Persian · noun · Nature & the Garden
Sahra / Dasht
सहरा / दश्त
said sah-RAA / dasht
also written: dasht, sehra
Meaning
Desert, wilderness, open wasteland.
How Iqbal uses it
The free, unfenced ground of the self-reliant life. Nature, he says, keeps its watch through “either the man of the desert or the man of the mountains” — the wilderness breeds a harder, freer soul than the cultivated garden.
See it in the verse
Sahra / Dasht in Iqbal’s couplets
Fitrat ke maqasid ki karta hai nigehbani
Ya banda-e-sehrai ya mard-e-kohistani
Ya banda-e-sehrai ya mard-e-kohistani
It is the one who keeps watch over nature's purposes — either the dweller of the desert, or the man of the mountains.
Adversity · Freedom · Self-Knowledge
Qalb o nazar ki zindagi dasht mein subh ka samaan
Chashma-e-aftab se nuur ki naddiyan ravaan
Chashma-e-aftab se nuur ki naddiyan ravaan
The life of the heart and the eye is like daybreak in the desert; from the spring of the sun, rivers of light flow out.
Awakening · Hope · Self-Knowledge
Sama sakta nahin pahna-e-fitrat mein mera sauda
Ghalat tha ai junun shayad tera andaza-e-sahra
Ghalat tha ai junun shayad tera andaza-e-sahra
My passion cannot be contained even in the vastness of nature; O madness, perhaps your measure of the desert was wrong.
Restlessness · Aspiration · Selfhood