions raised by
the Western speculative tradition.
These queries include the
meaning of the religious experience, the connections between
science and religion, the nature of
God and the relation between the
spiritual and material side of human life.
Talking about his grandfather’s poet-philosopher’s personality, Azad said: “People know
my grandfather as the Eastern
poet-philosopher who studied in
Europe, who knew Goethe, Byron
and Shelley and who was equally
Iqbal street in Heidelberg and Jeddah
familiar with Zarathustra as he
was with Jalaluddin Rumi and the
Qur'an, incarnating a sort of symbolic bridge between the East and
the West in the realm of thought.”
He added: “Europe had opened
its eyes to the great possibilities
that lay before the human mind but
people’s frustration in Europe and
the strong competition between
European nations didn’t offer him
in the end a model of perfection.
“That’s why he directed all his
efforts to shape a philosophy combining the best qualities of both
worlds he had known: the dynamic
activism of the West with the spiritual values of the East.
“At a time in which the British
were ruling India, his poetry and
philosophy represented for Muslims an incentive to abandon their
listlessness, wake up and fight for
their freedom.
“I’m sure that today, if he
could, he would convey to Pakistani and Indian nationals a message of peace and harmony. In the
end, both people belong to branches of the same old tree sharing traditions that date back to centuries.”
The books “Asrar-i-Khudi (Secrets of the Self)” and “The Reconstruction of Islamic Thought
in Islam” are the documents that
best synthesize Iqbal’s thought and
represent an invitation for Muslim
intellectuals to open themselves
to a confrontation with Western
thought without losing their cultural and religious heritage.
A part from being an intellectual whose philosophical works
have been translated into major
languages of the world, Iqbal was
also a human being with qualities
and weaknesses that Azad came
to know through the stories of his
father.
“My father used to talk about
my grandfather as a person with
two distinct personalities,” said
Azad.
“On one hand he represented
the brilliant intellectual and public
figure I have just talked about. On
the other hand, he was a normal
human being with a great sense of
humor who loved his parents, got
married and had children, hobbies
and an intense social life.
“Few people for instance know
about his passion for wrestling,
gems, stones, falcons and pigeons.
He was great in the art of breeding
his domestic pigeons and knew all
the differences between Turkish,
Iranian, Pakistani and Indian species.
“My father who experienced
closely all aspects of his personality, also used to say that people
from all walks of life were eager to
visit him every evening.
“He was a multifaceted persona whose sensitive and fertile
mind easily conquered everyone.
“In Iran people affectionately
call him “Iqbal Lahori (Iqbal from
Lahore),” as he wrote his most
beautiful philosophical poems in
Farsi (Persian), a language offering a much richer vocabulary compared with Urdu.”
“And in Turkey, Germany,
Saudi Arabia and probably other
countries there are roads named
after him,” added Azad.