Persian · noun · Nation, Faith & Society

Tahzeeb-e-Hazir

तहज़ीब-ए-हाज़िर

said tah-ZEEB-e-HAA-zir

also written: tahzeeb e hazir, modern civilization, present civilization, tehzeeb e hazir

Meaning

'Modern / present-day civilization' — the contemporary Western order. Iqbal's standing critique: brilliant in science and machinery, hollow at the centre, having lost God and the soul.

Literally: the civilization of the present

See it in the verse

Tahzeeb-e-Hazir in Iqbal’s couplets

Tumhari tahzib apne khanjar se aap hi khud-kushi karegi
Jo shakh-e-nazuk pe aashiyana banega na-paedar hoga

Your civilisation will take its own life with its own dagger; a nest built on a fragile branch will never last.

Adversity · Self-Knowledge · Justice

Related words

PERSIAN

Firang / Maghrib

The West, Europe — literally “the Franks.”

ARABIC

Maddiyat

Materialism; the doctrine that matter is all. Iqbal held it the root malady of modern Western civilization — vast in power over things, blind to spirit and the self.

ARABIC

La-Deeniyat

Secularism / irreligion; the divorce of life and politics from faith. Iqbal saw the separation of religion from the state as a peculiarly Western disease alien to Islam's vision of a unified life.

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