Saare Jahan Se Achcha

Saare Jahan Se Achcha

Saare Jahan Se Achchha (Urdu:سارے جہاں سے اچھا) is one of the enduring patriotic poems of the Urdu language. Written originally for children in the ghazal style of Urdu poetry by poet Muhammad Iqbal, the poem was published in the weekly journal Ittehad on 16 August 1904. Recited by Iqbal the following year at Government College, Lahore, now in Pakistan, it quickly became an anthem of opposition to the British rule in India. The song, an ode to Hindustan—the land comprising present-day Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan—both celebrated and cherished the land even as it lamented its age-old anguish. Also known as Tarana-e-Hindi (Urdu: ترانۂ ہندی "Anthem of the People of Hindustan"), it was later published in 1924 in the Urdu book Bang-i-Dara.

Iqbal was a lecturer at the Government College, Lahore at that time, and was invited by student Lala Har Dayal to preside over a function. Instead of delivering a speech, Iqbal sang Saare Jahan Se Achcha. The song, in addition to embodying yearning and attachment to the land of Hindustan, expressed "cultural memory" and had an elegiac quality. In 1905, the 27-year old Iqbal was still in his idealistic phase and viewed the future society of the subcontinent as both a pluralistic and composite Hindu-Muslim culture. Later that year he left for Europe for a three-year sojourn that was to transform him into an Islamic philosopher and a visionary of a future Islamic society.