"It is true that we are made of dust. And the world is also made of dust. But the dust has motes rising"
About this Quote
Dust is the oldest insult in the book: a reminder of how quickly bodies fail, how easily empires crumble, how cheap individual ambition looks against geological time. Iqbal accepts the premise and then sabotages its usual punchline. Yes, we are dust, he grants, and so is the world. The twist comes in the last clause, where dust refuses to stay put. It lifts. It has motes rising.
That small image does a lot of cultural work. “Dust” is Qur'anic vocabulary as much as it is scientific fact, carrying the weight of origin and return, humility and mortality. Iqbal, writing in late colonial India, is steeped in the language of spiritual selfhood and political awakening; his poetry often insists that the self is not a passive speck in history but a force capable of ignition. The subtext here is a rebuke to fatalism - the idea that colonized peoples, or ordinary believers, should accept their allotted smallness. If everything is dust, then the hierarchy between “world” and “person” collapses. What matters is motion: the capacity for ascent, disturbance, reconfiguration.
“Motes rising” is deliberately modest. Not angels, not fireworks - just particulate matter catching light, briefly refusing gravity. That restraint keeps the line from becoming propaganda; it stays intimate, almost observational. Iqbal’s intent is to reframe fragility as potential energy. Dust is not only residue. It is raw material for weather, for storms, for the shimmering proof that even the lowliest substance can take flight when conditions change.
That small image does a lot of cultural work. “Dust” is Qur'anic vocabulary as much as it is scientific fact, carrying the weight of origin and return, humility and mortality. Iqbal, writing in late colonial India, is steeped in the language of spiritual selfhood and political awakening; his poetry often insists that the self is not a passive speck in history but a force capable of ignition. The subtext here is a rebuke to fatalism - the idea that colonized peoples, or ordinary believers, should accept their allotted smallness. If everything is dust, then the hierarchy between “world” and “person” collapses. What matters is motion: the capacity for ascent, disturbance, reconfiguration.
“Motes rising” is deliberately modest. Not angels, not fireworks - just particulate matter catching light, briefly refusing gravity. That restraint keeps the line from becoming propaganda; it stays intimate, almost observational. Iqbal’s intent is to reframe fragility as potential energy. Dust is not only residue. It is raw material for weather, for storms, for the shimmering proof that even the lowliest substance can take flight when conditions change.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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