Arabic · noun · Time, Fate & the Cosmos
Zulmat
ज़ुल्मत
said ZUL-mat
also written: zulmat, zulmaat, darkness
Meaning
Darkness, gloom; figuratively ignorance and spiritual blindness.
Literally: Arabic zulmah: thick darkness.
How Iqbal uses it
Zulmat is darkness — the gloom of night, of ignorance, of tyranny and the unawakened soul, classical opposite of noor (light), the dark from which guidance must rescue the lost. It is the moral and spiritual night. Iqbal uses it for the darkness of a sleeping people and a heedless self, the zulmat that the dawn of awakening and the noor of faith are summoned to pierce and disperse.