Readers who know Iqbal only through Urdu are often startled to learn that the majority of his poetry was written in Persian. Asrar-e-Khudi, Rumuz-e-Bekhudi, Payam-e-Mashriq, Zabur-e-Ajam, the Javid Nama — his deepest philosophical poetry chose Persian, the great trans-national literary language of the Islamic east.
The consequence is that Iqbal belongs to Iran as much as to the subcontinent. There he is honoured as Iqbal-e-Lahori — 'Iqbal of Lahore' — and ranked among the significant Persian poets of the modern age. Streets, institutions, and scholarship carry his name; his verses are quoted in Iranian public life.
This is worth dwelling on, because it quietly dismantles the smallest box people try to put Iqbal in. A poet read as a national treasure in Iran, studied in Germany, and sung across India and Pakistan is, by simple fact of his reception, a figure of the world. The languages he chose made sure of it.