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Sethi’s method: literary terms first, context alongside
Scroll’s standfirst for Sethi’s essay sums up his position as a call to read the poem “on literary terms, with an understanding of context, technique and allusions.” That sentence is the magazine’s summary, not a direct quotation from Sethi, but it matches the structure of his argument. He treats the poem’s form and imagery as the primary evidence and uses political history to explain why those images carry force.
In practice this means three habits. First, read the images for what they do in the lines, not only for the message they seem to deliver. Second, identify the religious and mystical references that the imagery depends on. Third, bring in historical events only after the text has been read closely. Sethi describes the poem’s imagery as an equation of oppression and retribution, and he calls the poem a “lesson” in layered poetics.
Reading the imagery: mountains, cotton and the Day of Judgment
The poem’s most discussed image is of mountains blown about like cotton. Sethi connects this to the Day of Judgment imagery of Surah al-Qariah in the Quran, where mountains are described in a comparable way. On this reading, the image is not a stray flourish. It places the poem’s promise of reckoning inside a familiar eschatological frame that Pakistani audiences would recognise.
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The poem’s closing description of God is paradoxical, and Sethi links it to Mansur Hallaj’s “An-al-Haq!” (“I am Truth”). The connection is a Sufi one: Hallaj’s phrase was famously read as a claim to divine identity and was treated as heresy in his own time. Sethi’s point is that the poem borrows that mode of paradoxical speech to unsettle who holds authority over meaning.
Salima Hashmi, Faiz’s daughter, places the poem’s religious language in folk and Sufi traditions. In her reading the central promise is that the oppressed will overcome the oppressor. Her account is useful as a check on purely literal readings, while still accepting that the poem uses Islamic imagery.
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When and why it was written: where the sources diverge
All the sources place the poem’s composition in 1979, a year of intense political change in Pakistan and across the region. They do not agree on which event most directly inspired it.
Sethi says Faiz wrote the poem in 1979 and lists the events of that year that shape his reading: the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation project, the Iranian Revolution, the Lebanese Civil War, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Siege of Mecca. He also places Faiz in Beirut at the time and reads the poem as a broad response to upheaval and to religious political rhetoric. This is Sethi’s contextual interpretation, not a documented statement of Faiz’s intent.
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| Source | Date | Account of the poem’s occasion |
|---|---|---|
| Ali Sethi, Scroll | Essay published 9 January 2020 | Written in 1979 amid Bhutto’s execution, Zia’s Islamisation, the Iranian Revolution and other regional events; Faiz placed in Beirut; read as a broad response to upheaval. |
| Rauf Parekh, Dawn literary column | 24 November 2025 | Inspired by the Iranian Revolution. The column argues it was not composed as a direct protest against Zia’s martial law, though it was written during that period. Some claims are attributed to Dr Sajid Siddiq Nizami. |
| Salima Hashmi, conversation with Kavita Panjabi (History for Peace) | Transcript date not shown on the page | Written during the Iranian Revolution; reached Pakistan during Zia’s period. Hashmi recounts Faiz’s reply to a question on the revolution: “a revolution is a revolution, not Islamic or un-Islamic” (reported speech in the transcript). |
| Sushant Singh, The Indian Express | 27 December 2019 | Foregrounds the Zia-era setting in its history of the poem. |
These accounts overlap more than they conflict. The Iranian Revolution and Zia’s rule were both part of the same moment, and a reader can hold that the poem was written in response to one while speaking to the other. What the sources do not support is a single, settled origin story that names one event as the occasion with certainty.
The title and the refrain
The poem is known by its refrain, “Hum Dekhenge.” In her conversation with Kavita Panjabi, Salima Hashmi says the poem’s actual title is “wa-yabqa-wajh-o-rabbik,” which she translates as “The Face of the Lord.” The Indian Express links this title to a Quranic verse in Surah Rahman. Readers who search for the poem will mostly meet the refrain, so the longer title is worth knowing when comparing editions and citations.
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Textual history: versions and omitted lines
Dawn reports that the poem appeared in Mere Dil Mere Musafir (1981) and in Saare Sukhan Hamaare (London, 1982). It was absent from the 1984 Nuskha Hai Vafaa and was later included with some lines omitted. The Indian Express also reports the censorship and excision of a verse. These are source-attributed claims about specific printings, so they should not be read as a complete bibliography.
If you need the full text for quotation or reproduction, check a reliable edition of Faiz’s collected poems and compare it with a second source before relying on any line. A search for “Faiz Ahmed Faiz collected poems” is a sensible starting point, but none of the sources confirms a particular edition or translation as the standard text.
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Performance and public meaning: Iqbal Bano in Lahore, 1986
The Indian Express describes a 1986 performance by Iqbal Bano at the Alhamra Arts Council in Lahore, and a recording of an encore made surreptitiously. That recording was copied and circulated beyond Pakistan, and it is a major reason the poem became identified with public protest. The poem’s public meaning, in other words, depends as much on performance and circulation as on the text.
The audience size is disputed. The popular account of 50,000 people is, according to The Indian Express, likely false. The estimates available are these:
| Estimate | Attributed to | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 50,000 people | Popular account, which The Indian Express says is likely false | Attendance (not verified) |
| 400 or 600 | Ali Madeeh Hashmi’s account, as reported by The Indian Express | Hall capacity, not a count of attendees |
| About 500 | Salima Hashmi’s recollection | Attendance as she recalls it |
The 2019 protests and the argument over imagery
The poem returned to public controversy during the 2019 Indian student protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. The Indian Express describes a complaint over students’ use of lines from the poem. Sethi’s 2020 essay responds to arguments that the poem’s imagery is anti-Hindu. This is a dispute over interpretation: one side reads the imagery as aimed at a religious group, and Sethi reads it through its literary and historical frame. Neither reading is settled by the sources.
A reading checklist
- Start with the refrain and the longer title, “wa-yabqa-wajh-o-rabbik,” and note how the poem’s power depends on repetition.
- Mark the images that recur, especially the mountains and the cotton image, and look for the Quranic or Sufi references behind them.
- Test any reading of the closing paradox against Hallaj’s “An-al-Haq!” and ask what it does to the authority of the speaker.
- Only then bring in the 1979 context, and keep the Iranian Revolution and Zia-era readings as separate claims.
- Attribute every interpretive claim to its speaker, whether Sethi, Hashmi, Dawn or The Indian Express.
- Before quoting a line, compare it against a reliable printed edition, because versions differ and some lines have been omitted in later printings.
- Sethi’s essay is an interpretation, not a record of Faiz’s stated intent.
- The origin accounts overlap and should be presented together rather than as competing verdicts.
- Performance dates and audience figures carry the uncertainty of the sources that report them.
Read this way, the poem is less a slogan than a dense set of allusions that different audiences have heard in different ways, and Sethi’s essay is one carefully argued reading among several.
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