Letters of Allama Muhammad Iqbal to Ghulam Abbas Aram: Review of text, footnotes and key discussions

One of Iqbal's correspondents was Ghulam Abbas Aram who was serving in Bombay at that time. He was born in 1903 in Yazd. His father, Ali-Reza, a tea seller, was a preacher of the Baha'i sect. It is clear from Ghulam Abbas Aram's Makatib-e-Iqbal that he was a scholar who had a special interest in poetry, literature, Sufism and philosophy. The available letters of Allama Iqbal to Ghulam Abbas Aram are in English, four in number and their duration is very limited. No information is available about how the introduction between Iqbal and Aram came about. Ghulam Abbas Aram neither wrote any article nor any other writing about Allama Iqbal's thoughts and correspondence with him. In this way, there is no other sign except these letters in his remaining documents. However, Ghulam Abbas Aram made sure that he kept them safe in his personal documents. Later, a distinguished Iranian translator and researcher, Dr. Hussain Ali Nozri, translated these English letters into Persian and they appeared in the first issue of the former magazine of this institute, "Tarikh Maasari Iran" in 1997. These letters are very helpful in understanding Iqbal's intellectual connection and preoccupation with Iran.