Payam-e-Mashriq

Payam-i-Mashriq (Urdu: پیامِ مشرق‎; or Message from the East; published in Persian, 1923) is a philosophical poetry book of Allama Iqbal, the great poet-philosopher of the Indian subcontinent.

Payam-i Mashriq is an answer to West-östlicher Diwan by Goethe, the famous German poet.

Immediately after the end of World War I, Iqbal started writing the Payam and it can be presumed that he would have thought in this respect to achieve a goal of bringing the East and the West closer to each other.

It is evident from some of Iqbal’s Urdu letters that he first disclosed about his book-in-preparation (i.e. Payam) to Syed Sulaiman Nadwi, a distinguished scholar and his esteemed friend, in 1919:

"At present, I am writing a reply to the Divan of a Western poet (i.e. Goethe) and about half of it has been completed. Some poems will be in Persian and some in Urdu..... Two great German poets, Goethe and Uhland, were barristers. After practicing for a short time Goethe was appointed as an educational advisor to the state of Weimar and, thus, found much time to pay attention to his artistic intricacies. Uhland devoted his whole life to the law suits, and, therefore, he could write a few poems."

The relevant excerpts from other letters are the following:

"Now I am writing a collection of Persian poetry in response to Goethe’s Divan and its one third part has been written.... I believe that this collection will be translated, because in it every aspect of Europe’s intellectual life has been regarded, and it will be tried to warm a bit the cold thoughts and ideas of the West."

"In response to Goethe, I have written Payam-i-Mashriq that is near completion. I hope that it will be published before the end of this year."

"In response to the Eastern Divan of Goethe (a German poet) I have written a collection of Persian verses. It will soon be printed. In the preface, I shall try to show how Persian literature has influenced German literature."

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Wikipedia