Urdu Dictionary

Persian · noun · Time, Fate & the Cosmos

Charkh

चर्ख़

said CHARKH

also written: charkh, falak, the turning sky

Meaning

The revolving sky, the wheeling heavens; figuratively fate and the turning fortune.

Literally: Persian charkh: a wheel, the revolving celestial sphere.

How Iqbal uses it

Charkh is the 'wheel' — the revolving sky imagined as a great turning wheel of fate, classical emblem of the heavens that spin out fortune and misfortune, the 'charkh-e-kaj-raftaar,' the crookedly-turning wheel blamed for the lover's woes. It is cosmic destiny felt as machinery. Iqbal uses the turning wheel as the very image of a determinism the empowered self must rise above, refusing to be ground by the heavens and bidding the believer master the wheel rather than be mastered by it.

See it in the verse

Charkh in Iqbal’s couplets

Khol aankh, zameen dekh, falak dekh, fiza dekh
Mashriq se ubharte hue suraj ko zara dekh

Open your eyes — look at the earth, the sky, the open air; just look at the sun rising in the east.

Awakening · Hope

Khudi ka nasheman tere dil mein hai
Falak jis tarah aankh ke til mein hai

The nest of your selfhood is inside your own heart — the way the whole sky lives inside the pupil of an eye.

Selfhood · Self-Knowledge

Napaid tere bahr-e-takhayyul ke kinare
Pahunchenge falak tak teri aahon ke sharare

The shores of your sea of imagination are nowhere to be found; the sparks of your longing will reach all the way to the sky.

Aspiration · Restlessness · Hope

Related words

Gardish

Revolving, circulation; the turning of the heavens and the vicissitudes of fortune.

Falak / Aasman

The sky, the heavens, the firmament (aflak = the celestial spheres).

Sipihr

The sky, the celestial sphere; figuratively fate and the heavens.

Anjum / Sitara

Stars (anjum) / a star (sitara).

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