Slavery is better than uncertainty.
Iqbal wrote these lines while living under slavery in India during British rule. This dominant empire affected every essence of his civilization and tried to infiltrate and change Iqbal's attributes, including his faith.
Yaqeen. Misl-e-Khalil Atish Nasheeni
Yaqeen, Allah Masti, Khud Guzini
Faith, like Abraham, sits down in the fire;
To have faith is to be drawn into God and to be oneself.
Sun, Ae Tehzeeb-e-Hazir Ke Giraftar
Ghulami Se Bat-tar Hai Be-Yaqeeni
Listen, you captive of modern civilization,
To lack certainty(faith) is worse than slavery!
In this postmodern, post-truth world, which behaves like a quantum wave that collapses us into uncertain space, it's hard to draw a line between fact and fiction, real or unreal.
A world where people feel helpless and fearful of obliteration; and in need of a rope that is tied to solid rock; otherwise they will keep drowning in the sand of the unknown which has grains of desires and emotions labeled over them.
In this unequal world, we live in, uncertainty is celebrated, and deemed essential; it's required by the intellectual class to view everything with skepticism.
This could be because of the worldview most of us have inherited, where progress is only measured in a materialistic sense; for that to happen we need to come up with a hypothesis and theory that can be proven through experimentation; the same scientific behavior has overwhelmingly become part of our social fabric.
Instead of viewing other life forms and humans with dignity and compassion; we put the same value on them as a collection of atoms or robots.
Humans have become an entity that feeds on information, interprets, and outputs; there is nothing conscious about it and nothing sacred; how blind modern humans have become!!
It is true that a slave man; is devoid of an eye that can bear witness to the beauty and grandeur because its eye views things from the perspective of its master or ideal; and is not able to determine what is truth, beautiful, and real.
But even a slave person is better than one who does not know himself; one who is confused about his identity and becomes lost in the materialistic gains of this modern world.
Uncertain Man is devoid of strong faith that brings courage, independence, and self-honour.
Iqbal says that faith should be like that of Prophet Abraham who was thrown into the fire by his enemies, but with his certainty fire changed its attribute and he remained unharmed.
Abraham was certain that fire would burn, but this certainty is nowhere close to his certainty in its creator and his faith; who is the creator of all things including fire.
Abraham holds firm that nothing could harm him; if God does not will. It does not matter if the whole world is against him; as he knows his real selves by the certainty of love he holds for his God.
The poet adds that true faith brings self-honour and love of God. Faith means total submission to the will of Allah.
Iqbal addresses the Muslims of its time; who are attached to the attractions of the world, and tells them that to lose faith in Allah is worse than slavery.
He means to say that even a slave has some hope of freedom, but a person without faith lives in total darkness of despair and disappointment. Faithlessness denotes hopelessness and emptiness of the soul.
How true was Iqbal; on the regrettable condition of the Muslims at his time; which even continued today, though they found freedom but not the certainty and love to change the world?
https://iqbalurdu.blogspot.com/2011/04/bal-e-jibril-088-yaqeen-misel-e-khalil.html