Meaning
The silence of death, a deathly hush that signifies lifeless stillness of heart or world.
Literally: silence of death
How Iqbal uses it
Sukoot-e-marg is silence so total it resembles death, the dread hush of a spirit or society gone inert. Iqbal sets this lifeless quiet against the living clamour and stir he calls for, treating deathly silence as the condition most to be broken.
See it in the verse
Sukoot-e-marg in Iqbal’s couplets
Khuda agar dil-e-fitrat-shanaas de tujh ko
Sukoot-e-laala-o-gul se kalaam paida kar
Sukoot-e-laala-o-gul se kalaam paida kar
If God gives you a heart that can read Nature, then draw speech out of the silence of the tulip and the rose.
Self-Knowledge · Aspiration · Awakening
Shorish se bhagta hun dil DhunDta hai mera
Aisa sukut jis par taqrir bhi fida ho
Aisa sukut jis par taqrir bhi fida ho
I flee from the noise; my heart is searching for a silence so deep that even speech would gladly surrender to it.
Self-Knowledge · Restlessness · Awakening
Siina raushan ho to hai soz-e-sukhan ain-e-hayat
Ho na raushan to sukhan marg-e-davam ai saqi
Ho na raushan to sukhan marg-e-davam ai saqi
If the heart is lit within, the fire in one's words is life itself; if it is unlit, those words are a lasting death.
Self-Knowledge · Action · Love