Speeches, Writings & Statements - International Iqbal Society - Allama Iqbal

2021-02-20T00:11:16+00:00

The Doctrine of Absolute Unity as Expounded by Abdul Karint al-Jilana*

SPEECHES, WRITINGS AND STATEMENTS OF IQBAL
By
LATIF AHMAD SHERWANI
IQBAL ACADEMY PAKISTAN

EDITED AND PROOFREAD
BY
ALEENA ABAID
INTERNATIONAL IQBAL SOCIETY

While European scholars have investigated ancient Hindu Philosophy with an unflagging enthusiasm, they have, as a rule, looked upon Muslim Philosophy as only an unprogressive repetition of Aristotle and Plato. Although during recent years some attention has been paid to this part of Arabic literature, yet the work achieved by reapers in this field bears no proportion to the harvest that may yet be reaped. This comparatively indifferent attitude towards Arabic philosophy was, perhaps, due, to a great extent, to the fascination that Indian speculation has exercised over the mind of Europe ever since the discovery of Sanskrit literature. We admit the superiority of the Hindu in point of philosophical acumen, yet this admission need not lead us to ignore the intellectual independence of Muslim thinkers. The post-Islamic history of the Arabs is a long series of glorious military exploits, which compelled them to adopt a mode of life leaving but little time for gentler conquests in the great field of science and philosophy. They did not, and could not, produce men like Kapila and Sankaracharya, but they zealously rebuilt. The smouldering edifice of Science, and even attempted to add fresh stories to it. Their originality does not appear at once because the unscientific condition of the age led them to write in the spirit of expositors other than that of independent thinkers.

We wish here to illustrate their originality by considering that portion of the Islamic philosophy, which had generally been condemned under the contemptuous name of mysticism. We believe, however, that mysticism is but metaphysics hidden under the veil of religious phraseology and that the super-structure of mysticism is impossible without a system of metaphysics serving as its foundation. It is, in our opinion, essentially a system of verification—a spiritual method by which the ego realizes as fact what intellect has understood as theory. We know much in theory and our belief in this kind of knowledge depends on the force and the number of arguments advanced in its support. The detection of some logical flaw in our argument, or the force of the arguments in favour of the opposite view, may at once induce us to abandon our theory, but if the ego has “realized” the theory, if the theory in question has been a spiritual experience on our part, no argument, however forcible, no logical flaw, can dispose us to abandon our position. Hence, mysticism appeals to a standard higher than intellect itself. This standard, waiving the question of its objective existence is, according to the mystic, قلب or heart, the meaning of which will he explained later on. I shall not dwell here upon the scientific necessity of mysticism for the solution of human enigma[1] , but shall contend myself with a brief statement of the Islamic Metaphysical Mysticism as represented by- Shaikh Abdul Karim al-Jilani in his famous work, Al-Insan-al Kamil (The Perfect Man).

This deep thinker was born at Juan in 767 A.H. as he himself says in one of his verses, and died in 811 A.H. He was not a prolific writer like Shaikh Muhy-ud-Din ibn ‘Arabi’[2] , whose mode of thought seems to have greatly influenced his teaching. He combined in himself poetical imagination and philosophical genius, but his poetry is no more than a vehicle for his mystical and metaphysical doctrine. Among other works, he wrote a commentary on Sheikh Muhy-tid-Din ibn ‘Arabi’s Futuh Al-Makkiyah, a commentary on Bismillah, and Al-Insan-al Kamil, which we propose to consider here.

This famous work comprises two volumes: the first may he looked upon as a treatise on his metaphysical opinions while the second attempts explanations of terms current in popular Muhammadan theology. In order to make his doctrine easy of understanding, he enters into certain preliminary explanations and declares that in speaking of the ultimate realities we must come down to popular language—a vehicle quite insufficient for the purpose. He avows that the enigma of existence is too high for common phraseology, and that his statements must necessarily he “broken lights” of the great truth. After this brief apology, he goes on to relate a personal anecdote showing how he once felt intense thirst for truth and how at last he learnt it from a person endowed with “all the attributes of spiritual glory”. The introduction ends with a condensed statement of his doctrine, which he puts in this way: “Divine nature soars upwards, human nature sinks downwards; hence perfect human nature must stand midway between the two; it must share both the Divine and the human attributes in one word perfect man must be the god-man.”

In the first chapter, the author explains the meaning of the word ذات or Essence. Essence, pure and simple, he says, is the thing to which names and attributes are given, whether it is existent or non-existent like عنقا. The existent is for two species:

(1) The Existent is Absolute or Pure Existence—Pure Being—God.

(2) The existence joined with non-existence——the Creation - Nature.

The Essence of God or Pure Thought cannot be understood; no words can express it, for it is beyond all relation, and knowledge is relation. The Intellect flying through fathomless empty space pierces through the veil of names and attributes, traverses the vast sphere of time, enters the domain of the non-existent and finds the Essence of Pure Thought to be an existence which is nonexistence—a sum of contradictions[3], It is interesting to compare this passage with Hegel whose speculations have exercised such vast influence on the methods of modern scientific investigations. It will appear how strikingly he anticipates the conclusions of modern German philosophy without seeking the help of the Hegelian method—a fact, which makes his teaching appear rather dogmatic. After this confession of ignorance, the author goes on to say that pure being has two عرض (accidents); eternal life in all past time and eternal life in all future time. It has two وصف (qualities) God and Creation. It has twoلغت (definitions) uncreatableness and creatableness. It has two اسماء: God and Man. It has وجہان, (two faces): the manifested (this world and the unmanifested (the next world). It has حکمان (two effects): necessity and possibility. It has اعتباران (two points of view): from the first, it is non-existent for itself but existent for what it is not itself; from the second it is existent for itself, and non-existent for what is not itself. With these bits of Hegelianism, the author closes the difficult speculation, and begins his second chapter on the name.

Name, he says, fixes the named in the understanding, pictures it in the mind, presents it in the imagination and keeps it in the memory. It is the outside or the husk, as it were, of the named, while the named is the inside or the pith. Some names do not exist in reality; but exist in name only as عنقا (a fabulous bird). It is a name, the object of which does not exist in reality. Just as عنقا is absolutely non-existent, so God is absolutely present, although it cannot be touched or seen. The عنقا exists only in idea while the object of the name اللہ exists in reality, and can be known like عنقا only through its names and attributes. The name is mirror, which reveals all the secrets of the Absolute Being; it is a light through the agency of which God sees Himself.

In order to understand this passage, we should bear in mind the three stages of development of Pure Being, enumerated by the author in his chapter on the Illumination of the Essence. There he propounds that the Absolute Existence or Pure Being, when it leaves its absoluteness, undergoes three stages: (1) Oneness, (2) He-ness, and (3) I-ness. In the first stage, there is absence of all attributes and relations, yet it is called one, and therefore oneness marks one step away from the absoluteness. In the second stage, Pure Being is yet free from all manifestation, while the third stage I-ness is nothing but an external manifestation of the He-ness or, as Hegel would say, it is the self-diremption of God. This third stage is the sphere of the name اللہ (Allah); here the darkness of Pure Being is illuminated, nature comes to the front, the Absolute Being has become conscious. He says further that the name of Allah is the stuff of all the perfections of the different phases of Divinity, and in the second stage of the progress of Pure Being, all that is the result of Divine self-diremption was potentially contained within the titanic grasp of this name which, in the third stage of development, objectified itself, became a mirror in which God reflected Himself, and thus by its crystallisation dispelled all the gloom of the Absolute Being.

In correspondence with these three stages of the Absolute Development, the perfect man has three stages of raining, but in his case the process of development spiritual must be the reverse, because his is a process of ascent while the Absolute Being had undergone essentially a process of descent. In the first stage of his spiritual progress, he meditates on the name, studies nature on which it is scaled; in the second stage, he steps into the sphere of the Attributes and in the third stage he enters the sphere of ذات (the Essence). It is here that he becomes the God-man; his eye becomes the eye of God; his word the word of God and his life the life of God— participates in the general life of Nature, and “sees into the life of things”. It will appear at once how strikingly the author has anticipated the chief phase of the Hegelian Dialectic and how greatly he has emphasised the Doctrine of the Logos; a Doctrine which has always found favour with almost all the profound thinkers of Islam, and in recent times re-advocated by M. Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, probably profoundest theologian among modern Indian Muhammadans. The chapter ends with a fanciful discussion about the meanings of the different letters of the world ‘Allah’; each letter of the word, he says, marks a separate illumination.

The third chapter is a brief discussion of the nature of the Attribute. The author’s views on this interesting question are very important, because it is here that his doctrine fundamentally differs from Hindu Idealism. He defines Attribute as an agency, which gives us knowledge of the state of things.[4] Elsewhere he says that this distinction of Attributes from the underlying reality is tenable only in the sphere of the manifested because here every attribute is regarded as the other of the reality in which it is supposed to inhere. This otherness is due to the existence of combination and disintegration in the sphere of the manifested. But the distinction is untenable in the domain of the unmanifested, because there is no combination or disintegration there. It should be observed how widely he differs from the advocates of the Doctrine of Maya; he believes that the material world has real existence; it is the outward husk of the real being, no doubt, but this outward husk is none the less real. The cause of the phenomenal world, according to him, is not a real entity hidden behind the sum of attributes, but it is a conception furnished by the mind so that there may be no difficulty in understanding the material world. Berkeley and Fichte will so far agree with our author, but his view leads him to the most characteristically Hegelian doctrine — identity of Thought and Being.

In the 37th chapter of the second volume of his book, he clearly says that ldea is the stuff of which the universe is made; Thought, Idea, Notion is the material of structure of nature. While laying stress on his doctrine he says, “Dost thou not look to thine own self? Where is the reality in which the so-called Divine Attributes inhere? It is but the idea[5].” Hence nature is nothing but the crystallised idea. He would give his hearty assent to the results of Kant’s Kritik of Pure Reason but, unlike him, he would make this very idea the essence of the Universe. Kant’s Ding an sich to him is a pure non-entity; there is nothing behind this collection of attributes, the attributes are but the real things, the material world is but the objectification of the Absolute Being; it is the other self of the Absolute—another which owes its existence to the principle of difference in the nature of the Absolute itself. Nature is the idea of God, a something necessary for His Knowledge of Himself. While Hegel calls his doctrine the identity of thought and being, our author it the identity of attribute a d reality. It should be noted that the author’s phrase عالم صفات (world of realities), which uses for the material world, is slightly misleading. What he really holds is that the distinction of attribute and reality is merely phenomenal, and does not at all exist in the nature of things. It is useful because it facilitates our understanding of the world around us, but it is not at all real. It will be understood that the author recognises the truth of Empirical Idealism only tentatively and does not admit the absoluteness of the distinction.

These remarks should not lead us to understand that the author does not believe in the objective reality of the thing in itself. He does believe in it, but then he advocates its unity, and says that the material world is the thing in itself; it is the “other” the external expression of the thing in itself. The Ding an sich and its external expression or the production of its self-dirempion are really identical though we discriminate between them in order to facilitate our understanding. If they are not identical, he says, how could one express the other? In one word, he means by Ding an sich or ذات the Pure, the Absolute Being and seeks it through its manifestation or external expression. He says that as long as we do not realise the identity of attribute and reality, the material world, or the world of attributes, seems to be a veil; but when the doctrine is brought home to us the veil is removed. We see ذات itself everywhere and find that all the attributes are but ourselves. Nature then appears in her true light; all otherness is removed, and we are one with her. The aching prick of curiosity ceases and the inquisitive attitude of our minds in replaced by a state of philosophic calm. To the person who has realised this identity, discoveries of science bring no new information, and religion with her role of supernatural authority has nothing to say. This is the spiritual emancipation.

After these profound remarks the author proceeds to classify the different Divine Names and Attributes which have received expression in Nature or the crystallised الوہیت —a doctrine similar to that of the Vedanta. His classification is as follows:

الاسماوالصفات الجمالیہ (4)	الاسماوالصفات المشترکہ و بی الکمالیہ (3)	الاسماوالصفات الجلالیہ (2)	الاسماوالصفات الذاتیہ (1)
العلیم الرحیم	الرحمن المالک	الکبیر المتعال	اللہ
السلام المومن	الرب المھیمن	العزیزالعظیم	الاحد
الباری المصور	الخالق السمیع	الجلیل القہار	الواحد
			الفرد
			الوتر
			الصمد

Each of these names and attributes has its own particular effect by which it illuminates the soul of the perfect man[6]. How these illuminations take place and how they reach the soul is not explained by the author. His silence about these matters throws into more relief the mystical portion of his views and implies the necessity of spiritual Dictatorship.

Before considering the author’s views of particular Divine Names and Attributes, we should note that his conception of God implied in the above classification is very familiar to that of Schleiermacher. While the German theologian reduces all the divine attributes to one single attribute of power, our author sees the danger of advancing a God, free from all attributes, yet recognises with Schleiermacher that in Himself God is an unchangeable unity and that His attributes “are nothing more than views of Him from different human standpoints, the various appearances which the one changeless cause presents to our finite intelligence according to how we look at it from different sides of the spiritual landscape.[7]” In his absolute existence He is beyond the limitations of names and attributes, but when He externalises Himself, when He leaves His absoluteness, when nature is horn, names and attributes appear sealed on her very fabric.

Let us now consider what the author teaches about particular Divine Names and Attributes. The first essential name is Allah or الوہیت (Divinity) which forms the subject of the fourth chapter; Divinity means the sum of all the realities of existence with their respective order in that sum. This name is applied to God as the only necessary existence. Divinity being the highest manifestation of Pure Being, the difference between them is that the latter is visible to the eye, but its where is invisible, while the traces of the former are visible, itself is invisible. By the very fact of her being crystallised divinity, Nature is not the real divinity; hence Divinity is invisible and its traces in the form of Nature are visible to the eye. Divinity, as the author illustrates, is water; nature is crystallised water or ice, but ice is not water. The ذات is visible to the eye (another proof of our author’s Natural Realism of Absolute Idealism), although all its attributes are not known to us. Even its attributes are not known as they are in themselves; their shadows or their effects only are known. For instance, generosity itself is unknown, only its effect or t-he fact of giving to the poor is known and seen. This is due to the attributes being incorporated in the very essence of ذات. If the expression of the attributes in its real nature has been possible, its separation from the ذات would have been possible also.

After these remarks on the Divinity, the author proceeds to explain the other Essential Names of God—the Absolute Oneness and Simple Oneness. The Absolute Oneness marks the first step of Pure Thought from the darkness of Cecity (the internal or the original Maya of the Vedanta) to the light of manifestation. Although this movement is not attended with any external manifestations, yet it sums up all of them under its hollow universality. Look at a wall, says the author, you see the whole wall but you cannot see the individual pieces of the material that contribute to its formation. The wall is a unity—but a unite, which comprehends diversity; so that ذات or Pure Being is a unity but a unity which is the soul of diversity.

The third movement ‘of the Absolute Being is واحدیت or Simple Oneness—a step attended with external manifestation. The absolute Oneness is free from all particular names and attributes, the Oneness Simple takes on names and attributes, but there is no distinction between them; one is the essence of the other. The الوہیت is similar to Simple Oneness, but its names and attributes are distinguished from one another and even contradictory; as generous is contradictory to revengeful[8]. The third step, or, as Hegel would say, Voyage of the Being, has another appellation, رحمانیت (Mercy). The first Mercy, the author says, is the Evolution of the Universe from Himself and the manifestation of his own self in every atom of the result of his own self-diremption. The author makes this point clearer by an instance. He says that nature is frozen water and God is water. The real name of nature is God (Allah); ice or condensed water is merely a borrowed appellation. Elsewhere the author calls water the origin of knowledge, intellect, understanding, thought and idea. This instance leads the author to guard against the error of looking upon God as immanent in nature or living through the sphere of material existence. He says that immanence implies disparity of being; God is not immanent because He is Himself the existence. External existence is the other self of God, it is the light through which He sees Himself. As the originator of an idea is existent in that idea, so God is present in nature. The difference between God and man (as one may say) is that His ideas materialise themselves, ours do not. It will be remembered here that Hegel would use the same line of argument in freeing himself from the accusations of Pantheism.

The remarks on Mercy are followed by brief notice of the word ربوبیت (Providence). He defines it as the sum of all that existence stands in need of. Plants are supplied with water through the through the force of this name. The natural philosopher would express the same thing differently; he would speak of the same phenomena as resulting from the activity of a certain force of nature. Our author would call it a manifestation of ربوبیت, but unlike the natural philosopher, he would not advocate the unknowability of the force. He would say that there is nothing behind it, it is the Absolute Being itself. This brief chapter ends with some verses of his own composition, one of which is given here, though marred in the rendering:

All that is, owes its existence to you, and you owe your existence to all that is[9].

Another Sufi has expressed a similar thought still more boldly:

I owe to God as much as God owes to me. We have now finished all the essential names and attributes of God, and proceed to examine the nature of what existed before all things. The Arabian Prophet, says the author, was once questioned about the place of God before creation. He said that God, before creation, existed in عماُٰء (blindness). It is the nature of this void or primal darkness, which the author now proceeds to examine. The chapter is particularly interesting, because the word translated into modern phraseology would be “the unconsciousness”. This single word impresses upon us the foresightedness with which the author anticipates metaphysical doctrine of modern Germany. He says that the Unconsciousness is the reality of all realities; it is the Pure Being without any descending movement; it is free from the attributes of God and creation. It does not stand in need of any name or quality because it is beyond the sphere of relations. It is distinguished from the absolute Oneness because the latter name is applied to the Pure Being in its process of coming down towards manifestation.

This brief but very interesting chapter ends with a very important caution. He says that when we speak of the priority of God and posteriority of creation, our words must not he understood as implying time, for there can be no duration of time or separateness between God and His creation. Time, contiguity in space and time, are themselves creations, and how can one piece of creation intervene between God and His creation? Hence our words before, after, where, whence, etc., in this sphere of thought, should not be construed to imply time or space. The ذات or the real Being is beyond the grasp of human conceptions, no category of material existence can be applicable to it, because, as Kant would say, the laws of phenomena cannot be spoken as obtaining in the sphere of noumena. It is a matter of regret that the author does not touch here upon the anthropomorphic conceptions of God inculcated by positive religion, but ends his chapter with some verses, which run as follows:

“O Thou who art one having the effect of two. Thou hast comprehended under thyself all the beauties of perfection, but owing to their being heterogeneous to one another, they became contradictories which became one in thee.” [10]

The 13th, 14th and 15th chapters are nothing but a jumble of metaphysical phraseology. We have already noticed that man in his progress towards perfection has three stages; the first is the meditation of the name, which the author calls the illumination of names. He remarks that “when God illuminates a certain man by the light of His names, the man is destroyed under the dazzling splendour of that name, and when thou calleth God, the call is responded to by the man.” The effect of this illumination would be, in because the individual goes on living and moving like the Schopenhauer’s language, the destruction of the individual will, yet it must not be confounded with physical death, spinning wheel, as Kapila would say, after he has become one with Prakriti. It is here that the individual cries in the pantheistic mood:

“She was I and I was she and there was none to separate us”. [11]

The second stage of the spiritual training is what the author calls the Illumination of the Attribute. This illumination makes the perfect man receive the attributes of God in their real nature in proportion to the power of receptivity possessed by him—a fact which classifies men according to the magnitude of this light resulting from the illumination. Some men receive illumination from the divine attribute of Life and thus participate in the soul of the universe. The effect of this light is soaring in the air, walking on water, changing the magnitude of things (as Christ often did). In this wise the perfect man receives illuminations from all the Divine attributes, crosses the sphere of the name and the attribute, and steps into the domain of ذات (Essence)—Absolute Existence.

As we have already noticed, the Absolute Being, when it leaves its absoluteness, has three voyages to undergo, each voyage being a process of particularisation of the bare universality of the Absolute Essence. Each of these three movements appear under a new Essential Name, which has its own peculiarly illuminating effect upon the human soul. Here is the end of our author’s spiritual ethics; man has become perfect, he has amalgamated himself with the Absolute Being, or has learnt what Hegel calls the Absolute Philosophy. “He becomes the paragon of perfection, the object of worship, the preserver of the universe. He is the point where عبودیت (Man-ness) and الوہیت (God-ness) become one and result in the birth of the god-man.

Although the author devotes a separate chapter to the perfect man in the second volume of his hook, yet we will consider that chapter here in order to secure a continuous view of his doctrine. Here he unfolds his Doctrine of Self-diremption in a new dress. He says that the perfect man is the pivot round which revolves all the “heavens” of existence, and the sum of the realities of material existence corresponds to his unity. The عرش corresponds to his heart, the کرسی (the chair) to his I-ness, سدرۃالمنتھیٰ (the plum Tree) to his spiritual position, the قلم (Pen) to his intellect; the لوح محفوظ (the Preserved Tablet) to his mind; the elements to his temperament; matter to his faculty of perception, air to the space he occupies; the اطلس (Heaven) to his opinion; the starry heaven to his intelligence; the seventh heaven to his will; the sixth to his imagination; the fifth to his perseverance; the fourth to his understanding; the third to his fancy, the second to his reflection, and the first to his memory. Of the above-mentioned correspondence, the author has very obscure explanations and goes on to enumerate all the phases of material existence in order to explain the truth that the perfect man is truly a microcosm and moves in every sphere of thought and being.

His doctrine implies that angels have not a separate existence of their own; all have their source in the faculties of the perfect man; in one word they are personifications of his faculties. The قلب of the perfect man is the source of اسرافیل (the source of life), his intellect the source of جبراٰئیل (the source of revelation), that part of his nature which is subject to the illusions of fear, the source of عزرائیل (the angel of fear), his will the source of میکائیل and his reflection the source of the rest of the angels. The interpretation of these phrases is very doubtful, but it seems to me that what are called angels are nothing but different phases of the activity of the different powers of his nature. How the perfect man reaches this height of spiritual development, the author does not tell us, but he says that at every stage he has a peculiar spiritual experience in which there is not even a trace of doubt or agitation. The instrument of this experience is what he calls the قلب (heart), a word very difficult of definition. He gives a very mystical diagram ofقلب and explains it by saying that it is the eye which sees the names, the attributes, and the Absolute Being successively. It owes its existence to a mysterious combination of soul and mind (نفس و روح) and becomes by its very nature the organ for the recognition of the ultimate realities of existence. Perhaps Dr. Schenkel’s sense of the word ‘conscience’ would approach our author’s meaning of the word. All that the قلب or the source of what the Vedanta calls the Higher knowledge, reveals is not seen by the individual as something separate from and heterogeneous to himself; what is shown to him through this agency is his own reality, his own deep being. This characteristic of the agency differentiates it from the intellect, the object of which is always different and separate from the individual exercising that faculty. But the spiritual experience, as the Sufis of this school hold, is not permanent; moments of spiritual vision, says Matthew Arnold[12], cannot be at our command. The god-man is he who has known the mystery of his own being, who has realised himself as god-man; but when that particular spiritual realisation is over ۔ man is man and God is God. Had the experience been permanent, a great moral force would have been lost and society overturned.

Let us now sum up the author’s Doctrine of the Trinity. We have seen the three movements of the Absolute Being, or the first three categories of Pure Being; we have also seen that the third movement is attended with external manifestation, which is the self-diremption of the Essence into God and man. This separation makes a gap, which is filled by the perfect man is a necessary condition for the continuation of nature. The author holds that the perfect man is the preserver of the Universe[13]; hence in his view the appearance of the perfect man is a necessary condition for the continuation of nature. It is easy, therefore, to understand, that in the god-man, the Absolute Being, which has left its Absoluteness, returns unto itself, and but for the god-man it could not have done so, for then there would have been no nature, and consequently no light through which God could have seen Himself. The light through the agency of which God sees Himself is due to the principle of differences in the nature of the Absolute Being itself. He recognises the principle in the following verses:

If you say God is one, you are right, but if you say that

He is two, this is also true.

If you say no but He is three, you are right, for this is

the real nature of man[14].

The perfect man, then, is the joining link. On the one hand he receives illumination from all the essential names, on the other hand all the divine attributes reappear in him. These attributes are:

(1) Independent life or existence.

(2) Knowledge which is a form of life, as the author proves from a verse of the Quran.

(3) Will—the principle of particularisation or the manifestation of the Being.

The author defines it as the illumination of the knowledge of God according to the requirements of the Essence, hence it is a particular form of knowledge. It has nine manifestations, all of which are different names for love, the last is the love in which the lover and the beloved, the knower and the known, merge into each other and become identical. This form of love, the author says, is the Absolute Essence; as Christianity teaches God is love. The author guards here against the error of looking upon the individual act of will as uncaused. Only the act of the universal will is uncaused; hence he implies the Hegelian Doctrine of Freedom, and holds that the acts of man are both free and determined.

(4) Power which expresses itself in self-diremption —creation.

The author controverts Shaikh Muhy-ud-Din ibn Arabi’s position that the Universe existed before its creation in the knowledge of God, as Hamilton holds. He says this would imply that God did not create it out of nothing, and holds that the universe, before its existence as an idea, existed in the self of God.

(5) The Word or the reflected being. Every possibility is the word of God; hence nature is the materialisation of the word of God. It has different names—the tangible word, the sum of the realities of man, the arrangement of the Divinity, the spread of Oneness, the expression of the Unknown, the phases of Beauty, the trace of names and attributes, and the object of God’s knowledge.

(6) The Power of hearing.

(7) The Power of seeing.

(8) Beauty—that which seems least beautiful in nature (the reflected beauty) is, in its real existence, beauty. Evil is only relative, it has no real existence; sin is merely a relative deformity.

(9) Glory or beauty in its intensity.

(10) Perfection, which is the unknowable essence of God and therefore Unlimited and Infinite.

We have now the doctrine of the perfect man completed. All through the author has maintained his argumentation by an appeal to different verses of the Quran, and to the several traditions of the Prophet, the authenticity of which he never doubts. Although he reproduces the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, except that his god-man is Muhammad instead of Christ, he never alludes to his having been influenced by Christian theology. He looks upon the doctrine as something common between the two forms of religion and accuses Christians of a blasphemous interpretation of the doctrine—of regarding the Personality of God as split up into three distinct personalities. Our own belief, however, is that this splendid doctrine has not been well understood by the majority of Islamic and even Christian thinkers. The doctrine is but another way of stating that the Absolute Unity must have in itself a principle of difference in order to evolve diversity out of itself. Almost all the attacks of Muhammadan theologians are directed against vulgar beliefs while the truth of-real Christianity has not sufficiently been recognised. I believe in no Islamic thinker will object to the deep meaning of the Trinity as explained by this author, or will hesitate in approving Kant interpretation of the Doctrine of Redemption. Shaikh Mahy-ud-Din Ibn Arabi says that the error of Christianity does not lie in Christ God but in making God Christ.

After these remarks on the Doctrine of the Trinity let us-now review the remainder of the author’s treatise. His principal doctrine is complete before us, but he has got something more to say. He devotes a separate chapter to the He-ness, the second movement of the Absolute Being, but drops no new remark here. He then goes on to consider the I-ness, the third movement of the Absolute, and defines it as the contrast of God with what is His own manifestation and says that I and He are but the outside and the inside of the same thing. In the three succeeding chapters the author considers the words Eternity and Uncreatableness and guards against the error of understanding them as implying time. The 31^st chapter goes under the heading of “The Days of God,” by which phrase the author means the different manifestations of the Absolute. The Absolute Being has two phases; in Himself He is one and Unchangeable, but in the second Phase He is the cause of all diversity—nay, is the diversity. That which appears is not unreal, it is the Absolute Being itself. It is interesting to observe that the author uses here the word تحول which exactly means Evolution implying the identity of the object under all its diverse forms. The first volume ends here with brief notices of the Quran, The Old Testament, the Book of Psalms and the Bible. The author’s remarks on the different books are very interesting, but are not directly connected with the main theory he propounds. We, therefore, proceed to estimate the value of his philosophical labour. While summing up his Doctrine of the Perfect Man, we have seen that, although he has anticipated many of the chief doctrines of modern German philosophy and particularly Hegelianism, yet he is not a systematic thinker at all. He perceives the truth, but being unequipped with the instrumentality of a sound philosophical method, he cannot advance positive proofs for his position, or rather cannot present his views in a systematic unity. He is keenly alive to the necessity of philosophical precision, yet his mysticism constantly leads him to drop vague, obscure remarks savouring of Platonic poetry rather than philosophy. His book is a confused jumble of metaphysics, religion, mysticism and ethics, very often excluding all likelihood of analysis. In his defence of the Islamic institutions, he implies that religion is something quite different from metaphysics, yet in his general treatment he is firmly convinced of their identity that he regards religion as applied metaphysics, and to a great extent anticipates the view of modern NeoHelegian school of England. Amidst the irregularity and general want of clearness, his chief doctrine, however, is sufficiently clear—a doctrine which makes the principal merit of our author, and brings him out as the triumphant possessor of the deep metaphysical meaning of the Trinity. In the garb of mysticism he has dropped remarks which might be developed so as to result in a philosophical system, but it is a matter for regret that this sort of Idealistic Speculation did not find much favour with later Islamic thinkers.

*Indian Antiquary, Bombay, September 1900, pp. 237-46 [Author’s foot-notes, omitted in the earlier editions, are added here from the text prepared by S.H. Razzaqi in his Discourses of Iqbal, Sh. Ghulam Au, Lahore, 1979, p. 117]

[1] Du Prel. In his Philosophy of Mysticism, shows with great force and clearness that an examination of Mysticism is necessary for a complete solution of the human enigma.

[2] Sheikh Muhiud-Din ibn ‘Arabi—the greatest of the Muhammadan Sufis was an astonishingly voluminous writer, lie believed in the revolution of the earth round the sun, as well as the existence of a world beyond ocean (468-548 All.) 3. Vol. 1, p. 10

[3] Vol 1, p. 10

[4] Vol 1, p. 22

[5] Vol 2, p 26

[6] The names and attributes of God as He is in himself (Allah, Tie One, The Odd, The Light. The Truth. The Pete, The living); the name of attributes of God as the source of all Glory) (The Great and High, The all-Powerful); The names and attributes of God as all-Perfection The Creator, The Benefactor, The First, The Last): The name and attributes of God as all Beauty (The Uncreatable, The Painter, The Merciful, The Origin of all)

[7] Matheson’s Aids to the Study of German Theology, p.43.

[8] This would seem very much like the idea of the Phenomena Brahniana of the Vedanta. Personal Creator or the Prajapati of the Vcdanta makes the third step of the Absolute Being or the Nauonienal Brahmana. Our author seems to admit two kinds of Brahmana—with or without qualities like the Samkara and Badarayana. To him the process of creation is essentially a lowering of the Absolute Thought which is Asat, in so far it is absolute and sat, in so far as it is manifested and hence limited. Notwithstanding the Absolute Monisnt, our author inclines to a vicw similar to that of Ramanuja. lie seems to admit the reality of individual soul and seems to imply, unlike Sam kara, that lswara and His worship are necessary even after the attainment of the higher knowledge—a remark which tends to-free our authors doctrine from the political and social dangers of Vendata.

[9]

[10]

[11] Insan –al-Kamil, Vol 1, p. 40

[12] “We cannot Kindle when we will. The fire which in the heart resides”

[13] Vol 1, p. 48

[14] Insan Al Kamil, Vol. 1, p. 8

2021-02-20T00:11:16+00:00

This presidential address was delivered by Iqbal in the annual session of All-India Muslim Conference, held in Lahore in March 1932.

Gentlemen, the Muslims of India have listened to so many addresses from their political platforms that the more impatient of them have already begun to suspect our deliberations which, they think, tend to enfeeble, and eventually to kill, the spirit of action that lies dormant in the heart of Islam. “The present situation in the country,” said one of them, “whets our appetite for action; and if our leaders fail to point to a definite course of action, suitable to the peculiar position of the Indian Muslims, the sheer force of imitation will do its work, and make our youth thoughtlessly plunge into the stream of events.” “Action,” said another with characteristic youthful impatience, “does not need a previously thought out plan; it is not subject to the logic of schools, but develops its own peculiar logic as it emerges out of the heart of man into open space.” Such is the present psychology of our youth. I am grateful to you for the confidence you have placed in me at this critical moment; but I certainly cannot congratulate you on your choice of a man who is nothing more than a visionary idealist. Perhaps you think you need a visionary at this juncture; for where there is no vision the people perish. Perhaps you think I am better equipped for the presidential chair of this assembly after my experiences at the London Conference. To reveal an ideal freed from its temporal limitations Is one function: to show the way how ideals can be transformed into living actualities is quite another. If a man is temperamentally fit for the former function his task is comparatively easy, for it involves a clean jump over temporal limitations which waylay the practical politician at every step. The man who has got the courage to migrate from the former to the latter function has constantly to take stock of, and often yield to, the force of those very limitations which he has been in the habit of ignoring. Such a man has the misfortune of living in the midst of perpetual mental conflict and can be easily accused of self-contradiction. However, I gladly accept the difficult position in which you have placed me, not because I consider myself fit for that position, but because the issues have fortunately become so clear that the whole thing now depends not so much on the guidance of one particular individual as on the force of all the individual wills focused on a single purpose.

Politics have their roots in the spiritual life of man. It is my belief that Islam is not a matter of private opinion. It is a society, or, if you like, a civic church. It is because present-day political ideals, as they appear to he shaping themselves in India, may affect its original structure and character that I find myself interested in politics. I am opposed to nationalism as it is understood in Europe, not because, if it is allowed to develop in India, it is likely to bring less material gain to Muslims. I am opposed to it because I see in it the germs of atheistic materialism which I look upon as the greatest danger to modern humanity. Patriotism is a perfectly natural virtue and has a place in the moral life of man. Yet that which really matters is a man’s faith, his culture, his historical tradition. These are the things which, in my eyes, are worth living for and dying for, and not the piece of earth with which the spirit of man happens to he temporarily associated. In view of the visible and invisible points of contact between the various communities of India I do believe in the possibility of constructing a harmonious whole whose unity cannot he disturbed by the rich diversity which it must carry within its own bosom. The problem of ancient Indian thought was how the One became many without sacrificing its oneness. Today this problem has come down from its ethereal heights to the grosser plane of our political life, and we have to solve it in its reversed form, i.e. how the many can become One without sacrificing its plural character. In so far then as the fundamentals of our policy are concerned, I have got nothing fresh to offer. Regarding these I have already expressed my views in my address1 to the All-India Muslim League. in the present address I propose, among other things, to help you, in the first place, in arriving at a correct view of the situation as it emerged from a rather hesitating behaviour of our delegation at the final stages of the deliberations of the Round Table Conference. In the second place, I shall try, according to my lights, to show how far it is desirable to construct a fresh policy now that the Premier’s announcement at the last London Conference has again necessitated a careful survey of the whole situation. Let me begin with a brief history of the work of our delegation.

The first two meetings of the Minorities Committee were held on the 28th of September and the 1st of October 1931, respectively. On both occasions the meeting was adjourned for a private settlement of the communal problem. Mahatma Gandhi first told the Muslim delegation that matters could!’ not proceed until the Muslim delegation had Shifted the embargo on Dr. Ansari. Failing in this, he gave the Muslim delegation to understand that he would personally agree to Muslim demands and would try to persuade the Congress, the Hindus and the Sikhs to agree to them, provided the Muslims agreed to three things: (i) adult suffrage; (ii) no special representation for the Untouchables; and (iii) Congress demand for complete independence. The Mahatma declined to refer the matter to the Congress and failed in his efforts to get the Hindus and the Sikhs to agree to this arrangement. On the 7th of October two prominent Hindu leaders proposed that the whole matter might he referred to a hoard of seven arbitrators. This too was rejected by Hindu and Sikh representatives. On the 8th the Minorities Committee met for the third time. In this meeting Mahatma Gandhi set to the account of the British Government his failure to bring about a communal settlement, since, according to him, they had deliberately chosen for the British Indian delegation men who, as he said, had no representative character. On behalf of the Muslim delegation, the late Sir Muhammad Shafi refuted the Mahatma’s uncalled for remarks questioning the representative character of the various delegations, and opposed the proposals put forward by him. The meeting came to an end, and, owing to the British general elections, could not meet till the 12th of November. In the meantime, private conversations recommenced on the 15th October. A prominent feature of these conversations was Sir Geoffrey Corbett’s scheme relating to the Punjab. This scheme, very similar to the one I had suggested in my address to the All-India Muslim League, proposed the adoption of joint electorates with the exclusion of the Ambala Division from the Punjab. It, too, was rejected by Sikh and Hindu preventatives who could not tolerate a Muslim majority in the Punjab even with a system of joint electorates. These conversations also remaining fruitless, the representatives of the Indian minorities, which constitute nearly half of India, began to consult one another on the possibility of an Indian Minorities Pact. On the 12th of November all these minorities, with the exception of Sikhs, signed a pact, which was formally handed over to the British Premier in the last meeting of the Minorities Committee held on the 13th of November.

Provincial Autonomy

This brief account of our informal conversations speaks for itself. It is obvious that our delegates did their best to arrive at a communal settlement. The only thing which is mystery to me, and which will perhaps ever remain a mystery, is the declaration made on 26th of November by our spokesmen in the Federal Structure Committee to the effect that they agreed to the simultaneous introduction of provincial autonomy and central responsibility. Whether this was due to their anxiety for conciliation and political advance of the country, or to some conflicting influences which operated on their minds, I cannot say. On the 15th of November—the day on which I dissociated myself from our delegation—Muslim delegates had decided not to participate in the discussions of the Federal Structure Committee. Why did they participate then in these discussions contrary to their own decision? Were our spokesmen on the Federal Structure Committee authorised to make the declaration of 26th November? I am not in a position to answer these questions. All that I can say is that the Muslim community considers the declaration a very grave error and I have no doubt that this Conference will give an emphatic expression to their views on this important matter. In my address to the All-India Muslim League I raised my voice against the idea of an all-India federation. Subsequent events have shown that it is working only as a drag on the political advance of India. If the introduction of central responsibility is dependent on the completion of an all-India federation, which, I fear, will take a fairly long time, then the Government should immediately introduce responsible government in the British Indian provinces, so that the foundation thus delineated may, till the coming of central responsibility, fully prepare itself, by experience, to hear the weight of the federal superstructure. A great deal of spade-work is needed before we can have a really modern federal State.

I have reasons to believe, and had suspected this some days before I dissociated myself from our delegation, that our spokesmen were badly advised by certain English politicians in rejecting the immediate introduction of responsible government in The provinces of British India. Recently Lieutenant-Commander Kenworthy has expressed the same view. He says: “I understand that the moderate leaders in London were badly advised on this matter by certain English politicians, that they listened too readily to their advice and rejected the great installment of provincial autonomy. And the curious thing is that the Mahatma was apparently ready to consider this instalment sympathetically.” Who are the moderate leaders alluded to by the Lieutenant-Commander? In view of the attitude taken up by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru in London and now in the Consultative Committee regarding the immediate introduction of provincial autonomy, it is obvious that the writer of the passage quoted could not have meant Hindu Liberals. I think he probably means Muslim moderate leaders whose declaration in the Federal Structure Committee on the 26th of November seems to me to be really responsible for the British Premier’s announcement regarding the simultaneous introduction of central and provincial responsibility. And since immediate introduction of responsible government in the provinces would have involved a definite announcement regarding the demands of our community as to majority rights in the Punjab and Bengal, we must not forget, while judging the present situation, that the conduct of our own leaders is mainly responsible for the British Premier’s silence which has raised all sorts of suspicions in the mind of the Muslim community.

The next question is to explore the possibilities of shaping, if necessary, a new policy after the disappointing announcement made by the British Premier at the close of the last London Conference. Muslims have naturally grown apprehensive of Government’s attitude towards the problem of communal settlement. They suspect that the Government will purchase Congress co-operation at any cost, and that its delay in conceding Muslim demands is only a cover for the possibility of finding some basis for negotiations with that body. The policy of trusting the Government in regard to political issues seems to be rapidly losing its hold on the mind of the community. The Franchise Committee has postponed consideration of matters relating to the formation of constituencies. As for the, promised provisional settlement, it is obvious that no communal settlement, provisional or permanent, can satisfy the Muslim community, which does not recognize, as its basic principle, the right of the community to enjoy majority rights in provinces where it happens to be in actual majority. The continuance of separate electorates and the status of the Frontier Province are no doubt assured, but complete provincial autonomy, transfer of power from Parliament to Indian provinces, equality of federal units, classification of subjects, not into federal, central and provincial, but into federal and provincial only, majority rights in the Punjab and Bengal, unconditional separation of Sind, and one-third share in the centre, constitute no less essential elements of our demand. The Premier’s silence on these points has only resulted in the unsound policy of war with the Congress and no peace with the rest of the country. Shall we then join the Congress in their present campaign? My answer without a moment’s hesitation is “No”. A careful reading of the underlying motives of this movement will make it perfectly clear.

The Congress Movement

To my mind this movement has its roots in fear and resentment. The Congress leaders claim that they are the sole representatives of the peoples of India. The last Round Table Conference made it abundantly clear that they were not. This they naturally resent. They know that the British people and the rest of the world now fully realise the importance of communal settlement in India. They further know that the minorities of India have arrived at a pact, and that the British Government has given a notice to enforce a provincial settlement of their own, in case the Indians themselves failed to arrive at one. The Congress leaders fear that the British Government in their provisional settlement of the communal problem may concede to the minorities what they demand. They have, therefore, started the present campaign to bolster up a claim which has no foundation in fact, to defeat a pact which, they fear, may find a place in the coming constitution, and to force the Government to settle the matter of minorities with the Congress alone. The Congress resolution, in pursuance of which the civil disobedience campaign was launched, made it perfectly clear that since Government had refused to regard Mahatma Gandhi as the sole representative of the country, the Congress decided on civil disobedience. How can then a minority join a campaign which is directed as much against itself as against the Government?

In the circumstances, therefore, to join the Congress in their present campaign is simply out of the question. But there is no denying that at the moment you are called upon to make important decisions. I am sure you are fully aware of the present state of the community’s mind. Government’s delay in conceding Muslim demands, and the treatment meted out to our brave Frontier brethren on the eve of constitutional reform in their province, are making Indian Muslims suspicious of British methods; and most people are already asking the question whether the power of a third party in India does constitute a real safeguard of the Muslim minority against a politically hostile and economically exploiting majority in India. There seems to be a deeper reason also. The rapid movement of events, and often sudden changes of situation in the political world,. cannot permit an Imperial democracy, especially in the case of Party Government, to adhere for any long periods of time to definite policies. Lack of imagination is a virtue rather than a fault in a modern politician. And owing to this lack of imagination, which is incapable of synthesizing permanence and change in a higher political concept, modern politics is driven to live from hand to mouth. In the case of a subject country like India, therefore, co-operating communities are naturally led to think that the firmness of their political attitude in difficult times for the Government may be of little or no value in the eyes of this or that political party which may come to power at any time in England. Whatever may be the character and ideals of political parties in England, you must base your policy on enlightened self-interest and conceive it in a spirit calculated to impress the whole British nation. It is folly to fight a battle in which there is likelihood of the fruits of victory going to those who are either hostile to, or have no sympathy with, our legitimate political aspirations. The present circumstances are such that in thinking out a line of policy with a view to get over the immediate difficulties of the community, it is your duty to see that the likelihood I apprehend is eliminated, and the benefit of the action advised by you finally accrues to your community.

British Government’s Attitude

Let me state the position as plainly as possible. The British undertook to give a provisional decision of the communal problem in case the communities of India did not arrive at a mutual settlement after their representatives had returned from the second Round Table Conference. This undertaking was thoroughly consistent with the claim and policy of the British as a third party, holding the balance between the contending communities of India. The British Government’s present attitude, however, would show that they do not mean to function as an impartial holder of balance in India, and are indirectly driving the Indian communities, which are mainly Hindus and Muslims, to a kind of civil war. We tried the majority community and found them unwilling to recognize the safeguards which we can forgo only at the risk of complete extinction as a nation determined to live its own life. The alternative was to hope for justice from the British who, ever since they took the country from the Muslims, have claimed, as I have said above, to function as an impartial holder of balance in India. In their case, too, we find that the old British courage and straightforwardness are replaced by a constantly shifting policy which can inspire no confidence and seems to be calculated only to facilitate their own position in India. The Muslim community is thus brought to face the question whether it is in the interest of the community that their present policy which has so far obviated British difficulties and brought no gain to the community shall continue for any further period of time. This is a question for the open Conference to decide. All that I can say at the present stage is that, if you decide to discontinue this policy, your immediate duty is to prepare the whole community for the kind of self-sacrifice without which no self-respecting people can live an honourable life. The most critical moment in the history of the Indian Muslims has arrived. Do your duty or cease to exist.

Gentlemen, I now request you to turn for a moment to two matters of gravest concern to the Muslims of India—I mean the Frontier Province and Kashmir which, I have no doubt, are uppermost in your mind.

Frontier Province

It is indeed gratifying to see the Government has at least conceded our demand regarding the political status of North-West Frontier Province, though it remains to -be seen what this status means in the actual administration of that province. Newspaper reports show that in the matter of franchise, Government rules have been more liberal than in other provinces. The reform machinery will, it is understood, be set in full working order from the next month. What, however, has taken grace out of the whole affair is the simultaneous launching of a campaign of repression which is not essentially different from martial law. The consideration shown in the matter of constitutional issue has been more than neutralised by the severity and short-sightedness shown in the case of the administrative issue. Government may have reasons for counteracting extremist activities of certain people in that part of the country, but it has surely not been able to defend a policy of wholesale repression. During this struggle in other parts of India Britain’s dealing with the situation has not been entirely devoid of restraint. In the Frontier Province alone repression has assumed forms unworthy of a civilised Government. If oral reports are true, then the heart of the British official in the Frontier Province stands in need of a reform far greater in importance for the British Empire than the constitutional reform sought to be introduced into that province. There is no definite and final information about the number of arrests and persecutions; but as it is roughly mentioned in newspapers, thousands have been arrested and convicted or interned. It is for the Government to consider whether the incongruent policies of concession and repression will result in the pacification of a proud race like the Afghans. Abdul Ghaffar Khan certainly commands a great deal of influence among the young border Afghans, but what has extended the sphere of his influence to the farthest ends of the territory and to the ignorant folk of the Frontier villages, is the present thoughtless policy of repression. Government cannot be unaware of the fact that the all-India policy of the Indian Muslims was, at this juncture, effectively keeping in check the tendencies of the Muslims of that province to join hands with those who Were for an unconditional alliance with the Congress. Perhaps there have been difficulties from the Government point of view; yet I think a little different handling of the administrative action could have saved the whole situation. The political situation in the Frontier, it appears, was allowed to deteriorate during the period when a policy of relaxation was the order of the day, and attempts to deal with it in a repressive manner have been made at a time when the real remedy of the disease had been prescribed. The sooner the Government withdraws all repressive measures from the province, the better for the province and the Government itself. The situation has caused deep concern to the whole Muslim community in India, and it is hardly wise for the Government not to allay Muslim feeling in this respect.

Kashmir

As to Kashmir it is hardly necessary for me to describe the historical background of events which have recently happened in that country. The apparently sudden resurrection of a people in whom the ego-flame had been almost extinguished, ought to be, in spite. of the suffering which it has necessarily involved, a matter of rejoicing to all those who possess an insight into the inner struggle of modern Asiatic peoples. The cause of the people of Kashmir is absolutely just, and I have no doubt that the rebirth of this sense of the reality of their own personality in an intelligent and skilful people will eventually prove a source of strength not only to the State but also to the people of India as a whole. What, however, is most deplorable is that the communal ill-feeling existing in India, and the perfectly natural sympathy of the Indian Muslims with their Kashmir brethren, led to a kind of counter-agitation among the Hindus, which, in its despair, sought to protect a barbarous administration by attributing its inevitable consequences to such wild fancies as Pan-Islamic plots and conspiracies for British occupation of Kashmir. Such agitation and the communal colour thereby given, to the Kashmir question could have led only to one thing—resort to violent repression leading to prolonged lawlessness in the State. In parts of The Jammu Province, as newspaper reports tell us, the administration has completely broken down and it is only the presence of British troops which is keeping things in control at least in places where they are present. Oral reports of a most violent and shameful repression practiced by State authorities in many places are still pouring in. Nor can commissions of enquiry be of any help in such a state of things. The Middleton Report which admits important facts and fails to draw legitimate conclusions therefrom has already failed to satisfy Muslims. The truth is that the matter has passed the stage in which enquiries can lead to effective results. The growing sense of self-consciousness in the people all over the world is now demanding recognition in the shape of a desire for an increasing share in the administration which governs them. Political tutelage is good for a primitive people; but it is in the best interests of an administration itself not to shirk from radical reform when a change in the outlook of a people demands it. Among other things which have probably arisen from the peculiar conditions obtaining in Kashmir, the people of that country demand some kind of a popular assembly. Let us hope that the Ruler of the State and the Government of India will consider the people’s demands as favourably as they possibly can. I have no doubt that the new Prime Minister, with characteristic British administrative acuteness, will see into the heart of the matter, and provide scope for the activity of a fine hut down-trodden people who gave some of the best intellects to ancient India, and later added a real charm to Mughal culture. There may be difficulties in the way of constitutional reform in Kashmir as in the case of our own country; but the interests of permanent peace and order demand that these difficulties must be speedily overcome. If the meaning of the present upheaval is not properly understood and its causes are sought in directions where they cannot be found, the Kashmir Government, I fear, will have made its problem much- more complicated.

It is obvious, therefore, that the attitude of the British Government towards our demands and the gravity of the situation in the Frontier Province and Kashmir claim our immediate attention. But what claims our immediate attention is not our only concern. We must have a clear perception of the forces which are silently moulding the future, and place a relatively permanent programme of work before the community in view of the probable direction of events in the country. The present struggle in India is sometimes described as India’s revolt against the West. I do not think it is a revolt against the West; for the people of India are demanding the very institutions which the West stands for. Whether the gamble of elections, retinues of party leaders and hollow pageants of parliaments will suit a country of peasants to whom the money economy of modern democracy is absolutely incomprehensible is a different question altogether. Educated urban India demands democracy. The minorities, feeling themselves as distinct cultural units, and fearing that their very existence is at stake, demand safeguards, which the majority community, for obvious reasons, refuses to concede. The majority community pretends to believe in a nationalism theoretically correct, if we start from Western premises, belied by facts, if we look to India. Thus the real parties to the present struggle in India are not England and India, hut the majority community and the minorities of India which can ill-afford to accept the principle of Western democracy until it is properly modified to suit the, actual conditions of life in India.

Nor do Mahatma Gandhi’s political methods signify a revolt in the psychological sense. These methods arise out of contact of two opposing types of world-consciousness, Western and Eastern. The Western man’s mental texture is chronological in character. He lives and moves and has his being in time. The Eastern man’s world-consciousness is non-historical. To the Western man things gradually become; they have a past, present and future. To the Eastern man they are immediately rounded off, timeless, purely present. That is why Islam which sees in the time-movement a symbol of reality appeared as an intruder in the static world-picture of Asia. The British as a Western people cannot but conceive political reform in India as a systematic process of gradual evolution. Mahatma Gandhi as an Eastern man sees in this attitude nothing more than an ill-conceived unwillingness to part with power, and tries all sorts of destructive negations to achieve immediate attainment. Both are elementally incapable of understanding each other. The result is the appearance of a revolt.

These phenomena, however, are merely premonitions of a coming storm, which is likely to sweep over the whole of India and the rest of Asia. This is the inevitable outcome of a wholly political civilization which has looked upon man as a thing to be exploited and not as a personality to be developed and enlarged by purely cultural forces. The peoples of Asia are bound to rise against the acquisitive economy which the West has developed and imposed on the nations of the East Asia cannot comprehend modern Western capitalism with its undisciplined individualism. The faith which you represent recognizes the worth of the individual, and disciplines him to give away his all to the service of God and man. Its possibilities are not yet exhausted. It can still create a new world where the social rank of man is not determined by his caste or colour, or the amount of dividend he earns, but by the kind of life he lives; where the poor tax the rich, where human society is founded not on the equality of stomachs but on the equality of spirits, where an Untouchable can marry the daughter of a king, where private ownership is a trust and where capital cannot be allowed to accumulate so as to dominate the real producer of wealth. This superb idealism of your faith, however, needs emancipation from the medieval fancies of theologians and legists. Spiritually we are living in a prison-house of thoughts and emotions which during the course of centuries we have woven round ourselves. And be it further sad to the shame of us—men of older generation—that we have failed to equip the younger generation for the economic, political and even religious crises that the present age is likely to bring. The whole community needs a complete overhauling of its present mentality in order that it may again become capable of feeling the urge of fresh desires and ideals. The Indian Muslim has long ceased to explore the depths of his own inner life. The result is that he has ceased to live in the full glow and colour of life, and is consequently in danger of an unmanly compromise with forces which, he is made to think, he cannot vanquish in open conflict. He who desires to change an unfavourable environment must undergo a complete transformation of his inner being. God changeth not the condition of a people until they themselves take the initiative to change their condition by constantly illuminating the zone of their daily activity in the light of a definite ideal. Nothing can be achieved without a firm faith in the independence of one’s own inner life. This faith alone keeps a people’s eye fixed on their goal and saves them from perpetual vacillation. The lesson that past experience has brought to you must be taken to heart. Expect nothing from any side. Concentrate your whole ego on yourself alone, and ripen your clay into real manhood if you wish to see your aspirations realized. Mussolini’s maxim was: “He who has steel has bread.” I venture to modify it a bit and say: “He who is steel has everything.” Be hard and work hard. This is the whole secret of individual and collective life. Our ideal is well defined. It is to win in the coming constitution a position for Islam which may bring her opportunities to fulfil her destiny in this country. it is necessary in the light of this ideal to rouse the progressive forces of the community and to organize their hitherto dormant energies. The flame of life cannot be borrowed from others;- it must be kindled in the temple of one’s own soul. This requires earnest preparation and a relatively permanent programme. What then shall be our future programme? I am inclined to think that it should be partly political, partly cultural. I venture to offer a few suggestions for your consideration.

First, we must frankly admit that there is yet a sort of chaos in the political thought of those who are supposed to guide the activities of the Indian Muslims in the present-day political struggle. The community, however, is not to blame for this state of things. The Muslim masses are not at all lacking in the spirit of self-sacrifice when the question of their ultimate destiny in this country is involved. Recent history bears ample testimony to what I say. The fault is ours, not theirs. The guidance offered to the community is not always independently conceived, and the result is ruptures, sometimes at critical moments, within our political organizations. Thus these organizations cannot properly develop the kind of discipline which is so absolutely essential to the life and power of political bodies. To remedy this evil I suggest that the Indian Muslims should have only one political organization with provincial and district branches all over the country. Call it whatever you like. What is essential is that its constitution must be such as to make it possible for any school of political thought to come into power, and to guide the community according to its own ideas and methods. In my opinion this is the only way to make ruptures impossible, and to reintegrate and discipline our scattered forces to the best interests of Islam in India.

Secondly, I suggest that this central organization should immediately raise a national fund of at least 50 lakhs of rupees. No doubt we are living in hard times but you may rest assured that the Muslims of India will not fail to respond to your call if a genuine effort is made to impress upon them the gravity of the present situation.

Thirdly, I suggest the formation of youth leagues and well-equipped volunteer corps throughout the country under the control and guidance of the central organization. They must specially devote themselves to social service, customs reform, commercial organization of the community and economic propaganda in towns and villages, especially in the Punjab where enormous indebtedness of Muslim agriculturists cannot be allowed to wait for the drastic remedies provided by agrarian upheavals. Things appear to have reached the breaking point as in China in 1925 when peasant leagues came into being in that country. The Simon Report admits that the peasant pays a “substantial portion” of his means to the State. The State, no doubt, gives him in return peace and security, trade and communication. But the net result of these blessings has been only a kind of scientific exactitude in taxation, destruction of village economy by machine-made goods and the commercialization of crops which makes the peasant almost always fall a prey to money-lenders and commercial agents. This is a very serious matter especially in the Punjab. I want the proposed youth leagues to specialize in propaganda work in this connection, and thus to help the peasantry in escaping from its present bondage. The future of Islam in India largely depends, in my opinion, on the freedom of Muslim peasants in the Punjab. Let then the fire of youth mingle with the fire of faith in order to enhance the glow of life and to create a new world of actions for our future generations. A community is not merely a purely present and numerable whole of men and women. Indeed its life and activity as a living reality cannot he fully understood without a reference to that unborn infinity which lies asleep in the deeps of its inner being.

Fourthly, I suggest the establishment of male and female culture institutes in all the big towns of India. These institutes as such should have nothing to do with politics. Their chief function should be to mobilize the dormant spiritual energy of the younger generation by giving them a clear grasp of what Islam has already achieved and what it has still to achieve in the religious and cultural history of mankind. The progressive forces of a people can be roused only by placing before them a new task calculated to enlarge the individual to make him comprehend and experience the community, not as a heap of isolated fragments of life, hut as a well-defined whole possessing inner cohesion and solidarity. And when once these forces are roused they bring fresh vigour for new conflicts, and that sense of inner freedom which enjoys resistance and holds out the promise of a new self. These institutes must keep in close touch with our educational institutions-old and new with a view to secure the ultimate convergence of all the lines of our educational endeavour on a single purpose. One practical suggestion I can immediately make. The Hartog Committee’s interim report, now apparently forgotten in the rush of other political problems, makes the following recommendation which I consider of the utmost importance for the Muslims of India:

There can be no doubt that if in provinces where the educational progress of the Muhammadan community is impeded by religious difficulties, such arrangements for religious instruction can be made as will induce that community to send its children to ordinary schools, the public system will gain both in economy and efficiency and much will be done to free the community from the handicap and the reproach of educational backwardness.

We are fully aware that such arrangements are not easy to make and that in other countries they have given rise to much controversy…. But in our opinion the time is ripe and more than ripe for a determined effort to devise practical plans (pp. 204-05).

And Again on p. 206, while discussing reservations, the Report says:

If therefore special arrangements inside the public system were made now, and possibly for some time to come, to enable the Muhammadan community to take its full share in the life and in the advance of the nation, this would not, in our opinion, be inconsistent either with sound democratic or sound educational principles. We wish we could say that no reservations are necessary and we should certainly wish that they should be as small as possible. As complications of an educational system they are undesirable in themselves, but since, in our belief they represent a necessary alternative to leaving the Muhammadan community in its present backward state, and leaving it to take the poor changes afforded by a system of segregate institutions, we have no hesitation in embracing that alternative as justifiable on broad grounds of national policy.

The proposed cultural institutes or till their establishment the All-India Muslim Conference must see that these recommendations, based as they are on a clear perception of the present handicaps of our community, are carried into effect.

Fifthly, I suggest the formation of an assembly of ulema which must include Muslim lawyers who have received education in modern jurisprudence. The idea is to protect, expand and, if necessary, to reinterpret the law of Islam in the light of modern conditions, while keeping close to the spirit embodied in its fundamental principles. This body must receive constitutional recognition so that no bill affecting the personal law of Muslims may be put on the legislative anvil before it has passed through the crucible of this assembly. Apart from the purely practical value of this proposal for the Muslims of India, we must remember that the modern world, both Muslim and non-Muslim, has yet to discover the infinite value of the legal literature of Islam and its significance for a capitalistic world whose ethical standards have long abdicated from the control of man’s economic conduct. The formation of the kind of assembly I propose will, I am sure, bring a deeper understanding of the usual principles of Islam at least in this country.

2021-02-20T00:11:16+00:00

The Muslim Community — a Sociological Study * [1]

SPEECHES, WRITINGS AND STATEMENTS OF IQBAL

By

LATIF AHMAD SHERWANI

IQBAL ACADEMY PAKISTAN

EDITED AND PROOFREAD

BY

ALEENA ABAID

INTERNATIONAL IQBAL SOCIETY

In the epic sweep of human history, there is nothing more awe-inspiring, nothing more destructive of human ambition than the ruins of bygone nations, empires and civilizations appearing and disappearing, during the painful course of human evolution, like the scenes of a rapidly vanishing dream. The forces of Nature appear to respect neither individuals nor nations; her inexorable laws continue to work as if she has a far-off purpose of her own, in no sense related to what may be the immediate interest or the ultimate destiny of man. But man is a peculiar creature. Amidst the most discouraging circumstances, his imagination, working under the control of his understanding, gives him a more perfect vision of himself and impels him to discover the means which would transform his brilliant dream of an idealised self into a living actuality. An animal of inferior physical strength, unequipped with natural weapons of defence, lacking the power of nocturnal vision, keen scent or fleetness of foot, man has, in search of a freer, ampler life, always directed his indefatigable energy to discover the ways of nature, understand their working, and thus gradually to become a determining factor in his own evolution. By the great discovery of the law of Natural Selection he has succeeded in reaching a rational conception of his own history which, before long, appeared to him to be nothing more than an inscrutable series of events dropping out, one by one, from the mysterious womb of time, without any inherent order or purpose. A still deeper insight into the meaning of this law, and the discovery by post-Darwinian thinkers, of other equally important facts of collective life are calculated to work a complete revolution in man’s notions of group-life in its social, economic and political aspects. It has been brought to light by recent biological research that the individual as such is a mere abstraction, a convenient expression for facility of social reference, passing moment in the life of the group to which he happens to belong. His thoughts, his aspirations, his ways of life, his entire mental and physical outfit, the very number of days, which he lives, are all determined by the needs of the community of whose collective life he is only a partial expression. The interests of society as a whole are fundamentally different and even antagonistic to the interests of the individual whose activity is nothing more than an unconscious performance of a particular function, which social economy has allotted to him. Society has a distinct life of its own, irrespective of the life of its component units taken individually. And just as an individual organism, in a state of disorder, sometimes unconsciously sets up within itself forces, which tend to its health, so a social organism, under the corroding influence of destructive forces, may sometimes call into being counteracting forces — such as the appearance of an inspiring personality, the birth of a new ideal, or a universal religious reform — which tend to restore its original vitality, and finally save the organism from structural collapse by making the inward communal self to bring into subjection all the insubordinate forces, and to throw off all that is inimical to the health of its organic unity. Society has or rather tends to have a consciousness, a will, and an intellect of its own, though the stream of its mentality has no other channel through which to flow than individual minds. The expressions “Public opinion”, “National genius”, or what the Germans happily phrase of Zeitgeist are by vague recognitions of this exceedingly important fact of social psychology. The crowd, the mass meeting, the corporation, the sect, and finally the deliberative assembly are the various means by which the body- social organises itself in order to secure the unity of self-consciousness. It is not necessary that the social mind should be conscious of all the various ideas that are, at a particular moment, working in the individual minds. The individual mind is never completely aware of its own states of consciousness. In the case of the collective mind too many feelings, states and ideas remain below the threshold of social sensibility, only a portion of the universal mental life crossing the border, and getting into the clear daylight of social consciousness. This economical arrangement saves from unnecessary expenditure, a great quantity of the energy of the central organs, which would otherwise be fruitlessly spent on details. It is, therefore, clear that society has a life-stream of its own. The idea that it is merely the sum of its existing individuals is essentially wrong, and consequently all projects of social and political reform, which proceed on this assumption, must undergo careful re-examination. Society is much more than its existing individuals; it is in its nature infinite; it includes within its contents the innumerable unborn generations which, though they ever lie beyond the limits of immediate social vision, must be considered as the most important portion of a living community. Recent biological research has revealed that in the successful group-life it is the future which must always control the present; to the species taken as a whole, its unborn members are perhaps more real than its existing members whose immediate interests are subordinated and even sacrificed to the future interests of that unborn infinity which slowly discloses itself from generation to generation. To this remarkable revelation of biological truth the social and political reformer cannot afford to remain indifferent.

Now it is from this standpoint—from the standpoint of the future that I wish to test the worth of our present social activity. There is, strictly speaking, only one all important problem before a community—call it whatever you like, Social, Economic or Political—and that is the problem of a continuous national life. Extinction is as abhorrent to a race as to an individual. The worth of all the various activities of a community intellectual or otherwise—ought always to be determined in reference to this ultimate purpose. We must criticise our values, perhaps trans valuate them; and if necessary, create new worths; since the immortality of a people, as Nietsche has so happily put, depends upon the incessant creation of worths. Things certainly bear the stamp of divine manufacture, but their meaning is through and through human.

Before, however, I proceed to this examination I wish to consider a few preliminary points, the consideration of which, to my mind, is essential to arriving at any definite conclusion concerning the Muslim Community. These points are; (1) The general structure of the Muslim Community. (2) The uniformity of Muslim Culture. (3) The type of character essential to a continuous National life of the Muslim community.

I shall take these points in order.

(1) The essential difference between the Muslim Community and other Communities of the world consists in our peculiar conception of nationality. It is not the unity of language or country or the identity of economic interest that constitutes the basic principle of our nationality. It is because we all believe in a certain view of the universe, and participate in the same historical tradition that we are members of the society founded by the Prophet of Islam. Islam abhors all material limitations, and bases its nationality on a purely abstract idea, objectified in a potentially expansive group of concrete personalities. It is not dependent for its life-principle on the character and genius of a particular people, in its essence it is non-temporal. non-spatial.

The Arab Race, the original creation of Islam, was certainly a great factor in its political expansion, but the enormous wealth of literature and thought —manifestations of the higher life of the spirit has been the work of chiefly non-Arabian races. It seems as if the birth of Islam was only a momentary flash of divine consciousness in the life-history of the Arab race; the working of its spiritual potentialities was due to the genius of people other than the Arabs. The essence of Islam, then, being purely ideal, it could not accept any objective principle—such as country—as a principle of nationality. The territorial conception of nationality, which has been so much exaggerated in modern times, hears within itself the germs of its own destruction.

The idea of modern nationalism has certainly functioned usefully in forming smaller political units, and creating a healthy rivalry among them, which has contributed so much to the variety of modern civilisation. But the idea is apt to be exaggerated, it has created a great deal of misunderstanding of international motives; it has opened up a vast field for diplomatic intrigue, and tends to ignore the broad human element in art and literature by emphasising the peculiar traits and characteristics of particular peoples. To my mind, the feeling of patriotism, which the national idea evokes is a kind of deification of a material object, diametrically opposed to the essence of Islam which appeared as a protest against all the subtle and coarse forms of idolatry. I do not, however, mean to condemn the feeling of Partiotism. Peoples whose solidarity depends on a territorial basis are perfectly justified in that feeling. ‘But I certainly do mean to attack the conduct of those who, while they recognised the great value of patriotic feeling in the formation of a peoples’ character yet condemn our ‘Asabiyyat which they miscall fanaticism. We are as much justified in our ‘Asabiyyat as they are in their patriotism. For, what is ‘Asabiyyat? Nothing but the principle of individuation working in the case of a group. All forms of life are more or less fanatical and ought to be so, if they care for their individual or collective life. And as a matter of fact all nations are fanatical. Criticise a Frenchman’s religion; you do not very much rouse his feelings; since your criticism does not touch the life-principle of his nationality. But criticise his civilisation, his country, or the corporate behaviour of his nation in any sphere of political activity and you will bring out his innate fanaticism. The reason is that his nationality does not depend on his religious belief; it has a geographical basis —his county. His ‘Asabtyyat is then justly roused when you criticise the locality—which he has idealised as the essential principle of his nationality. Our position, however, is essentially different. With us nationality is a pure idea; it has no objective basis. Our only rallying-point, as a people, is a kind of purely subjective agreement in a certain view of the world. If then our ‘Asabiyyat is roused when our religion is criticised, I think we are as much justified in it as a French man is ‘when his country is denounced. The feeling in each case is the same though associated with different objects. ‘Asabiyyat is patriotism for religion; Patriotism, ‘Asabiyyat for country. ‘Asabiyyat simply means a strong feeling for one’s own nationality and does not necessarily imply any feeling of hatred against other nationalities. During my stay in England I found that whenever I described any peculiarly Eastern custom or mode of thought to an English lady or gentlemen, I, almost invariably, invoked the remark— “how funny” as if any non-English mode of thought was absolutely inconceivable. I have the highest admiration for his attitude; it does not indicate any want of imagination; the country of Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson and Swinburne cannot be wholly unimaginative; on the other hand, it indicates how deeply England’s mode of thought and life, her institutions, her manners and customs are rooted in the mind of her people.

The religious idea, then, without any theological centralisation which would unnecessarily limit the liberty of the individual, determines the ultimate structure of the Muslim Community. In the case of no community the words of Augustus Comet are so completely true as in the case of our own. “Since Religion”, says he, “embraces all our existence, its history must be an epitome of the whole history of our development.” It may, however, be asked that, if mere belief in certain prepositions of Metaphysical import is the only thing that ultimately determines the structure of the Muslim Community, is it not an extremely unsafe basis especially before the advance of modern knowledge, with its habits of Rationalism and criticism? This is what the French Orientalist Renan thought; and entertained a veiled hope that Islam would one day “lose the high intellectual and moral direction of an important part of the universe.” Nations, the basic principle of whose collective life is territorial, need not be afraid of Rationalism, to us it is a dangerous foe, since it aims at the very principle, which gives us a communal life, and alone makes our collective existence intelligible. Rationalism is essentially analysis and consequently threatens to disintegrate the communal synthesis achieved by the force of the religious idea. It is undoubtedly true that we can meet Rationalism on its own ground. But the point which I wish to impress on you is that the dogma i.e. the point of universal agreement on which our communal solidarity depends, has essentially a national rather than intellectual significance for us. To try to convert religion into a system of speculative knowledge is, in my opinion, absolutely useless, and even absurd, since the object of religion is not thinking about life, its main purpose is to build up a coherent social whole for the gradual elevation of life. Religion is itself a Metaphysics, in so far as it calls up into being a new universe with a view to suggest a new type of character tending to universalise itself in proportion to the force of the personality in, which it originally embodies itself. The point that I have tried to bring out in the above remarks is that Islam has a far deeper significance for us than merely religious, it has a particularly national meaning, so that our communal life is unthinkable without a firm grasp of the Islamic Principle. The idea of Islam is, so to speak, our eternal home or country wherein we live, move and have our being. To us it is above everything else, as England is above all to the Englishman and “Deutschland uber alles” to the German. The moment our grasp of the Islamic Principle is loosened that solidarity of our community is gone.

(2) Coming now to the second point, the uniformity of Muslim Culture. The unity of religious belief on which our communal life depends, is supplemented by the uniformity of Muslim Culture. Mere belief in the Islamic principle, though exceedingly important, is not sufficient. In order to participate in the life of the communal self the individual mind must undergo a complete transformation, and this transformation is secured, externally by the institutions of Islam, and internally by that uniform culture which the intellectual energy of our forefathers has produced. The more you reflect on the history of the Muslim Community the more wonderful does it appear from the day of its foundation up to the beginning of the 16^th Century, almost a thousand years this energetic race was busy in the all absorbing occupation of political expansion. Yet in this storm of continuous activity the Muslim world found time to unearth the treasures of ancient science, to make material additions to them, to build a literature of unique character, and above all to develop a comprehensive system of law. Probably the most valuable legacy that Muslim civilization has left us. Just as the Muslim Community does not recognize any ethological differences, and aims at the subsumption of all races under the universal idea of humanity, so our culture is relatively universal, and is not indebted, for its life and growth to the genius of one particular people. Persia is perhaps the principal factor in the making of this culture. If you ask me what is the most important event in the history of Islam, I shall immediately answer—the conquest of Persia. The battle of Nehwand gave to the Arabs not only a beautiful country, hut also an ancient people who could construct a new civilisation out of the Samitic and the Aryan material. Our Muslim civilisation is a product of the cross-fertilisation of the Samitic and the Aryan ideas. It inherits the softness and refinement of its Aryan mother and the sterling character of it Samitic father. The conquest of Persia gave to the Musalmans what the Conquest of Greece gave to the Romans, but for Persia our culture would have been absolutely one-sided. And the people whose contact transformed the Arabs and the Mughals are not intellectually dead. Persia, whose existence as an independent Political unit is threatened by the aggressive ambition of Russia, is still a real centre of Muslim culture; and I can only hope that she still continues to occupy the position that she had always occupied in the Muslim world. To the Royal family of Persia, the loss of Persia’s political independence would mean only a territorial loss, to the Muslim culture such an event would be a blow much more serious than the Tartar invasion of the 10^th Century. But perhaps I am drifting into politics which is not my present object to discuss, all that I mean to establish is that in order to become a living member of the Muslim Community the individual besides an unconditional belief in the religious principle, must thoroughly assimilate the culture of Islam. The object of this assimilation is to create a uniform mental outlook, a peculiar way of looking at the world, a definite standpoint from which to judge the value of things which sharply defines our community, and transforms it into a corporate individual, giving it a definite purpose and ideal of its own.

(3) The third point need not detain us long. The above remarks indicate the principal features of an essentially Muslim type of character. The various types of character, however, that become popular in a community do not appear haphazard. Modern Sociology teaches us that the moral experience of nations obeys certain definite laws. In primitive societies where the struggle for existence is extremely keen and draws more upon man’s physical rather than intellectual qualities; it is the valiant man who becomes an object of universal admiration and imitation. When, however, the struggle relaxes and the peril is over, the valorous type is displaced, though not all-together, by what Giddings calls the convivial type, which takes a due share in all the pleasures of life, and combines in itself the virtues of liberality, generosity and good fellowship. But these two types of character have a tendency to become reckless, and by way of reaction against them appears the third great type which holds up the ideal of self-control, and is dominated by a more serious view of life. In so far as the evolution of the Muslim Community in India is concerned, Temur represented the first type. Babar combined the first and the second, Jahangir embodied pre-eminently the second while the third type was foreshadowed in Alamgir whose life and activity forms, in my opinion, the starting point in the growth of Muslim Nationality in India. To those whose knowledge of Alamgir is derived from the western interpreters of Indian History, the name of Alamgir is associated with all sorts of cruelty, intolerance, treachery and political intrigue. I shall be drifting away from the main point of this lecture if I undertake to show, by a right interpretation of contemporary history, the legitimacy of motives that guided Alamgir’s political life. A critical study of his life and times has convinced me that the charges brought against him are based on a misinterpretation of contemporary facts, and a complete misunderstanding of the nature of social and political forces, which were then working in the Muslim State. To me the ideal of character, foreshadowed by Alamgir is essentially the Muslim type of character, and it must be the object of all our education to develop that type. If it is our aim to secure a continuous life of the community we must produce a type of character, which, at all costs, holds fast to its own, and while it readily assimilates all that is good in other types, it carefully excludes from its life all that is hostile to its cherished traditions and institutions. A careful observation of the Muslim Community in India reveals the point on which the various lines of moral experience of the community are now tending to converge. In the Punjab the essentially Muslim type of character has found a powerful expression in the so-called Qadiani-sect[1][2]; while in the United Provinces, owing to a slightly different intellectual environment, the need of such a type of character is loudly proclaimed by a great poetic voice. In his lighthearted humour Maulana Akbar of Allahabad, aptly called the tongue of the times, conceals a keen perception of the nature of the forces that are at present working in the Muslim Community. Do not be misled by the half-serious tone of his utterances; he keeps his tears veiled in youthful laughter, and will not admit you into his workshop until you come with a keener glance to examine his wares. So deeply related are the current of thought and emotion in a homogeneous community that if one portion reveals a certain organic craving the material to satisfy that craving is almost simultaneously produced by the other.

Let me now proceed a step further. In the foregoing discussion, I have tried to establish three propositions:

(1)That the religious idea constitutes the life principle of the Muslim Community. In order to maintain the health and vigour of such a community, the development of all dissenting forces in it must he carefully watched and a rapid influx of foreign elements must be checked or permitted to enter into the social fabric very slowly, so that it may not bring on a collapse by making too great a demand on the assimilation power of the social organism.

(2) Secondly; the mental outfit of the individual belonging to the Muslim community must be mainly formed out of the material which the intellectual energy of his forefathers has produced, so that he may be made to feel the continuity of the present with the past and the future.

(3) Thirdly; that he must possess a particular type of character which I have described as the Muslim type.

It is my object now to examine the value of the work that we have done in the various spheres of activity. Now a thoroughgoing criticism of the work- of the Muslim world in the sphere of Politics, Religion, Literature and Thought, Education, Journalism, Industry, Trade and Commerce will require several volumes. The events which are now happening in the Muslim World are extremely significant and a searching examination of them would be exceedingly instructive, but the task is enormous, and I confess it is beyond my power to undertake it, I shall, therefore, have to confine my observations to the work that we have done in India, and here too I do not pretend to give you any exhaustive treatment of the various problems now confronting us. I shall consider only two points—Education and the Improvement of the general condition of the masses.

During the last fifty years or so, the work of Education has absorbed almost all our energies. It is not improper to ask whether we have been following any definite educational ideal, or only working for immediate ends without giving a thought to the future. What kind of men have we turned out? And is the quality of the output calculated to secure a continuous life of such a peculiarly constructed community as our own? The answer to these questions has been already indicated. The students of Psychology among you know very well that the personal identity of the individual mind depends upon the orderly succession of its mental states. When the continuity of the stream of individual consciousness is disturbed there results psychical ill health, which may, in course of time, lead on to a final dissolution of vital forces. The same is the case with the life of the social mind whose continuity is dependent on the orderly transmission of its continuity experience from generation to generation. The object of education is to secure this orderly transmission and thus to give a unity of self-consciousness of personal identity to the social mind. It is a deliberate effort to bring about an organic relation between the individual and the body-politic to which he belongs. The various portions of the collective tradition so transmitted by education, permeate the entire social mind, and become objects of clear consciousness in the minds of a few individuals only whose life and thought become specialised for the various purposes of the community. The legal, historical and literary traditions of a community for instance, are definitely present to the consciousness of its lawyers, historians and literary writers, though the community as a whole is only vaguely conscious of them. Now I wish you to look at and judge the value of our educational achievement from this standpoint. In the modern Muslim youngman we have produced a specimen of character whose intellectual life has absolutely no background of Muslim culture without which, in my opinion, he is only half a Muslim or even less than that provided his purely secular education has left his religious belief unshaken. He has been allowed, I am afraid, to assimilate western habits of thought to an alarming extent a constant study of western literature, to the entire neglect of the collective experience of his own community, has, I must frankly say, thoroughly demuslimised his mental life. No community, I say without any fear of contradiction, has produced so very noble types of character as our own; yet our youngman who is deplorably ignorant of the life-history of his own community has to go to the great personalities of western history for admiration and guidance. Intellectually he is a slave to the west, and consequently his soul is lacking in that healthy egoism which comes from a study of one’s own history and classics. In our educational enterprise, we have hardly realised the truth, which experience is now forcing upon us, that an undivided devotion to an alien culture is a kind of imperceptible conversion to that culture, a conversion which may involve much more serious consequences than conversion to a new religion. No Muslim writer has expressed this truth more pointedly than the poet Akbar who, after surveying the present intellectual life of the Muslim Youngman, cries out in despair:

We now see that the fears of the شیخ مرحوم the representative of the essentially Muslim culture, who waged a bitter controversy with the late Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan on the question of Western Education were not quite groundless. Need I say that our educational product is a standing testimony to the grain of truth contained in the Sheikh Marhum’s contention. Gentlemen, I hope you will excuse me for these straightforward remarks. Having been in close touch with the student-life of today for the last ten or twelve years, and teaching a subject closely related to religion, I think I have got some claim to be heard on this point. It has been my painful experience that the Muslim Student, ignorant of the social, ethical and political ideals that have dominated the mind of his community, is spiritually dead and that if the present state of affairs is permitted to continue for another twenty years the Muslim spirit which is now kept alive by a few representatives of the old Muslim culture, will entirely disappear from the life of our community. Those who laid it down as a fundamental Principle that the education of the Muslim child must begin with the study of the Quran—no matter whether he understands it or not—were certainly much more sensible of the nature of our community than we claim to be. Economic considerations alone ought not to determine our activity as a people, the preservation of the unity of the community, the continuous national life is a far higher ideal than the service of merely immediate ends. To me a Muslim of scanty means who possesses a really Muslim character is a much more valuable national asset than a high-salaried, free thinking graduate with whom Islam, far from being a working principle of life, is merely a convenient policy in order to secure a greater share in the leaves and fishes of the country. These remarks need not lead you to think that I mean to condemn western culture. Let student of Muslim history must recognise that it was the west which originally shaped the course of our intellectual activity. In the sphere of pure thought we are still perhaps more Greek than Arab or Persian. Yet nobody can deny that we possess a unique culture of our own, which no modern Muslim system of education can afford to ignore without running the risk of denationalising those whose good it aims at securing. It is indeed a happy sign that the idea of a Muslim University has dawned upon us. Considering the nature of our community the necessity of such an institution cannot he doubted, provided it is conducted on strictly Islamic lines. No community can afford to break entirely with its past and it is more emphatically true in the case of our community whose collective tradition alone constitutes the principle of its vitality. The Muslim, must of course, keep pace with the progress of modern ideas but his culture must, in the main, remain Muslim in character and it is clear that such a thing cannot be attained without a teaching university of our own. If you produce young men, the ground work of whose culture is not Muslim, you will not be bringing up a Muslim community, you will be creating a totally new community, which having no strong principle of cohesion may, at any time, lose its individuality in the individuality of any of the surrounding communities that may happen to possess a greater vitality than itself. But there is perhaps, a still more important reason for the necessity of a Muslim University in India. You know that the ethical training of the masses of our community is principally in the hands of a very inefficient class of Moulvies or public preachers the range of whose knowledge of Muslim History and Literature is extremely limited. A modern public teacher of morality and religion must be familiar with the great truths of History, Economics and Sociology besides being thoroughly conversant with the literature and thought of his own community. Such public teachers are the great need of the time. The Nadva, the Aligarh College, the theological Seminary of Dewband, and other institutions of a similar type, working independently of one another, cannot meet this pressing demand. All these scattered educational forces should be organised into a central institution of a large purpose which may afford opportunities not only for the development of special abilities, but may also create the necessary type of culture for the modern Indian Muslim. A purely western ideal of education will be dangerous to the life of our community if it is to continue in an essentially Muslim community. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary to construct a fresh educational ideal in which the elements of Muslim culture must find a prominent place, and past and the present coming in a happy union. The construction of such an ideal is not an easy task; it requires a large imagination, a keen perception of the tendencies of modern times, and a complete grasp of the meaning of Muslim History and religion.

Before leaving this point I think I ought to say a few words on the education of the Muslim woman. This is not a place to discuss the ideal of womanhood in Islam. I must, however, frankly admit that I am not an advocate of absolute equality between man and woman. It appears that Nature has allotted different functions to them, and a right performance of these functions is equally indispensable for the health and prosperity of the human family. The so called “emancipation of the western woman” necessitated by western individualism and the peculiar economic situation produced by an unhealthy competition, is an experiment, in my opinion, likely to fail, not without doing incalculable harm, and creating extremely intricate social problems. Nor is the higher education of women likely to lead to any desirable consequences, in so far, at least, as the birth rate of a community is concerned. Experience has already shown that the economic emancipation of women in the west has not, as was expected, materially extended the production of wealth. On the other hand it has a tendency to break up the Physical life of Society. Now I am ready to recognise that the evolution of a society by resident forces alone is an impossibility in modern times. The almost total annihilation of space and time has produced a close contact among the various communities of the world, a contact, which is likely to affect the natural orbit of some and to prove disastrous to others. What the larger economic, social and political forces that are now working in the world will bring about, nobody can foretell; but we must remember that while it is advisable, and even necessary for a healthy social change, to assimilate the elements of an alien culture, a hasty injudicious jump to alien institutions may lead to most abrupt structural disturbances in the body-social. There is an element of universality in the culture of a people; their social and political institutions on the other hand, are more individual. They are determined by their peculiar tradition and life history, and cannot be easily adopted by a community having a different tradition and life-history. Considering, then the peculiar nature of our community, the teachings of Islam and the revelation of Physiology and Biology on the subject, it is clear that the Muslim women should continue to occupy the position in society which Islam has allotted to her. And the position which has been allotted to her must determine the nature of her education. I have tried to show above that the solidarity of our community rests on our hold on the religion and culture of Islam. The woman is the principal depository of the religious idea.

In the interests of a continuous national life, therefore, it is extremely necessary to give her, in the first place, a sound religious education. That must, however, be supplemented by a general knowledge of Muslim History, Domestic economy, and Hygiene. This will enable her to give a degree of intellectual companionship to her husband, and successfully to do the duties of motherhood which, in my opinion, is the principal function of a woman. All subjects which have a tendency to de-womanise and to de-muslamise her must be carefully excluded from her education. But our educationists are still groping in the dark. They have not yet been able to prescribe a definite course of study for our girls; and some of them are, unfortunately, too much dazzled by the glamour of western ideals to realise the difference between Islam, which constructs nationality out of a purely abstract idea, i.e. religion, and westernism which builds nationality on an objective basis i.e. country.

I shall now proceed to offer a few remarks on the improvement of the general condition of the masses of our community. And in this connection the first point of importance is the economic condition of the average Muslim. I am sure nobody will deny that the economic condition of the average Muslim is extremely deplorable. His small wage, dirty house, and under-fed children are a matter of common observation in the towns where the population is mostly Muslim. Pass through a Muslim street in Lahore; what do you find? An old silent gloomy street whose mournful quiet is relieved by the shrieks of ill-clad bony children, or by the subdued entreaties of an old woman in Pardah spreading out her skinny hand for alms. This is not all. Inside these unhappy dwelling there are hundreds of men and women whose fathers have seen better days, but who are now compelled to starve without ever opening their lips for appeals (for) charity. It is really this poverty of the lower strata of our-community and not the Pardah system, as our young protagonists of social reform sometimes contend, that is re-acting on the general physique of our community. Besides this class there is the absolutely incapable who brings into the world children as incapable as himself and by surrendering himself to laziness and crime spreads the contagion of these vices to others. Have we ever given a thought to these aspects of the social problem? Have we ever realised that the duty of our Anjumans and Leagues is to work for the elevation of the masses and not to push up the individuals? The most important problem before the Muslim public worker is how to improve the economic conditions of his community. It is his duty to make a careful study of the general economic situation in India and the causes which have brought it about. How much of this situation is due to the larger economic forces that are working in the modern world, how much to the historical antecedents, customs, prejudices and ethical shortcomings of the people of this land, how much, if at all, to the policy of the Government, these are the questions which, in preference to other questions, must occupy his brains. The problem will, of course, have to be approached in a broad impartial non-sectarian spirit; since the economic forces affect all communities alike. The ever- increasing land-revenue, the importation of foreign drink into country, the rise of prices, whether it is due to a wrong currency policy or the establishment of free-trade between an agricultural country and a manufacturing country, or to any other cause—these things affect the economic condition of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Parsees all alike, and loudly proclaim that the public workers of all the various communities can, at least, meet on the common ground of economic discussion. The Muslim public worker, however, has hitherto concentrated almost all his energies on the point of securing our due share in Government Service. The effort is certainly laudable, and he must continue to work until we have achieved our object. But he must remember that Government-service, as a field for the production of wealth, is extremely limited. It offers prospects of economic elevation only to a few individuals; the general health of a community depends largely on its economic independence. There is no doubt that a few individuals in the higher branches of Government service give a tone of honour and self-respect to the whole community; but it is equally true that there are other spheres of economic activity which are equally important and more profitable. The process of change and adjustment to an economic ideal is certainly painful to a people whose traditions have been in the main, military, yet in view of the change that is coming over the communities of Asia, principally through the economic energy of western nations, the ordeal must be gone through besides working for the removal of economic disabilities, if any, we must have system of technical education which is, in my opinion, even more important, than higher education.

The former touches the general economic condition of the masses which form the backbone of a community, the latter only a few individuals who happen to possess more than average intellectual energy. The charity of the wealthier classes among us must be so organised as to afford opportunities of a cheap technical education to the children of the community. But industrial and commercial training alone is not sufficient. In economic competition the ethical factor plays an equally important hart. The virtues of thrift, mutual trust, honesty, punctuality and co-operation are as much valuable economic assets as Professional skill. How many economic undertakings have failed in India through want of mutual trust and a proper spirit of co-operation. If we want to turn out good working men, good shopkeepers, good artisans, and above all good citizens, we must first make them good Muslims.

[1] * This lecture was delivered in the ‘Strachi Hall’ of the M.A.O. College. Aligarh in the winter of 1910. Most of the scholars believe that the title of the lecture delivered in Aligarh College was — ‘Islam, as a Social and Political ideal’, which is not true and the fact is that the lecture in question was delivered under the above mentioned Caption. The present text has been prepared from Rafiud-Din Hashmi’s, Tasanif-Iqbal, IAP.. Lahore 1977, p. 4-49. Extracts from this lecture also appeared in the Report on the Census in India. 1911, Lahore, Vol. XIV, Punjab, Part 1, 1912. pp. 162-64.

[2] The remarks about Qadianis created misunderstanding, so Iqbal, later on, explained this issue by adding this note to his lecture. “This lecture was delivered at Aligarh in 1911. The remark about the Qadianis in this lecture must he revised in the light of revelation of the spirit of the movement since 1911. The Qadianis still appear to be Muslims in externals. Indeed, they are very particular in the matter of externals but the spirit of the movement as revealed after is wholly inimical to Islam. Outwardly they look Muslims and anxious to look so, but inwardly their whole mentality is anion. It is probable that eventually the movement will end in Ilahaism from which it originally appears to have received inspiration”. The date on the above note has been mentioned as 21.10.1935. Afterwards Iqbal wrote an article under the title - “Qadianis and Orthodox Muslims” - in which he discussed the issue in detail and contradicted the remark mentioned in his lecture earlier. The weekly “Light” took the notice of this article of Iqbal and alleged him to be “inconsistent in views”, on which Iqbal reviewed as such.- “As far as I remember, the lecture was delivered in 1911, or perhaps earlier, I have no hesitation in admitting that about a quarter of a century ago, I had hopes of good results following from this movement. But the real content and spirit of religious movement does not reveal itself in a day. It takes decades to unfold itself. The internal quarrels between the two sections of the movement is evidence of the fact that even those, who were in personal contact with the founder, were not quite aware of how movement would evolve itself. Personally. I became suspicious of the movement when the claim of a new prophethood superior even to the prophethood of the founder of Islam, was definitely put forward, and the Muslim world was declared ‘Kafir’. Later my suspicions developed into a positive revolt when I heard with my own ears an adherent of the movement mentioning the Holy Prophet of Islam in a most disparaging language. Not by their roots but by their fruits will you know them. I my present attitude is self-contradictory, then, well only having and thinking man has the privilege of contradicting himself. Only stones do not contradict themselves, as Emerson says “-- For details -(Thoughts & Reflections of Iqbal pp. 297-98).

2021-02-20T00:11:16+00:00

This paper by Allama Iqbal was published in The Sociological Review (London) in July 1908. His name appeared as “S. M. Iqbal”.

Pre-Islamic Arabia was divided into various tribes, continually at war with one another. Each tribe had its own chief, its own god and its own poet, whose tribal patriotism manifested itself chiefly in the glorification of the virtues of his own tribe. Though these primitive social groups recognized, to a certain extent, their kinship with one another, yet it was mainly the authority of Muhammad and the cosmopolitan character of his teaching which shattered the aristocratic ideals of individual tribes, and welded the dwellers of tents into one common ever-expanding nationality. For our purposes, however, it is necessary to notice, at the outset, the features of the Arabian system of tribal succession, and the procedure followed by the members of the tribe on the death of their chief.

When the Chief or Shaikh of an Arab tribe died all the elders of the tribe met together and sitting in a circle discussed the matter of succession. Any member of the tribe could hold the chieftainship if he were unanimously elected by the elders and heads of great families. The idea of hereditary monarchy, as Von Kremer has pointed out, was quite foreign to the Arab mind, though the principle of seniority which, since Ahmad I, has received legal recognition in the constitution of modern Turkey, did certainly influence the election. When the tribe was equally divided between two leaders, the rival sections separated from each other until one of the candidates relinquished his claim; otherwise the sword was appealed to. The Chief thus elected could be deposed by the tribe if his conduct necessitated deposition. With the expansion of the Arab conquest, and the consequent enlargement of mental outlook, this primitive custom gradually developed into a Political Theory carefully constructed, as we shall see, by the constitutional lawyers of Islam through reflective criticism on the revelations of political experience.

True to this custom, the Prophet of Arabia left no instruction with regard to the matter of his succession. There is a tradition that the old Amir, son of Tufail, came to the Prophet and said, “If I embrace Islam what would my rank be? Wilt thou give me the command after thee?” “It does not belong to me,” said the Prophet, “to dispose of the command after me.” Abu Bakr—the Prophet’s father-in-law and one of his chief companions—therefore, in consequence of the danger of internal disruption, was rather hurriedly and irregularly elected. He then rose and addressed the people thus:

O people! Now I am ruler over you, albeit not the best amongst you. If I do well, support me; if ill, then set me right. Follow the true wherein is faithfulness, eschew the false wherein is treachery. The weaker amongst you shall be as the stronger with me, until that I shall have redressed his wrong; and the stronger shall be as the weaker until, if the Lord will, I shall have taken from him that which he hath wrested. Leave not off to fight in the ways of the Lord; whosoever leaveth off, him verily shall the Lord abase. Obey me as I obey the Lord and his Prophet, wherein I disobey, obey me not.

Omar, however, afterwards held that the hurried election of Abu Bakr, though very happy in its consequences and justified by the need of the time, should not form precedent in Islam; for as he is reported to have said (Dozy, I, p. 121) an election which is only a partial expression of the people’s will is null and void. It was, therefore, early understood that Political Sovereignty de facto resides in the people; and that the electorate by their free act of unanimous choice embody it in a determinate personality in which the collective will is, so to speak, individualized, without investing this concrete seat of power with any privilege in the eye of the law except legal control over the individual wills of which it is an expression. The idea of universal agreement is in fact the fundamental principle of Muslim constitutional theory. “What the Muslim community considers good,” says the Prophet, “God also considers good.” It is probably on the authority of this saying of the Prophet that al-Ash’ari developed his political dogma—“That error is impossible in the united deliberations of the whole community.” After the death of Abu Bakr, Omar, who acted as Chief Judge during his predecessor’s Caliphate, was universally elected by the people. In 644 A.D. he was mortally wounded by a Persian slave, and committed his trust, before he died, to seven electors—one of them being his own son—to nominate his successor, with the condition that their choice must be unanimous, and that none of them must stand as a candidate for the Caliphate. It will be seen from Omar’s exclusion of his own son from the candidature, how remote was the idea of hereditary monarchy from the Arabian political consciousness. The choice of this council, however, fell upon one of the councillors, Uthman, who was consequently nominated, and the nomination afterwards confirmed by the people. The Caliphate of Uthman is really the source of the three great religio-political parties with their respective political theories which each party, finding itself in power, attempted to realize in one or other of the provinces of the Arab Empire. Before, however, I proceed to describe these theories, I want to draw attention to the following two points:

1. That the Muslim Commonwealth is based on the absolute equality of all Muslims in the eye of the law. There is no privileged class, no priesthood, no caste system. In his later days the Prophet once ascended the pulpit and said to the people: “Muslims! If I have struck any one of you, here is my hack that he may strike me. If anyone has been wrongedby me, let him return injury of injury. If I have taken anybody’s goods, all that I have is at his disposal.” A man arose and claimed a debt of three dirhams (about three shillings). “I would much rather,” said the Prophet, “have the shame in this world than in the next.” And he paid him on the spot.

The law of Islam does not recognize the apparently natural differences of race, nor the historical differences of nationality. The political ideal of Islam consists in the creation of a people born of a free fusion of all races and nationalities. Nationality with Islam is not the highest limit of political development; for the general principles of the law of Islam rest on human nature, not on the peculiarities of a particular people. The inner cohesion of such a nation would consist not in ethnic or geographic unity, not in the unity of language or social tradition, but in the unity of the religious and political ideal; or, in the psychological fact of “like-mindedness” as St. Paul would say. The membership of this nation, consequently, would not be determined by birth, marriage, domicile, or naturalization. It would he determined by a public declaration of “like-mindedness” and would terminate when the individual has ceased to be like-minded with others. The ideal territory of such a nation would be the whole earth. The Arabs, like the Greeks and the Romans, endeavoured to create such a nation or the world-state by conquest, but failed to actualize their ideal. The realization of this ideal, however, is not impossible; for the ideal nation does already exist in germ. The life of modern political communities finds expression, to a great extent, in common institutions, Law and Government; and the various sociological circles, so to speak, are continually expanding to touch one another. Further, it is not incompatible with the sovereignty of individual States, since its structure will be determined not by physical force, but by the spiritual force of a common ideal.

2.That according to the law of Islam there is no distinction between the Church and the State. The State with us is not a combination of religious and secular authority, but it is a unity in which no such distinction exists. The Caliph is not necessarily the high-priest of Islam; he is not the representative of God on earth. He is fallible like other men and is subject like every Muslim to the impersonal authority of the same law. The Prophet himself is not regarded as absolutely infallible by many Muhammadan theologians (e.g. Abu Ishaq, Tabari). In fact, the idea of personal authority is quite contrary to the spirit of Islam. The Prophet of Arabia succeeded in commanding the absolute submission of an entire people; yet no man has depreciated his own authority more than he. “I am,” he says, “a man like you; like you my forgiveness also depends on the mercy of God.” Once in a moment of spiritual exaltation, he is reported to have said to one of his companions, “Go and tell the people: ‘he who says, there is only one God, will enter the paradise’,” studiously omitting the second half of the Muslim creed—“and Muhammad is his Prophet.” The ethical importance of this attitude is great. The whole system of Islamic ethics is based on the ideal of individuality; anything which tends to repress the healthy development of individuality is quite inconsistent with the spirit of Islamic law and ethics. A Muslim is free to do anything he likes, provided he does not violate the law. The general principles of this law are believed to have been revealed; the details, in order to cover the relatively secular cases, are left to the interpretation of professional lawyers. It is, therefore, true to say that the entire fabric of Islamic law, actually administered, is really judge-made law, so that the lawyer performs the legislative function in the Muslim constitution. If, however, an absolutely new case arises which is not provided for in the law of Islam, the will of the whole Muslim community becomes a further source of law. But I do not know whether a general council of the whole Muslim community was ever held for this purpose.

I shall now describe the three great political theories to which I have alluded above. I shall first take up the Sunni view.

I. Elective monarchy

A. The Caliph and the People

During the days of the early Caliphate things were extremely simple. The Caliphs were like private individuals, sometimes doing the work of an ordinary constable. In obedience to the Quranic verse—“and consult them in all matters” —they always consulted the more influential companions of the Prophet in judicial and executive matters, but no formal ministers existed to assist the Caliph in his administrative work. It was not until the time of the House of ‘Abbas that the Caliphate became the subject of scientific treatment. In my description of the Sunni view I shall mainly follow al-Mawardy—the earliest Muslim constitutional lawyer who flourished during the reign of the Ahbasi Caliph al-Qadir. Al-Mawardy divides the whole Muslim community into two classes: (1) the electors, (2) the candidates for election. The qualifications absolutely necessary for a candidate are thus enumerated by him:

Spotless character.
Freedom from physical and mental infirmity. The predecessor of the present Sultan of Turkey was deposed under this condition.
Necessary legal and theological knowledge in order to be able to decide various cases. This is true in theory; in practice the power of the Caliph, especially in later times, was divided.
Insight necessary for a ruler.
Relationship with the family of Quraish. This qualification is not regarded as indispensable by modern Sunni lawyers on the ground that the Prophet never nominated any person as his successor.
Full Age (al-Ghazali). It was on this ground that the chief judge refused to elect al-Muqtadir.
Male sex (al-Baidawi). This is denied by the Khawarij who hold that a woman can be elected as Caliph.

If the candidate satisfies these conditions, the representatives of all influential families, doctors of law, high officials of the State, and commanders of the Army meet together and nominate him to the Caliphate. The whole assembly then proceeds to the mosque where the nomination is duly confirmed by the people. In distant places representatives of the elected Caliph are permitted to receive homage on behalf of the Caliph. In the matter of election the people of the capital, however, have no precedence over other people—though, in practice, they have a certain amount of precedence, since they are naturally the first to hear of the Caliph’s death. After the election, the Caliph usually makes a speech, promising to rule according to the law of Islam. Most of these speeches are preserved. It will be seen that the principle of representation is, to a certain extent, permitted in practical politics; in the law of property, however, it is expressly denied. For instance, if B dies in the lifetime of his father A and his brother C, leaving issues, the whole property of A goes to C. The children of B have no claim; they cannot represent their father, or “stand in his shoes”.

From a legal standpoint, the Caliph does not occupy any privileged position. In theory, he is like other members of the Commonwealth. He can be directly sued in any ordinary law court. The second Caliph was once accused of appropriating a large share in the spoils of war, and he had to clear his conduct before the people, by production of evidence according to the law of Islam. In his judicial capacity he is open to the criticism of every Muslim. Omar I was severely reprimanded by an old woman who pointed out to him that his interpretation of a certain Quranic verse was absolutely wrong. The Caliph listened to her argument, and decided the case according to her views.

The Caliph may indicate his successor who may be his son; but the nomination is invalid until confirmed by the people. Out of the fourteen Caliphs of the House of Umayya only four succeeded in securing their sons as successors. The Caliph cannot secure the election of his successor during his own lifetime. Ibn Athir tells us that Abdul Malik—the Umayya Caliph—endeavoured to do so but Ibn Musayyib, the great Mekkan lawyer, strongly protested against the Caliph’s behaviour. The Abbasi Caliph Hadi, however, succeeded in securing the election of his son Ja’far but after his death the majority declared for Harun. In such a case, when the people declare for another Caliph, the one previously elected must, on penalty of death, immediately renounce his right in public.

If the Caliph does not rule according to the law of Islam, or suffers from physical or mental infirmity, the Caliphate is forfeited. Usually one influential Muhammadan stands up in the mosque after the prayer and speaks to the congregation giving reasons for the proposed deposition. He declares deposition to be in the interest of Islam and ends his speech by throwing away his finger-ring with the remarks: “I reject the caliph as I throw away this ring.” The people then signify their assent in various ways and the deposition is complete.

The question whether two or more rival Caliphates can exist simultaneously is discussed by Muslim lawyers. Ibn Jama holds that only one Caliphate is possible. Ibn Khaldun holds that there is nothing illegal in the co-existence of two or more Caliphates, provided they are in different countries. Ibn Khaldun’s view is certainly contrary to the old Arabian idea, yet in so far as the Muslim Commonwealth is governed by an impersonal authority, i.e. law, his position seems to me to be quite a tenable one. Moreover, as a matter of fact, two rival Caliphates have existed in Islam for a long time and still exist.

Just as a candidate for the Caliphate must have certain qualifications, so, according to al-Mawardy, the elector also must be qualified. He must possess: (1) Good reputation as an honest man. (2) Necessary knowledge of State affairs. (3) Necessary insight and judgment.

In theory all Muslims, men and women, possess the right of election. There is no property qualification. In practice, however, women and slaves did not exercise this right. Some of the early lawyers seem to have recognized the danger of mass-elections as they endeavour to show that the right of election resides only in the tribe of the Prophet. Whether the seclusion of women grew up in order to make women incapable of exercising a right which in theory could not be denied to them, I cannot say.

The elector has the right to demand the deposition of the Caliph, or the dismissal of his officials if he can show that their conduct is not in accordance with the law of Islam. He can, on the subject, address the Muslim congregation in the mosque after the prayer. The mosque, it must be remembered, is the Muslim Forum, and the institution of daily prayer is closely connected with the political life of Muslim communities. Apart from its spiritual and social functions, the institution is meant to serve as a ready means of constant criticism of the State. If, however, the elector does not intend to address the congregation, he can issue a judicial inquiry concerning the conduct of any State official, or any other matter which affects the community as a whole. The judicial inquiry as a rule does not mention the name of any individual. I quote an illustration in order to give an idea of this procedure:

In the name of God, most merciful and clement. What is the opinion of the doctors of law, the guides of the people, on the encouragement of the Zimmis, and on the assistance we can demand from them, whether as clerks to the Amirs entrusted with the administration of the country, or as collectors of taxes?… Explain the above by solid proofs, establish the orthodox belief by sound arguments, and give your reasons. God will reward you.

Such judicial inquiries are issued by the State as well, and when the lawyers give conflicting decisions, the majority prevails. Forced election is quite illegal. Ibn Jama, an Egyptian lawyer, however, holds that forced election is legal in times of political unrest. This opportunist view has no support in the law of Islam; though undoubtedly it is based on historical facts. Tartushi, a Spanish lawyer, would probably hold the same view, for he says: “Forty years of tyranny are better than one hour of anarchy.”

Let us now consider the relation between the elected and the elector. Al-Mawardy defines this relation as “Aqd” binding together, contract. The State, therefore, is a contractual organism, and implies rights and duties. He does not mean, like Rousseau, to explain the origin of society by an original social contract; he holds that the actual fact of election is contract in consequence of which the Caliph has to do certain duties, e.g. to define the religion, to enforce the law of Islam, to levy customs and taxes according to the law of Islam, to pay annual salaries and properly to direct the State treasury. If he fulfils these conditions, the people have mainly two duties in relation to him, viz, to obey him and to assist him in his work. Apart from this contract, however, Muslim lawyers have also enumerated certain cases in which obedience to the Caliph is not necessary.

The origin of the State then, according to al-Mawardy, is not forced but free consent of individuals who unite to form a brotherhood, based upon legal equality, in order that each member of the brotherhood may work out the potentialities of his individuality under the law of Islam. Government with him is an artificial arrangement, and is divine only in the sense that the law of Islam—believed to have been revealed—demands peace and security.

B. Ministers and Other Officials

The Caliph, after his election, appoints the principal officials of the State, or confirms those previously in office. The following are the principal State officials with their duties defined by the law:

1. The Wazir—The Prime Minister—either with limited or unlimited powers. The Wazir with unlimited powers must possess the same qualifications as the Caliph, except that, according to al-Mawardy, he need not necessarily belong to the Quraish tribe. He must be thoroughly educated, especially in Mathematics, History and the Art of Speaking. He can, without previous sanction of the Caliph, appoint officers of the various departments of the State. The Wazir with limited powers cannot do so. The dismissal of the Wazir with unlimited powers means the dismissal of all officials appointed by him; while the dismissal of the Wazir with limited powers does not lead to dismissal of the officials appointed by him. More than one Wazir with unlimited powers cannot be appointed. The Governors of various provinces can appoint their own Wazirs. A non-Muhammadan may be appointed Wazir with limited powers. The Shi’a dynasty of the Obaidias appointed a Jew to this position. An Egyptian poet expresses their sentiments as follows: “The Jews of our time have reached the goal of their ambition. Theirs is all honour, theirs is all gold. O people of Egypt, I advise you to become Jews; God himself has become a Jew.”

2. Next to the Wazir the most important executive officers of the State were governors of various provinces. They were appointed by the Caliph with limited or unlimited powers. The governor with unlimited powers could appoint sub-governors to adjoining smaller provinces. For instance, the sub-governor of Sicily was appointed by the Governor of Spain and that of Sind by the Governor of Basra. This was really an attempt to create self¬governing Muslim colonies. The officer in charge was, so to speak, a miniature caliph of his province; he appointed his own Wazir, Chief Judge and other State officers. Where special commander of the provincial army was not appointed, the Governor, ex-officio, acted as the commander. This, however, was an error, since the governors became gradually powerful and frequently asserted their independence. But in his capacity of the commander the governor had no right to raise the salaries of his soldiers except in very special circumstances. It was his duty to send all the money to the central treasury after defraying the necessary State expenses. If the provincial income fell short of the expenses, he could claim a contribution from the central treasury. If he is appointed by the Caliph, the death of the latter is not followed by his dismissal; but if he is appointed by the Wazir, the death of the Wazir means the dismissal of all governors appointed by him, provided they are not newly confirmed in their respective posts.

The governor with limited powers was a purely executive officer. He had nothing to do with judicial matters and in criminal matters too his authority was very much limited.

Muslim lawyers, however, recognize a third kind of governorship, i.e. by usurpation. But the usurper must fulfil certain conditions before his claim is legally justified.

3. Commander of Armies. Here too the distinction of limited and unlimited powers is made, and the duties of commanders, subordinate officers, and soldiers are clearly defined.

4. The Chief Judge. The Chief Judge could be appointed by the Caliph or the Wazir. According to Abu Hanifa, in some cases, and according to Ibn Jarir Tabary, a non-Muslim can be appointed to administer the law of his co-religionists. The Chief Judge, as representative of the law of Islam, can depose the Caliph—he can kill his own creator. His death means the dismissal of his staff; tut the death of the sovereign is not followed by the dismissal of the judges appointed by him. During an interregnum a judge can be elected by the people of a town, but not during the sovereign’s lifetime.

5. President of the Highest Court of Appeal and General Control: The object of this institution was to hear appeals and to exercise a general supervision over all the departments of the State. Abdul Malik—the Ummaya Caliph and the founder of this court—personally acted as the president, though more difficult cases he transferred to Qazi Abu Idris. In later times the president was appointed by the Caliph. During the reign of the ‘Abbasi Caliph al-Muqtadar, his mother was appointed President, and she used to hear appeals on Fridays, surrounded by Judges, priests and other notables. In one respect, the President of this Court differed from the Chief Judge. He was not bound by the letter of law like the Qazi; his decisions were based on general principles of natural justice, so that the President was something like the keeper of the Caliph’s conscience. He was assisted by a council of judges and lawyers whose duty was to discuss every aspect of the case before the President announced his decision. The importance of this institution may be judged from the fact that it was among the few Muslim institutions which the Normans retained after their conquest of Sicily in the eleventh century.

II. The Shi’ah view

According to the Shi‘ah view the State is of divine origin, and the Caliph, or as they call, Imam, governs by divine right. The view arose among an obscure Arabian sect known as Saba’ites, whose founder Abdullah ibn Saba was a Jew of Sana in Yemen. In the time of Uthman he became a convert to Islam, and finally settled in Egypt where he preached his doctrine. This doctrine harmonized with the pre-Islamic habits of political thought in Persia, and soon found a permanent home in that country. The Imam, according to the Persians, is not elected (the Shi’ahs of Oman, however, adopted the elective principle and held that the Imam might be deposed) but appointed by God. He is the reincarnation of Universal Reason, he is endowed with all perfections, his wisdom is superhuman and his decisions are absolute and final. The first Imam, Ali, was appointed by Muhammad; Ali’s direct descendants are his divinely ordained successors. The world is never without a living Imam whether visible or invisible. The twelfth Imam, according to the Shi’ahs, suddenly disappeared near Kufa, but he will come again and fill the world with peace and prosperity. In the meantime, he communicates his will, from time to time, through certain favoured individuals—called Gates—who hold mysterious intercourse with him. Now this doctrine of the absence of the Imam has a very important political aspect which few students of Islam have fully appreciated. Whether the Imam really disappeared or not, I do not know; but it is obvious that the dogma is a clever way of separating the Church and the State. The absent Imam, as I have pointed out above, is absolute authority in all matters; the present executive authorities are, therefore, only guardians of the estate which really belongs to the Imam who, as such, inherits the property of deceased intestates in case they leave no heirs. It will, therefore, be seen that the authority of the Shah of Persia is limited by the authority of the Mullas—the representatives of the absent Imam. As a mere guardian of the estate he is subject to the religious authority of the Mullas though as the chief executive authority he is free to adopt any measure for the good of the estate. It is not, therefore, surprising that the Mullas took an active part in the recent constitutional reforms in Persia.

III. The Khawarij republicanism

I shall be very brief in my account of the Khawarij, since the history of their opinions is yet to be worked out. The first Muslims who were so called were the notorious 12,000 who revolted against ‘Ali after they had fought under him at the battle of Siffin. They were offended at his submitting the decision of the right to the Caliphate to the arbitration of men when, in their opinion, it ought to have been submitted to the law of God—the Quran. “The nation,” they said to ‘Ali, “calls us to the book of God; you call us to the sword.” Shahristani divides them into twenty-four sects, differing slightly from one another in legal and constitutional opinion, e.g. that the ignorance of the law is a valid excuse; that the adulterer should not be stoned, for the Quran nowhere mentions this punishment; that the hiding of one’s religious opinions is illegal; that the Caliph should not be called the commander of the faithful; that there is nothing illegal in having two or more Caliphs in one and the same time. In East Africa and Mazab—South Algeria—they still maintain the simplicity of their republican ideal. Broadly speaking, the Khawarij can be divided into three classes:

Those who hold that there must be an elected Caliph, but it is not necessary that he should belong to a particular family or tribe. A woman or even a slave could be elected as Caliph provided he or she is a good Muslim ruler. Whenever they found themselves in power, they purposely elected their Caliph from among the socially lowest members of their community.
Those who hold that there is no need of a Caliph, the Muslim congregation can govern themselves.
Those who do not believe in Government at all—the anarchists of Islam. To them Caliph Ali is reported to have said; “You do not believe in my Government, but there must be some Government, good or bad.”

[Conclusion]

Such are, briefly, the main lines of Political Thought in Islam. It is clear that the fundamental principle laid down in the Quran is the principle of election; the details or rather the translation of this principle into a workable scheme of Government is left to be determined by other considerations. Unfortunately, however, the idea of election did not develop on strictly democratic lines, and the Muslim conquerors consequently failed to do anything for the political improvement of Asia. The form of election was certainly maintained in Baghdad and Spain, but no regular political institutions could grow to vitalize the people at large. It seems to me that there were principally two reasons for this want of political activity in Muslim countries.

In the first place the idea of election was not at all suited to the genius of the Persians and the Mongols—the two principal races which accepted Islam as their religion. Dozy tells us that the Persians were even determined to worship the Caliph as a divinity, and on being told that worship belonged to God alone, they attempted to rebel against the Caliph who would not be the centre of religious emotion.
The life of early Muslims was a life of conquest. Their whole energy was devoted to political expansion which tends to concentrate political power in fewer hands; and thus serves as an unconscious handmaid of despotism. Democracy does not seem to be quite willing to get on with Empire—a lesson which the modern English Imperialist might well take to heart.

In modern times—thanks to the influence of Western political ideas—Muslim countries have exhibited signs of political life. England has vitalized Egypt; Persia has received a constitution from the Shah, and the Young Turkish Party too have been struggling, scheming, and plotting to achieve their object. But it is absolutely necessary for these political reformers to make a thorough study of Islamic constitutional principles, and not to shock the naturally suspicious conservatism of their people by appearing as prophets of a new culture. They would certainly impress them more if they could show that their seemingly borrowed ideal of political freedom is really the ideal of Islam, and is, as such, the rightful demand of free Muslim conscience.

2021-02-20T00:11:16+00:00

POSTSCRIPT

I understand that this statement has caused some misunderstanding in some quarters. It is thought that I have made a subtle suggestion to the Government to suppress the Qadiani movement by force. Nothing of the kind. I have made it clear that the policy of non-interference in religion is the only policy which can be adopted by the rulers of India. No other policy is possible. I confess, however, that in my mind this policy is harmful to the interests of religious communities; but there is no escape from it and those who suffer will have to safeguard their interests by suitable means. The best course for the rulers of India is in my opinion, to declare the Qadianis a separate community. This will be perfectly consistent with the Policy of the Qadianis themselves, and the Indian Muslim will tolerate them just as he tolerates other religions.

On the appearance of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru's three articles in the Modern Review of Calcutta, I received a number of letters from Muslims of different shades of religious and political opinion. Some writers of these letters want me to further elucidate and justify the attitude of the Indian Muslims towards the Ahmadis. Others ask me what exactly I regard as the issue involved in Ahmadism. In this statement I propose first to meet these demands which I regard as perfectly legitimate, and then to answer the questions raised by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. I fear, however, that parts of this statement may not interest the Pandit, and to save his time I suggest that he may skip over such parts.

It is hardly necessary for me to say that I welcome the Pandit's interest in what I regard as one of the greatest problems of the East and perhaps of the whole world. He is, I believe, the first nationalist Indian leader who has expressed a desire to understand the present spiritual unrest in the world of Islam. In view of the many aspects and possible reactions of this unrest, it is highly desirable that thoughtful Indian political leaders should open their mind to the real meaning of what is, at the present moment, agitating the heart of Islam.

I do not wish, however, to conceal the fact, either from the Pandit or from any other reader of this statement, that the Pandit's articles have for the moment given my mind rather a painful conflict of feelings. Knowing him to be a man of wide cultural sympathies, my mind cannot but incline to the view that his desire to understand the questions he has raised, is perfectly genuine; yet the way in which he has expressed himself betrays a psychology which I find difficult to attribute to him. I am inclined to think that my statement on Qadianism — no more than a mere exposition of a religious doctrine on modern lines — has embarrassed both the Pandit and the Qadianis, perhaps because both inwardly resent, for different reasons, the prospects of Muslim political and religious solidarity particularly in India. It is obvious that the Indian nationalist whose political idealism has practically killed his sense for fact, is intolerant of the birth of a desire for self-determination in the heart of North-West Indian Islam.

He thinks, wrongly in my opinion, that the only way to Indian nationalism lies in a total suppression of the cultural entities of the country through the interaction of which alone India can evolve a rich and enduring culture. A nationalism achieved by such methods can mean nothing but mutual bitterness and even oppression. It is equally obvious that the Qadianis, too, feel nervous by the political awakening of the Indian Muslims, because they feel that the rise in political prestige of the Indian Muslims is sure to defeat their designs to carve out from the Ummat of the Arabian Prophet a newUmmat for the Indian prophet. It is no small surprise to me that my effort to impress on the Indian Muslims the extreme necessity of internal cohesion in the present critical moment of their history in India, and my warning them against the forces of disintegration, masquerading as reformist movements, should have given the Pandit an occasion to sympathize with such forces.

However, I do not wish to pursue the unpleasant task of analyzing the Pandit's motives. For the benefit of those who want further elucidation of the general Muslim attitude towards the Qadianis, I would quote a passage from Durant'sStory of Philosophy which, I hope, will give the reader a clearer idea of the issue involved in Qadianism. Durant has in a few sentences summed up the Jewish point of view in the excommunication of the great philosopher Spinoza. The reader must not think that in quoting this passage I mean to insinuate some sort of comparison between Spinoza and the founder of Ahmadism. The distance between them, both in point of intellect and character, is simply tremendous. The "God-intoxicated" Spinoza never claimed that he was the centre of a new organization and that all the Jews who did not believe in him were outside the pale of Judaism. Durant's passage, therefore, applies with much greater force to the attitude of Muslims towards Qadianism than to the attitude of the Jews towards the excommunication of Spinoza. The passage is as follows:

"Furthermore, religious unanimity seemed to the elders their sole means of preserving the little Jewish group in Amsterdam from disintegration, and almost the last means of preserving the unity, and so ensuring the survival, of the scattered Jews of the world. If they had had their own state, their own civil law, their own establishments of secular force and power, to compel internal cohesion and external respect, they might have been more tolerant; but their religion was to them their patriotism as well as their faith; the synagogue was their centre of social and political life as well as of ritual and worship; and the Bible whose veracity Spinoza had impugned was the 'portable fatherland' of their people; under the circumstances they thought heresy was treason, and toleration suicide."

Situated as the Jews were — a minority community in Amsterdam — they were perfectly justified in regarding Spinoza as a disintegrating factor threatening the dissolution of their community. Similarly, the Indian Muslims are right in regarding the Qadiani movement, which declares the entire world of Islam as Kafir and socially boycotts them, to be far more dangerous to the collective life of Islam in India than the metaphysics of Spinoza to the collective life of the Jews.

The Indian Muslim, I believe, instinctively realizes the peculiar nature of the circumstances in which he is placed in India and is naturally much more sensitive to the forces of disintegration than the Muslims of any other country. This instinctive perception of the average Muslim is in my opinion absolutely correct and has, I have no doubt, a much deeper foundation in the conscience of Indian Islam. Those who talk of toleration in a matter like this are extremely careless in using the word "toleration" which, I fear, they do not understand at all. The spirit of toleration may arise from very different attitudes of the mind of man. As Gibbon would say: There is the toleration of the philosopher to whom all religions are equally true; of the historian to whom all are equally false; and of the politician to whom all are equally useful. There is the toleration of the man who tolerates other modes of thought and behavior because he has himself grown absolutely indifferent to all modes of thought and behavior. There is the toleration of the weak man who, on account of sheer weakness, must pocket all kinds of insults heaped on things or persons that he holds dear.

It is obvious that these types of tolerance have no ethical value. On the other hand they unmistakably reveal the spiritual impoverishment of the man who practices them. True toleration is begotten of intellectual breadth and spiritual expansion. It is the toleration of the spiritually powerful man who, while jealous of the frontiers of his own faith, can tolerate and even appreciate all forms of faith other than his own. Of this type of toleration the true Muslim alone is capable. His own faith is synthetic and for this reason he can easily find grounds of sympathy and appreciation in other faiths. Our great Indian poet, Amir Khusro, beautifully brings out the essence of this type of toleration in the story of an idol-worshipper. After giving an account of his intense attachment to his idols, the poet addresses his Muslim readers as follows:

O you, who is accusing a Hindu of idolatry,
also learn the method of worship from him!

Only a true lover of God can appreciate the value of devotion, even though it is directed to gods in which he himself does not believe. The folly of our preachers of toleration consists in describing the attitude of the man who is jealous of the boundaries of his own faith as one of intolerance. They wrongly consider this attitude as a sign of moral inferiority. They do not understand that the value of his attitude is essentially biological. Where the members of a group feel, either instinctively or on the basis of rational argument, that the corporate life of the social organism to which they belong is in danger, their defensive attitude must be appraised in reference mainly to a biological criterion. Every thought or deed in this connection must be judged by the life-value that it may possess. The question in this case is not whether the attitude of an individual or community towards the man who is declared to be a heretic is morally good or bad. The question is whether it is life-giving or life-destroying.

Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru seems to think that a society founded on religious principles necessitates the institution of Inquisition. This is indeed true of the history of Christianity; but the history of Islam, contrary to the Pandit's logic, shows that during the last thirteen hundred years of the life of Islam, the institution of Inquisition has been absolutely unknown in Muslim countries. The Qur'an expressly prohibits such an institution: "Do not seek out the shortcomings of others, and carry not tales against your brethren." (49:12) Indeed the Pandit will find from the history of Islam that the Jews and Christians, fleeing from religious persecution in their own lands, always found shelter in the lands of Islam. The two propositions on which the conceptual structure of Islam is based are so simple that it makes heresy in the sense of turning the heretic outside the fold of Islam almost impossible. It is true that when a person declared to be holding heretical doctrines threatens the existing social order, an independent Muslim State will certainly take action; but in such a case the action of the State will be determined more by political considerations than by purely religious ones. I can very well realize that a man like the Pandit, who is born and brought up in a society which has no well-defined boundaries and consequently no internal cohesion, finds it difficult to conceive that a religious society can live and prosper without State-appointed commissions of inquiry into the beliefs of the people. This is quite clear from the passage which he quotes from Cardinal Newman and wonders how far I would accept the application of the Cardinal's dictum to Islam. Let me tell him that there is a tremendous difference between the inner structure of Islam and Catholicism wherein the complexity, the ultra-rational character and the number of dogmas has, as the history of Christianity shows, always fostered possibilities of fresh heretical interpretations.

It is true that mutual accusations of heresy for differences in minor points of law and theology among Muslim religious sects have been rather common. In this indiscriminate use of the word Kufr, both for minor theological points of difference as well as for the extreme cases of heresy, which involve the excommunication of the heretic, some present-day educated Muslims, who possess practically no knowledge of the history of Muslim theological disputes, see a sign of social and political disintegration of the Muslim community. This, however, is an entirely wrong notion. The history of Muslim theology shows that mutual accusation of heresy on minor points of difference has, far from working as a disruptive force, actually given an impetus to synthetic theological thought. "When we read the history of development of Muhammadan Law," says Professor Hurgronje, "we find that, on the one hand, the doctors of every age, on the slightest stimulus, condemn one another to the point of mutual accusations of heresy; and, on the other hand, the very same people with greater and greater unity of purpose try to reconcile the similar quarrels of their predecessors." The student of Muslim theology knows that among Muslim legists this kind of heresy is technically known as "heresy below heresy," i.e. the kind of heresy which does not involve the excommunication of the culprit. It may be admitted, however, that in the hands of mullahs whose intellectual laziness takes all oppositions of theological thought as absolute and is consequently blind to the unity in difference, this minor heresy may become a source of great mischief. This mischief can be remedied only by giving to the students of our theological schools a clearer vision of the synthetic spirit of Islam, and by reinitiating them into the function of logical contradiction as a principle of movement in theological dialectic. The question of what may be called "major heresy" arises only when the teaching of a thinker or a reformer affects the frontiers of the faith of Islam. Unfortunately, this question does arise in connection with the teachings of Qadianism. It must be pointed out here that the Ahmadi movement is divided into two camps, known as the Qadianis and the Lahoris. The former openly declare the founder to be a full prophet; the latter, either by conviction or policy, have found it advisable to preach an apparently toned down Qadianism. However, the question whether the founder of Ahmadism was a prophet, the denial of whose mission entails what I call the "major heresy", is a matter of dispute between the two sections. It is unnecessary for my purposes to judge the merits of this domestic controversy of the Ahmadis. I believe, for reasons to be explained presently, that the idea of a full prophet whose denial entails the denier's excommunication from Islam is essential to Ahmadism; and that the present head of the Qadianis is far more consistent with the spirit of the movement than the Imam of the Lahoris.The simple faith of Muhammad is based on two propositions — that God is One, and that Muhammad is the last of the line of those holy men who have appeared from time to time in all countries and in all ages to guide mankind to the right way of living. If, as some Christian writers think, a dogma must be defined as an ultra-rational proposition which, for the purpose of securing religious solidarity, must be assented to without any understanding of its metaphysical import, then these two simple propositions of Islam cannot be described even as dogmas; for both of them are supported by the experience of mankind and are fairly amenable to rational argument. The question of a heresy, which needs the verdict whether the author of it is within or without the fold, can arise, in the case of a religious society founded on such simple propositions, only when the heretic rejects both or either of these propositions. Such heresy must be and has been rare in the history of Islam which, while jealous of its frontiers, permits freedom of interpretation within these frontiers. And since the phenomenon of the kind of heresy which affects the boundaries of Islam has been rare in the history of Islam, the feeling of the average Muslim is naturally intense when a revolt of this kind arises. This is why the feeling of Muslim Persia was so intense against the Bahais. That is why the feeling of the Indian Muslims is so intense against the Qadianis.

The cultural value of the idea of Finality in Islam, I have fully explained elsewhere. Its meaning is simple: No spiritual surrender to any human being after Muhammad, who emancipated his followers by giving them a law which is realizable as arising from the very core of human conscience. Theologically, the doctrine is that the socio-political organization called "Islam" is perfect and eternal. No revelation, the denial of which entails heresy, is possible after Muhammad. He who claims such a revelation is a traitor to Islam. Since the Qadianis believe the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement to be the bearer of such a revelation, they declare that the entire world of Islam is infidel. The founder's own argument, quite worthy of a medieval theologian, is that the spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam must be regarded as imperfect if it is not creative of another prophet. He claims his own prophethood to be an evidence of the prophet-rearing power of the spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam. But if you further ask him whether the spirituality of Muhammad is capable of rearing more prophets than one, his answer is "No". This virtually amounts to saying: "Muhammad is not the last Prophet: I am the last." Far from understanding the cultural value of the Islamic idea of Finality in the history of mankind generally and of Asia especially, he thinks that finality in the sense that no follower of Muhammad can ever reach the status of prophethood, is a mark of imperfection in Muhammad's prophethood. As I read the psychology of his mind he, in the interest of his own claim to prophethood, avails himself of what he describes as the creative spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam, and at the same time deprives the Holy Prophet of his Finality by limiting the creative capacity of his spirituality to the rearing of only one prophet, i.e, the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement. In this way does the new prophet quietly steal away the Finality of one whom he claims to be his spiritual progenitor.

He claims to be a buruz of the Holy Prophet of Islam, insinuating thereby that being a buruz of him, his finality is virtually the Finality of Muhammad; and that this view of the matter, therefore, does not violate, the Finality of the Holy Prophet. In identifying the two finalities, his own and that of the Holy Prophet, he conveniently loses sight of the temporal meaning of the idea of Finality. It is, however, obvious that the word buruz, in the sense even of "complete likeness", cannot help him at all; for the buruz must always remain the other side of its original. Only in the sense of reincarnation, a buruzbecomes identical with the original. Thus if we take the word buruz to mean "like in spiritual qualities" the argument remains ineffective; if, on the other hand, we take it to mean "reincarnation of the original" in the Aryan sense of the word, the argument becomes plausible; but its author turns out to be only a Magian in disguise.

It is further claimed on the authority of the great Muslim mystic, Muhyuddin Ibn al-'Arabi of Spain, that it is possible for a Muslim saint to attain, in his spiritual evolution, to the kind of experience characteristic of the prophetic consciousness. I personally believe this view of Sheikh Muhyuddin Ibn al-'Arabi to be psychologically unsound; but assuming it to be correct, the Qadiani argument is based on a complete misunderstanding of his exact position. The Sheikh regards it as a purely private achievement which does not, and in the nature of things cannot, entitle such a saint to declare that all those who do not believe in him are outside the pale of Islam. Indeed, from the Sheikh's point of view, there may be more than one saint, living in the same age or country, who may attain to prophetic consciousness. The point to be seized is that, while it is psychologically possible for a saint to attain to prophetic experience, his experience will have no socio-political significance, making him the center of a new organization and entitling him to declare his organization to be the criterion of the faith or disbelief of the followers of Muhammad.

Leaving his mystical psychology aside, I am convinced from a careful study of the relevant passages of the "Futuhat" that the great Spanish mystic is as firm a believer in the Finality of Muhammad as any orthodox Muslim. And if he had seen in his mystical vision that one day in the East some Indian amateur in Sufism would seek to destroy the Holy Prophet's Finality, under the cover of his mystical psychology, he would have certainly anticipated the Indian Ulama in warning the Muslims of the world against such traitors to Islam.

Coming now to the essence of Ahmadism. A discussion of its sources and of the way in which pre-Islamic Magian ideas have, through the channels of Islamic mysticism, worked on the mind of its author would be extremely interesting from the standpoint of comparative religion. It is, however, impossible for me to undertake this discussion here. Suffice it to say that the real nature of Ahmadism is hidden behind the mist of medieval mysticism and theology. The Indian Ulama, therefore, took it to be a purely theological movement and came out with theological weapons to deal with it. I believe, however, that this was not the proper method of dealing with the movement; and that the success of the Ulama was, therefore, only partial. A careful psychological analysis of the revelations of the founder would perhaps be an effective method of dissecting the inner life of his personality. In this connection, I may mention Maulvi Manzur Elahi's collection of the founder's revelations which offers rich and varied material for psychological research. In my opinion the book provides a key to the character and personality of the founder; and I do hope that one day some young student of modern psychology will take it up for serious study. If he takes the Qur'an for his criterion, as he must for reasons which cannot be explained here, and extends his study to a comparative examination of the experiences of the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement and contemporary non-Muslim mystics, such as Ram[a] Krishna of Bengal, he is sure to meet more than one surprise as to the essential character of the experience on the basis of which prophethood is claimed for the originator of Ahmadism.

Another equally effective and more fruitful method, from the standpoint of the plain man, is to understand the real content of Ahmadism in the light of the history of Muslim theological thought in India, at least from the year 1799. The year 1799 is extremely important in the history of the world of Islam. In this year fell Tippu, and his fall meant the extinguishment of Muslim hopes for political prestige in India. In the same year was fought the battle of Navarino which saw the destruction of the Turkish fleet. Prophetic were the words of the author of the chronogram of Tippu's fall which visitors of Serangapatam find engraved on the wall of Tippu's mausoleum:

"Gone is the glory of Ind as well of Roum."

Thus, in the year 1799, the political decay of Islam in Asia reached its climax. But just as out of the humiliation of Germany on the day of Jena arose the modern German nation, it may be said with equal truth that out of the political humiliation of Islam in the year 1799 arose modern Islam and its problems. This point I shall explain in the sequel. For the present I want to draw the reader's attention to some of the questions which have arisen in Muslim India since the fall of Tippu and the development of European imperialism in Asia.

Does the idea of Caliphate in Islam embody a religious institution? How are the Indian Muslims, and for the matter of that all Muslims outside the Turkish Empire, related to the Turkish Caliphate? Is India Dar-ul-Harb or Dar-ul-Islam? What is the real meaning of the doctrine of Jihad in Islam? What is the meaning of the expression "from amongst you" in the Qur'anic verse: "Obey God, obey the Prophet and the masters of the affair, i.e. rulers, from amongst you"? (4:59) What is the character of the traditions of the Prophet foretelling the advent of Imam Mahdi? These questions and some others which arose subsequently were, for obvious reasons, questions for Indian Muslims only. European imperialism, however, which was then rapidly penetrating the world of Islam, was also intimately interested in them. The controversies which these questions created form a most interesting chapter in the history of Islam in India. The story is a long one and is still waiting for a powerful pen.

Muslim politicians whose eyes were mainly fixed on the realities of the situation succeeded in winning over a section of the Ulama to adopt a line of theological arguments which, as they thought, suited the situation; but it was not easy to conquer by mere logic the beliefs which had ruled for centuries the conscience of the masses of Islam in India. In such a situation logic can either proceed on the ground of political expediency or on the lines of a fresh orientation of texts and traditions. In either case the argument will fail to appeal to the masses. To the intensely religious masses of Islam only one thing can make a conclusive appeal, and that is Divine Authority. For an effective eradication of orthodox beliefs, it was found necessary to find a revelational basis for a politically suitable orientation of theological doctrines involved in the questions mentioned above. This revelational basis is provided by Ahmadism. And the Ahmadis themselves claim this to be the greatest service rendered by them to British imperialism. The prophetic claim to a revelational basis for theological views of a political significance amounts to declaring that those who do not accept the claimant's views are infidels of the first water and destined for the flames of Hell. As I understand the significance of the movement, the Ahmadi belief that Christ died the death of an ordinary mortal, and that his second advent means only the advent of a person who is spiritually "like unto him," gives the movement some sort of a rational appearance; but they are not really essential to the spirit of the movement. In my opinion they are only preliminary steps towards the idea of full prophethood which alone can serve the purposes of the movement, eventually brought into being by new political forces. In primitive countries it is not logic but authority that appeals. Given a sufficient amount of ignorance, credulity which strangely enough sometimes coexists with good intelligence, and a person sufficiently audacious to declare himself a recipient of divine revelation, whose denial would entail eternal damnation, it is easy, in a subject Muslim country, to invent a political theology and to build a community whose creed is political servility. And in the Punjab, even an ill-woven net of vague theological expressions can easily capture the innocent peasant who has been for centuries exposed to all kinds of exploitation.

Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru advises the orthodox of all religions to unite and thus not to delay the coming of what he conceives to be Indian Nationalism. This ironical advice assumes that Ahmadism is a reform movement; he does not know that as far as Islam in India is concerned, Ahmadism involves both religious and political issues of the highest importance. As I have explained above, the function of Ahmadism in the history of Muslim religious thought is to furnish a revelational basis for India's present political subjugation. Leaving aside the purely religious issues, on the ground of political issues alone, I think it does not lie in the mouth of a man like Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru to accuse Indian Muslims of reactionary conservatism. I have no doubt that if he had grasped the real nature of Ahmadism, he would have very much appreciated the attitude of Indian Muslims towards a religious movement which claims divine authority for the woes of India.

Thus the reader will see that the pallor of Ahmadism which we find on the cheeks of Indian Islam today is not an abrupt phenomenon in the history of Muslim religious thought in India. The ideas which eventually shaped themselves in the form of this movement became prominent in theological discussions long before the founder of Ahmadism was born. Nor do I mean to insinuate that the founder of Ahmadism and his companions deliberately planned their programme. I dare say the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement did hear a voice; but whether this voice came from the God of Life and Power, or arose out of the spiritual impoverishment of the people, must depend upon the nature of the movement which it has created and the kind of thought and emotion which it has given to those who have listened to it. The reader must not think that I am using metaphorical language. The life-history of nations shows that when the tide of life in a people begins to ebb, decadence itself becomes a source of inspiration, inspiring their poets, philosophers, saints, statesmen, and turning them into a class of apostles whose sole ministry is to glorify, by the force of a seductive art or logic, all that is ignoble and ugly in the life of their people. These apostles unconsciously clothe despair in the glittering garment of hope, undermine the traditional values of conduct and thus destroy the spiritual virility of those who happen to be their victims. One can only imagine the rotten state of a people's will who are, on the basis of divine authority, made to accept their political environment as final. Thus, all the actors who participated in the drama of Ahmadism were, I think, only innocent instruments in the hands of decadence. A similar drama had already been acted in Persia; but it did not lead, and could not have led, to the religious and political issues which Ahmadism has created for Islam in India. Russia offered tolerance to Babism and allowed the Babis to open their first missionary center in Ishqabad. England showed Ahmadis the same tolerance in allowing them to open their first missionary center in Woking. Whether Russia and England showed this tolerance on the ground of imperial expediency or pure broadmindedness is difficult for us to decide. This much is absolutely clear, that this tolerance has created difficult problems for Islam in Asia. In view of the structure of Islam, as I understand it, I have not the least doubt in my mind that Islam will emerge purer out of the difficulties thus created for it. Times are changing. Things in India have already taken a new turn. The new spirit of democracy which is coming to India is sure to disillusion the Ahmadis and to convince them of the absolute futility of their theological invention.

Nor will Islam tolerate any revival of medieval mysticism which has already robbed its followers of their healthy instincts and given them only obscure thinking in return. It has, during the course of the past centuries, absorbed the best minds of Islam, leaving the affairs of the state to mere mediocrities. Modern Islam cannot afford to repeat the experiment. Nor can it tolerate a repetition of the Punjab experiment of keeping Muslims occupied for half a century in theological problems which had absolutely no bearing on life. Islam has already passed into the broad daylight of fresh thought and experience, and no saint or prophet can bring it back to the fogs of medieval mysticism.

III

Let me now turn to Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru's questions. I fear the Pandit's articles reveal practically no acquaintance with Islam and its religious history during the 19th century. Nor does he seem to have read what I have already written on the subject of his questions. It is not possible for me to reproduce here all that I have written before. Nor is it possible to write here a religious history of Islam in the 19th century without which a thorough understanding of the present situation in the world of Islam is impossible. Hundreds of books and articles have been written on Turkey and modern Islam. I have read most of this literature and probably the Pandit has also read it. I assure him, however, that not one of these writers understands the nature of the effect or of the cause that has brought about that effect. It is, therefore, necessary to indicate briefly the main currents of Muslim thought in Asia during the 19th century.

I have said above that in the year 1799 the political decay of Islam reached its climax. There can, however, be no greater testimony to the inner vitality of Islam than the fact that it practically took no time to realize its position in the world. During the 19th century were born Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in India, Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani in Afghanistan and Mufti Alam Jan in Russia. These men were probably inspired by Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahab who was born in Najd in 1700, the founder of the so-called Wahabi movement which may fitly be described as the first throb of life in modern Islam. The influence of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan remained on the whole confined to India. It is probable, however, that he was the first modern Muslim to catch a glimpse of the positive character of the age which was coming. The remedy for the ills of Islam proposed by him, as by Mufti Alam Jan in Russia, was modern education. But the real greatness of the man consists in the fact that he was the first Indian Muslim who felt the need of a fresh orientation of Islam and worked for it. We may differ from his religious views, but there can be no denying the fact that his sensitive soul was the first to react to the modern age.

The extreme conservatism of Indian Muslims which had lost its hold on the realities of life, failed to see the real meaning of the religious attitude of Syed Ahmad Khan. In the North-West of India, a country more primitive and more saint-ridden than the rest of India, the Syed's movement was soon followed by the reaction of Ahmadism — a strange mixture of Semitic and Aryan mysticism, with whom spiritual revival consists not in the purification of the individual's inner life according to the principles of the old Islamic Sufism, but in satisfying the expectant attitude of the masses by providing a 'Promised' Messiah'. The function of this 'Promised Messiah' is not to extricate the individual from an enervating present but to make him slavishly surrender his ego to its dictates. This reaction carries within itself a very subtle contradiction. It retains the discipline of Islam, but destroys the will which that discipline was intended to fortify.

Maulana Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani was a man of a different stamp. Strange are the ways of Providence. One of the most advanced Muslims of our time, both in religious thought and action, was born in Afghanistan! A perfect master of nearly all the Muslim languages of the world and endowed with the most winning eloquence, his restless soul migrated from one Muslim country to another, influencing some of the most prominent men in Persia, Egypt and Turkey. Some of the greatest theologians of our time, such as Mufti Muhammad Abduhu, and some of the men of the younger generation who later became political leaders, such as Zaghlul Pasha of Egypt, were his disciples, He wrote little, spoke much and thereby transformed into miniature Jamal-ud-Dins all those who came into contact with him. He never claimed to be a prophet or a renewer; yet no other man in our time has stirred the soul of Islam more deeply than he. His spirit is still working in the world of Islam and nobody knows where it will end.

It may, however, be asked what exactly was the objective of these great Muslims? The answer is that they found the world of Islam ruled by three main forces and they concentrated their whole energy on creating a revolt against these forces:

Mullahism. The Ulama have always been a source of great strength to Islam. But during the course of centuries, especially since the destruction of Baghdad, they became extremely conservative and would not allow any freedom of Ijtihad, i.e., the forming of independent judgment in matters of law. The Wahabi movement, which was a source of inspiration to the 19th century Muslim reformers, was really a revolt against this rigidity of the Ulama. Thus the first objective of the 19th century Muslim reformers was a fresh orientation of the faith and a freedom to reinterpret the law in the light of advancing experience.
Mysticism. The masses of Islam were swayed by the kind of mysticism which blinked actualities, enervated the people and kept them steeped in all kinds of superstition. From its high state as a force of spiritual education, mysticism had fallen down to a mere means of exploiting the ignorance and the credulity of the people. It gradually and invisibly unnerved the will of Islam and softened it to the extent of seeking relief from rigorous discipline of the law of Islam. The 19th century reformers rose in revolt against this mysticism and called Muslims to the broad daylight of the modern world. Not that they were materialists. Their mission was to open the eyes of the Muslims to the spirit to Islam which aimed at the conquest of matter and not flight from it.
Muslim Kings. The gaze of Muslim kings gaze was solely fixed on their own dynastic interests, and so long as these were protected, they did not hesitate to sell their countries to the highest bidder. To prepare the masses of Muslims for a revolt against such a state of things in the world of Islam, was the special mission of Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani.

It is not possible here to give a detailed account of the transformation which these reformers brought about in the world of Muslim thought and feeling. One thing, however, is clear. They prepared to a great extent the ground for another set of men, i.e., Zaghlul Pasha, Mustafa Kamal and Raza Shah. The reformers interpreted, argued and explained; but the set of men who came after them, although inferior in academic learning, were men who, relying on their healthy instincts, had the courage to rush into sun-lit space and do, even by force, what the new the conditions of life demanded. Such men are liable to make mistakes; but the history of nations shows that even their mistakes have sometimes borne good fruit. In them it is not logic but life that struggles restless to solve its own problems. It may be pointed out here that Syed Ahmad Khan, Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani and hundreds of the latter's disciples in Muslim countries were not Westernized Muslims. They were men who had sat on their knees before the mullahs of the old school and had breathed the very intellectual and spiritual atmosphere which they later sought to reconstruct. Pressure of modern ideas may be admitted; but the history thus briefly indicated above, clearly shows that the upheaval which has come to Turkey and which is likely, sooner or later, to come to other Muslim countries, is almost wholly determined by the forces within. It is only the superficial observer of the modern world of Islam who thinks that the present crisis in the world of Islam is wholly due to the working of alien forces.

Has then the world of Islam outside India, especially Turkey abandoned Islam? Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru thinks that Turkey has ceased to be a Muslim country. He does not seem to realise that the question whether a person or a community has ceased to be a member of Islam is, from the Muslim point of view, a purely legal question and must be decided in view of the structural principles of Islam. As long as a person is loyal to the two basic principles of Islam, i.e., the Unity of God and Finality of the Holy Prophet, not even the strictest mullah can turn him outside the pale of Islam even though his interpretations of the law or of the text of the Quran are believed to be erroneous. But perhaps Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru has in his mind the supposed or real innovations which the Ataturk has introduced. Let us for a moment examine these. Is it the development of a general materialist outlook in Turkey which seems inimical to Islam? Islam has had too much of renunciation; it is time for the Muslims to look to realities. Materialism is a bad weapon against religion; but it is quite an effective one against mullah-craft and sufi-craft, which deliberately mystify the people with a view to exploit their ignorance and credulity. The spirit of Islam is not afraid of its contact with matter. Indeed the Quran says:

Forget not thy share in the world. (28:77)

It is difficult for a non-Muslim to understand that, considering the history of the Muslim world during the last few centuries, the progress of a materialist outlook is only a form of self-realization. Is it then the abolition of the old dress or the introduction of the Latin script? Islam as a religion has no country; as a society it has no specific language, no specific dress. Even the recitation of the Quran in Turkish is not without some precedent in Muslim history. Personally I regard it as a serious error of judgment; for the modern student of the Arabic language and literature knows full well that the only non-European language which has a future is Arabic. But the reports are that the Turks have already abandoned the vernacular recitation of the Quran. Is it then the abolition of polygamy or the licentiate Ulama? According to the law of Islam the Amir of a Muslim State has the power to revoke the "permissions" of the law if he is convinced that they tend to cause social corruption. As to the licentiate Ulama, I would certainly introduce it in Muslim India if I had the power to do so. To the inventions of the myth-makingmullah is largely due the stupidity of the average Muslim. In excluding him from the religious life of the people the Ataturk has done what would have delighted the heart of an Ibn Taimiyya or a Shah Wali Ullah. There is a tradition of the Holy Prophet reported in the Mishkat to the effect that only the Amir of the Muslim State and the person or persons appointed by him, are entitled to preach to the people. I do not know whether the Ataturk ever knew of this tradition; yet it is striking how the light of his Islamic conscience has illumined the zone of his action in this important matter. The adoption of the Swiss code with its rule of inheritance is certainly a serious error which has arisen out of the youthful zeal for reform excusable in a people furiously desiring to go ahead. The joy of emancipation from the fetters of a long-standing priestcraft sometimes drives a people to untried courses of action. But Turkey as well as the rest of the world of Islam has yet to realise the hitherto unrevealed economic aspects of the Islamic law of inheritance which Von Kremer describes as the "supremely original branch of Muslim law." Is it the abolition of the Caliphate or the separation of Church and State? In its essence Islam is not Imperialism. In the abolition of the Caliphate which since the days of Omayyads had practically become a kind of Empire, it is only the spirit of Islam that has worked out through the Ataturk. In order to understand the Turkish Ijtihad in the matter of the Caliphate, we cannot but seek the guidance of Ibn Khaldun — the great philosophical historian of Islam, and the father of modern history. I can do no better than to quote here a passage from my Reconstruction:

"Ibn Khaldun in his famous "Prolegomena" mentions three distinct views of the idea of Universal Caliphate in Islam:

That Universal Imamate is a Divine institution, and is
consequently indispensable.
That it is merely a matter of expediency.
That there is no need of such an institution.

The last view was taken by the Khawarij, the early Republicans of Islam. It seems that modern Turkey has shifted from the first to the second view, i.e., to the view of the Mu'tazila who regarded Universal Imamate as a matter of expediency only. The Turks argue that in our political thinking we must be guided by our past political experience which points unmistakably to the fact that the idea of Universal Imamate has failed in practice. It was a workable idea when the Empire of Islam was intact. Since the breakup of this Empire independent political units have arisen. The idea has ceased to be operative and cannot work as a living factor in the organization of modern Islam."

Nor is the idea of separation of Church and State alien to Islam. The doctrine of the major occultation of the Imam in a sense effected this separation long ago in Shia Persia. The Islamic idea of the division of the religious and political functions of the State must not be confounded with the European idea of the separation of Church and State. The former is only a division of functions as is clear from the gradual creation in the Muslim State of the offices of Sheikh-ul-Islam and Ministers; the latter is based on the metaphysical dualism of spirit and matter. Christianity began as an order of monks having nothing to do with the affairs of the world; Islam was, from the very beginning, a civil society with laws civil in their nature, though believed to be revelational in origin. The metaphysical dualism on which the European idea is based has borne bitter fruit among Western nations. Many years ago a book was written in America called If Christ Came to Chicago. In reviewing this book an American author says:

"The lesson to be learned from Mr. Stead's book is that the great evils from which humanity is suffering today, are evils that can be handled only by religious sentiments; that the handling of those evils has been in the great part surrendered to the State; that the State has itself been delivered over to corrupt political machines; that such machines are not only unwilling, but unable, to deal with those evils; and that nothing but a religious awakening of the citizens to their public duties can save countless millions from misery and the State itself from degradation."

In the history of Muslim political experience, this separation has meant only a separation of functions, not of ideas. It cannot be maintained that in Muslim countries the separation of Church and State means the freedom of Muslim legislative activity from the conscience of the people which has for centuries been trained and developed by the spirituality of Islam. Experience alone will show how the idea will work in modern Turkey. We can only hope that it will not be productive of the evils which it has produced in Europe and America.

I have briefly discussed the above innovations more for the sake of the Muslim reader than for Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. The innovation specifically mentioned by the Pandit is the adoption by the Turks and Persians of racial and nationalist ideals. He seems to think that the adoption of such ideals means the abandonment of Islam by Turkey and Persia. The student of history knows very well that Islam was born at a time when the old principles of human unification, such as blood relationship and throne-culture, were failing. It, therefore, finds the principle of human unification not in the blood and bones but in the mind of man. Indeed its social message to mankind is: "Deracialise yourself or perish by internecine war." It is no exaggeration to say that Islam looks askance at nature's race-building plans and creates, by means of its peculiar institutions, an outlook which would counteract the race-building forces of nature. In the direction of human domestication it has done in one thousand years far more important work than Christianity and Buddhism ever did in two thousand years or more. It is no less than a miracle that an Indian Muslim finds himself at home in Morocco in spite of the disparity of race and language. Yet it cannot be said that Islam is totally opposed to race. Its history shows that in social reform it relies mainly on its scheme for gradual deracialisation and proceeds on the lines of least resistance. "Verily", says the Quran, "We have made you into tribes and sub-tribes so that you may be identified; but the best among you in the eye of God is he who is the purest in life." (49:13) Considering the mightiness of the problem of race and the amount of time which the deracialisation of mankind must necessarily take, the attitude of Islam towards the problem of race, i.e., stooping to conquer without itself becoming a race-making factor, is the only rational and workable attitude. There is a remarkable passage in Sir Arthur Keith's little book, The Problem of Race, which is worth quoting here:

"And now man is awakening to the fact that nature's primary end — race-building —is incompatible with the necessities of the modern economic world and is asking himself: What must I do? Bring race-building as practised hitherto by nature to an end and have eternal peace? Or permit nature to pursue her old course and have, as a necessary consequence — War? Man has to choose the one course or the other. There is no intermediate course possible."

It is, therefore, clear that if the Ataturk is inspired by Pan-Turanianism, he is going not so much against the spirit of Islam as against the spirit of the times. And if he is a believer in the absoluteness of races, he is sure to be defeated by the spirit of modern times which is wholly in keeping with the spirit of Islam. Personally, however, I do not think that the Ataturk is inspired by Pan-Turanianism, as I believe his Pan-Turanianism is only a political retort to Pan-Slavonism, Pan-Germanism, or Pan-Anglo Saxonism.

If the meaning of the above paragraph is well understood, it is not difficult to see the attitude of Islam towards nationalist ideals. Nationalism in the sense of love of one's country and even readiness to die for its honour, is a part of the Muslim's faith; it comes into conflict with Islam only when it begins to play the role of a political concept and claims to be a principle of human solidarity demanding that Islam should recede to the background of a mere private opinion and cease to be a living factor in the national life. In Turkey, Persia, Egypt and other Muslim countries it will never become a problem. In these countries Muslims constitute an overwhelming majority and their minorities, i.e., Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians, according to the law of Islam, are either "People of the Book" or "like the People of the Book" with whom the law of Islam allows free social relations, including matrimonial alliances. It becomes a problem for Muslims only in countries where they happen to be in a minority, and nationalism demands their complete self-effacement. In majority countries Islam accommodates nationalism; for there Islam and nationalism are practically identical; in minority countries it is justified in seeking self-determination as a cultural unit. In either case, it is thoroughly consistent with itself.

The above paragraphs briefly sum up the exact situation in the world of Islam today. If this is properly understood it will become clear that the fundamentals of Islamic solidarity are not in any way shaken by any external or internal forces. The solidarity of Islam, as I have explained before, consists in a uniform belief in the two structural principles of Islam, supplemented by the five well-known "practices of the faith." These are the first essentials of Islamic solidarity which has, in this sense, existed ever since the days of the Holy Prophet until it was recently disturbed by the Bahais in Persia and the Qadianis in India. It is a guarantee for a practically uniform spiritual atmosphere in the world of Islam. It facilitates the political combination of Muslim States, which combination may either assume the form of a World State (ideal) or of a League of Muslim States, or of a number of independent States whose pacts and alliances are determined by purely economic and political considerations. That is how the conceptual structure of this simple faith is related to the process of time. The profundity of this relation can be understood only in the light of certain verses of the Qu'ran which it is not possible to explain here without drifting away from the point immediately before us. Politically, then, the solidarity of Islam is shaken only when Muslim States war on one another; religiously, it is shaken only when Muslims rebel against any of the basic beliefs and practices of the faith. It is in the interest of this eternal solidarity that Islam cannot tolerate any rebellious group within its fold. Outside the fold, such a group is entitled to as much toleration as the followers of any other faith. It appears to me that at the present moment Islam is passing through a period of transition. It is shifting from one form of political solidarity to some other form which the forces of history have yet to determine. Events are so rapidly moving in the modern world that it is almost impossible to make a prediction. As to what will be the attitude towards non-Muslims of a politically united Islam, if such a thing ever comes, is a question which history alone can answer. All that I can say is that, lying midway between Asia and Europe and being a synthesis of Eastern and Western outlooks on life, Islam ought to act as a kind of intermediary between the East and the West. But what if the follies of Europe create an irreconcilable Islam? As things are developing in Europe from day to day they demand a radical transformation of Europe's attitude towards Islam. We can only hope that political vision will not allow itself to be obscured by the dictates of imperial ambition or economic exploitation. In so far as India is concerned, I can say with perfect confidence that the Muslims of India will not submit to any kind of political idealism which would seek to annihilate their cultural entity. Sure of this they may be trusted to know how to reconcile the claims of religion and patriotism.

One word about His Highness the Agha Khan. What has led Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru to attack the Agha Khan, it is difficult for me to discover. Perhaps he thinks that the Qadianis and the Ismailis fall under the same category. He is obviously not aware that however the theological interpretation of the Ismailis may err, they beleive in the basic principles of Islam. It is true that they believe in a perpetual Imamate; but the Imam according to them is not a recipient of divine revelation. He is only an expounder of the law: It is only the other day (vide the Star of Allahabad, March 12, 1934 ) that His Highness the Agha Khan addressed his followers as follows:

"Bear witness that Allah is One. Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah. Qu'ran is the Book of Allah. Ka'ba is the Qibla of all. You are Muslims and should live with Muslims. Greet Muslims withAssalam-o-Alaikum. Give your children Islamic names. Pray with Muslim congregations in mosques. Keep fast regularly. Solemnize your marriages according to Islamic rules of Nikah. Treat all Muslims as your brothers."

It is for the Pandit now to decide whether the Agha Khan represents the solidarity of Islam or not.

2021-02-20T00:11:16+00:00

Islam as a Moral and Political Ideal*[1]

Iqbal read this paper at the anniversary celebrations of Anjuman Himayat-i-Islam on the Easter, 1909. It was subsequently published in Hindustan Review (Allahabad) in July and December the same year.

SPEECHES, WRITINGS AND STATEMENTS OF IQBAL

By

LATIF AHMAD SHERWANI

IQBAL ACADEMY PAKISTAN

EDITED AND PROOFREAD

BY

ALEENA ABAID

INTERNATIONAL IQBAL SOCIETY

There are three points of view from which a religious system can he approached: the standpoint of the teacher, that of the expounder, and that of the critical student. I do not pretend to be a teacher whose thought and action are or ought to be in perfect harmony in so far as he endeavours to work out in his own life the ideals which he places before others and thus influences his audience more by example than by precept. Nor do I claim the high office of an expounder who brings to hear a subtle intellect upon his task, endeavours to explain all the various aspects of the principles he expounds and works with certain presuppositions, the truth of which he never questions. The attitude of the mind, which characterises a critical student, is fundamentally different from that of the teacher and the expounder. He approaches the subject of his inquiry free form all presuppositions, and tries to understand the organic structure of a religious system, just as a biologist would study a form of life or a geologist a piece of mineral. His object is to apply methods of scientific research to religion, with a view to discover how the various elements in a given structure fit in with one another, how each factor functions individually, and how their relation with one another determines the functional value of the whole. He looks at the subject from the standpoint of history and raises certain fundamental questions with regard to the origin, growth, and formation of the system he proposes to understand. What are the historical forces, the operation of which evoked, as a necessary consequence, the phenomenon of a particular system? Why should a particular religious system be produced by a particular people? What is the real significance of a religious system in the history of the people who produced it, and in the history of man-kind as a whole? Are there any geographical causes, which determine the original locality of a religion? How far does it reveal the inmost soul of a people, their social, moral and political aspirations? What transformation, if any, has it worked in them? How far has it contributed towards the realisation of the ultimate purpose revealed in the history of man? These are some of the questions, which the critical student of religion endeavours to answer, in order to comprehend its structure and to estimate its ultimate worth as a civilising agency among the forces of historical evolution.

I propose to look at Islam from the standpoint of the critical student. But I may state at the outset that I avoid the use of expressions current in popular Revelation Theology; since my method is essentially scientific and consequently necessitates the use of terms which can be interpreted in the light of every-day human experience. For instance, when 1 say that the religion of a people is the sum total of their life experience finding a definite expression through the medium of a great personality, I am only translating the fact of revelation into the language of science. Similarly, interaction between individual and universal energy is only another expression for the feeling of prayer, which ought to be so described for purposes of scientific accuracy. It is because I want to approach my subject from a thoroughly human standpoint and not because I doubt the fact of Divine Revelation as the final basis of all religion that I prefer to employ expressions of a more scientific content.

Islam is moreover the youngest of all religions, the last creation of humanity. Its founder stands out clear before us; he is truly a personage of history and lends himself freely even to the most searching criticism. Ingenious legend has weaved no screens round his figure; he is born in the broad day-light of history; we can thoroughly understand the inner spring of his actions; we can subject his mind to a keen psychological analysis. Let us then for the time being eliminate the supernatural element and try to understand the structure of Islam as we find it.

I have just indicated the way in which a critical student of religion approaches his subject. Now, it is not possible for me, in the short space at my disposal, to answer, with regard to Islam, all the questions, which as a critical student of religion I ought to raise and answer in order to reveal the real meaning of this religious system. I shall not raise the question of the origin and the development of Islam. Nor shall I try to analyse the various currents of thought in the pre-Islamic Arabian society, which found a final focus in the utterances of the Prophet of Islam. I shall confine my attention to the Islamic ideal in its ethical and political aspects only.

To begin with, we have to recognise that every great religious system starts with certain propositions concerning the nature of man and the universe. The psychological implication of Buddhism, for instance, is the central fact of pain as a dominating element in the Constitution of the universe. Man, regarded as an individuality, is helpless against the forces of pain, according to the teachings of Buddhism. There is an indissoluble relation between pain and the individual consciousness which, as such, is nothing but a constant possibility of pain. Freedom from pain means freedom from individuality. Starting from the fact of pain, Buddhism is quite consistent in placing before man the ideal of self-destruction. Of the two terms of this relation, pain and the sense of personality, one (i.e. pain) is ultimate; the other is a delusion from which it is possible to emancipate ourselves by ceasing to act on those lines of activity which have a tendency to intensify the sense of personality. Salvation, then, according to Buddhism, is inaction, renunciation of self and unworldliness are the principal virtues. Similarly, Christianity, as a religious system, is based on the fact of sin. The world is regarded as evil and the taint of sin is regarded as hereditary to man, who, as an individuality, is insufficient and stands in need of some supernatural personality to intervene between him and his Creator. Christianity, unlike Buddhism, regards human personality as something real but agrees with Buddhism in holding that man as a force against sin is insufficient. There is, however, a subtle difference in the agreement. We can, according to Christianity, get rid of sin by depending upon a Redeemer; we can free ourselves from pain, according to Buddhism, by letting this insufficient force dissipate or lose itself in the universal energy of nature. Both agree in the fact of insufficiency and both agree in holding that this insufficiency is an evil; but while the one makes up the deficiency by bringing in the force of a redeeming personality, the other prescribes its gradual reduction until it is annihilated altogether.

Again, Zoroastrianism looks upon nature as a scene of endless struggle between the powers of evil and the powers of good and recognises in man the power to choose any course of action he likes. The universe, according to Zoroastrianism, is partly evil, partly good; man is neither wholly good nor wholly evil, but a combination of the two principles—light and darkness continually fighting against each other for universal supremacy. We see then that the fundamental pre-suppositions, with regard to the nature of the universe and man, in Buddhism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism respectively are the following:

There is pain in nature and man regarded as an individual is evil (Buddhism).
There is sin in nature and the taint of sin is fatal to man (Christianity).
There is struggle in nature; man is a mixture of the struggling forces and is free to range himself on the side of the powers of good, which will eventually prevail (Zoroastrianism).

The question now is, what is the Muslim view of the universe and man? What is the central ideal in Islam, which determines the structure of the entire system? We know that sin, pain and sorrow are constantly mentioned in the Quran. The truth is that Islam looks upon the universe as a reality and consequently recognises as reality all that is in it. Sin, pain, sorrow, struggle are certainly real but Islam teaches that evil is not essential to the universe; the universe can be reformed; the elements of sin and evil can be gradually eliminated. All that is in the universe is God’s, and the seemingly destructive forces of nature become sources of life, if properly controlled by man, who is endowed with the power to understand and to control them.

These and other similar teachings of the Quran, combined with the Quranic recognition of the reality of sin and sorrow, indicate that the Islamic view of the universe is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. Modern psychometry has given the final answer to the psychological implications of Buddhism. Pain is not an essential factor in the constitution of the universe, and pessimism is only a product of a hostile social environment. Islam believes in the efficacy of well-directed action; hence the standpoint of Islam must he described as melioristic —the ultimate presupposition and justification of all human effort at scientific discovery and social progress. Although Islam recognises the fact of pain, — sin and struggle in nature, yet the principal fact, which stands in the way of man’s ethical progress is, according to Islam, neither pain, nor sin, nor struggle. It is fear to which man is a victim owing to his ignorance of the nature of his environment and want of absolute faith in God. The highest stage of man’s ethical progress is reached when he becomes absolutely free from fear and grief.

The central proposition, which regulates the structure of Islam then is that there is fear in nature, and the object of Islam is to free man from fear. This view of the Universe indicates also the Islamic view of the metaphysical nature of man. If fear is the force, which dominates man and counteracts his ethical progress, man must be regarded as a unit of force, an energy, a will, a germ of infinite power, the gradual unfoldment of which must be the object of all human activity. The essential nature of man, then, consists in will, not intellect or understanding.

With regard to the ethical nature of man too, the teaching of Islam is different from those of other religious systems. And when God said to the angels “I am going to make a Viceroy on the earth,” they said: “Art Thou creating one who spills blood and disturbs the peace of the earth, and we glorify Thee and sing Thy praises?” God answered? “I know what you do not know.” This verse of the Quran, read in the light of the famous tradition that every child is born a Muslim (peaceful) indicates that, according to the tenets of Islam, man is essentially good and peaceful.—a view explained and defended, in our own, times, by Rousseau—the great father of modern political thought. The opposite view, the doctrine of the depravity of man held by the Church of Rome, leads to the most pernicious religious and political consequences. Since if man is elementally wicked, he must not be permitted to have his own way: his entire life must be controlled by external authority. This means priesthood in religion and autocracy in politics. The Middle Ages in the history of Europe drove this dogma of Romanism to its political and religious consequences, and the result was a form of society which required terrible revolutions to destroy it and to upset the basic pre-suppositions of its structure. Luther, the enemy of despotism in religion, and Rousseau, the enemy of despotism in politics, must always be regarded as the emancipators of European humanity from the heavy fetters of Popedom and absolutism, and their religious and political thought must be understood as a virtual denial of the Church dogma of human depravity. The possibility of the elimination of sin and pain from the evolutionary process and faith in the natural goodness of man are the basic propositions of Islam, as of modern European civilisation, which has, almost unconsciously, recognised the truth of these propositions in spite of the religious system with which it is associated. Ethically speaking, therefore, man is naturally good and peaceful. Metaphysically speaking, he is a unit of energy, which cannot bring out its dormant possibilities owing to its misconception of the nature of its environment. The ethical ideal of Islam is to disenthral man from fear, and thus to give him a sense of his personality, to make him conscious of himself as a source of power. This idea of man as an individuality of infinite power determines, according to the teachings of Islam, the worth of all human action. That which intensifies the sense of individuality in man is good, that which enfeebles it is bad. Virtue is power, force, strength; evil is weakness. Give man a keen sense of respect for his own personality, let him move fearless and free in the immensity of God’s earth, and he will respect the personalities of others and become perfectly virtuous. It is not possible for me to show in the course of this paper how all the principal forms of vice can be reduced to fear. But we will now see the reason why certain forms of human activity, e.g. self-renunciation, poverty, slavish obedience which sometimes conceals itself under the beautiful name of humility and unworldliness—modes of activity which tend to weaken the force of human individuality—are regarded as virtues by Buddhism and Christianity, and altogether ignored by Islam. While the early Christians glorified in poverty and unworldliness, Islam looks upon poverty as a vice and says: “Do not forget thy share of the world.” The highest virtue from the standpoint of Islam is righteousness, which is defined by the Quran in the following manner:

It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces in prayers towards east and west, but righteousness is of him who believeth in God and the last day and the angels and the scriptures and the Prophets, who give the money for God’s sake unto his kindred and unto orphans and the needy and to strangers and to those who ask and for the redemption of captives; of those who are constant at prayer, and of those who perform their covenant when they have covenanted and behave themselves patiently in adversity and in times of violence. (2:177).

It is, therefore, evident that Islam, so to speak, transmutes the moral values of the ancient world, and declares the preservation, intensification of the sense of human personality, to be the ultimate ground of all ethical activity. Man is a free responsible being; he is the maker of his own destiny his salvation is his own business. There is no mediator between God and man. God is the birth right of every man. The Quran, therefore, while it looks upon Jesus Christ as the spirit of God, strongly protests against the Christian doctrine of redemption, as well as the doctrine of an infallible visible head of the Church—doctrines, which proceed upon the assumption of the insufficiency of human personality and tend to create in man a sense of dependence, which is regarded by Islam as a force obstructing the ethical progress of man. The law of Islam is almost unwilling to recognise illegitimacy, since the stigma of illegitimacy is a great blow to the healthy development of independence in man. Similarly, in order to give man an early sense of individuality the law of Islam has laid down that a child is an absolutely free human being at the age of fifteen.

To this view of Muslim ethics, however, there can be one objection. If the development of human individuality is the principal concern of Islam, why should it tolerate the institution of slavery? The idea of free labour was foreign to the economic consciousness of the ancient world. Aristotle looks upon it as a necessary factor in human society. The Prophet of Islam, being a link between the ancient and the modern world, declared the principle of equality and though, like every wise reformer, he slightly conceded to the social conditions around him in retaining the name slavery, he quietly took away the whole spirit of this institution. That slaves had equal opportunity with other Muhammadans is evidenced by the fact that some of the greatest Muslim warriors, kings, premiers, scholars and jurists were slaves. During the days of the early Caliphs slavery by purchase was quite unknown; part of public revenue was set apart for purposes of manumission, and prisoners of war were either freely dismissed or freed on the payment of ransom. Slaves were also set at liberty as a penalty for culpable homicide and in expiation of a false oath taken by mistake. The Prophet’s own treatment of slaves was extraordinarily liberal. The proud aristocratic Arab could not tolerate the social elevation of a slave even when he was manumitted. The democratic ideal of perfect equality, which had found the most uncompromising expression in the Prophet’s life, could only be brought home to an extremely aristocratic people by a very cautious handling of the situation. He brought about a marriage between an emancipated slave and a free Qureish woman, a relative of his own. This marriage was a blow to the aristocratic pride of this free Arab woman; she could not get on with her husband and the result was a divorce, which made her the more helpless, since no respectable Arab would marry the divorced wife of a slave. The ever-watchful Prophet availed himself of this situation and turned it to account in his efforts at social reform. He married the woman himself, indicating thereby that not only a slave could marry a free woman, but also a woman divorced by him could become the wife of a man no less than the greatest Prophet of God. The significance of this marriage in the history of social reform in Arabia is, indeed, great. Whether prejudice, ignorance or want of insight has blinded European critics of Islam to the real meaning of this union, it is difficult to guess.

In order to show the treatment of slaves by modern Muhammadans, I quote a passage from the English translation of the autobiography of the late Amir Abdur Rahman of Afghanistan:

For instance [says the Amir], Framurz Khan, a Chitrali slave is my most trusted Commander-in-Chief at Herat, Nazir Muhammad Safar Khan, another Chitrali slave, is the most trusted official of my Court; he keeps my seal in his hand to put to any document and to my food and diet; in short he has the full confidence of my life, as well as my kingdom is in his hands. Parwana Khan, the late Deputy Commander-in-Chief, and Jan Muhammad Khan, the late Lord of Treasury, two of the highest officials of the kingdom in their lifetime, were both of them my slaves.

The truth is that the institution of slavery is a mere name in Islam, and the idea of individuality reveals itself as a guiding principle in the entire system of Muhammadan law and ethics.

Briefly speaking, then, a strong will in a strong body is the ethical ideal of Islam. But let me stop here for a. moment and see whether we, Indian Mussalmans, are true to this ideal. Does the Indian Muslim possess a strong will in a strong body? Has he got the will to live? Has he got sufficient strength of character to oppose those forces which tend to disintegrate the social organism to which he belongs? I regret to answer my questions in the negative. The reader will understand that in the great struggle for existence it is not principally number which makes a social organism survive. Character is the ultimate equipment of man, not only in his efforts against a hostile natural environment but also in his contest with kindred competitors after a fuller, richer, ampler life. The life-force of the Indian Muhammadan, however, has become woefully enfeebled. The decay of the religious spirit, combined with other causes of a political nature over which he had no control, has developed in him a habit of self-dwarfing, a sense of dependence and, above all, that laziness of spirit which an enervated people call by the dignified name of ‘contentment’ in order to conceal their own enfeeblement. Owing to his indifferent commercial morality he fails in economic enterprise, for want of a true conception of national interest and a right appreciation of the present situation of his community among the communities of this country, he is working, in his private as well as public capacity, on lines which, I am afraid, must lead him to ruin. How often do we see that he shrinks from advocating a cause, the significance of which is truly national, simply because his standing aloof pleases an influential Hindu, through whose agency he hopes to secure a personal distinction? I unhesitatingly declare that I have greater respect for an illiterate shopkeeper, who earns his honest bread and has sufficient force in his arms to defend his wife and children in times of trouble than the brainy graduate of high culture, whose low timid voice betokens the dearth of soul in his body, who takes pride in his submissiveness, eats sparingly, complains of sleepless nights and produces unhealthy children for his community, if he does produce any at all. I hope I shall not be offending the reader when I say that I have a certain amount of admiration for the devil. By refusing to prostrate himself before Adam whom he honestly believed to be his inferior, he revealed a high sense of self-respect, a trait of character which in my opinion ought to redeem him from his spiritual deformity, just as the beautiful eyes of the toad redeem him from his physical repulsiveness. And I believe God punished him not because he refused to make himself low before the progenitor of an enfeebled humanity, but because he declined to give absolute obedience to the will of the Almighty Ruler of the Universe. The ideal of our educated young men is mostly service, and service begets, specially in a country like India, that sense of dependence which undermines the force of human individuality. The poor among us have, of course, no capital; the middle class people cannot undertake joint economic enterprise owing to mutual mistrust; and the rich look upon trade as an occupation beneath their dignity. Truly economic dependence is the prolific mother of all the various forms of vice. Even the vices of the Indian Muhammadan indicate the weakness of life-force in him. Physically too he has undergone dreadful deterioration. If one sees the pale, faded faces of Muhammadan boys in schools and colleges, one will find the painful verification of my statement. Power, energy, force, strength, yes physical strength, is the law of life. A strong man may rob others when he has got nothing in his own pocket; but a feeble person, he must die the death of a mean thing in the world’s awful scene of continual warfare. But how [to] improve this undesirable state of things?

Education, we are told, will work the required transformation. I may say at once that I do not put much .faith in education as a means of ethical training—I mean education as understood in this country. The ethical training of humanity is really the work of great personalities, who appear time to time during the course of human history. Unfortunately our present social environment is not favourable to the birth and growth of such personalities of ethical magnetism. An attempt to discover the reason of this dearth of personalities among us will necessitate a subtle analysis of all the visible and invisible forces which are now determining the course of our social evolution—an enquiry which I cannot undertake in this paper. But all unbiased persons will easily admit that such personalities are now rare among us. This being the case, education is the only thing to fall back upon. But what sort of education? There is no absolute truth in education, as there is none in philosophy or science. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a maxim of fools. Do we ever find a person rolling in his mind the undulatory theory of light simply because it is a fact of science? Education, like other things, ought to be determined by the needs of the learner. A form of education which has no direct bearing on the particular type of character which you want to develop is absolutely worthless. I grant that the present system of education in India gives us bread and butter. We manufacture a number of graduates and then we have to send titled mendicants to Government to beg appointments for them. Well, if we succeed in securing a few appointments in the higher branches of service, what then? It is the masses who constitute the backbone of the nation; they ought to be better fed, better housed and properly educated. Life is not bread and butter alone; it is something more; it is a healthy character reflecting the national ideal in all its aspects. And for a truly national character, you ought to have a truly national education. Can you expect free Muslim character in a young boy who is brought up in an aided school and in complete ignorance of his social and historical tradition? You administer to him doses of Cromwell’s history; it is idle to expect that he will turn out a truly Muslim character. The knowledge of Cromwell’s history will certainly create in him a great deal of admiration for the Puritan revolutionary; but it cannot create that healthy pride in his soul which is the very lifeblood of a truly national character. Our educated young man knows all about Wellington and Gladstone, Voltaire and Luther. He will tell you that Lord Roberts worked in the South African War like a common soldier at the age of eighty; but how many of us know that Muhammad II conquered Constantinople at the age of twenty-two? How many of us have even the faintest notion of the influence of our Muslim civilisation over the civilisation of modern Europe? How many of us are familiar with the wonderful historical productions of Ibn Khaldun or the extraordinarily noble character of the great Mir Abdul Qadir of Algeria? A living nation is living because it never forgets its dead. I venture to say that the present system of education in this country is not at all suited to us as a people. It is not true to our genius as a nation, it tends to produce an un-Muslim type of character, it is not determined by our national requirements, it breaks entirely with our past and appears to proceed on the false assumption that the idea of education is the training of human intellect rather than human will. Nor is this superficial system true to the genius of the Hindus. Among them, it appears to have produced a number of political idealists, whose false reading of history drives them to the upsetting of all conditions of political order and social peace. We spend an immense amount of money every year on the education of our children. Well, thanks to the King-Emperor, India is a free country; everybody is free to entertain any opinion he likes—I look upon it as a waste. In order to be truly ourselves, we ought to have our own schools, our own colleges, and our own universities, keeping alive our social and historical tradition, making us good and peaceful citizens and creating in us that free but law-abiding spirit which evolves out of itself the noblest types of political virtue. I am quite sensible of the difficulties that lie in our way, all that I can say is that if we cannot get over our difficulties, the world will soon get rid of us.

Having discussed in the last issue of this Review the ethical ideals of Islam I now proceed to say a few words on the political aspect of the Islamic ideal. Before, however, I come to the subject I wish to meet an objection against Islam so often brought forward by our European critics. It has been said that Islam is a religion which implies a state of war and can thrive only in a state of war. Now there can be no denying that war is an expression of the energy of a nation; a nation which cannot fight cannot hold its own in the strain and stress of selective competition which constitutes an indispensable condition of all human progress. Defensive war is certainly permitted by the Quran; but the doctrine of aggressive war against unbelievers is wholly unauthorised by the Holy Book of Islam. Here are the words of the Quran:

Summon them to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and kindly warning, dispute them in the kindest manner. Say to those who have been given the book and to the ignorant: Do you accept Islam? Then, if they accept Islam they are guided aright; but if they turn away then thy duty is only preaching; and God’s eye is on His servants.

All the wars undertaken during the lifetime of the Prophet were defensive. His war against the Roman Empire in 628 A.D. began by a fatal breach of international law on the part of the Government at Constantinople who killed the innocent Arab envoy sent to their Court. Even in defensive wars he forbids wanton cruelty to the vanquished. I quote here the touching words which he addresses to his followers when they were starting for a fight:

In avenging the injuries inflicted upon us, disturb not the harmless votaries of domestic seclusion, spare the weakness of the female sex, injure not the infant at the breast, or those who are ill in bed. Abstain from demolishing the dwellings of the unresisting inhabitants, destroy not the means of their subsistence, nor their fruit trees, and touch not the palm.

The history of Islam tells us that the expansion of Islam as a religion is in no way related to the political power of its followers. The greatest spiritual conquests of Islam were made during the days of our political decrepitude. When the rude barbarians of Mongolia drowned in blood the civilisation of Baghdad in 1258 A.D., when the Muslim power fell in Spain and the followers of Islam were mercilessly killed or driven out of Cordova by Ferdinand in 1236, Islam had just secured a footing in Sumatra and was about to work the peaceful conversion of the Malay Archipelago.

In the hours of its political degradation [says Professor Arnold], Islam has achieved some of its most brilliant conquests. On two great historical occasions, infidel barbarians have set their foot on the necks of the followers of the Prophet, the Seljuk Turks in the eleventh and the Mongols in the thirteenth century, and in each case the conquerors have accepted the religion of the conquered.

We undoubtedly find [says the same learned scholar elsewhere] that Islam gained its greatest and most lasting missionary triumph in times and places in which its political power has been weakest, as in South India and Eastern Bengal.

The truth is that Islam is essentially a religion of peace. All forms of political and social disturbance are condemned by the Quran in the most uncompromising terms. I quote a few verses from the Quran:

Eat and drink from what God has given you and run not on face of the earth in the matter of rebels.

And disturb not the peace of the earth after it has been reformed; this is good for you if you are believers.

And do good to others as God has done good to thee, and seek not the violation of peace in the earth, for God does not love those who break the peace.

That is the home in the next world, which we build for those who do not mean rebellion and disturbance in the earth, and the end is for those who fear God.

Those who rebelled in cities and enhanced disorder in them, God visited them with His whip of punishment.

One sees from these verses how severely all forms of political and social disorder are denounced by the Quran. But the Quran is not satisfied with mere denunciation of the evil of fesad. It goes to the very root of this evil. We know that both in ancient and modern times, secret meetings have been a constant source of political and social unrest. Here is what the Quran says about such conferences: “O believers, if you converse secretly—that is to say, hold secret conference, converse not for purpose of sin and rebellion.” The ideal of Islam is to secure social peace at any cost. All methods of violent change in society are condemned in the most unmistakable language. Tartushi—a Muslim lawyer of Spain—is quite true to the spirit of Islam when he says: “Forty years of tyranny are better than one hour of anarchy.” “Listen to him and obey him,” says the Prophet of God in a tradition mentioned by Bukharee, “even if a negro slave is appointed to rule over you.” Muslim mentioned another important tradition of the Prophet on the authority of Arfaja, who says: “I heard the Prophet of God say, when you have agreed to follow one man then if another man comes forward intending to break your stick (weaken your strength) or to make you disperse in disunion, kill him.”

Those among us who make it their business to differ from the general body of Mussalmans in political views ought to read this tradition carefully, and if they have any respect for the words of the Prophet, it is their duty to dissuade themselves from this mean traffic in political opinion, which though perhaps it brings a little personal gain to them, is exceedingly harmful to the interests of the community. My object, in citing these verses and traditions, is to educate political opinion on strictly Islamic lines. In this country, we are living under a Christian Government. We must always keep before our eyes the example of those early Muhammadans who, persecuted by their own countrymen, had to leave their home and to settle in the Christian State of Abyssinia. How they behaved in that land must be our guiding principle in this country where an overdose of Western ideas has taught people to criticise the existing Government with a dangerous lack of historical perspective. And our relations with the Christians are determined for us by the Quran, which says:

And thou wilt find nearer to the friendship of the believers those men who call themselves Christians. This is because among them there are learned men and hermits, and they are never vain.

Having thus established that Islam is a religion of peace, I now proceed to consider the purely political aspect of the lslamic ideal—the ideal of Islam as entertained by a corporate individuality. Given a settled society, what does Islam expect from its followers regarded as a community? What principles ought to guide them in the management of communal affairs? What must be their ultimate object and how is it to be achieved? We know that Islam is something more than a creed, it is also a community, a nation. The membership of Islam as a community is not determined by birth, locality or naturalisation; it consists in the identity of belief. The expression Indian Muhammadan, however convenient it may be, is a contradiction in terms: since Islam in its essence is above all conditions of time and space. Nationality with us is a pure idea; it has no geographical basis. But inasmuch as the average man demands a material centre of nationality, the Muslim looks for it in the holy town of Mecca, so that the basis of Muslim nationality combines the real and the ideal, the concrete and the abstract. When, therefore, it is said that the interests of Islam are superior to those of the Muslim, it is meant that the interests of the individual as a unit are subordinate to the interests of the community as an external symbol of the Islamic principle. This is the only principle, which limits the liberty of the individual, who is otherwise absolutely free. The best form of Government for such a community would be democracy, the ideal of which is to let man develop all the possibilities of his nature by allowing him as much freedom as practicable. The Caliph of Islam is not an infallible being; like other Muslims he is subject to the same law; he is elected by the people and is disposed by them if he goes contrary to the law. An ancestor of the present Sultan of Turkey was sued in an ordinary law court by a mason, who succeeded in getting him fined by the town Qazee. Democracy, then, is the most important aspect of Islam regarded as a political ideal. It must however be confessed that the Muslims, with their ideal of individual freedom, could do nothing for the political improvement of Asia. Their democracy lasted only thirty years and disappeared with their political expansion. Though the principle of election was not quite original in Asia (since the ancient Parthian Government was based on the same principle), yet somehow or other it was not suited to the nations of Asia in the early days of Islam. It was, however, reserved for a Western nation politically to vitalise the countries of Asia. Democracy has been the great mission of England in modern times and English statesmen have boldly carried this principle to countries which have been, for centuries, groaning under the most atrocious forms of despotism. The British Empire is a vast political organism, the vitality of which consists in the gradual working out of this principle. The permanence of the British Empire as a civilising factor in the political evolution of mankind is one of our greatest interests. This vast Empire has our fullest sympathy and respect since it is one aspect of our political ideal that is being slowly worked out in it. England, in fact, is doing one of our own great duties, which unfavourable circumstances did not permit us to perform. It is not the number of Muhammadans, which it protects, but the spirit of the British Empire that makes it the greatest Muhammadan Empire in the world.

To return now to the political constitution of the Muslim society. Just as there are two haste propositions underlying Muslim ethics, so there are two basic propositions underlying Muslim political constitution:

(1) The law of God is absolutely supreme. Authority, except as an interpreter of the law, has no place in the social structure of Islam. We regard it as inimical to the unfoldment of human individuality. The Shi’ias, of course, differ from the Sunnis in this respect. They hold that the Caliph or Imam is appointed by God and his interpretation of the Law is final; he is infallible and his authority, therefore, is absolutely supreme. There is certainly a grain of truth in this view; since the principle of absolute authority has functioned usefully in the course of the history of mankind. But it must be admitted that the idea works well in the case of primitive societies and reveals its deficiency when applied to higher stages of civilisation. Peoples grow out of it, as recent events have revealed in Persia, which is a Shi’a country, yet demand a fundamental structural change in her Government in the introduction of the principle of election.

(2) The absolute equality of all the members of the community. There is no aristocracy in Islam. “The noblest among you,” says the Prophet, “are those who fear God most,” There is no privileged class, no priesthood, no caste system. Islam is a unity in which there is no distinction, and this unity is secured by making men believe in the two simple propositions—the unity of God and the mission of the Prophet—propositions which are certainly of a supernatural character but which, based as they are on the general religious experience of mankind, are intensely true to the average human nature. Now, this principle of the equality of all believers made early Mussalmans the greatest political power in the world. Islam worked as a levelling force; it gave the individual a sense of his inward power; it elevated those who were socially low. The elevation of the down-trodden was the chief secret of the Muslim political power in India. The result of the British rule in this country has been exactly the same; and if England continues true to this principle it will ever remain a source of strength to her as it was to her predecessors.

But are we Indian Mussalmans true to this principle in our social economy? Is the organic unity of Islam intact in this land? Religious adventurers set up different sects and fraternities, ever quarrelling with one another; and then there are castes and sub-castes like the Hindus’. Surely we have out-Hindued the Hindu himself; we are suffering from a double caste system—the religious caste system, sectarianism, and the social caste system, which we have either learned or inherited from the Hindus. This is one of the quiet ways in which conquered nations’ revenge themselves on their conquerors. I condemn this accursed religious and social sectarianism; I condemn it in the name of God, in the name of humanity, in the name of Moses, in the name of Jesus Christ, and in the name of him—a thrill of emotion passes through the very fibre of my soul when I think of that exalted name—yes, in the name of him who brought the final message of freedom and equality to mankind. Islam is one and indivisible; it brooks no distinctions in it. There are no Wahabies, Sh’ias, Mirzais or Sunnies in Islam. Fight not for the interpretations of the truth, when the truth itself is in danger. It is foolish to complain of stumbling when you walk in the darkness of night. Let all come forward and contribute their respective shares in the great toll of the nation. Let the idols of class distinctions and sectarianism be smashed for ever; let the Mussalmans of the country be once more united into a great vital whole. How can we, in the presence of violent internal dispute, expect to succeed in persuading others to our way of thinking? The work of freeing humanity from superstition—the ultimate ideal of Islam as a community, for the realisation of which we have done so little in this great land of myth and superstition will ever remain undone if the emancipators themselves are becoming gradually enchained in the very fetters from which it is their mission to set others free.

* This paper was read by Allama Iqbal at the anniversary celebration of the Anjuman Hamayat-e-Islam. Lahore. It was first published in The Observer of Lahore in April 1909 and was fully reproduced in The Hindustan Review of Allahabad in its issues for July and December 1909.

2021-02-20T00:11:16+00:00

Speeches, Writings & Statements of Allama Iqbal

PART ONE

ADDRESSES AND SPEECHES

Presidential Address Delivered at the Annual Session of the All-India Muslim League, 29th December, 1930.

Presidential Address Delivered at the Annual Session of the All-India Muslim Conference, 21st March, 1932.

Speeches Delivered in the Punjab

(i) On the Budget for 1927-28 — 5th March, 1927.

(ii) On the Cut Motion on Government’s Demand for Grant under Education” — 10th March, 1927.

(iii) On Government’s Demands for Supplementary and Additional Grants, 1927-28 — 18th July, 1927.

(iv) On the Motion for Adjournment regarding Communal Riots in Multan — 18th July, 1927.

(v) On the Resolution regarding Filling of Posts by Open Competitive Examination — 19th July, 1927

(vi) On the Resolution regarding Unani and Ayurvedic Systems of Medicine — 22nd February, 1928.

(vii) On the Resolution regarding Application of the Principles of Assessment of Income-Tax to the Assessment of Land Revenue — 23rd February, 1928.

(viii) On the Budget for 1929-30— 4tb March, 1929. (ix) On the Budget for 1930-31 — 7th March, 1930.

PART TWO

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

(1) The Doctrine of Absolute Unity as Expounded by Abdul Karim al-Jilani.

(2) Islam as a Moral and Political Ideal

(3) The Muslim Community - a Sociological Study

(4) Political Thought in Islam

(5) Islam and Mysticism

(6) Muslim Democracy

(7) Our Prophet’s Criticism of Contemporary Arabian Poetry.

(8) Touch of Hegelianism in Lisanul ‘Asr Akbar

(9) Nietzsche and JaIal-ud-Din Rumi

(10) The Inner Synthesis of Life

(11) Divine Right to Rule

(12) A Plea for Deeper Study of the Muslim Scientists

(13) McTaggart’s Philosophy

(14) Corporeal Resurrection

(15) Position of Women in the East

PART THREE

ISLAM AND QADIANISM

(1) Qadianism and Orthodox Muslims

(2) Rejoinder to The Light, etc.

(3) A Letter to The Statesman

(4) Jewish Integrity under Roman Rule

(5) Islam and Ahmadism

(6) Letter to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru about the Ahmadis, 21st June, 1936. 240

PART FOUR

MISCELLANEOUS STATEMENTS, ETC.

(1) Letter to M.K. Gandhi, Declining the Officer of Vice-Chancellorship of Jami’ah Milliyah Islamiyah, Aligarh, 29th November, 1920.

(2) Letter of Resignation of the Office of Secretary to the All-India Muslim League, published on 24th June, 1928.

(3) Extract from a Letter to Sir Francis Young husband, published in The Civil and Military Gazette on 30th July, 1931.

(4) Statement on His Impressions of World Muslim Congress, published on 1st January, 1932.

(5) Statement on the Report of the Indian Franchise Committee, published on 5th June, 1932.

(6) Statement Explained the Postponement of the Meeting of the Executive Board of the All-India Muslim Conference, issued on 29th June, 1932.

(7) Statement Further Explaining the Postponement of the Meeting of the Executive Board of the All-India Muslim Conference, issued on 6th July, 1932.

(8) Statement on the Reported Split in the All-India Muslim Conference, issued on 25th July, 1932.

(9) Statement on the Sikh Demands, issued on 25th July, 1932.

(10) Statement on Sir Jogendra Singh’s Proposal for Sikh Muslim Negotiations, published on 4th August, 1932.

(11) Statement Explaining the Resolution Passed by the Working Committee of the All-India Muslim Conference regarding Sikh-Muslim Conversations, issued on 10th August, 1932.

(12) Statement on the Communal Award, issued on 24th August, 1932.

(13) Statement on the Lucknow Conference of Nationalist Muslim Leaders, issued on 8th October, 1932

(14) Report on the Interview regarding the Lucknow Conference, published in Bombay chronicle on 21st October, 1932.

(15) Statement on the Resolution Passed at the Lucknow Conference, issued on 17th October, 1932.

(16) Statement on the Constitution Emerging from the Round Table Conference, issued on 26th February, 1933.

(17) Statement on the Conditions Prevailing in Europe, issued on 26th February, 1933

(18) Statement on the Constitution Outlined in the While Paper, issued on 20th March, 1933.

(19) Statement on the Rebellion in Chinese Turkestan, published on 16th May, 1933.

(20) Statement on the Disturbances in Kashmir State, Issued on 7th June, 1933.

(21) Statement on His Resignation of the Office of President of the All-India Kashmir Committee, issued on 20th June, 1933.

(22) Statement on His Rejection of the Offer of Presidentship of the “Tehrik-i-Kashmir,” issued on 2nd October, 1933.

(23) Statement on the administrative Reforms in Kashmir issued on 3rd August, 1933.

(24) Statement on the “Punjab Communal Formula,” issued on 14th July, 1933.

(25) Statement Explaining Sir Fazl-i-Husain’s Observation in the Council of State regarding Pan-Islamism, issued on 19th September, 1933.

(26) Statement on the Proposed Afghan University, published on 19th October, 1933.

(27) Statement on the Conditions in Afghanistan, issued on 6th November, 1933.

(28) Statement Explaining the Attitude of Muslim Delegates to the Round Table Conferences, issued on 6th December 1933.

(29) Statement on the Congress Attitude towards the Communal Award, issued on 19th June, 1934.

(30) Letter to Miss Farquharson about His Views on the Palestine Report, 20th July, 1937.

(31) Statement on the Report Recommending the Partition of Palestine, Read at a Public Meeting held under the Auspices of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League at Lahore on 27th July, 1937.

(32) Letter to Miss Farquharson about the Palestine Problem, 6th September, 1937.

(33) Statement Urging the Creation of a Chair for Islamic Research, published on 10th December, 1937.

(34) New Year Message Broadcast from the Lahore Station of All-India Radio on 1st January, 1938.

(35) Statement on Islam and Nationalism in Reply to a Statement of Maulana Husain Ahmad, Published in the Ehsan on 9th March, 1938.

2021-02-20T00:11:16+00:00

In my verse

سرود برسر ممبر کہ ملت از وطن است
چہ بے خبر زمقام محمد عربی است

I have used the word Millat in the sense of “qaum” (nation). No doubt, the world “millat” has been used to mean law and religion in Arabic, and especially in the Holy Quran, but there exists in modern Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages considerable evidence to show that the word “millat” is also used in the sense of a nation. In my writings I have generally used the word in the latter sense. But in view of the fact that the meaning of the word “millat” does not, to any extent, affect the issues under consideration, leaving aside this controversy altogether, take it that Maulana Husain Ahmad said that nations are formed by lands. As a matter of fact, I have nothing to say even against this statement of the Maulana. Objection must, however, be raised when it is contented that in modern times nations are formed by lands and the Indian Muslims are advised to accept this view. Such advice brings before our minds the Western modern conception of nationalism, to one aspect of which is absolutely essential for a Muslim to take exception. It is a pity that my objection has led the Maulana to think that what I had in mind was to propagate the cause of some political party. Far from it, I have been repudiating the concept of nationalism since the time when it was not well known in India and the Muslim World. At the very start it had become clear to me for the writings of European authors that the imperialistic designs of Europe were in great need of this effective weapon___the propagation of the European conception of nationalism in Muslim countries___to shatter the religious unity of Islam to pieces. And the plan did succeed during the Great War. It has now reached its climax in as much as some of the religious leaders in India lend their support to this conception. Strange, indeed, are the vicissitudes of time. Formerly, the half-Westernized educated Muslims were under the spell of Europe; now the curse has descended upon religious leaders. Perhaps modern conceptions of Europe seem attractive to them but alas!

نو نہ گردو کعبہ را رخت حیات
گرزافرنگ آیدش لات و منات

I have just said that the Maulana’s statement that nations are formed by lands is not open to objection. This is so because from remote past nations have been associated with countries and countries with nations. We are all Indians and are so called because we live in that part of the world which is known by the name of India. So with the Chinese, the Arabs, the Japanese, the Persians etc. The word “country” used in this statement is merely a geographical term and, as such, does not clash with Islam. Its boundaries change with time. Till recently those living in Burma were Indians: at present they are Burmese. In this sense every human being loves the land of his birth, and according to his capacity remains prepared to make sacrifices for it. Some unthinking persons support this by saying
حب الوطن من الایمان
[love of one’s country is a part of one’s faith], which they think is a tradition of the Prophet, but this is hardly necessary. Love of one’s native land is a natural instinct and requires no impressions to nourish it. In the present day political literature, however, the idea of nation is not merely geographical: it is rather a principal of human society, the word “country” when used as a political concept, comes into conflict with Islam. No one else knows it better than Maulana Husain Ahmad that in its principles of human association Islam admits of no modus Vivendi and is not prepared to compromise with any other law regulating human society. Indeed it declares that every code of law other than that of Islam is inadequate and unacceptable. This principle raises some political controversies closely connected with India. For instance, cannot the Muslims live in unity with other nations? Cannot the various nations and communities unite for serving the country’s ends and so on and so forth? I must, however, perforce, leave these questions aside because at the moment my object is to criticize the religious aspect alone of the Maulana’s statement.

Besides rational arguments, experience also proves the truth of the above mentioned claim of the Islam. First, if the purpose of human society is to ensure peace and security for the nations and to transform their present social organism into a single social order, then one cannot think of any other social order than that of Islam. This is so because according to my reading of the Quran, Islam does not aim at the moral reformation of the individual alone; it also aims at a gradual but fundamental revolution in the social life of mankind, which should altogether change its national and racial viewpoint and create in its place a purely human consciousness. The history of religions conclusively shows that in ancient times religion was national as in the case of Egyptians, Greeks and Persians. Later on, it became racial as that of the Jews. Christianity taught that religion is an individual and private affair. Religion having become synonymous with private beliefs, Europe began to think that the State alone was responsible for the social life of man. It was Islam and Islam alone which, for the first time, gave the message to mankind that religion was neither national and racial, nor individual and private, but purely human and that its purpose was to unite and organize mankind despite all its natural distinctions. Such a system cannot be built on beliefs alone. And this is the only way in which harmony and concord can be introduced in the sentiments and thoughts of mankind. This harmony is essential for the formation and preservation of a community. How beautifully sings Maulana Roomi:

ہم دلی از ہم زبانی بہتر است

Any other way will be irreligious and contrary to human dignity. The example of Europe is before the world. When the religious unity of Europe got shattered and the nations of the continent became disunited, Europeans began to search for the basis of national life. Obviously, Christianity could not be such a basis. The Europeans found this basis in the idea of nationality. But what has been the end of their choice? ___ The reformation of Luther, the period of unsound rationalism, and separation___indeed war___between the principles of religion and State. Where did these factors drive Europe to?___To irreligiousness, religious skepticism and economic conflicts. Does Maulana Husain Ahmad desire that the experiement should be repeated in Asia? The Maulana thinks that in the present day world land is the necessary basis of a nation. No doubt, this is the general feeling these days, but it is also evident that this basis is by itself inadequate. There are a number of other forces also which are necessary for the formation of a nation. For instance, indifference towards religion, absorption in the day-to-day political issues, and so on. Besides there are also other factors which statesmen think out of themselves as means for maintaining unity and harmony in that nation. The Maulana ignores the fact that if such a nation comprises different religions and communities, the communities generally die away and the only common factor that remains in the individuals of that nation is irreligiousness. Not even a layman, let alone religious leaders, who think that religion is a necessary factor for human life, desires that such a state of affairs should be brought about in India .So far as the Muslims are concerned, it is a pity that, simple minded as they are, they are not fully aware of the consequences of this view of nationalism. If some Muslims have fallen into the error that religion and nationalism can go hand in hand as a political concept, then I want to give a timely warning to the Muslims that this course will ultimately lead to irreligiousness. And if this does not happen, Islam will be reduced to an ethical ideal with indifference to its social order as an inevitable consequence.

But the mischief latent in Maulana Husain Ahmad’s statement demands closer examination. I, therefore, hope that readers will pursue the following lines carefully. Maulana Husain Ahmad is a learned divine: he cannot therefore be unaware of the dangerous consequences of the view he has set forth for the followers of Muhammad [PBUH]. Whether he has used the word “qaum” or “millat” is immaterial. To use a word for a party which, according to him, consists of the followers of Muhammad [PBUH] and to say that land forms the basis of that party is very regrettable and unfortunate .It appears from his statement that he does feel conscious of his mistake, but not to the extent which should lead to its admission or rectification. A purely verbal and philological argument is mere quibbling. And a philological distinction between “qaum” and “millat” is no consolation. The distinction may perhaps console those who are unaware of the truths of the faith of Islam. Surely, this statement cannot deceive those who are in the know of things.

The Maulana has not realized that by offering his interpretation he has put before the Muslims two wrong and dangerous views. First, that the Muslims as a nation can be other than what they are as a millat. Secondly, because as a nation they happen to be Indian, they should, leaving aside their faith, lose their identity in the nationality of other Indian nations or in “Indianism”. It is merely quibbling on the words quam and millat. Otherwise the view is the same that has been described above and which the majority community in this country and its leaders are every day persuading the Indian Muslims to adopt, viz. that religion to be a merely private affair which should be confined to individuals alone. Politically they should not regard themselves as a separate nation: they should rather lose themselves in majority.

By saying that he has not used the word “millat” in his speech, the Maulana seems to pretend that he regards millat as something higher than nation. “There is”, he says, “a world of difference between the two, and if the nation be compared to earth, millat is like heaven”. In actual practice, however, he has left no place for millat by preaching to the eight crore Muslims to lose their identity in the country, and therefore in the majority, and to make nation a heaven and to ignore the fact that Islam will thereby be reduced to the status of the earth. By supporting that I was aware of the difference between the meanings of qaum and millat and that before writing the verse I had neither examined the press report of Maulana’s speech nor looked up the Qamus, the Maulana has charged me with ignorance of the Arabic language. I welcome the charge. It would, however, have been better if the Maulana had, if not for me, at least for the sake of the Muslim community, passed beyond the Qamus and referred to the Quran and, before placing this dangerous and unislamic view before the Muslims, had consulted the holy revelation sent by God. I admit that I am neither a learned divine nor a litterateur in Arabic.

قلندر جز دو حرف لاالہ کچھ بھی نہیں رکھتا
فقیہ شہر قاروں ہے لغت ہائے حجازی کا

But why was the Maulana content with Qamus alone? Has not the word “qaum” been used hundreds of times in the Quran? And has not the word “millat” occurred repeatedly in the Quran? What do qaum and millat mean in the Quranic verses? Is not the word “ummat” also used in addition to these words to donate the followers of the Prophet? Are these words so divergent in meaning that because of this difference one single nation can have different aspects, so much so that in matters of religion and law it should observe the divine code, while from the viewpoint of nationality it should follow a system which may be opposed to the religious system?

Had the Maulana sought evidence from the Quran, I am confident; the solution of this problem would have automatically suggested itself to him. The philological meaning of the words given by the Maulana is to a great extent correct. “Qaum” literally means a “group of persons excluding women” Philologically, then, women are not included in qaum. Millat also means religion and law. But the question is not one of the differences between the dictionary meanings of the two words. The real question is this: First, are the Muslims collectively a single, united and definite party founded on the Unity of God and the Finality of Prophethood as its basis, or are they a party which, owing to the requirements of race, nation and color can, leaving aside their religious unity, adopt some other social order based upon a different system and law? Secondly has the Quran ever employed the word “qaum” to denote this idea? Or does it use the words “ummat” or “millat” only? Thirdly, which word does the divine revelation employ in this connection? Does any Quranic verse say, “O ye people,” or “O ye faithful! Join the quam of Muslims or follow it”? Or is the call to follow the millat and to join the ummat?

So far as I have been able to understand, wherever the Quran calls upon the people to follow and join the Muslim party, the word “millat” or “ummat” is used. There is no call to follow or join any particular nation. For instance, the Quran says:

وَمَنۡ أَحۡسَنُ دِينً۬ا مِّمَّنۡ أَسۡلَمَ وَجۡهَهُ ۥ لِلَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحۡسِنٌ۬ وَٱتَّبَعَ مِلَّةَ إِبۡرَٲهِيمَ حَنِيفً۬ا‌ۗ
Surah 4, Verse 125
[Who is better in religion than he who surrendereth his purpose to Allah while doing good (to men)and followeth the millat of Abraham, the upright?]

The call is to obey and follow millat because millat stands for a religion a law and a programme. As qaum is no law or religion, it was of no use calling upon people to follow and to adhere to it. A group, whether it be a tribe or a race, a band of dacoits or a company of business men, the dwellers of a city or the inhabitants of a country as a geographical unit, is a mere group either of men or of both men and women. From the viewpoint of divine revelation and of a Prophet, this group is not yet a guided one. If revelation to a Prophet appears in this group, it will be the first to be addressed and it is for this reason associated with it, e.g. qaum of Noah, qaum of Moses and qaum of Lot. If, on the contrary, this group instead of following a Prophet follows a king or a chief, it will be attributable to him also, e.g. the qaum of Ad, the qaum of Pharaoh. If two groups happen to live in one country and if they follow mutually opposed leaders, they can still be associated with both the leaders; for instance, the qaum of Moses lived side by side with the qaum of Pharaoh:

وَقَالَ ٱلۡمَلَأُ مِن قَوۡمِ فِرۡعَوۡنَ أَتَذَرُ مُوسَىٰ وَقَوۡمَهُ ۥ لِيُفۡسِدُواْ فِى ٱلۡأَرۡضِ
Surah 7, Verse 127
[The chiefs of Pharaoh’s people said, ‘(O king!) wilt thou suffer Moses and his people to make mischief in the land?]

But whenever the word “qaum” occurs, it is used to mean a group including both the guided and the unguided. Those who follow the Prophet, professed the Unity of God, became part and parcel of the millat of the Prophet and his religion. In plainer language, they became Muslims. It must be remembered that the unbelievers can also have a faith and millat.

إِنِّى تَرَكۡتُ مِلَّةَ قَوۡمٍ۬ لَّا يُؤۡمِنُونَ بِٱللَّهِ
Surah 12, Verse 37
[Lo! I have forsaken the religion of people who do not believe in God]

A qaum can have a millat or a particular way of life. The millat of a qaum, on the other hand, has nowhere been used. This means that, in the Quran, God has used the word “millat” and not “qaum” for those persons who after renouncing different qaums and millats embraced the millat of Abraham.

What I have said above means that, so far as I have been able to see, no other word except ummat has been used for Muslims in the Holy Quran. If it is otherwise, I would very much like to know it. Qaum means a party of men, and this party can come into being in a thousand places and in a thousand forms upon the basis of tribe, race, color, language, land and ethical code. Millat, on the contrary, will carve out of the different parties a new and common party. In other words millat or ummat embraces nations but cannot be merged in them.

Circumstances have forced the present-day ulema to say things and interpret the Quran in a way which could never have been the intention of the Prophet and the Quran. Who does not know that Abraham was the first Prophet in whose revelation the distinctions of nations, races and lands were set aside? Humanity was divided into two classes only___monotheists and polytheists. Since then there are only two ummats in the world, without a third. The guardians of the Kaaba have today neglected the call of Abraham and Ishmael. Those who have put on the grab of nationalism do not think of that prayer of the founders of this millat which the two Prophets uttered when laying the foundation of Kaaba

وَإِذۡ يَرۡفَعُ إِبۡرَٲهِـۧمُ ٱلۡقَوَاعِدَ مِنَ ٱلۡبَيۡتِ وَإِسۡمَـٰعِيلُ رَبَّنَا تَقَبَّلۡ مِنَّآ‌ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلۡعَلِيمُ
رَبَّنَا وَٱجۡعَلۡنَا مُسۡلِمَيۡنِ لَكَ وَمِن ذُرِّيَّتِنَآ أُمَّةً۬ مُّسۡلِمَةً۬ لَّكَ
Surah 2, Verses 127-128
[And when Abraham and Ishmael were raising the foundations of the House, (Abraham prayed): Our Lord! Accept from us (this duty). Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Healer, the Knower. Our Lord! And make us submissive unto Thee and of our seed a nation submissive unto Thee]

After getting the name of ummat-i-Muslimah from the court of God was there any room left for merging part of the form of our society into some Arabian, Persian, Afghani, English, Egyptian or Indian nationality? There is only one millat confronting the Muslim community, that of the non –Muslims taken collectively.

The name of the faith which the Muslim community professes is “din-i-qayyim” in which term lies concealed a remarkable Quranic point, namely, that it is this religion alone in which is vested the responsibility of sustaining the present and future life of a group of people which surrenders its individual and social life to its system. In other words, according to the Quran, it is the religion of the Islam alone which sustains a nation in its true cultural or political sense. It is for this reason that the Quran openly declares that any system other than that of Islam must be deprecated and rejected.

There is another subtle point which the Muslims must ponder over. If the sentiment of nationalism was so important and valuable, why then did some of the people of his own family race and land rise against the Holy Prophet [PBUH]? Why did the Prophet not regard Islam as an all-embracing millat and form the viewpoint of nation or nationalism continue to own and encourage Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab? Indeed, why did he not keep the bond of national affinity with them in the political affairs of Arabia? If Islam stood for complete independence, the Quraish of Mecca had the same ideal before them. It is unfortunate that the Maulana does not consider the fact that the Messenger of God was concerned with the freedom of the upright faith of Islam and the Muslim community. To ignore the Muslims and to make them subservient to some other social order and then to seek some other kind of freedom was simply meaningless. The Prophet had to wage a defensive war against Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab because they could not tolerate Islam flourishing in freedom.

Before his call to Prophethood, the nation of Muhammad [PBUH] was no doubt a nation and a free one, but as Muhammad’s ummat began to be formed, the status of people as a nation became a secondary one. Those who accepted Muhammad’s leadership became part and parcel of the Muslim or Muhammadan community irrespective of the fact whether they belonged to his own nation or other nations. Formerly they had been slaves of land and race: land and race now became their slaves.

کے کہ پنجہ زد ملک و نسب را
نداند نکتہ دین عرب را
اگر قوم از وطن بودے
محمد ندادے دعوت دین بو لہب را

It was a very easy course for Muhammad [PBUH] to tell Abu Lahab, Abu Jahl, or the Unbelievers of Mecca that they could stick to their idol-worship while he himself would hold fast to the worship of God and that they could together form an Arabian unity by virtue of the factors of race and land common to them both. God forbid, but if he had adopted this course, it would certainly have done him credit as a patriot but not as the last Prophet. The ultimate purpose of the prophetic mission of Muhammad [PBUH] is to create a form of society, the constitution of which follows that divine law which the Prophet Muhammad [PBUH] received from God. In other words, the object is to purify the nation of the world of the abuses which go by the name of time, place, time, land, nation, race, genealogy, country etc, although the differences of nations, tribe, colors and languages are at the same time acknowledged. It is thus to bestow upon man that spiritual idea which at every moment of his life remains in constant contact with Eternity. This is where Muhammad [PBUH] stands and this is the ideal of the Muslim community. How many centuries will it take man to reach these heights, none can say, but there is no doubt that in removing the material differences the nations of the world and in bringing about harmony among them in spite of their differences of nations, tribes, races, colors, and languages, Islam has done something in thirteen hundred years what other religions could not do in three thousand years. Take it from me that the religion of Islam is an imperceptible and unfeelable biologic-psychological activity which is capable of influencing the thoughts and actions of mankind without any missionary effect. To invalidate such an activity by the innovations of present day political thinkers is to do violence to mankind as well as to the universality of that patriotic mission which gave birth to it.

That part of Maulana Husain Ahmad’s statement in which he has asked the editor of the Ehsan to produce an authority in support of the view that the millat of Islam is founded upon human dignity and brotherhood, must surprise many Muslims. To me, however, it has not come as a surprise, because, like misfortune, error too never comes alone. When a Muslim’s mind and heart are overpowered by that idea of nationalism which the Maulana is preaching, then it is inevitable that various kinds of doubts should arise in his mind concerning the foundation of Islam. From nationalism thoughts naturally move towards the idea that mankind has been sharply divided into nations that it is impossible to bring about unity among them. This second error which arises from nationalism gives birth to the conception of the relativity of religions, i.e. the religion of the land belongs to that land alone and does not suit the temperaments of other nations. This third error must inevitably lead to irreligiousness and skepticism.

This is the psychological analysis of that unfortunate Muslim who becomes a victim of spiritual paralysis. So far as the question of authority is concerned, the whole of the Quran is an authoritative verdict for it. There should be no misunderstanding about the words “dignity of man”. In Islamic thought these words mean that higher reality which has been vested in the heart and conscience of man, i.e. his inner structure derives itself from the immutable divine law, and that his dignity depends for its continuance and preservation upon that yearning for the Unity of God which permeates his whole being.

The history of man is an infinite process of mutual conflicts, sanguine battles and civil wars. In these circumstances can we have among mankind a constitution, the social life of which is based upon peace and security? The Qurans answer is: Yes, provided the man takes for his ideal the propagation of the Unity of God and actions of mankind. The search for such an ideal and its maintenance is no more miracle of political maneuvering: it is a peculiar greatness of the Holy Prophet [PBUH] that the self-invented distinctions and the superiority complexes of the nations of the world are destroyed and there comes to being a community which can be styled
امتہ مسلمہ لک
[A nation submissive to Thee] and to whose thoughts and actions the divine dictate
شهداء علی الناس

[Witness against mankind] justly applies. The truth is that in the mind of Maulana Husain Ahmad and others who think like him, the conception of nationalism in a way has the same place which the rejection of the Finality of the Holy Prophet [PBUH] has in the minds of Qadianis. The upholders of the idea of nationalism, in other words, say that ,in view of the present-day needs, it is necessary for the Muslim community to take up a position in addition to what the divine law has prescribed and defined for them for all time to come in the same way in which the Qadiani view, by inventing a new prophethood, directs the Qadiani thought into a channel which ultimately leads to the denial of the perfection and consummation of Prophethood in Muhammad[PBUH]. Prima facie, nationalism is a political concept while the Qadiani denial of the finality of Muhammad [PBUH] is a theological question, but between the two there exists a deep inner relationship which can be clearly demonstrated only when a Muslim historian gifted with acute insight, compiles a history of Indian Muslims with particular reference to the religious thought of some of their apparently energetic sects.

Let me conclude this article by quoting two verses from Khaqani in which he has addressed his contemporary Muslim thinkers who thought that perfection of knowledge consisted in interpreting the truths of Islam in the light of Geek philosophy. With a little change in meaning these verses aptly describe the present day Muslim political thinkers:

مرکب دین کہ زادہ عرب
است داغ یونانش بر کفل منہید
مشتے اطفال نو تعلیم را
لوح ادبار در بغل منہید

2021-02-20T00:11:16+00:00

NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE - 1938

Broadcast from the Lahore Station of the All-India Radio on the 1st january, 1938

The modern age prides itself on its progress in knowledge and its matchless scientific developments. No doubt, the pride is justified. Today space and time are being annihilated and man is achieving amazing successes in unveiling the secrets of nature and harnessing its forces to his own service. But in spite of all these developments, the tyranny of imperialism struts abroad, covering its face under the masks of Democracy, Nationalism, Communism, Fascism and heaven knows what else besides. Under these masks, in every corner of the earth, the spirit of freedom and the dignity of man are being trampled underfoot in a way to which not even the darkest period of human history presents a parallel. The so-called statesmen to whom government and leadership of men was entrusted have proved demons of bloodshed, tyranny and oppression. The rulers whose duty it was to protect and cherish those ideals which go to form a higher humanity, to prevent man’s oppression of man and to elevate the moral and intellectual level of mankind, have in their hunger for dominion and imperial possessions, shed the blood of millions and reduced millions to servitude simply in order to pander to the greed and avarice of their own particular groups. After subjugating and establishing their dominion over weaker peoples, they have robbed them of their possessions, of their religions, their morals, of their cultural traditions and their literatures. Then they sowed divisions among them that they should shed one another’s blood and go to sleep under the opiate of serfdom, so that the leech of imperialism might go on sucking their blood without interruption.

As I look back on the year that has passed and as I look at the world in the midst of the New Year’s rejoicing, it may be Abyssinia or Palestine, Spain or China, the same misery prevails in every corner of man’s earthly home, and hundreds of thousands of men are being butchered mercilessly. Engines of destruction created by science are wiping out the great landmarks of man’s cultural achievements. The governments which are not themselves engaged in this drama of fire and blood are sucking the blood of the weaker peoples economically. It is as if the day of doom had come upon the earth, in which each looks after the safety of his own skin, and in which no voice of human sympathy or fellowship is audible.

The world’s thinkers are stricken dumb. Is this going to be the end of all the progress and evolution of civilization, they ask, that men should destroy one another in mutual hatred and make human habitation impossible on this earth? Remember, man can be maintained on this earth only by honouring man kind, and this world will remain a battle-ground of ferocious beasts of prey unless and until the educational forces of the whole world are directed to inculcating in man respect for mankind. Do you not see that the people of Spain, though they have the same common bond of one race, one nationality, one language and one religion, are cutting one another’s throats and destroying their culture and civilization by their own hands owing to a difference in their economic creed? This one event shows clearly that national unity too is not a very durable force. Only one unity is dependable, and that unity is the brotherhood of man, which is above race, nationality, colour or language. So long as this so-called democracy, this accursed nationalism and this degraded imperialism are not shattered, so long as men do not demonstrate by their actions that they believe that the whole world is the family of God, so long as distinctions of race, colour and geographical nationalities are not wiped out completely, they will never be able to lead a happy and contented life and the beautiful ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity will never materialise.

Let us therefore begin the New Year with the prayer that God Almighty may grant humanity to those who are in places of power and government and teach them to cherish mankind.

2021-02-20T00:11:16+00:00

Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s 1930 Presidential Address to the 25th Session of the All-India Muslim League Allahabad, 29 December 1930

*[[1]]* Islam and Nationalism
*[[2]]* The Unity of an Indian Nation
*[[3]]* Muslim India Within India
*[[4]]* Federal States
*[[5]]* Federation As Understood in the Simon Report
*[[6]]* Federal Scheme As Discussed in the Round Table Conference
*[[7]]* The Problem of Defence
*[[8]]* The Alternative
*[[9]]* The Round Table Conference
*[[10]]* The Conclusion

[[0]] Gentlemen, I am deeply grateful to you for the honour you have conferred upon me in inviting me to preside over the deliberations of the All-India Muslim League at one of the most critical moments in the history of Muslim political thought and activity in India. I have no doubt that in this great assembly there are men whose political experience is far more extensive than mine, and for whose knowledge of affairs I have the highest respect. It will, therefore, be presumptuous on my part to claim to guide an assembly of such men in the political decisions which they are called upon to make today. I lead no party; I follow no leader. I have given the best part of my life to a careful study of Islam, its law and polity, its culture, its history and its literature. This constant contact with the spirit of Islam, as it

unfolds itself in time, has, I think, given me a kind of insight into its significance as a world fact. It is in the light of this insight, whatever its value, that, while assuming that the Muslims of India are determined to remain true to the spirit of Islam, I propose not to guide you in your decisions, but to attempt the humbler task of bringing clearly to your consciousness the main principle which, in my opinion, should determine the general character of these decisions.

[[1]] Islam and Nationalism

[[1a]] It cannot be denied that Islam, regarded as an ethical ideal plus a certain kind of polity – by which expression I mean a social structure regulated by a legal system and animated by a specific ethical ideal – has been the chief formative factor in the life-history of the Muslims of India. It has furnished those basic emotions and loyalties which gradually unify scattered individuals and groups, and finally transform them into a well-defined people, possessing a moral consciousness of their own. Indeed it is not an exaggeration to say that India is perhaps the only country in the world where Islam, as a people-building force, has worked at its best. In India, as elsewhere, the structure of Islam as a society is almost entirely due to the working of Islam as a culture inspired by a specific ethical ideal. What I mean to say is that Muslim society, with its remarkable homogeneity and inner unity, has grown to be what it is, under the pressure of the laws and institutions associated with the culture of Islam.

[[1b]] The ideas set free by European political thinking, however, are now rapidly changing the outlook of the present generation of Muslims both in India and outside India. Our younger men, inspired by these ideas, are anxious to see them as living forces in their own countries, without any critical appreciation of the facts which have determined their evolution in Europe. In Europe Christianity was understood to be a purely monastic order which gradually developed into a vast church organisation. The protest of Luther was directed against this church organisation, not against any system of polity of a secular nature, for the obvious reason that there was no such polity associated with Christianity. And Luther was perfectly justified in rising in revolt against this organisation; though, I think, he did not realise that in the peculiar conditions which obtained in Europe, his revolt would eventually mean the complete displacement of [the] universal ethics of Jesus by the growth of a plurality of national and hence narrower systems of ethics.

[[1c]] Thus the upshot of the intellectual movement initiated by such men as Rousseau and Luther was the break-up of the one into [the] mutually ill-adjusted many, the transformation of a human into a national outlook, requiring a more realistic foundation, such as the notion of country, and finding expression through varying systems of polity evolved on national lines, i.e. on lines which recognise territory as the only principle of political solidarity. If you begin with the conception of religion as complete other-worldliness, then what has happened to Christianity in Europe is perfectly natural. The universal ethics of Jesus is displaced by national systems of ethics and polity. The conclusion to which Europe is consequently driven is that religion is a private affair of the individual and has nothing to do with what is called man's temporal life.

[[1d]] Islam does not bifurcate the unity of man into an irreconcilable duality of spirit and matter. In Islam God and the universe, spirit and matter, Church and State, are organic to each other. Man is not the citizen of a profane world to be renounced in the interest of a world of spirit situated elsewhere. To Islam, matter is spirit realising itself in space and time. Europe uncritically accepted the duality of spirit and matter, probably from Manichaean thought. Her best thinkers are realising this initial mistake today, but her statesmen are indirectly forcing the world to accept it as an unquestionable dogma. It is, then, this mistaken separation of spiritual and temporal which has largely influenced European religious and political thought and has resulted practically in the total exclusion of Christianity from the life of European States. The result is a set of mutually ill-adjusted States dominated by interests not human but national. And these mutually ill-adjusted States, after trampling over the moral and religious convictions of Christianity, are today feeling the need of a federated Europe, i.e. the need of a unity which the Christian church organisation originally gave them, but which, instead of reconstructing it in the light of Christ's vision of human brotherhood, they considered fit to destroy under the inspiration of Luther.

[[1e]] A Luther in the world of Islam, however, is an impossible phenomenon; for here there is no church organisation similar to that of Christianity in the Middle Ages, inviting a destroyer. In the world of Islam we have a universal polity whose fundamentals are believed to have been revealed but whose structure, owing to our legists' [=legal theorists'] want of contact with the modern world, today stands in need of renewed power by fresh adjustments. I do not know what will be the final fate of the national idea in the world of Islam. Whether Islam will assimilate and transform it, as it has before assimilated and transformed many ideas expressive of a different spirit, or allow a radical transformation of its own structure by the force of this idea, is hard to predict. Professor Wensinck of Leiden (Holland) wrote to me the other day: "It seems to me that Islam is entering upon a crisis through which Christianity has been passing for more than a century. The great difficulty is how to save the foundations of religion when many antiquated notions have to be given up. It seems to me scarcely possible to state what the outcome will be for Christianity, still less what it will be for Islam." At the present moment the national idea is racialising the outlook of Muslims, and thus materially counteracting the humanizing work of Islam. And the growth of racial consciousness may mean the growth of standards different [from] and even opposed to the standards of Islam.

[[1f]] I hope you will pardon me for this apparently academic discussion. To address this session of the All-India Muslim League you have selected a man who is [=has] not despaired of Islam as a living force for freeing the outlook of man from its geographical limitations, who believes that religion is a power of the utmost importance in the life of individuals as well as States, and finally who believes that Islam is itself Destiny and will not suffer a destiny. Such a man cannot but look at matters from his own point of view. Do not think that the problem I am indicating is a purely theoretical one. It is a very living and practical problem calculated to affect the very fabric of Islam as a system of life and conduct. On a proper solution of it alone depends your future as a distinct cultural unit in India. Never in our history has Islam had to stand a greater trial than the one which confronts it today. It is open to a people to modify, reinterpret or reject the foundational principles of their social structure; but it is absolutely necessary for them to see clearly what they are doing before they undertake to try a fresh experiment. Nor should the way in which I am approaching this important problem lead anybody to think that I intend to quarrel with those who happen to think differently. You are a Muslim assembly and, I suppose, anxious to remain true to the spirit and ideals of Islam. My sole desire, therefore, is to tell you frankly what I honestly believe to be the truth about the present situation. In this way alone it is possible for me to illuminate, according to my light, the avenues of your political action.

[[2]] The Unity of an Indian Nation

[[2a]] What, then, is the problem and its implications? Is religion a private affair? Would you like to see Islam as a moral and political ideal, meeting the same fate in the world of Islam as Christianity has already met in Europe? Is it possible to retain Islam as an ethical ideal and to reject it as a polity, in favor of national polities in which [the] religious attitude is not permitted to play any part? This question becomes of special importance in India, where the Muslims happen to be a minority. The proposition that religion is a private individual experience is not surprising on the lips of a European. In Europe the conception of Christianity as a monastic order, renouncing the world of matter and fixing its gaze entirely on the world of spirit, led, by a logical process of thought, to the view embodied in this proposition. The nature of the Prophet's religious experience, as disclosed in the Quran, however, is wholly different. It is not mere experience in the sense of a purely biological event, happening inside the experient and necessitating no reactions on its social environment. It is individual experience creative of a social order. Its immediate outcome is the fundamentals of a polity with implicit legal concepts whose civic significance cannot be belittled merely because their origin is revelational.

[[2b]] The religious ideal of Islam, therefore, is organically related to the social order which it has created. The rejection of the one will eventually involve the rejection of the other. Therefore the construction of a polity on national lines, if it means a displacement of the Islamic principle of solidarity, is simply unthinkable to a Muslim. This is a matter which at the present moment directly concerns the Muslims of India. "Man," says Renan, "is enslaved neither by his race, nor by his religion, nor by the course of rivers, nor by the direction of mountain ranges. A great aggregation of men, sane of mind and warm of heart, creates a moral consciousness which is called a nation." Such a formation is quite possible, though it involves the long and arduous process of practically remaking men and furnishing them with a fresh emotional equipment. It might have been a fact in India if the teaching of Kabir and the Divine Faith of Akbar had seized the imagination of the masses of this country. Experience, however, shows that the various caste units and religious units in India have shown no inclination to sink their respective individualities in a larger whole. Each group is intensely jealous of its collective existence. The formation of the kind of moral consciousness which constitutes the essence of a nation in Renan’s sense demands a price which the peoples of India are not prepared to pay.

[[2c]] The unity of an Indian nation, therefore, must be sought not in the negation, but in the mutual harmony and cooperation, of the many. True statesmanship cannot ignore facts, however unpleasant they may be. The only practical course is not to assume the existence of a state of things which does not exist, but to recognise facts as they are, and to exploit them to our greatest advantage. And it is on the discovery of Indian unity in this direction that the fate of India as well as of Asia really depends. India is Asia in miniature. Part of her people have cultural affinities with nations of the east, and part with nations in the middle and west of Asia. If an effective principle of cooperation is discovered in India, it will bring peace and mutual goodwill to this ancient land which has suffered so long, more because of her situation in historic space than because of any inherent incapacity of her people. And it will at the same time solve the entire political problem of Asia.

[[2d]] It is, however, painful to observe that our attempts to discover such a principle of internal harmony have so far failed. Why have they failed? Perhaps we suspect each other’s intentions and inwardly aim at dominating each other. Perhaps, in the higher interests of mutual cooperation, we cannot afford to part with the monopolies which circumstances have placed in our hands, and [thus we] conceal our egoism under the cloak of nationalism, outwardly simulating a large-hearted patriotism, but inwardly as narrow-minded as a caste or tribe. Perhaps we are unwilling to recognise that each group has a right to free development according to its own cultural traditions. But whatever may be the causes of our failure, I still feel hopeful. Events seem to be tending in the direction of some sort of internal harmony. And as far as I have been able to read the Muslim mind, I have no hesitation in declaring that if the principle that the Indian Muslim is entitled to full and free development on the lines of his own culture and tradition in his own Indian home-lands is recognized as the basis of a permanent communal settlement, he will be ready to stake his all for the freedom of India.

[[2e]] The principle that each group is entitled to its free development on its own lines is not inspired by any feeling of narrow communalism. There are communalisms and communalisms. A community which is inspired by feelings of ill-will towards other communities is low and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the customs, laws, religious and social institutions of other communities. Nay, it is my duty, according to the teaching of the Quran, even to defend their places of worship, if need be. Yet I love the communal group which is the source of my life and behaviour; and which has formed me what I am by giving me its religion, its literature, its thought, its culture, and thereby recreating its whole past as a living operative factor, in my present consciousness. Even the authors of the Nehru Report recognise the value of this higher aspect of communalism. While discussing the separation of Sind they say, "To say from the larger viewpoint of nationalism that no communal provinces should be created, is, in a way, equivalent to saying from the still wider international viewpoint that there should be no separate nations. Both these statements have a measure of truth in them. But the staunchest internationalist recognises that without the fullest national autonomy it is extraordinarily difficult to create the international State. So also without the fullest cultural autonomy – and communalism in its better aspect is culture – it will be difficult to create a harmonious nation."

[[3]] Muslim India Within India

[[3a]] Communalism in its higher aspect, then, is indispensable to the formation of a harmonious whole in a country like India. The units of Indian society are not territorial as in European countries. India is a continent of human groups belonging to different races, speaking different languages, and professing different religions. Their behaviour is not at all determined by a common race-consciousness. Even the Hindus do not form a homogeneous group. The principle of European democracy cannot be applied to India without recognising the fact of communal groups. The Muslim demand for the creation of a Muslim India within India is, therefore, perfectly justified. The resolution of the All-Parties Muslim Conference at Delhi is, to my mind, wholly inspired by this noble ideal of a harmonious whole which, instead of stifling the respective individualities of its component wholes, affords them chances of fully working out the possibilities that may be latent in them. And I have no doubt that this House will emphatically endorse the Muslim demands embodied in this resolution.

[[3b]] Personally, I would go farther than the demands embodied in it. I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India. The proposal was put forward before the Nehru Committee. They rejected it on the ground that, if carried into effect, it would give a very unwieldy State. This is true in so far as the area is concerned; in point of population, the State contemplated by the proposal would be much less than some of the present Indian provinces. The exclusion of Ambala Division, and perhaps of some districts where non-Muslims predominate, will make it less extensive and more Muslim in population – so that the exclusion suggested will enable this consolidated State to give a more effective protection to non-Muslim minorities within its area. The idea need not alarm the Hindus or the British. India is the greatest Muslim country in the world. The life of Islam as a cultural force in the country very largely depends on its centralisation in a specified territory. This centralisation of the most living portion of the Muslims of India, whose military and police service has, notwithstanding unfair treatment from the British, made the British rule possible in this country, will eventually solve the problem of India as well as of Asia. It will intensify their sense of responsibility and deepen their patriotic feeling.

[[3c]] Thus, possessing full opportunity of development within the body politic of India, the North-West Indian Muslims will prove the best defenders of India against a foreign invasion, be that invasion one of ideas or of bayonets. The Punjab with 56 percent Muslim population supplies 54 percent of the total combatant troops in the Indian Army, and if the 19,000 Gurkhas recruited from the independent State of Nepal are excluded, the Punjab contingent amounts to 62 percent of the whole Indian Army. This percentage does not take into account nearly 6,000 combatants supplied to the Indian Army by the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. From this you can easily calculate the possibilities of North-West Indian Muslims in regard to the defence of India against foreign aggression. The Right Hon'ble Mr. Srinivasa Sastri thinks that the Muslim demand for the creation of autonomous Muslim states along the north-west border is actuated by a desire "to acquire means of exerting pressure in emergencies on the Government of India." I may frankly tell him that the Muslim demand is not actuated by the kind of motive he imputes to us; it is actuated by a genuine desire for free development which is practically impossible under the type of unitary government contemplated by the nationalist Hindu politicians with a view to secure permanent communal dominance in the whole of India.

[[3d]] Nor should the Hindus fear that the creation of autonomous Muslim states will mean the introduction of a kind of religious rule in such states. I have already indicated to you the meaning of the word religion, as applied to Islam. The truth is that Islam is not a Church. It is a State conceived as a contractual organism long before Rousseau ever thought of such a thing, and animated by an ethical ideal which regards man not as an earth-rooted creature, defined by this or that portion of the earth, but as a spiritual being understood in terms of a social mechanism, and possessing rights and duties as a living factor in that mechanism. The character of a Muslim State can be judged from what the Times of India pointed out some time ago in a leader [=front-page article] on the Indian Banking Inquiry Committee. "In ancient India," the paper points out, "the State framed laws regulating the rates of interest; but in Muslim times, although Islam clearly forbids the realisation of interest on money loaned, Indian Muslim States imposed no restrictions on such rates." I therefore demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim State in the best interests of India and Islam. For India, it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam, an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilise its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times.

[[4]] Federal States

[[4a]] Thus it is clear that in view of India's infinite variety in climates, races, languages, creeds and social systems, the creation of autonomous States, based on the unity of language, race, history, religion and identity of economic interests, is the only possible way to secure a stable constitutional structure in India. The conception of federation underlying the Simon Report necessitates the abolition of the Central Legislative Assembly as a popular assembly, and makes it an assembly of the representatives of federal States. It further demands a redistribution of territory on the lines which I have indicated. And the Report does recommend both. I give my wholehearted support to this view of the matter, and venture to suggest that the redistribution recommended in the Simon Report must fulfill two conditions. It must precede the introduction of the new constitution, and must be so devised as to finally solve the communal problem. Proper redistribution will make the question of joint and separate electorates automatically disappear from the constitutional controversy of India. It is the present structure of the provinces that is largely responsible for this controversy.

[[4b]] The Hindu thinks that separate electorates are contrary to the spirit of true nationalism, because he understands the word nation to mean a kind of universal amalgamation in which no communal entity ought to retain its private individuality. Such a state of things, however, does not exist. Nor is it desirable that it should exist. India is a land of racial and religious variety. Add to this the general economic inferiority of the Muslims, their enormous debt, especially in the Punjab, and their insufficient majorities in some of the provinces as at present constituted, and you will begin to see clearly the meaning of our anxiety to retain separate electorates. In such a country and in such circumstances territorial electorates cannot secure adequate representation of all interests, and must inevitably lead to the creation of an oligarchy. The Muslims of India can have no objection to purely territorial electorates if provinces are demarcated so as to secure comparatively homogeneous communities possessing linguistic, racial, cultural and religious unity.

[[5]] Federation As Understood in the Simon Report

[[5a]] But in so far as the question of the powers of the Central Federal State is concerned, there is a subtle difference of motive in the constitutions proposed by the pundits of India and the pundits of England. The pundits of India do not disturb the Central authority as it stands at present. All that they desire is that this authority should become fully responsible to the Central Legislature which they maintain intact and where their majority will become further reinforced on the nominated element ceasing to exist. The pundits of England, on the other hand, realising that democracy in the Centre tends to work contrary to their interests and is likely to absorb the whole power now in their hands, in case a further advance is made towards responsible government, have shifted the experience of democracy from the Centre to the provinces. No doubt, they introduce the principle of Federation and appear to have made a beginning by making certain proposals; yet their evaluation of this principle is determined by considerations wholly different to those which determine its value in the eyes of Muslim India. The Muslims demand federation because it is pre-eminently a solution of India’s most difficult problem, i.e. the communal problem. The Royal Commissioners' view of federation, though sound in principle, does not seem to aim at responsible government for federal States. Indeed it does not go beyond providing means of escape from the situation which the introduction of democracy in India has created for the British, and wholly disregards the communal problem by leaving it where it was.

[[5b]] Thus it is clear that, in so far as real federation is concerned, the Simon Report virtually negatives the principle of federation in its true significance. The Nehru Report, realising [a] Hindu majority in the Central Assembly, reaches a unitary form of government because such an institution secures Hindu dominance throughout India; the Simon Report retains the present British dominance behind the thin veneer of an unreal federation, partly because the British are naturally unwilling to part with the power they have so long wielded and partly because it is possible for them, in the absence of an inter-communal understanding in India, to make out a plausible case for the retention of that power in their own hands. To my mind a unitary form of government is simply unthinkable in a self-governing India. What is called "residuary powers" must be left entirely to self-governing States, the Central Federal State exercising only those powers which are expressly vested in it by the free consent of federal States. I would never advise the Muslims of India to agree to a system, whether of British or of Indian origin, which virtually negatives the principle of true federation, or fails to recognise them as a distinct political entity.

[[6]] Federal Scheme As Discussed in the Round Table Conference

[[6a]] The necessity for a structural change in the Central Government was seen probably long before the British discovered the most effective means for introducing this change. That is why at rather a late stage it was announced that the participation of the Indian Princes in the Round Table Conference was essential. It was a kind of surprise to the people of India, particularly the minorities, to see the Indian Princes dramatically expressing their willingness at the Round Table Conference to join an all-India federation and, as a result of their declaration, Hindu delegates – uncompromising advocates of a unitary form of government – quietly agreeing to the evolution of a federal scheme. Even Mr. Sastri who only a few days before had severely criticised Sir John Simon for recommending a federal scheme for India, suddenly became a convert and admitted his conversion in the plenary session of the Conference – thus offering the Prime Minister of England an occasion for one of his wittiest observations in his concluding speech. All this has a meaning both for the British who have sought the participation of the Indian Princes, and for the Hindus who have unhesitatingly accepted the evolution of an all-India federation. The truth is that the participation of the Indian Princes, among whom only a few are Muslims, in a federation scheme serves a double purpose. On the one hand, it serves as an all-important factor in maintaining the British power in India practically as it is; on the other hand, it gives [an] overwhelming majority to the Hindus in an All-India Federal Assembly.

[[6b]] It appears to me that the Hindu-Muslim differences regarding the ultimate form of the Central Government are being cleverly exploited by British politicians through the agency of the Princes who see in the scheme prospects of better security for their despotic rule. If the Muslims silently agree to any such scheme, it will simply hasten their end as a political entity in India. The policy of the Indian federation thus created, will be practically controlled by [the] Hindu Princes forming the largest group in the Central Federal Assembly. They will always lend their support to the Crown in matters of Imperial concern; and in so far as internal administration of the country is concerned, they will help in maintaining and strengthening the supremacy of the Hindus. In other words, the scheme appears to be aiming at a kind of understanding between Hindu India and British Imperialism – you perpetuate me in India, and I in return give you a Hindu oligarchy to keep all other Indian communities in perpetual subjection. If, therefore, the British Indian provinces are not transformed into really autonomous States, the Princes' participation in a scheme of Indian federation will be interpreted only as a dexterous move on the part of British politicians to satisfy, without parting with any real power, all parties concerned – Muslims with the word federation; Hindus with a majority in the Centre; the British Imperialists – with the substance of real power.

[[6c]] The number of Hindu States in India is far greater than Muslim States; and it remains to be seen how the Muslim demand for 33 percent [of the] seats in the Central Federal Assembly is to be met within a House or Houses constituted of representatives taken from British India as well as Indian States. I hope the Muslim delegates are fully aware of the implications of the federal scheme as discussed in the Round Table Conference. The question of Muslim representation in the proposed all-India federation has not yet been discussed. "The interim report," says Reuters' summary, "contemplates two chambers in the Federal Legislature, each containing representatives both of British India and States, the proportion of which will be a matter of subsequent consideration under the heads which have not yet been referred to the Sub-Committee." In my opinion the question of proportion is of the utmost importance and ought to have been considered simultaneously with the main question of the structure of the Assembly.

[[6d]] The best course, I think, would have been to start with a British Indian Federation only. A federal scheme born of an unholy union between democracy and despotism cannot but keep British India in the same vicious circle of a unitary Central Government. Such a unitary form may be of the greatest advantage to the British, to the majority community in British India, and to the Indian Princes; it can be of no advantage to the Muslims, unless they get majority rights in five out of eleven Indian provinces with full residuary powers, and one-third share of seats in the total House of the Federal Assembly. In so far as the attainment of sovereign powers by the British Indian provinces is concerned, the position of His Highness the Ruler of Bhopal, Sir Akbar Hydari, and Mr. Jinnah is unassailable. In view, however, of the participation of the Princes in the Indian Federation, we must now see our demand for representation in the British Indian Assembly in a new light. The questions is not one of [the] Muslim share in a British Indian Assembly, but one which relates to representation of British Indian Muslims in an All-India Federal Assembly. Our demand for 33 per cent must now be taken as a demand for the same proportion in the All-India Federal Assembly, exclusive of the share allotted to the Muslim states entering the Federation.

[[7]] The Problem of Defence

[[7a]] The other difficult problem which confronts the successful working of a federal system in India is the problem of India's defence. In their discussion of this problem the Royal Commissioners have marshalled all the deficiencies of India in order to make out a case for Imperial administration of the Army. "India and Britain," say the Commissioners, "are so related that India's defence cannot, now or in any future which is within sight, be regarded as a matter of purely Indian concern. The control and direction of such an army must rest in the hands of agents of Imperial Government." Now, does it [not] necessarily follow from this that further progress towards the realisation of responsible government in British India is barred until the work of defence can be adequately discharged without the help of British officers and British troops? As things are, there is a block on the line of constitutional advance. All hopes of evolution in the Central Government towards the ultimate goal prescribed in the declaration of 20th August 1917, are in danger of being indefinitely frustrated, if the attitude illustrated by the Nehru Report is maintained, that any future change involves the putting of the administration of the army under the authority of an elected Indian Legislature. Further to fortify their argument they emphasize the fact of competing religions and rival races of widely different capacity, and try to make the problem look insoluble by remarking that "the obvious fact that India is not, in the ordinary and natural sense, a single nation is nowhere made more plain than in considering the difference between the martial races of India and the rest." These features of the question have been emphasised in order to demonstrate that the British are not only keeping India secure from foreign menace but are also the "neutral guardians" of internal security.

[[7b]] However, in federated India, as I understand federation, the problem will have only one aspect, i.e. external defence. Apart from provincial armies necessary for maintaining internal peace, the Indian Federal Congress can maintain, on the north-west frontier, a strong Indian Frontier Army, composed of units recruited from all provinces and officered by efficient and experienced military men taken from all communities. I know that India is not in possession of efficient military officers, and this fact is exploited by the Royal Commissioners in the interest of an argument for Imperial administration. On this point I cannot but quote another passage from the Report which, to my mind, furnishes the best argument against the position taken up by the Commissioners. "At the present moment," says the Report, "no Indian holding the King's Commission is of higher army rank than a captain. There are, we believe, 39 captains of whom 25 are in ordinary regimental employ. Some of them are of an age which would prevent their attaining much higher rank, even if they passed the necessary examination before retirement. Most of these have not been through Sandhurst, but got their Commissions during the Great War." Now, however genuine may be the desire, and however earnest the endeavour to work for this transformation, overriding conditions have been so forcibly expressed by the Skeen Committee (whose members, apart from the Chairman and the Army Secretary, were Indian gentlemen) in these words: Progress...must be contingent upon success being secured at each stage and upon military efficiency being maintained, though it must in any case render such development measured and slow. A higher command cannot be evolved at short notice out of existing cadres of Indian officers, all of junior rank and limited experience. Not until the slender trickle of suitable Indian recruits for the officer class – and we earnestly desire an increase in their numbers – flows in much greater volume, not until sufficient Indians have attained the experience and training requisite to provide all the officers for, at any rate, some Indian regiments, not until such units have stood the only test which can possibly determine their efficiency, and not until Indian officers have qualified by a successful army career for the high command, will it be possible to develop the policy of Indianisation to a point which will bring a completely Indianised army within sight. Even then years must elapse before the process could be completed."

[[7c]] Now I venture to ask: who is responsible for the present state of things? Is it due to some inherent incapacity of our martial races, or to the slowness of the process of military training? The military capacity of our martial races is undeniable. The process of military training may be slow as compared to other processes of human training. I am no military expert to judge this matter. But as a layman I feel that the argument, as stated, assumes the process to be practically endless. This means perpetual bondage for India, and makes it all the more necessary that the Frontier Army, as suggested by the Nehru Report, be entrusted to the charge of a committee of defence, the personnel of which may be settled by mutual understanding.

[[7d]] Again, it is significant that the Simon Report has given extraordinary importance to the question of India's land frontier, but has made only passing references to its naval position. India has doubtless had to face invasions from her land frontier; but it is obvious that her present masters took possession of her on account of her defenceless sea coast. A self-governing and free India will, in these days, have to take greater care of her sea coast than [of her] land frontiers.

[[7e]] I have no doubt that if a Federal Government is established, Muslim federal States will willingly agree, for purposes of India's defence, to the creation of neutral Indian military and naval forces. Such a neutral military force for the defence of India was a reality in the days of Mughal rule. Indeed in the time of Akbar the Indian frontier was, on the whole, defended by armies officered by Hindu generals. I am perfectly sure that the scheme for a neutral Indian army, based on a federated India, will intensify Muslim patriotic feeling, and finally set at rest the suspicion, if any, of Indian Muslims joining Muslims from beyond the frontier in the event of an invasion.

[[8]] The Alternative

[[8a]] I have thus tried briefly to indicate the way in which the Muslims of India ought, in my opinion, to look at the two most important constitutional problems of India. A redistribution of British India, calculated to secure a permanent solution of the communal problem, is the main demand of the Muslims of India. If, however, the Muslim demand of a territorial solution of the communal problem is ignored, then I support, as emphatically as possible, the Muslim demands repeatedly urged by the All-India Muslim League and the All-India Muslim Conference. The Muslims of India cannot agree to any constitutional changes which affect their majority rights, to be secured by separate electorates in the Punjab and Bengal, or [which] fail to guarantee them 33 percent representation in any Central Legislature. There were two pitfalls into which Muslim political leaders fell. The first was the repudiated Lucknow Pact, which originated in a false view of Indian nationalism and deprived the Muslims of India of chances of acquiring any political power in India. The second is the narrow-visioned sacrifice of Islamic solidarity, in the interests of what may be called Punjab ruralism, resulting in a proposal which virtually reduces the Punjab Muslims to a position of minority. It is the duty of the League to condemn both the Pact and the proposal.

[[8b]] The Simon Report does great injustice to the Muslims in not recommending a statutory majority for the Punjab and Bengal. It would make the Muslims either stick to the Lucknow Pact or agree to a scheme of joint electorates. The despatch of the Government of India on the Simon Report admits that since the publication of that document the Muslim community has not expressed its willingness to accept any of the alternatives proposed by the Report. The despatch recognises that it may be a legitimate grievance to deprive the Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal of representation in the councils in proportion to their population merely because of weightage allowed to Muslim minorities elsewhere. But the despatch of the Government of India fails to correct the injustice of the Simon Report. In so far as the Punjab is concerned – and this is the most crucial point – it endorses the so-called "carefully balanced scheme" worked out by the official members of the Punjab Government which gives the Punjab Muslims a majority of two over Hindus and Sikhs combined, and a proportion of 49 percent of the House as a whole. It is obvious that the Punjab Muslims cannot be satisfied with less than a clear majority in the total House. However, Lord Irwin and his Government do recognise that the justification for communal electorates for majority communities would not cease unless and until by the extension of franchise their voting strength more correctly reflects their population; and further unless a two-thirds majority of the Muslim members in a provincial Council unanimously agree to surrender the right of separate representation. I cannot, however, understand why the Government of India, having recognised the legitimacy of the Muslim grievances, have not had the courage to recommend a statutory majority for the Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal.

[[8c]] Nor can the Muslims of India agree to any such changes which fail to create at least Sind as a separate province and treat the North-West Frontier Province as a province of inferior political status. I see no reason why Sind should not be united with Baluchistan and turned into a separate province. It has nothing in common with Bombay Presidency. In point of life and civilization the Royal Commissioners find it more akin to Mesopotamia and Arabia than India. The Muslim geographer Mas'udi noticed this kinship long ago when he said: "Sind is a country nearer to the dominions of Islam." The first Omayyad ruler is reported to have said of Egypt: "Egypt has her back towards Africa and face towards Arabia." With necessary alterations the same remark describes the exact situation of Sind. She has her back towards India and face towards Central Asia. Considering further the nature of her agricultural problems which can invoke no sympathy from the Bombay Government, and her infinite commercial possibilities, dependent on the inevitable growth of Karachi into a second metropolis of India, it is unwise to keep her attached to a Presidency which, though friendly today, is likely to become a rival at no distant period. Financial difficulties, we are told, stand in the way of separation. I do not know of any definite authoritative pronouncement on the matter. But assuming there are any such difficulties, I see no reason why the Government of India should not give temporary financial help to a promising province in her struggle for independent progress.

[[8d]] As to the North-West Frontier Province, it is painful to note that the Royal Commissioners have practically denied that the people of this province have any right to reform. They fall far short of the Bray Committee, and the Council recommended by them is merely a screen to hide the autocracy of the Chief Commissioner. The inherent right of the Afghan to light a cigarette is curtailed merely because he happens to be living in a powder house. The Royal Commissioners' epigrammatic argument is pleasant enough, but far from convincing. Political reform is light, not fire; and to light every human being is entitled, whether he happens to live in a powder house or a coal mine. Brave, shrewd, and determined to suffer for his legitimate aspirations, the Afghan is sure to resent any attempt to deprive him of opportunities of full self-development. To keep such a people contented is in the best interest of both England and India. What has recently happened in that unfortunate province is the result of a step-motherly treatment shown to the people since the introduction of the principle of self-government in the rest of India. I only hope that British statesmanship will not obscure its view of the situation by hoodwinking itself into the belief that the present unrest in the province is due to any extraneous causes.

[[8e]] The recommendation for the introduction of a measure of reform in the North-West Frontier Province made in the Government of India's despatch is also unsatisfactory. No doubt, the despatch goes farther than the Simon Report in recommending a sort of representative Council and a semi-representative cabinet, but it fails to treat this important Muslim province on [an] equal footing with other Indian provinces. Indeed the Afghan is, by instinct, more fitted for democratic institutions than any other people in India.

[[9]] The Round Table Conference

[[9a]] I think I am now called upon to make a few observations on the Round Table Conference. Personally I do not feel optimistic as to the results of this Conference. It was hoped that away from the actual scene of communal strife and in a changed atmosphere, better counsels would prevail and a genuine settlement of the differences between the two major communities of India would bring India's freedom within sight. Actual events, however, tell a different tale. Indeed, the discussion of the communal question in London has demonstrated more clearly than ever the essential disparity between the two great cultural units of India. Yet the Prime Minister of England apparently refuses to see that the problem of India is international and not national. He is reported to have said that "his government would find it difficult to submit to Parliament proposals for the maintenance of separate electorates, since joint electorates were much more in accordance with British democratic sentiments." Obviously he does not see that the model of British democracy cannot be of any use in a land of many nations; and that a system of separate electorates is only a poor substitute for a territorial solution of the problem. Nor is the Minorities Sub-Committee likely to reach a satisfactory settlement. The whole question will have to go before the British Parliament; and we can only hope that the keen-sighted representatives of [the] British nation, unlike most of our Indian politicians, will be able to pierce through the surface of things and see clearly the true fundamentals of peace and security in a country like India. To base a constitution on the concept of a homogeneous India, or to apply to India principles dictated by British democratic sentiments, is unwittingly to prepare her for a civil war. As far as I can see, there will be no peace in the country until the various peoples that constitute India are given opportunities of free self-development on modern lines without abruptly breaking with their past.

[[9b]] I am glad to be able to say that our Muslim delegates fully realise the importance of a proper solution of what I call [the] Indian international problem. They are perfectly justified in pressing for a solution of the communal question before the question of responsibility in the Central Government is finally settled. No Muslim politician should be sensitive to the taunt embodied in that propaganda word – communalism – expressly devised to exploit what the Prime Minister calls British democratic sentiments, and to mislead England into assuming a state of things which does not really exist in India. Great interests are at stake. We are 70 millions, and far more homogeneous than any other people in India. Indeed the Muslims of India are the only Indian people who can fitly be described as a nation in the modern sense of the word. The Hindus, though ahead of us in almost all respects, have not yet been able to achieve the kind of homogeneity which is necessary for a nation, and which Islam has given you as a free gift. No doubt they are anxious to become a nation, but the process of becoming a nation is kind of travail, and in the case of Hindu India involves a complete overhauling of her social structure.

[[9c]] Nor should the Muslim leaders and politicians allow themselves to be carried away by the subtle but fallacious argument that Turkey and Persia and other Muslim countries are progressing on national, i.e. territorial, lines. The Muslims of India are differently situated. The countries of Islam outside India are practically wholly Muslim in population. The minorities there belong, in the language of the Quran, to the 'people of the Book'. There are no social barriers between Muslims and the 'people of the Book'. A Jew or a Christian or a Zoroastrian does not pollute the food of a Muslim by touching it, and the law of Islam allows intermarriage with the 'people of the Book'. Indeed the first practical step that Islam took towards the realisation of a final combination of humanity was to call upon peoples possessing practically the same ethical ideal to come forward and combind. The Quran declares: "O people of the Book! Come, let us join together on the 'word' (Unity of God), that is common to us all." The wars of Islam and Christianity, and later, European aggression in its various forms, could not allow the infinite meaning of this verse to work itself out in the world of Islam. Today it is being gradually realised in the countries of Islam in the shape of what is called Muslim Nationalism.

[[9d]] It is hardly necessary for me to add that the sole test of the success of our delegates is the extent to which they are able to get the non-Muslim delegates of the Conference to agree to our demands as embodied in the Delhi Resolution. If these demands are not agreed to, then a question of a very great and far-reaching importance will arise for the community. Then will arrive the moment for independent and concerted political action by the Muslims of India. If you are at all serious about your ideals and aspirations, you must be ready for such an action. Our leading men have done a good deal of political thinking, and their thought has certainly made us, more or less, sensitive to the forces which are now shaping the destinies of peoples in India and outside India. But, I ask, has this thinking prepared us for the kind of action demanded by the situation which may arise in the near future?

[[9e]] Let me tell you frankly that, at the present moment, the Muslims of India are suffering from two evils. The first is the want of personalities. Sir Malcolm Hailey and Lord Irwin were perfectly correct in their diagnosis when they told the Aligarh University that the community had failed to produce leaders. By leaders I mean men who, by Divine gift or experience, possess a keen perception of the spirit and destiny of Islam, along with an equally keen perception of the trend of modern history. Such men are really the driving forces of a people, but they are God’s gift and cannot be made to order.

[[9f]] The second evil from which the Muslims of India are suffering is that the community is fast losing what is called the herd instinct. This [loss] makes it possible for individuals and groups to start independent careers without contributing to the general thought and activity of the community. We are doing today in the domain of politics what we have been doing for centuries in the domain of religion. But sectional bickerings in religion do not do much harm to our solidarity. They at least indicate an interest in what makes the sole principle of our structure as a people. Moreover, the principle is so broadly conceived that it is almost impossible for a group to become rebellious to the extent of wholly detaching itself from the general body of Islam. But diversity in political action, at a moment when concerted action is needed in the best interests of the very life of our people, may prove fatal.

[[9g]] How shall we, then, remedy these two evils? The remedy of the first evil is not in our hands. As to the second evil, I think it is possible to discover a remedy. I have got definite views on the subject; but I think it is proper to postpone their expression till the apprehended situation actually arises. In case it does arise, leading Muslims of all shades of opinion will have to meet together, not to pass resolutions, but finally to determine the Muslim attitude and to show the path to tangible achievement. In this address I mention this alternative only because I wish that you may keep it in mind and give some serious thought to it in the meantime.

[[10]] The Conclusion

[[10a]] Gentlemen, I have finished. In conclusion I cannot but impress upon you that the present crisis in the history of India demands complete organisation and unity of will and purpose in the Muslim community, both in your own interest as a community, and in the interest of India as a whole. The political bondage of India has been and is a source of infinite misery to the whole of Asia. It has suppressed the spirit of the East and wholly deprived her of that joy of self-expression which once made her the creator of a great and glorious culture. We have a duty towards India where we are destined to live and die. We have a duty towards Asia, especially Muslim Asia. And since 70 millions of Muslims in a single country constitute a far more valuable asset to Islam than all the countries of Muslim Asia put together, we must look at the Indian problem not only from the Muslim point of view, but also from the standpoint of the Indian Muslim as such. Our duty towards Asia and India cannot be loyally performed without an organised will fixed on a definite purpose. In your own interest, as a political entity among other political entities of India, such an equipment is an absolute necessity.

[[10b]] Our disorganised condition has already confused political issues vital to the life of the community. I am not hopeless of an intercommunal understanding, but I cannot conceal from you the feeling that in the near future our community may be called upon to adopt an independent line of action to cope with the present crisis. And an independent line of political action, in such a crisis, is possible only to a determined people, possessing a will focalised by a single purpose. Is it possible for you to achieve the organic wholeness of a unified will? Yes, it is. Rise above sectional interests and private ambitions, and learn to determine the value of your individual and collective action, however directed on material ends, in the light of the ideal which you are supposed to represent. Pass from matter to spirit. Matter is diversity; spirit is light, life and unity.

[[10c]] One lesson I have learnt from the history of Muslims. At critical moments in their history it is Islam that has saved Muslims and not vice versa. If today you focus your vision on Islam and seek inspiration from the ever-vitalising idea embodied in it, you will be only reassembling your scattered forces, regaining your lost integrity, and thereby saving yourself from total destruction. One of the profoundest verses in the Holy Quran teaches us that the birth and rebirth of the whole of humanity is like the birth and rebirth of a single individual. Why cannot you who, as a people, can well claim to be the first practical exponents of this superb conception of humanity, live and move and have your being as a single individual? I do not wish to mystify anybody when I say that things in India are not what they appear to be. The meaning of this, however, will dawn upon you only when you have achieved a real collective ego to look at them. In the words of the Quran, "Hold fast to yourself; no one who erreth can hurt you, provided you are well guided" (5:104).

Source: Speeches, Writings, and Statements of Iqbal, compiled and edited by Latif Ahmed Sherwani (Lahore: Iqbal Academy, 1977 [1944], 2nd ed., revised and enlarged), pp. 3-26. This version has been slightly edited by FWP for classroom use. Some extremely long paragraphs have been broken into shorter ones; small errors of punctuation, etc., have been corrected. All italics are those of the original text. Annotations in square brackets, and paragraph numbers in double brackets, have been added by FWP.

Online Source: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_iqbal_1930.html