Encounters with Destiny: Autobiographical Reflections [Hardcover]

Javid Iqbal (Author), Hafeez Malik (Translator), Nasira Iqbal (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2006

This book is an English translation of the Urdu Autobiography of Javid Iqbal, published in 2002, which has already been through four editions. His candid descriptions of his personal life in chaste and simple Urdu have been translated into English idiom. The translators have adhered to the substance of the book without making a literal translation. The book covers four major stages of the life of Javid Iqbal. First, his relations with his father, the world renowned poet and visionary, who conceived the idea of Pakistan as an independent homeland for the Muslims of the Indian Subcontinent. The second stage deals with his legal and judicial career and his travels as a political and cultural ambassador of Pakistan. The third part deals with Pakistan's political and judicial culture and the various civil and military governments. He ends the book in the form of a letter addressed to his father inquiring as to what should be the guidelines for coming generations of Pakistanis in developing the country on the model envisaged by Iqbal and Jinnah.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195471423
• ISBN-13: 978-0195471427
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,776,709 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant, September 4, 2008

By 

lovetheworld (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Encounters with Destiny: Autobiographical Reflections (Hardcover)

One of the few books I've read where the translation adds to the book. The style is fabulously readable and interesting - English spiced with the idiom of the subcontinent. Dr Iqbal comes across as, not just talented and purposeful, but a tremendously nice guy and it's great to see that a nice guy can succeed in so many areas by being a decent human being in the face of so much self-promoting corruption. He seems to embody the idea of the open hand, open heart, open mind. We need more statesmen of such caliber.

This book was so interesting I couldn't put it down. It describes a life fully lived, fun, engaged and delighting in people, creating and joining in culture, promoting understanding and harmony.

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful & interesting, September 11, 2006

By 

M. Imran Khurram - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Encounters with Destiny: Autobiographical Reflections (Hardcover)

The writer Javid Iqbal is the son of Allama Iqbal, the great poet/Philosophy of the Indian Subcontinent.

Justice Javid Iqbal has chronicled an insightful biography wich is divided into 6 major themes.

1. Childhood

2. His Education (Doctoral Degree in Philosophy at Cambridge and Bar at Law)

3. Life as a Lawyer/Diplomat

4. Political Career in 1971.

5. Judicial Career as Justice spanning from 1971-1989.

Justice Javid born in 1924 is older than the state of Pakistan. While recounting his years, he has brilliantly managed to synthesize why the Pakistan nation has failed to understand the true ideals of Jinnah and Iqbal.

This autobiography also contains lessons for the Pakistani nation to understand the shortcoming of our political & Judicial system and to rectify these deficiences and hypocrisy of the Pakistani leaders (Bhutto and Zia) to project islam as means to consolidate their reigns.