Iqbal and God – a discourse: The Plaint (Shikwa) and Response to the Plaint (Jawaab-e-Shikwa), A Rendering into English

The early part of the 20th century was a traumatic period for the Muslim Ummah. The Ottoman Khilafah was gradually dismantled. The Muslims of Central Asia were absorbed by the Chinese and Russian regimes. The Muslims of Eastern Europe were driven out of their homelands. Egypt was under British rule and North Africa under French domination. The position of Iran was precarious as well. Furthermore, after the so-called Mutiny of 1857, Muslims in India found themselves as a minority with the demise of the Moghul Empire. This was the time when Khawjah Altaf Husayn Hali (1837-1914) in the Introduction to his Musaddas, a poem full of pathos depicting the desperate situation of the Muslim Ummah, wrote: