Safein Kaj, Dil pareshan, Sajdey be-zoq
Ki Jazbe-andarun baqi nahi hai.
(Crooked rows, distracted hearts, a spiritless prostration—
For the inner fire no longer burns within.)

The second line may be open to interpretation, but one can imagine that Allama Iqbal penned the first line on a cold Friday morning, standing outside a mosque where the sun warmed the grassy lawn — and the Friday-worshipping Muslims, spotting a patch of sunshine, lined up their rows right there. Just as we find leaders sprouting everywhere in the Muslim world, so too we find scattered rows during Friday prayers — each group forming its own line under the sun.

Even after listening to the Imam’s passionate sermon on the unity of the Ummah, hearts remain unmoved. Why? Because everyone knows — the Imam desires unity, but only within the confines of his own sect and school of thought. He dreams of a united Ummah, but only as long as it is built upon the principles of his specific group.

This is why wherever he looks, he sees not mosques of Islam, but mosques of sects; not centers of divine knowledge, but fortresses of factional identity. He knows well that our mosques are no longer hubs of Islam, but strongholds of sectarian identity, and our madrasas are no longer citadels of religion, but ideological bunkers of narrow allegiances.

Still, one could say Allama Iqbal was perhaps too easily disheartened. If he had lived in our times, we would have taken him on a summer afternoon to an air-conditioned mosque. There he would witness a remarkable display of “unity” — that even if the Imam delivers a completely tone-deaf sermon, the congregation exhibits such synchronized togetherness that in a row meant for 50 people, 70 somehow squeeze themselves in.

In short, the Ummah isn’t entirely lost — at least it knows where to show unity, and where to carve out its own separate lines!