Urdu Dictionary
Sanskrit · noun · Nature & the Garden

Baadal

बादल
said baa-dal
also written: badal, cloud
Meaning

A cloud, the gathering of vapour in the sky that promises rain.

Literally: cloud (rain-cloud)

How Iqbal uses it

Baadal is the Hindavi word for the rain-cloud, the dark monsoon mass that gathers, thunders and lets fall its water — carrying in the Indian register all the longing and release the rains bring. It is the cloud felt as weather and mood, heavy with promise. Iqbal reaches for it in his more Hindustani idiom for the same grace-bearing, life-bringing cloud that revives a parched land.

See it in the verse

Baadal in Iqbal’s couplets

Khud badalte nahin Quran ko badal dete hain
Hue kis darja faqeehan-e-haram be-taufeeq
They will not change themselves, so they reinterpret the Quran instead — how utterly bereft of grace the jurists of the sanctuary have become.
Justice · Awakening · Courage
Related words
PERSIAN

Abr

A cloud, the mass of vapour that brings shade and rain to the parched earth.

PERSIAN

Baaraan

Rain, the water that falls from the clouds to quicken the earth.

ARABIC

Barq

Lightning, the sudden flash that splits the storm-cloud.

ARABIC

Raad

Thunder, the deep roll of sound that follows the lightning of the storm.

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