Gul-e-Lala
The tulip flower.
Literally: wild tulip
The gul-e-lala is the wild tulip, its red petals cupping a dark spot at the centre read as a scar or brand — so it is the classic emblem of the heart marked and seared by passion, beauty that carries a wound. It blooms briefly and untended in the wilderness, a flower of solitary fervour. Iqbal loves the lala above almost any bloom: its self-kindled redness and inner brand become khudi made visible — a heart that burns from within and asks no gardener, the wild flower of self-grown fire (the dagh-e-lala, the tulip's scar).
Gul-e-Lala in Iqbal’s couplets
Sukoot-e-laala-o-gul se kalaam paida kar
Mire samar se mai-e-laala-faam paida kar
Daryaon ke dil jis se dahel jaayein wo toofan
Kar apni khudi mein aashiyana
Dariyaon ke dil jis se dahal jayen wo toofan
Chaman ke zarre zarre ko shaheed-e-justuju kar de
Laala
The wild tulip — a blood-red mountain flower.
Lala-zaar
A field of tulips; a tract ablaze with red tulip-blossom.
Dagh
A scar, mark, or stain; figuratively a lasting grief or blemish of shame ('dagh-e-judai', the scar of separation).
Khudi
Selfhood; the self, the ego — in the philosophical, not the vain, sense.