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2021-02-20T06:38:43+00:00

The Mystical Thoughts of Iqbal and its Contemporary Use

Sayed Mustafa Saiedy

University Lecturer

Talking about the history man of the orient, the multidimensional character who is either a philosopher or a fighter; the master of thoughts and the mystics, and a prominent poet, whose thoughts goes beyond the sun. The mystical thought of Iqbal is based on the teachings of Islam and is in harmony with the current situation of the world. Through the study of genuine Islamic sources, understanding the material and spiritual needs of today’s mankind, learning from the history of humanity, and contemplating about the old and new philosophical and mystical thoughts, Iqbal begun to reconstruct the religious and mystical thoughts of Islam. He argues that the traditional mystical views, regardless of the spiritual and material needs of the new age, are never answerable today. In the thought of Iqbal, motion and love play an essential role; it's as if love moves with motion and motion with love. His school is a dynamic school, of which, the seeker ascends toward the absolute perfection. But he will never suffice to direct "personal" and "salvation". He calls for the formation of a community of monotheists, regardless of any boundary, in which the society goes and finds absolute perfection. This is where he coordinates mysticism, as an internal movement, with the formation of community as an external act. In his thought, the harmony of religion and the world, power and poverty, matter and spirituality, inward, outward and combat, is not only possible but is also considered very essential. The real ascetic is to conquer the world and not to leave it; in other words, mysticism is in getting the world rather than leaving the world. In Iqbal’s mysticism, "human" has a special place. The status of human in poetry and thought of Iqbal is so high that neither the human beings want to lose themselves in front of God nor want to become mortal in nature. But human in the thought of Iqbal, always keeps his independence and self. Since human beings also have the odor of God and the attributes of God can be seen as humongous in humans.

Today, in the world, a country or a region cannot be found, of knowing the thoughts and poems of Allamah Mohammad Iqbal (Lahori), or at least keep in mind a Ghazal from him. The high reputation of the Allamah of the Orient was less during his lifetime.

Allameh Iqbal Lahori is a famous poet of Persian language in the subcontinent of India, who has a lot of fame and popularity in Persian-speaking countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan. All people in the Indian subcontinent are well acquainted with his character and poetry. If he is known as the third Persian-language poet of the sub-continent after Amir Khosrow and Mirza Bidel, who is famous among Persian speakers, or even if to call him as the first Persian poet of the region to be world-famous, indeed, we have not been far from the truth.

One of the main reasons for the reputation of Allameh Iqbal was his thought, which paid special attention to the ideals and needs of the people of the world, especially the people of the East and the Islamic world, and this factor played a significant role in the political, theoretical, cultural and civil revolutions (1).

Allama Iqbal Lahori, on the basis of his own thought (self-wisdom), which is of the eastern wisdom, challenges western wisdom and materialist philosophies, humanitarian and their absurdities. His wisdom is a mixture of argument, mysticism, Quran, hadith, love, pain, nature, consciousness, awakening, passion and epic that embraces the notion and practice of excellence. Iqbal summarizes the rationality of the Western world in the technology and the news, and considers it free from the viewpoint and intuition. He sees the achievement of the West's culture and civilization as of wise- tool and destruction of hearts.

With all the intensity of being against colonialism and his emphasis on India, the motive of the Indian spirit and the mobilization of the people of India, along with the humiliation of the culture, spirit, the role of the land, the celebration of the history, the sanctity values inherent in his own nation; does not suffered him from nationalism nor from fascism.

Iqbal had a religious enthusiasm; the slogan of returning to Quran and anti-religious philosophies of Hegel, Nietzsche, the scientific spirit of the nineteenth century, the love of God and Islam, Muhammad, Ali, Fatimah and Hussein, did not cripple him with religious fanaticism.

Iqbal Lahore is a poet who awakens the intellectual and conscious mind and ability of the human community in the contemporary world. He cannot be regarded as a specific nationality, because his worldview has made him a global personality, especially in the East. Addressing all of his work is beyond the scope of an article.

"Self-Secrets" expresses part of his mystical look to human and the world. It is, of course, different in expressing the expression of the early Islamic mysticism that has been adapted to the needs of human and his contemporary society. "According to his religious worldview, Iqbal recognizes human being as a great and the caliph and the vicegerent of God in the earth, from the description, (انی جاعل فی الارض خلیفه) and values self-human.

He believes that in the creation, all beings shall benefit each other, and that human, who is part and the summary of creation, should also be subject to this general law. He believes everything from “self” and recognizes the great secret of monotheism in the unity of the “selves”. His thought lives in a time where an eastern human has lost his identity and nationality and is further influenced by the Western cultural dominance, and even the intellectuals of society have forgotten their real mission and position.

Iqbal wants an eastern man to know the high values of human being and further let him know that what is happening around him. Iqbal's theory of “Self”, awakens a person to realize his values and aspirations.

He believes that salvation and success of human is only possible through the illumination and prosperity of Islamic and Oriental mysticism. At first, with a critical review of the past mystical works, assesses and spots the weaknesses and strengths, and further states the advantage of this, to society and people in clear statements.

In his letter to Nicholson, he says: "My critique of Plato towards these philosophical religions recognizes that the universe has identified the ultimate purpose and destiny of humans, not of life, and of the greatest constraints on the way of life, which are monsters and matter, and that they are neglected. Instead of ordering us to depreciate it, they teach us to flee from matter. "

Iqbal wants to teach human the right way through mystical teachings, he advocates the gnostic that not only endorse humans in afterlife, but also in this world. Gnostic that leads human to pride and mastery, not the one that promotes humiliation and oppression.

Of course, what the great mystics have said is all in the path to the happiness of the world and the Hereafter, but only those can benefit from their speeches who have reached the high position of the mystical and divine secrets. Contemporary human being who deals only with the appearance of phrases and does not understand the secrets of its long meanings, they may fall into disrepute, and therefore, some people wrongly believe mysticism and considers it as the backwardness of Muslims and eastern people.

Iqbal has interpreted mysticism in a positive and constructive way, with a simple and proper statement of the general public. Of course, words of Iqbal in appearance may be quite contradictory with the words of the elders, but there are no contradictions in principle and meaning of these words. Iqbal wants the people be aware of their high cultural values and assert them that they are not in the West and that they are not the same as the Westerners, because being like them brings nothing but humiliation and despondency, and the secret of their success depends on priding themselves. But of his this purpose, he is lonely, and few people understands what he speaks of.

He calls to mysticism at a time when all the intellectuals are strongly opposed to mysticism and transcendental values of the Oriental culture and literature. Some people really hate the poets and mystics, and consider their works as a point of humiliation for the people of society, and further insults Rumi's Masnavi, the writings of Sadi, Hafez and others. Iqbal teaches mysticism at a time when the intellectuals such as Akhundzadeh regard mystical works, including Masnavi, as superstitious, and accuses the great mystics as outcast idealists: "In theology, as of philosophy theories, the absurdity of thought and empty imagination exists, likewise realism states and defends the facts accepted by human senses. These thoughts can be found in his writings on Maulana Jalaluddin Mohammad Balkhi, Ferdowsi, Sanai, Nezami, Hafez, and other poets. When he speaks of the Balkh's Maulana he limits his insight on; putting the will and authority as of the whole being. Mowlana's belief in the fate and his slogan “موتوا قبل ان تموتوا ” is due and the reason of his idealism. Another limitation to his insight was, he said that the human soul will walk and go after death. By analyzing these thoughts, Akhundzadeh shows that in the Rumi's Masnavi, most of the material, other than wisdom and fairy tales, is obscure and is tasteless ... furthermore he present’s Mowlana Romi with scientific reasons.

The opinion of Maulana Jalaluddin Balkhi attracted the attention of Akhundzadeh about superstitions. "Iqbal's attitude to “secrets of insiders” is such that he considers the part of the mystical thoughts that are dubious and may be ludicrous for ordinary humans, but Iqbal himself has stated clearly and in a way that does not deter, but is dynamic, effective, and provocative, and it causes the people to be awake and alert.

Iqbal's mysticism is an obvious example that can be applied in modern times and give the person’s personality and equip him against west’s culture and ultimately guarantee his pride, honor and success. Iqbal better knows that all of the political parties of the West and their so-called intellectuals have blocked his way and does not allow his speech to reach the people. But he also believes that there will be a day when the human community will listen to his words and understand it. Although it’s true that on that day Iqbal will not be alive.

The result of the discussion is that the mystical thoughts of Iqbal have taught us that Islamic and Oriental mysticism can have contemporary uses as well.

In today’s world, humans need empathy, interdependence, peace, initiative and innovation, endeavor, political and social solidarity, friendship, and above all in the true sense of being human, is what Iqbal has emphasized over and over again. He further states that the Islamic mysticism and Sufism can be practiced in today's life.

References

Rahbeen, Mohammad Afsar. Manzoom Baal Jebrail Translation, Introduction, pp 13-14.
Sharyati, Ali. We and Iqbal. P 153.

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Index

Topic	Author	Published
Muhammad Iqbal`s Conception of God	Farhan A. Shah	May 2016
Intellectual Knowledge as Expounded by Allama Iqbal	Muhammad Umair	October 2015
The key point in Iqbal's educational philosophy	Muzaffar Hussain	September 2014
Iqbal and Classical Muslim Thinkers	Syed Nomanul Haq	October 2009
Henri Bergson and Muhammad Iqbal	A. B. A. BAWHAB	1988
Iqbal: The Poet Philosopher of Islamic Resurgence	Sayyid ‘Ali Khamane’i	-
Iqbal’s Critique of Democracy	Mujibur Rahman	-
The Mystical Thoughts of Iqbal and its Contemporary Use	Sayed Mustafa Saiedy	2020

The opinions expressed in the Review are those of the individual contributors and are not the official views of International Iqbal Society

.

This Section is devoted to research studies on the life, poetry and thought of Iqbal and on those branches of learning in which he was interested: Islamic Studies, Philosophy, History, Sociology, Comparative Religion, Literature, Art and Archaeology.

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All contributions should be sent via email at info@iqbalsociety.org

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Farhan A. Shah is a Muslim humanist and MA student working with the faculty of theology, University of Oslo. He is currently developing a thesis formulating an "Islamic process-humanism" using process thought and Qur`anic insights of the Muslim humanist and philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938).

Muhammad Iqbal`s Conception of God

by Farhan A. Shah

Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo

Muhammad Iqbal`s lifelong project can be summarised as follows:

"The task of restoring God to the public and the private spheres, not in the way it is visualized and enacted nowadays, but in the more subtle and time-tested manner of elucidating the essential relationship between the human and the Divine; reaching for the human heart through his wisdom poetry and, through the medium of his Urdu and English prose, removing obstacles which make it difficult or impossible for the mind to understand." (1)

This is indeed the case. Even a cursory examination of Iqbal`s poetic and prosaic works reveal the “center” of his thought, i.e., a pragmatic God. Understood as a reality touching the heart, God is the “life-blood” of his thinking.

Commenting on various definitions of religion, Professor H.J. Paton in his illuminating book The Modern Predicament: A study in the Philosophy of Religion (1955) asserts; “For any serious view of religion, it is always possible to find another equally serious, which seems to be its precise opposite”.

The same goes for the plurality of views of The Divine. While the existence of a supernatural, sovereign Divine power is rarely called into question and challenged by adherents of various religious systems, their conceptions as to its nature are as obscure and indefinite as are the definitions of the phenomena religion itself. Of course there are many religions, and each will have its distinctive approach. For my part, I will focus exclusively on Muslim religious thought.

Mostly, we have directed insufficient attention to the conception of God in which we believe, and to the manner in which our thoughts and beliefs are influenced by the concept of God we sincerely hold. This is unfortunate, because, as Iqbal makes clear, God is the life-blood of our most intimate convictions. Let us turn to him.

* Iqbal recognizes that, for us Muslims, belief in the Diving Being is the the edifice of life (deen). Our very character and conduct of life depend deeply on our convictions about God: how we understand God's nature, God's power, God's relationship to human beings, God's guidance, and how we understand our own place in a wider universe embraced by God. Accordingly, if we are Muslim theologians and philosophers, Iqbal encourages us to to ask following significant questions:

* Do our images of God, The Divine Self, encourage (what Iqbal describes as) a “higher humanity”? Or do they promote and generate sectarianism/fragmentation?

* Do our convictions in God promote planetary well-being or destruction?

* Do our beliefs about God encourage justice, equality, solidarity, freedom and dignity or do belief in God inspire hatred and ill will towards our fellow beings?

* Is God portrayed as a Creator who works through cohesive, unilateral power (leaving no room for creaturely agency) or through persuasion and mutual partnership?

* Finally yet importantly, does our concept of God create a humanistic focus or a ritualistic one? In order to reform the ossified theological thought in Islam, these questions need adequate and sufficient answers.

Let us turn, then, to how Iqbal himself answered these questions.

1.1 The Ultimate Ego

One of the important tasks of modern Islamic theology is to define an adequate concept of God and God's relation to the natural and the human world. Iqbal's aim is to form just such a theistic-naturalistic worldview.

To understand his approach, we can consider Iqbal's The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, which consists of various lectures delivered at different universities in British India. This book reflects Iqbal`s intellectual and theological climax, in which he forms a comprehensive system by creative synthesis. Here Iqbal`s interpretations of God`s omnipotence (all-powerful), omniscience (all-knowing) and God-man relationship differ in a significant way from the orthodox, mystical understanding in Muslim history handed down from one generation to another.

According to Iqbal, God is the Ultimate Ego, the Ultimate Reality, the Perfect Self, the Supreme Ego, the Absolute Self, presented both as immanent and transcendent. God is immanent (in space-time) since God manifests God's very self in the visible domain of nature, as a creative impulse/push towards relative perfection. Says the Scripture (Qur`an): “Unto God belongs the East and the West. Wherever you go, whichever way you turn, there is God´s Countenance” (2, 115).

Yet, God transcends the spatio-temporal arena and exists externally as its ground. Iqbal, in the third chapter of his Reconstruction, says: “The universe cannot be regarded as an independent reality standing in opposition to Him”. God is permanent in His essence, eternal (not infinity of temporal points but a scale of timelessness), yet in the natural world (serial time) every day a new aspect of His creativity and glory is demonstrated and presented to our view.

1.2 God and Omniscience

In classical theology and theism, God is conceived as omniscient being. If omniscient (Divine knowledge) entails “a single indivisible act of perception which makes God immediately aware of the entire sweep of history, regarded as an order of specific events, in an eternal now” (3), then, this, according to Dr. Iqbal, indicates a “closed universe, a fixed futurity, a predetermined, unalterable order of specific events which, like a superior faith, has once for all determined the directions of God`s creative activity”. (4) If we accept the notion of the Divine Will as dependent on an order of specific predetermined events, would not then such a notion be antithetic to God`s living incessant creative activity? And, would not this idea undermine man`s power of free-will? Divine omniscience, according to Iqbal, does not imply a timeless vision of the futurity in its actuality (complete knowledge about what will happen in the future). On the contrary, God knows the actual (the existent) as actual, while the future exists as possibilities to be actualized. Iqbal asserts: “The future certainly pre-exists in the organic whole of God`s creative life, but it pre-exists as an open-possibility, not as a fixed order of events with definite outlines." (5) Engaged with the notion of Divine knowledge, Iqbal provides the reader (audience) with an illustration to help us in comprehending what he means. He goes on to say:

“… Suppose, as sometimes happens in the history of human thought, a fruitful idea with a great inner wealth of applications emerges into the light of your consciousness. You are immediately aware of the idea as a complex whole; but the intellectual working out of its numerous bearings is a matter of time. Intuitively all the possibilities of the idea are present in your mind. If a specific possibility, as such, is not intellectually known to you at a certain moment of time, it is not because your knowledge is defective, but because there is yet no possibility to become known…” (6)

In other words: God does not know the future in its complete actuality. God does not fully know what the result of any specific event or encounter will be in its totality until it materialises and unfolds wholly in the future. The knowledge of the Divine evolves and “grows” in relationship to the ongoing evolution of the universe. Nevertheless, if a specific possibility or future-knowledge is not known by God at a definite moment of time, then, this does not signify God`s defective omniscient. Rather, it only means, according to Iqbal, that there is yet no future-knowledge to be known because the future events are still in becoming and not wholly settled series of actuality. Such a conception of omniscience does justice to the elements of spontaneity and novelty (freedom) inherent in the make-up of finite egos.

If the future were pre-determined at a higher cosmic level by God then novelty, creativity, human freedom and spontaneity of life would be oxymoronic. Humanity would have been reduced to a fully determined entity, machinelike. Is Iqbal suggesting that God voluntarily circumscribes this scope of foreknowledge of future encounters in order to let freedom exist? This, then, would tend to make omniscience a matter of possessing a quality or potential to know rather than having specific foreknowledge.

We note that Iqbal is sharply departing from the classical notion of God`s omniscience, which portrays the Divine Being both as knower of the visible as well as the invisible. And, since God surpasses the divisible time, to God there is only an “eternal now/present”. Hence, we, the planetary beings, only know what the future holds as the future becomes our present moment. Divine omniscience does not limit future free actions in any way because human beings are capable of utilizing their power of freedom to make decisions. God knows that I will do x or y tomorrow, but God will in no way choose for me when more than one course of action are open to me.

1.3 God and Omnipotence

Muhammad Iqbal`s interpretation of Divine omnipotence is significantly different from the orthodox, traditional understanding. The conventional understanding of divine power states that “nothing happens apart from divine determination or permission, even that which appears to be contrary to God`s will for humankind and the world”. (7) In other words, God is portrayed as the Ultimate Controlling Power (id est, God controls every single detail of the world`s causal process). In the words of Iqbal, “omnipotence, abstractly conceived, is merely a blind, capricious power without limits." (8)

Humankind learns definitions through lived/actual experience. The idea of God as a willful despot and as exercising unilateral power may have historical antecedents. Briefly stated, humanity's notion of God being a capricious and tyrannical power developed under the imperial form of government. Under the monarchic form of organization, the monarchs were mostly tyrannical, vagarious and repressive. The imperial rulers exhibited their capability of power and rule in a whimsical fashion, devoid of order, rhyme or reason. Their dominance over the masses was unilateral, which left no room for mutual partnership. A king could penalize his subjects with no reason other than demonstrating his absolute power and control -- and that, too, in an arbitrary way. Human beings brought up in such fortuitous and dreadful environments associated power, control, authority and sovereignty with tempestuousness, irresponsibility and whimsicality – the basic properties of tyrants. If these rulers represented the absolute power in human capacity, then, what to say about God? Unfortunately, the masses also considered God as a hyperbolized and glorified king – the ultimate representation of an absolute, irresponsible and unaccountable ruler destroying everything in its furious course.

Another central point in relation to God and God's omnipotence is the external, natural world. Could such a God provide any inducement for humans to pursue the task of understanding the world, its order and its fixed laws of cause and effect which governed the world`s natural courses (scientific development)? Or, ethically speaking, could such a God give human beings the incentive to discover a universal humanism based on equality of the human race, justice, unity, freedom and self-affirmation? In one word, could such a God emancipate humanity rather than enslave it?

I cannot help but to quote a pregnant remark by Professor Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), a prominent British philosopher considered as the intellectual father of Christian process theology. Discussing the problematic idea of God as a controlling power, Whitehead writes: “… The church gave unto God the attributes which belonged to Caesar." (9) This is equally true with traditional Islamic theology: the Muslim priests gave unto God the attributes that belonged to kings and monarchs, thus warped the Qur`anic God as a “law-abiding God”. This understanding of God still lingers in the collective consciousness of the Muslim community.

Iqbal, as astute and perceptive he was, saw the paralyzing and tragic effects of the “dictator God” in human societies and saw the need to emancipate the Islamic concept of God from the fashioning of God in the image of tyrants and imperial rulers. Relying on the authority of the Qur`an, Iqbal views divine omnipotence not as a blind and unlimited force, but as “intimately related to Divine Wisdom (Hikmah)”, and finds the infinite power of God “revealed, not in the arbitrary and the capricious, but in the recurrent, the regular, and the orderly." (10) He goes on to say: “at the same time, the Qur`an conceives God as holding all goodness in His hands.” (11) In other words, the Divine Will does not operate in isolation. Rather, it is an aspect of the Divine ego. God`s will, an aspect of His personality, is not destructive and impersonal, but a Will of a God who is good, wise, benevolent and compassionate. (12)

The point, then, is that Iqbal firmly and sincerely believes in our freedom of choice. Freedom of choice and will is not a mere hypothesis but a fact of human existence and consciousness. The psychological argument in favor of human autonomy says: “we intuitively perceive that we are free to choose and act." (13)

In his fourth lecture in the Reconstruction (The human ego – his freedom and immortality), Iqbal asserts: …” The ego is a free personal causality”. This signifies the finite ego's (human beings) partial self-determination. The human being is not a predetermined creature; determinism does not prevail in the sphere of finite egos, which reigns only in the natural world. For instance, in the natural world (al-khalq), all physical objects and beings are bounded by immutable, permanent natural laws (Kalimàt Ullah). We constantly witness the order, harmony, purpose and regularity exhibited in the natural world (afaq).

As an illustration, please direct your attention to our beautiful solar system: all of the celestial bodies are moving in their prescribed orbits. The planet Earth moves around the sun in its gravitational field. The planets revolve according to set calculations. They will never move and revolve in a haphazardly way. Says the Qur`an: “There is no changing in the Kalimàt of Allah” (10, 64). Turning back to our man, Muhammad Iqbal, he finds sufficient support for his belief in human freedom in the following Qur`anic verse: "If ye do well to your own behoof will ye do well; and if ye do evil against yourselves will ye do it" (17, 7). (14)

As far as human beings are concerned, we are free to choose any course of action, based on his own free will. In order words, in the domain of human beings, the Divine Will ceases to function as a controlling force. Our actions are not determined by an external agency. Rather, we are free to choose between the numbers of possibilities open to him. On this point, an important question arises: If the Divine Will ceases to be a controlling agency in the sphere of humans, does it mean that God`s omnipotence and His freedom is confined? Let Iqbal provide the answer. He puts it this way:

“No doubt, the emergence of egos endowed with the power of spontaneous and hence unforeseeable action is, in a sense, a limitation on the freedom of the all-inclusive Ego. But this limitation is not externally imposed. It is born out of His own creative freedom whereby He has chosen finite egos to be participators of His life, power, and freedom”. (15)

Put differently, God is not limited by any external ontologically independent being (16), confronting God as His “other”. The only limitation that can be assigned to God is self-imposed limitation, in accordance with God`s wisdom and goodness. This self-limitation is a permanent law born out of God`s creative freedom. Therefore, The Divine Self does not lose divine power and freedom by binding itself in divinely chosen laws. Such a God can be relied upon because the divinely chosen laws demonstrate order, permanence and reliability. Despite possessing unlimited power and freedom, God, through self-limitation, does not suspend or break these set calculations. The edifice of science and the predictions we make in the sphere of natural world is a direct result of the permanence and inflexibility of God`s natural laws. God, by these permanent laws, upholds and conserves the world in its being, which gives us control over our external environment and sufficient scope for self-development. Turning to the realm of humans, there are laws controlling the development or debasement of his ego (Khudi). However, man is gifted with freedom of will to either obey or disobey the laws (the law of requital/as you sow so shall you reap). The finite entity is an autonomous self, hence, in the words of Dr. Iqbal “capable of doubt and disobedience”. As humans are equipped with freedom, which signifies “private initiative”, “God cannot feel, judge and choose for me when more than one course of action are open to me" (17). By this line of thought, Iqbal demolishes the conception of fatalism (determinism) altogether.

Another important question arises on this point: Humanity has partial self-determination, the Divine will does not control his actions. Fine. But, does this imply that human beings are left to fumble in darkness – without any Divine guidance? The deists of the 18th century held and preached such belief. In Iqbal, we find the answer to this important question. Discoursing on the two ways in which the creative activity of God manifests itself to us, he states: “… Khalq is creation and Amr is direction” (18). As stated previously, khalq signifies creation (controlling power in the physical world). Amr, on the contrary, signifies God`s directive agency in the domain of human agents. Stated differently, God`s amr is His guidance. This guidance is provided in the Revelation, the Qur`an. Says the Scripture: “This is Allah`s Amr which He has revealed unto you” (65, 5).

Several points are important to reiterate here. First, to conceive God as a Self/Ultimate Ego signifies that God is a personality and not a principle or abstraction. God is not an object but rather a subject; not a thing but rather a person. Second, God is immanent (in time), which is another way of stating the notion that nature is God's “creative self-expression”. Expressed in Iqbalian terminology: “the revelation of the Great I Am”. The physical world (in which determinism prevails) is Divine will – an aspect of God – involved in revealing the infinite creativity and riches of His being. Third, The Ultimate Ego also exists outside the spatio-temporal order as its ground. As Professor Mustansir Mir states in his book Iqbal (2008): … “what is revealed in nature is the symbols, not the person, of God, who, therefore, can also be said to transcend nature since nature points to Him”.

Here Iqbal`s interpretation of God`s omniscience differs from the conventional thinking, which affirms that God has unchanging knowledge (passive omniscience) of the universe and its process. God knows the entire history at a single glance or act of perception; an unchanging eternal “now”. For Iqbal, the future preexists in the Divine life but not as a complete actuality (predetermined order of events) but rather as an open possibility.

Finally, Divine omnipotence is not a blind, capricious and unlimited power, but intimately connected with Divine Wisdom and goodness. God, by God's own creative freedom, has limited unlimited power in the domain of autonomous egos in order to let humans exercise their partial freedom of will. Says Prof. Mir in Iqbal (2008): …”The freedom of the human ego implies, equally, the ego`s ability to choose good and evil…” Right actions (birr) generates enrichment of his Self, whereas harmful actions (sharr/ithm) hampers his creative self-actualization. Divine unilateral control robs the finite ego`s capability of freedom (rihun), and reduces him to the status of a mechanical object. Such a view is diametrically opposed to the Qur`anic notion of human autonomy, which involves also moral accountability as every calculated act (high degree of ego-involvement) affects his personality (according to set laws of cause and effect/Qanoon-E-mukafat-E-amal). Hence, taqdeer is not be understood in the sense of fatalism (necessity), which negates human freedom, morality and transformation, but the range of possibilities open to man which he is free to select between.

The concept of God presented by Iqbal radically departs from the one advanced by traditionalists in various historical socio-political contexts. In the beginning I used the term pragmatic to describe Iqbal`s reformed God. The use of the term entails that the Qur`an fixes its gaze on the concrete realities of human life and not on mere universals or intellectualism. Put differently, the Qur`anic God is not a God “in the heavens” or the abstract God of the philosophers mental activity. Iqbal remarks: “… A mere intellectual belief in God does not count for much in Islam.” Rather, says Dr. Iqbal, “… The wisdom of Islam consists in exploiting the idea of God in the interest in Man …” (19)

In his Reconstruction of Modern Religious Thought, Iqbal adds details to this idea by pointing out that “… tawhid is only a practical means of making this principle a living factor in the intellectual and emotional life of mankind.” It also demands …”loyalty to God, not to thrones.” Loyalty to God implies adherence to the Revelation of God (the Qur`an), which is a book (al-kitab) comprising “basic principles of a universal import directing the evolution of human society on a spiritual basis.”

1.4 Iqbal, God and Reformation

The Muslim peoples in the Western world are on a daily basis confronted with questions concerning the ability of Islam in meting out the exigencies of the constantly changing environments of human life, and if Islam is compatible with the spirit of democracy and human rights.

Regarding the issue of Islam and reform, Iqbal boldly affirms the belief in the capacity of Islamic Law to evolve with altering condition of life. This affirmative reply is grounded on his conception of God, which paved the way for the “principle of movement in the structure of Islam”. The principle he is referring to is ijtihad, translated as “the hermeneutical principle of creative, independent reasoning”, an indispensable tool in the system of Islamic socio-political economic life. God, the Ultimate Reality, is “the spiritual basis for all life," He has a permanent aspect (His essence) and a changeable aspect revealed in the universe. Iqbal goes on to say in his Reconstruction:

“… a society based on such a conception of Reality must reconcile, in its life, the categories of permanence and change. It must possess eternal principles to regulate its collective life, for the eternal gives us a foothold in the world of perpetual change. But eternal principles when they are understood to exclude all possibilities of change which, according to the Qur’an, is one of the greatest “signs” of God tend to immobilize what is essentially mobile in its nature.”

Stated differently, the democratic activity is integral in the Islamic collective life. However, in order for that democratic, ijtihadic activity to play its essential role, we need to understand the nature of Sharia. Sharia, far from being a divinely formulated body of Islamic law, inflexible and changeless, is only a human construction in understanding the Divine Will enshrined in the Holy Scripture. There is nothing divine about Shariah. The dysfunctionality of the Islamic Law is due to the exclusion of the category of “change” and a blind adherence to bygone historical scriptural interpretations. Hence the ossified religious thought and behavior of Muslim peoples, incapable of growth and creative transformation.

An attentive reading of Dr. Iqbal’s book The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, his wisdom poetry, letters, masterly written articles and statements on various topics, reveal his highly humanistic and democratic view of Islam as a God-centered and creature-centered living, firmly grounded in the Holy Scripture, the prime source of his life-enhancing voice. The aim of Islam as a living principle is the perfection of humanity as a whole by joining God in His process of creative transformation.

Muhammad Iqbal played his active part in the life of his Maker. He challenged the detrimental and highly entrenched religious conservatism, the deleterious socio-political and economic structures of his times by propagating the Qur`anic message of interconnectedness of all life and an Islamic humanism based on man's innate dignity. Iqbal made it crystal clear that humans are the shapers of their own destiny; that God is the God of the progressive human beings. It is up to us now to carry on, despite hostile forces, the torch of human dignity, freedom and creative unfolding within time.

I would like to end my journey in the words of Dr. John Cobb, one of the foremost Christian process theologians: “Let us not be coward into thinking the only way we can go is the way we have been going straight to hell.”'

References:
1 Muhammad Iqbal, A contemporary, Articles from the International Seminar held at The University of Cambridge. Celebrating the Cenentary of Iqbal`s stay in Europe (1905-08), 2008.
2 Stray Reflections, The private notebook of Muhammad Iqbal, Iqbal Academy Pakistan, Third Edition, 2006
3 Muhammad Iqbal, The reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Stanford University Press, 2013
4 Muhammad Iqbal, The reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Stanford University Press, 2013
5 Muhammad Iqbal, The reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Stanford University Press, 2013
6 Muhammad Iqbal, The reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Stanford University Press, 2013
7 Bruce G. Epperly, Process theology: A guide for the perplexed, T&T Clark International, 2011
8 Muhammad Iqbal, The reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Stanford University Press, 2013
9 Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, 208
10 Muhammad Iqbal, The reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Stanford University Press, 2013
11 Muhammad Iqbal, The reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Stanford University Press, 2013
12 Ghulam Ahmed Parwez, Islam: A Challenge to Religion. Second Edition (1989).
13 http://riffathassan.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Freedom_of_Will_and_Human_Destiny.pdf
14 Muhammad Iqbal, The reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Stanford University Press, 2013
15 Muhammad Iqbal, The reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Stanford University Press, 2013
16 http://www.ctr4process.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Ruzgar,%20M.%20%20Iqbal%20and%20Whitehead_resize.pdf
17 Muhammad Iqbal, The reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Stanford University Press, 2013
18 Muhammad Iqbal, The reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Stanford University Press, 2013
19 Stray Reflections, The private notebook of Muhammad Iqbal, Iqbal Academy Pakistan, Third Edition, 2006

2021-02-20T06:38:43+00:00

Intellectual Knowledge as Expounded by Allama Iqbal

The Islamic philosophical tradition prides itself over a rich history of illustrious names that have contributed to the development of Islamic thought throughout the ages. Thinkers such as Ibn Sina, Imam Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Ibn al Arabi and Allama Iqbal, henceforth referred to as Iqbal, are some of the renowned Muslims personalities who have advanced Islamic thought. The present article entitled ‘Intellectual Knowledge as Expounded by Allama Iqbal’ discusses the modes of knowledge that are traditionally considered to be non-religious, non-mystical and non-intuitional. The article discusses the empirical and rational modes of intellectual knowledge that will be analysed in light of the revolutionary thought of Iqbal.

Fundamentally, the discipline of philosophy that critically examines the ways in which beliefs are arrived at is known as epistemology. (1) Derived from the Greek word ‘Epistle’ meaning knowledge, epistemology deals with the origins of knowledge, the weight that is given to knowledge and the varying degree of certainty surrounding a particular form of knowledge- whether it allows one to know and affirm with certainty or whether it leads one to believe without conviction.

In his various poetic and prose works, Iqbal discusses the two main theories of knowledge acquisition that are considered non-religious and non-mystical, namely empirical and rational thought in the context of intellectual knowledge that has traditionally rivalled religious and mystical knowledge. The empirical mode of knowledge places emphasis on the role of experience through perceptual observation by utilising the five traditional senses: hearing, seeing, smelling, touching and tasting to formulate ideas and thoughts. This is in contrast to the rational mode of knowledge whereby knowledge is derived independent of any observatory experience and thus utilises reason in the form of logical truths and abstract claims.

Furthermore, whether taken positively or negatively, philosophy has always been heavily indebted to Greek thought as has subsequent thought to the contributions of thinkers such as Aristotle, Socrates and Plato. In regards to epistemic inquiry, Iqbal was very critical of the cultural influence of Greek thought on Muslim thought and the implications on Muslim thinkers thereafter over the centuries. (2) Incidentally, we consider this to be a factor why Iqbal criticised the ways of the traditional mystics who was influenced by the ‘Ajam’ (non-Arab world), due to not understanding the true worth of non-mystical knowledge as a result of Greek influence.

Iqbal condemned Plato who regarded empirical knowledge furnished through natural instruments of sense-perception as of no use. (3) Plato considered empirical knowledge as incapable of giving real knowledge but merely opinion. (4) Thus, empirical knowledge is merely an illusion according to Plato who asserts that it is only ideas, imagination and fantasies that can give concrete knowledge to Man. (5)

In criticising Plato, Iqbal states that Plato who was the prime ascetic and sage was one of the ancient flock of sheep. His Pegasus went astray in the darkness of idealism and dropped its shoe amidst the role of actuality. He was so fascinated by the invisible that he made the hand, eye and ear of no account. (6) Iqbal also produced a poem in his Asrar-e-Khudi whereby he warns the reader to beware of such flocks of sheep who exploited earlier Muslim students of the Qur’an who consequently studied the Qur’an in light of the Greek thought whereas Iqbal emphasises that the Qur’an regards “Hearing” and “Seeing” as divine gifts of great value and declares these sensory organs to be accountable to God for their acts in the temporal worldly life. (7)

Socrates also restricted his inquisitive inquiry to the moral problems of mankind and hence the crux of his inquiry was ‘Man’ and not the surrounding physical and chemical nature of the world. Iqbal firmly differs with Socrates in The Reconstruction by stating that the spirit of the Qu’ran sees the humble bee as a recipient of divine inspiration and thus constantly calls upon readers to observe the perpetual change of the winds, the alternation of the day and night, the clouds, the starry heavens and the planets swimming through infinite space. (8) This is clearly supported by the fact that many chapters of the Qur’an are named: ‘The Cow’, ‘The Bee’, ‘The Ant’ and ‘The Moon’.

Furthermore, in regards to the classical Muslim thought surrounding the empirical and rational sources of knowledge, there is an apparent disagreement between Iqbal and the stance of Imam Ghazali. Fundamentally, Imam Ghazali did not consider himself to be a philosopher nor liked to be considered as a philosopher. It would, however, be more accurate to consider Imam Ghazali as a great theologian, an illustrious mystic and a jurist who fought against philosophy and the its effect on Muslim thought by scrupulously demonstrating the contradictions of the philosophers of the time who were influenced by Greek thought in his renowned ‘Tahafut Al Falsafah’. (9)

It was interestingly Christian thinkers of the Middle Age who considered Imam Ghazali as a philosopher following the study of his text ‘Maqaasid al-Falasafa’ (10) which was a reasoned exposition of the main philosophical topics of the time. However, though it would be accurate to not consider Imam Ghazali as a philosopher in the same sense as Al-Kindi, Ibn Sina and al-Farabi, it would be fair to assert the theoretical depth in the mystical and theological teachings of Imam Ghazali in addition to the practical and religious doctrines that are clearly evident and noticeable in his works.

Imam Ghazali classifies knowledge in al Fada’ih al Batiniyyah wa Fadaa’il al Mustazhiriyya (11) as two questions, one of them is the existence of the Maker, the necessary existent, in no need of a Maker or Manager. Secondly, Imam Ghazali states that it suffices us to learn of the answers to the remaining questions by blind acceptance from the Prophet (Peace be upon Him). (12) In essence, Imam Ghazali relies solely on religious and mystical knowledge and appears to leave no room for rational and intellectual knowledge. Thus, Iqbal states in The Reconstruction that Imam Ghazali based religious thought on philosophical scepticism. Iqbal considers this basis as rather unsafe for religion and not justifiable by the Qur’an. (13)

In contrast to classical thought, Iqbal presents a revolutionary concept at the dawn of the 20th century in The Reconstruction of Religious thought in Islam which comprises of seven lectures given by Iqbal between 1930-1934. These seven lectures form the very basis of the revolutionary reconstruction of religious thought in the coming centuries with a detailed consideration to the scientific advancements of knowledge in recent times through the process of assimilation of intellectual and non-intellectual knowledge. Thus, Iqbal has sought to rationalise Islamic concepts in accordance with the modern age, for example, Iqbal utilises Quranic, Western, Eastern and scientific sources to provide a broad yet robust philosophical explanation for religious and mystical experience – for example the states that are experienced by the mystics. Thus, Iqbal answered those who denied mystic states in the West with the terminology and modes of knowledge accepted by the advancing West and not the East, as was the case previously.

With this in mind, the revolutionary Iqbal asserts that the advent of Islam was a landmark for the epistemic branch of philosophy and human knowledge and progression in general as Iqbal considers the birth of Islam to be the birth of ‘Inductive Intellect’. (14) Prior to Islam, the inductive forms of knowledge which is obtained through experience or more technically from the inferring or reasoning from particular instances of generalisation to the generalisation itself was readily accepted, however, Islam gave the true value to inductive intellect which utilised the rational inquiry of the physical world as a means of gaining knowledge of the ultimate reality. (15) The Iqbalian view is supported by various Qur’anic verses

Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and earth, and the alternation of the night and the day, and the [great] ships which sail through the sea with that which benefits people, and what Allah has sent down from the heavens of rain, giving life thereby to the earth after its lifelessness and dispersing therein every [kind of] moving creature, and [His] directing of the winds and the clouds controlled between the heaven and the earth are signs for a people who use reason. (16)

And it is He who placed for you the stars that you may be guided by them through the darkness’s of the land and sea. We have detailed the signs for a people who know. (17)

And He has subjected for you the night and day and the sun and moon, and the stars are subjected by His command. Indeed in that are signs for a people who reason. (18)

In light of the Qur’an, Iqbal advocates a revolutionary combination of three forms of knowledge: empirical, rational and intuition in order to understand the ultimate reality. Iqbal, in accordance with the Quran, ensures the acquisition of direct knowledge via the immediate from of intuition whereas an indirect experience of God can be attained through reflection by means of self-perception and rational analysis whether of ‘Man’ himself or the reflective thought of the surrounding world around us.

Therefore, the three sources of knowledge are combined within an organic whole. (19) Iqbal readily accepts empiricism and the role of experience based on perceptual observations. Likewise, Iqbal accepts rationalism whereby knowledge is derived independent of any observatory experience. In the Jaavid Naama, (20) Iqbal elaborates on the process of the evolution of the three stages of knowledge to reach the ultimate reality by stating that the knowledge of truth is gained first through the senses and then through direct realization. The ultimate stage (intuition) cannot be encompassed through consciousness as understood by psychology.

However, as opposed to rationalism in the traditional sense which is founded upon logical categories or mere abstract representations that stem out of abstract ideas that are isolated from reality; Iqbal differs from the orthodox view. Iqbal states that rational thought has a certain definite function that although should be utilised but not over-emphasized to the detriment of other knowledge yielding methods, namely empirical knowledge and intuition. In essence, without proper utility of the rational mind, one may be at dangers as the field of inquiry is limited to certain methods of knowledge to solve human problems such as morality but not others.

Iqbal includes intuition as a source of knowledge which he refers to in The Reconstruction under the generic term of ‘religious knowledge’. (21) This includes religious and mystical experience, intuition and revelation (Prophetic and non- prophetic). Although empirical and rational methods are of use, it is eventful, mystical intuition that can lead one to the ultimate reality. Intuition is based on love. It is this love and insight the becomes fruitful as mystical insight of the ultimate reality that is a heart-warming flash of the ultimate reality in a single and unified flash that can be only be attained through mystical insight. (22)

Overall, Iqbal advocates a revolutionary combination of the rational advancements of the West with the religious and mystical intuition of the East so that a proper balance can be struck in order to dually achieve peace in the world by concurrently reaching the ultimate reality. This can only be achieved if Muslim thought undergoes a revolution as to how non-religious empirical and rational knowledge is viewed in contrast to how the Greeks viewed empirical and rational knowledge in addition to classical Muslim thinkers who focused on mystical knowledge to prevent foreign thought taking precedent at a time when many sects appeared throughout the Muslim world.

In light of the modern world and its requirements, Iqbal grants a place to empirical and rational thought but emphasises on intuition to form an organic whole in the quest to comprehend the Ultimate Reality. Thus, the epistemology of Iqbal is the epistemology of the Qur’an. (23) Although empirical and rational thought are of great benefit if utilised correctly in regards to the external finite world, however, to attain the Ultimate reality, one must refer to the infinite mechanism of intuition. It is regarding this Iqbal states:

Pass beyond the pale of intellect as this light,
Can show one the way, but not the destination! (24)

The following quatrain of Iqbal serves as an appropriate conclusion of Iqbal’s philosophy of intellectual knowledge:

There are a hundred worlds from star to star
Whenever intellect flies, it finds new skies,
But when I look deep into myself
Lo! A boundless ocean was hidden within me! (25)

Muhammad Umair
17th October 2015 / 3rd Muharram 1437 A.H

References

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge. In particular: the sources, nature and limits of knowledge is dealt with under this branch of philosophy.
Iqbal, M, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, 3
Ibid
Corn ford, F, Plato’s Theory of Knowledge, 29
Ibid
Iqbal, M, the Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, 3
Ibid
Holy Qur’an, 16:78; 23:78; 32:9; 67:23
Ibid, 21:33; 36:40
Bouyges, M, The Incoherence of the Philosophers (trans,1928)
Dunya, S, The Objectives of Philosophy (trans, 1961)
McCarthy, R, The Infamies of the ‘Baatinites’ and the Excellence of the ‘Mustazhirites’ (Trans, 1980), 250
Iqbal, M, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, 4
Ibid, 3
Ibid, 126
Iqbal, M, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, 3
Holy Qur’an, 2:164
Ibid, 6:97
Ibid, 16:12
Iqbal, M, Jaavid Naama (1932)
Sheikh, M, Studies in Iqbal’s Thought and Art (Bazmi-e-Iqbal, 1972) 20
Ibid
Anwar, K, The Epistemology of Iqbal (Iqbal Academy, 1996) 38
Iqbal, M, Baal-e-Jibreel (1935), Thy Bosom Has a Heart, It Does Not Have a Heart
Iqbal, M, Payaam-e-Mashriq (1923), There Are a Hundred Words from Star to Star

2021-02-20T06:38:43+00:00

THE KEY POINT IN IQBAL'S EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

Muzaffar Hussain

For any meaningful discussion on Iqbal's educational philosophy it is essential that we should first try to understand his views on man's nature, and his ultimate destiny. According to Iqbal, the "essential nature of man, then, consists in will, and not intellect or understanding".[1] He regards human will as "a germ of infinite power, the gradual enfoldment of which must be the object of all human activity".[2] In his view, "a strong will in a strong body is the ethical ideal of is Islam".[3] Criticizing the educational system of his times he says very emphatically:

"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 ideal of education is the training of 'human intellect rather than human will."[4]

The key point in Iqbal's educational philosophy, therefore, is the training of human will.

Personality Man's personality can be defined as a combination of various wills held together by a unity of directive purposes.[5] To explain more elaborately, the wills constituting the various aspects of human personality can be listed as below:

Personality Aspect Needs Will-Attitudes Biological

1. Food Will to be

2. Dress Will to live

3. Shelter Will to survive Socio-biological

1. Marriage Will to survive and pre‑

2. Procreation serves species

Personality Aspect Needs Will-Attitudes

Socio-cultural 1. Education Will to acquire knowledge and skill

2. Training for economic Will to produce and earn

products

Psychological 1. Cognition Will to cognition

2. Conation Harmony Will to conation

3. Affection Will to affection

Psychical

1. Conscious Will to harmonise cons-

2. Unconscious Harmony ciousness and unconsciousness

Transcendental

1. Knowledge Will to know the Ultimate Reality

2. Art Will to transfer world into aesthetic order

3. Morality Will to transfer world order into moral order

4. Religion:

(a) Communion with God Will to have communion with God

(b) Efficacy of Prayer Will to pray

5. Ideal social order Will to achieve ideal world order

Each of the wills listed above is an energy or force. Human personality can, therefore, be conceived as a combination of these forces which admit of various arrangements.[6]These various arrangements/formations of the wills are referred to as Shākila by the Holy Qur'an which determine the value of man's actions:

"Every man acteth after his own manner but your Lord knoweth who is best guided in his path'" (xvii. 84).

One definite arrangement in which the transcendental (more specifically, religious) wills assume the governing or directive role is the real personality of man. Such personality is bestowed on man as his potential nature, the actualization of which must be the highest aim of life and hence the ultimate aim of education. To achieve his real personality man has to make effort and various wills have to be arranged in such a manner that the will to love God becomes the supreme overriding will and all other wills are governed and disciplined by it. When a personality with such will-attitudes is constituted, man takes a new birth. In fact, only such a personality is worth the name of personality as the Holy Qur'an warns:

"And be not ye as those who forgot Allah, therefore He caused them to forget their souls (personalities)" (lix. 19).

This verse is the very basis of Iqbal's concept of the self.[7] His concept of soul, personality, ego or self is, therefore, only that kind of man's self-consciousness which is aroused and activated by God-consciousness.[8] When God-consciousness becomes the illuminating centre of man's self-consciousness, he realises his real position in the universe as one of the greatest energies of Nature called upon by God to remake and refashion the universe by conquering the natural environment and bringing an ideal social order into being character. Every educational endeavour should, therefore, aim at carving out of human life a character which Iqbal regards as "the ultimate equipment of man, not only in his efforts against a hostile natural environment, but also in his contest with kind-red competitors after a fuller, richer, ampler life."[9] It is, therefore, not difficult to understand Iqbal's utter dissatisfaction and disgust with those educational systems which restrict their function to mere intellectual development of the human self. He favours only that-type of educational system which can bring out characters or Volitional personalities:

"The intellectual self is only one aspect of the activity of our total self. The realization of the total self comes not by merely permitting the wide world to throw its varied impressions on our mind, and then watching what becomes of us. It is not merely by receiving and intellectually shaping the impressions, but mainly by moulding the stimuli to ideal ends and purposes that the total self of man realises itself as one of the greatest energies of nature."[10]

When the love of God dominates the entire will-hierarchy of man he develops a personality with a Divine taste kindling an insight of looking upon the world of matter as subservient to man in the realization of his social goals struggle. The obstruction of the world of matter in the realisation of human ideals, then, becomes an incentive for struggle and a favourable circumstance in the development of his self. Science is a useful weapon in this struggle. According to Iqbal, "the Universe that confronts us is not bātil. It has its uses."[11] The world of matter is an indispensable obstruction which forces our being into fresh formations. Its most important use is that, in our efforts to overcome the obstructions offered by it, we "sharpen our insight and prepare [ourselves] for an insertion into what lies below the surface of phenomen coming closer to God. He believes that" it is the intellectual capture of and power over the concrete that makes it possible for the intellect of man to pass beyond the concrete."[12]

Neomysticism of Science. Thus, according to Iqbal, science is important for two reasons: (i) It bestows power on man which enables him to capture the material world, and (ii) it sharpens his insight for a closer and better appreciation of God.

Science and technology, therefore, assume an extremely important place in Iqbal's philosophy of education. He regards the scientific observer of Nature as a kind of mystic seeker in the act of prayer; because scientific observation of Nature keeps us in close contact with the behaviour of Reality."[13]

"The quest after a nameless nothing, as disclosed in Neo-Platonic mysticism—be it Christian or Muslim—cannot satisfy the modern mind which with its habits of concrete thinking demands a concrete living experience of God."[14]

The education of science thus become a God-seeking, God-appreciating and God-finding activity in the educational system of Iqbal which "disenthralls man from fear giving him a source of power to master his environment".[15] He, therefore, proposes an educational system in which "Religion and Science may discover hitherto unsuspected mutual harmonies"[16] and are no longer antagonistic. For him science blended with religion is a kind of mysticism most appropriate to the minds of the present generation. He proclaims emphatically that science divorced from religion is nothing but blindness and woefully laments that secular science and technology presently in vogue in our educational system inculcates a forgetful attitude towards God. He, there-fore, raises a clarion call for waging war against Godless science which has polluted the minds of the present generation.?[17]He exhorts the Muslims to create a new world order by integrating science with religion in their educational system so that it gives "a spiritual interpretation of the universe" which is one of the basic needs of humanity today.[18]

Individual's Spiritual Emancipation. In the training of human will for spiritual emancipation, Iqbal maintains that "the medium of great personality" is essential. For him religion of a people is "the sum total of their life-experiences finding a definite expression through the medium of a great personality".[19] He believes that the personality of the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H.) is operative in the spiritual emancipation of individuals and all mankind, and will continue to be so for all times to come.[20] Our educational system must, therefore, impart such instruction to its educates as motivates them to follow the life of the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H.) as an ideal of individual spiritual emancipation of the highest order as well as for the creation of a unique society based on the freedom and equality of all the individuals. He says: "in view of the basic idea of Islam that there can be no further revelation binding on man, we ought to be spiritually one of the most emancipated peoples on earth".[21] He also revered the illustrious personalities of great Muslim saints (mystics) as in their company great transformations of character used to take place and the model of the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H.) shone in their lives in full glory. He greatly admired their role in the society as up bringers.[22] He, however, lamented that such saints are so rare in our times, and it saddened his heart that this great institution of sufism had become so barren.[23] For the revival of this great institution he prescribes neo-mysticism of God-appreciative science. It is now for the Muslim scientists to play the role of mystics and evolve "a method physiologically less violent and psychologically more suitable to a concrete type of mind".[24]

Spiritual Democracy Iqbal views democracy as the most important aspect of Islam.[25] "Islam," says he, "has a horror of personal authority. We regard it as inimical to the enfoldment of human individuality."[26] According to him, the "best form of Government for such a [Muslim] community is democracy, the ideal of which is to let man develop all the possibilities of his nature by allowing him as much freedom as practicable".[27] He however, confesses that the Muslims with democracy as their political ideal could do nothing for the political improvement of Asia and that their "democracy lasted only for 30 years and disappeared with their political expansion".[28] He pays rich tribute to the British empire which spread this civilising factor with missionary spirit in the political evolution of mankind.[29] But at the same time he also maintains that democracy in Europe could not fully bloom and soon degenerated into an instrument of exploitation:

"The idealism of Europe never became a living factor in her life, and the result is a perverted ego seeking itself through mutually intolerant democracies whose sole function is to exploit the poor in the interest of the rich."[30]

Our educational system must, therefore, provide instruction, training and practice in the Islamic concepts of freedom and equality in order to bring about that kind of "spiritual democracy which is the ultimate aim of Islam."[31]

Conclusion, Briefly speaking, the central theme of Iqbal's educational philosophy is to produce an Islamic type of personality and character through the training of human will so that they can play their destined role in the world in meeting the challenge of this age. According to him, "humanity needs three things to-day:

[i] A spiritual interpretation of the universe,

[ii] Spiritual emancipation of the individual.

[iii] Spiritual democracy.[32]

For the attainment of these objectives we may recommend for practical purpose that:

(i) Science should be made a God-seeking, God-appreciating and God-finding source of knowledge. For this purpose the concept of Tauhīd should be integrated with scientific teachings.

(ii) The sīrat of the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H.) should find a central place in our educational system so that the students develop an emotional and intellectual attachment with his great personality and practically follow him as a model of ideal character throughout their lives.

(iii) The Islamic concepts of equality (masāwāt), fraternity (ukhuwwat) and freedom (hurrīyat) should be taught and inculcated in the students so that they are enabled to practice "spiritual democracy" when they start practical life after their education.

NOTES

[1] Syed Abul Vahid, Ed. Thoughts & Reflections of Iqbal (Lahore : Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1964), p. 35.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., p. 41

[4] Ibid., p. 45.

[5] Allama Muhammad Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religicus Thought in Islam (Lahore : Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1965), p.

[6] Javid Iqbal, Ed. (Muhammad Iqbal), Stray Reflections (Lahore : Sh, Ghulam Ali & Sons, 1961), p. 17.

[7] The present author pointed it out for the first time in his serialised article under the caption Khudī Aura .Akhirat which appeared in Islāmī Ta'līm two-monthly Journal of the All-Pakistan Islamic Education Congress, Lahore, in Vol, I, No. 2(March-Apri119 3), and again in Vol, II, No.4 July-August 1974) that Iqbal derived his idea of the self from this verse of the Holy Qur'an. The views of the author were confirmed indirectly by Sayyid Nazir Niyazi in his "Reminiscences" published in the Mīthāq (a monthly journal of Anjuman Khuddām al-Qur'an, Lahore), January-February 1974, p. 74. The relevant portion is reproduced below:

نٹشے کا فوق البشر زیر بحث آیا تو میں نے درخواست کی کہ اس باب میں دانستہ یا نادانستہ جو غلط فہمیاں پیدا ہوگئی ہیں یا کر دی گئی ہیں ان کا ازالہ ضروری ہے۔ ناقدین نے خواہ مخواہ فوق البشر کا سلسلہ نائب حق سے جوڑ رکھا ہے۔ فرمایا: ان کا ازالہ تو میں کر چکا۔ میں نے جو کچھ کہا میرے ناقدین اسے غور سے کیوں نہیں پڑھتے؟ میں نے عرض کیا: میں انہیں کے خیال سے کچھ ضروری سمجھتا ہوں کہ ان غلط فہمیوں کے پیش نظر چند ایک باتو ںکی ایک حد تک وضاحت ہوجائے اور وہ بھی آپ کی طرف سے، تو اچھا ہوگا۔ فرمایا: اگر تمھارا ایسا ہی خیال ہے تو کل سہ پہر کاوقت مناسب رہے گا۔ ذرا جلدی چلے آنا۔ دوسرے روز حاضر خدمت ہوا اور کاغذ فلم لے کر بیٹھ گیا، تو فرمایا: یہ سامنے کی الماری میں قرآن مجید رکھا ہے۔ قرآن مجید اٹھا لاؤ۔ میں اپنے دل میں سمجھ رہا تھا کہ شاید مجھ سے فلسفہ کی بعض کتابوں کی ورق گردانی کے لیے کہا جائے گا۔ میں اٹھا لایا تو ارشاد ہوا: سورۂ حشر کا آخری رکوع نقل کرلو۔ رکوع نقل کرچکا تو پھر چند ایک عنوانات کے تحت یکے بعد دیگرے کچھ شذرات لکھوانے لگے۔ یہ دن تھا جب میں پوری طرح سمجھا کہ اقبال نے نائب حق کا جو تصور قائم کیا ہے اس کی اساس فی الحقیقت کیا ہے۔"

The Quranic verse quoted by Iqbal is the first verse of the portion of the Holy Qur'an which Sayyid Nazir Niyazi was asked by Iqbal to repro-duce.

[8] Darb-i Kalīm/Kulliyāt, p. 15/477

خودی کا سرنہاں لا الہ الا اللہ خودی ہے تیغ، فساں لا الہ الا اللہ

[9] S.A. Vahid, Ed., op. cit., p. 41.

[10] Ibid., p. 115.

[11] Ibid., p. 114.

[12] Reconstruction, p. 131.

[13] Ibid., p. 30.16.

[14] Ibid., p. 90.

[15] Ibid.,

[16] p. vi.

[17] Zabūr-i 'Ajam/Kulliyāt, p. 95/487

[18] Reconstruction, p. 179.

[19] S.A. Vahid, Ed., op. cit., p. 31. Iqbal derives this idea from the following Quranic verses: and

[20] Jāvīd Nāmak/Kulliyāt, p. 128/716. Also see Iqbai's letter to Muhammad Niyazuddīn Khan published in Makātīb-ī Iqbal (Lahore : Bazm-i Iqbal), p. 40.

[21] Reconstruction, pp. 179-80.

[22] Bāl-i Jībrīl/Kuiliyāt, p. 14/306 :

[23] Asrār-o Rumūz/Kulliyāt. p. 18 :

[24] Reconstruction, p. v

[25] S.A. Vahid, Ed., op. cit., p. 51.

[26] Ibid., pp. 52-53.

[27] Ibid., p. 54.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid., p. 52.

[30] Reconstruction, p. 179.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Ibid.

2021-02-20T06:38:43+00:00

HENRI BERGSON AND MUHAMMAD IQBAL

A. B. A. BAWHAB

You must pardon my audacity in presuming to say anything of substance about the philosophies of Bergson and Iqbal or their mysticisms or indeed anything conclusive about even the bare essentials of their respective systems in such a brief space and time.

It is, however, a particularly opportune time in which to speak about “irrationalism”, “intuitionism” and “emotionalism”, when the normative issues of the ordinary man have become so polarized that the language of stark “positivism” and “rational factualism” alone hardly make sense in any dialogue, and when the exigencies of moral situations are forcing re-integration of “facts” and “values”, and one hears more and more about such topics as: “The Enforcement of Morals”, “Law, Morality and Religion in a Secular Society” and “Freedom and Reason”.[i]

The apparent signs of re-orientation of philosophical outlook generally along with the quest of:

“An intelligible rationale for a transcendent alternative to the secular reduction of reality”,[ii]

Is one such manifestation of the concerns now engaging the philosophers and theologians alike? It is here argued that a philosophy concerned with the treatment of man’s complex-being cannot disregard successive dimensions of human adjustment: biological, psychological and ideal or transcendent. It is this comprehensive way of developing philosophy which aims at resolving man’s discord within himself and the polarity of his principles, laws and imperatives on the one hand and − to use Hegelian language:

“Reaches out for divinity to see God, to enter God’s being and to link the objective and subjective experiences of God in the consummate experience of high philosophy”,[iii]

On the other, that makes Bergson and Iqbal supremely relevant to the present. It is a remarkable coincidence that the two highly individual thinkers, separated by nationality, cultural back-ground, religious commitment and temperaments, evolved parallel systems which bear so many analogies that despite the divides of place and socio-political milieu their thoughts seem to lead into each other and create a sense of inter-relatedness. They reflect each other’s thoughts, and have all the affinities of a family − they are a family of a very long tradition. We recognise the similarities of their thoughts through the content of common themes and their common concerns, yet cannot fail to recognise their individualities.

The present study seeks to identify be comparative exposition of only such common themes as are central to their respective systems. What is and is not central in their philosophies may well be a matter of opinion, but there can be no disagreement about one thing: that their message was a call to mobilise man-kind − to use Bishop Cragg’s expression − towards “Godward-liness”. It is new and relevant because it is expressed in the modern idiom, it is daring too in a sense, because it was expressed at a time which can rightly be regarded as “the high noon” of materialism, when the mere mention of God was no less than a “Polynesian taboo.”

What is intended here is fairly simple and moderately ambitious, in that it is neither evaluative, nor contrastive, nor yet an advocacy of one against the other − but rather an attempt to juxtapose the two equally influential metaphysicians of this century, who attempted to see the reality from two different angles and claimed to have reached the same conclusion. Of course they have different ways of expressing the nature of their respective experiences, but the idiom they use is free from linguistic limitations. They transcended the barriers of linguistic formalities, which do no more than impose limitations on human thought.

By subjugating intellect to intuition, they inform us of the possibilities of human reach. It is only by complete abandonment of logico-lingual framework, that we begin to appreciate the validity of their otherwise irrational, irreconcilable and non-experiential formulations, and only then every thing they say makes sense.

Their talk of “evolution”, ascent of man Me’raaj, freedom and will, compatibility of human Ego with the Divine Will − all fall into a pattern. Their’s is the philosophy of “intuition” and “instinct”, of “vital-impetus” and “gnostic impulse”. A chapter in the large book of mysticism, Al-Kitab-al-Hikma-al Khalida − the philosophae perennis. In fact, without being offensive to partisan feelings, we can say santa-Dharma − a term used by Syyed Hossain Nasr to express the universality of all such traditions.

In his introduction to the “Essential Writings of Hegel”, Professor Frederick G. Weiss wrote:

“His philosophy itself is a spiritual bath, a baptism which ravishes everything in its path, and leaves nothing on earth or in heavens untouched.”[iv]

I think we can very well say the same about the philosophies of Bergson and Iqbal. For, after all, in some qualified sense at least, these men were no less “God intoxicated” than Hegel himself, who said:

“Philosophy has the last word on what is; and though it speaks a different language than art and religion, it relates the same message and describes the same content. That content is Truth, in that supreme sense in which God and God only is the Truth.”[v]

Without classifying as such, we name them “irrationalists”, which is not, however, an imputation of stigma in general terms. For such ascriptions need be applied with more caution and reservations in case of Iqbal and Bergson: It is perhaps due to the lack of any appropriate alternative that they are so labelled; but the fact is that their commitment to “irrationalism” is neither full-blooded “anti-rationalism” nor is it “anti-Scientism”, although critical of “intellectualism”, they never lost sympathy for intellect as such, and fervently leaning towards” “pure-mysticism”, or more precisely, expounding their own brand of mysticism, and occasionally flirting in the twilight zones of “esotericism” and “romanticism”, they claimed superiority of intuition over the intellect. It is the variety of their antagonisms that betrays their multifaceted propensities; but their positive doctrines remained essentially “evaluative’. Iqbal’s main work The Secrets of the Self and the Mysteries of the Un-self, undeniably a master-piece in its class and the quintessence of his philosophical thought, is built up around the Quranic normative framework, in which Iqbal provides hermeneutical framework by allusion to various key concepts as well as an exegesis of such Quranic themes as are foundational to the training of khalifat-ullah − divinely created agency in the universe.

The prophet’s person is a paradigm of the best make of em-bodied manhood Ahsana Taqweem and exemplar par excellence − swatal Hasana. Hence he seeks the closest proximity to the - person of the prophet by imitative adherence to the prophet’s way and discovers the possibilities of emulation. It is the unfolding of this secret, discovered by him, that makes up his “philosophy of the self”.

Likewise, Bergson’s the two Sources of Morality and Religion, a classic work on most delicate yet most neglected concerns of human life, is an exposition, in a most lucid style, of his socio-philosophical thought, in which he provides an account of his deep concern for humanity, and unlike Albert Schweitzer’s “Reverence for Life”, breaks the confines of sectarian framework.

For Iqbal “freedom of Ego” is imperfect in proportion to its proximity to the most free, i.e. God. “He who comes nearest to God” says Iqbal, “is the completest person.” By mastering the world of matter, the Ego absorbs God, not the other way round. “All life is individual; God himself is an individual “It is at this juncture that Iqbal parts company with Ibn ‘Arabi, as with Berg-son.

For Bergson communion with Reality is impossibility, for the “vital impetus” is free from anticipations, predictions and destiny.

Iqbal equates his experiences with the higher form of consciousness, which in the case of prophets is Wahy; but he uses the word free from theological connotations. This experience is avail-able to every being, but its best expression is found only in the human being. An innate potential, with an urge to express itself, is always in the state of tension to prevail over the forces of obstruction − in Bergsonian framework this would be termed as the upsurge of the free will of the soul, faced with the downward pull by the matter. A similar dichotomous theme runs through Iqbal’s dialectical formulations: Khair virtue opposed by Sharr vice.

Iqbal admits of the potential of human intellect but would not rely on its unguided explorations, which led many a seeker astray.

Although Iqbal disagreed with Bradley in many ways, Bradley’s trained instinct is no different than Iqbal’s disciplined Ego.

“Metaphysics” said Bradley” is simply a matter of finding bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but finding those reasons is no less an instinct.”

Iqbal would say:

“Approach the chosen one; for he is the Way, Should you fail in this, you will only be groping in dark! (Translation)

بہ مصطفے برساں خویش را کہ دیں ہمہ اوست
اگر بہ اونر سیدی، تمام بو لہبی است

‘For Bergson, the “vital impetus” does not require training or guidance. It is purely instinctive and expresses itself when faced by the urges.

For example, as Bertrand Russel understood it:

“a vague desire in sightless animals to be able to be aware of objects before they came in contact with them, led to efforts which finally created eyes.”[vi]

So, once the desire grows and intensifies, it finds ways of satisfying itself. But, how a particular desire emanates and in what direction it is to be guided is no concern of Bergson. Iqbal found this answer in the “Endowed-guidance”. Seen in this way, guidance (Hidayah) is not `”restraining-normative”, but rather a means of actualising the possibilities −not a burden of obligations rather the means of survival.

To exploit these means is no credit to man, because they are there; to ignore them is a misfortune, a discredit and Jahl (ignorance). It is this awareness that humbles man, even at the highest level of his career - a theme not so unfamiliar in other traditions. In Job: (40:2), for instance we read:

“Is it for a man, who disputes with the Almighty to be stub-born? Should he that argues with God answers back?”

So, when Kierkegaard came to expound a believer’s existentialism, he exploited this theme to the fullest: and repeatedly re-minded himself of:

“Edification implied in the thought that as against God we are always in the wrong.”[vii]

For Iqbal “Evolution” is a far more structured activity than a mere notion of haphazard growth, as it seemed to the “Darwinian-evolutionists”, the evolutionists’ account, he felt, may well have adequately captured the way in which the origin of species is traced, but surely it had missed the teleological point of explaining this activity.

He would affirm the Spencerian account insofar as it bears out the historicity of “Social − Darwinism”, but found no account more appealing or satisfactory than Rumi’s; as he put it:

“Rumi’s tremendous enthusiasm for the biological future of man.”

For Bergson, living is a primordial function, and life as such a process, an undivided cosmic movement of which we are “expressions” rather than “parts”. The elan vital or the vital impetus is the prime mover and has ascendancy over mind and matter. Bergson’s philosophy has too many novel doctrines to be characterized by any one in particular; it has been described by some as the “poetry of time”. Iqbal’s is unmistakably the ex-position of Self/Ego.

Their respective systems afford alternatives to Newtonian mechanical world view: in the case of Bergson elan vital, and anti-Hegelian Wiltanschauung in the case of Iqbal.

They both seek to explain “evolution”, and “creation”. For Bergson creative impulse is free from foresight and unpredictable. In Bergsonian system there is no room for teleological explication of “universe”. Iqbal would not go so far as to refute every argument for purposefulness. He would divide the perspective into long-term and short-term objects.

Creation, for Iqbal, is a mere expression of Divine scheme, which is in the process of perpetual un-folding. Universe is not therefore a completed product. It is growing. It is purposive only insofar as it is selective in character. Man is not helpless in this scheme. He plays a role in moulding the course of creative energy to his own benefit. Fate and destiny are the knowledge of possibilities preserved in the Divine Memory. The following passage from “Revelation of Religious Experience” sums up Iqbal’s teleology:

“…To endow the world process with purpose …is to rob it of its originality and its creative character. Its ends are terminations of a career; they are ends to come and not necessarily predetermined. A time process cannot be conceived as a line already drawn. It is a line in the drawing, an actualisation of open possibilities… nothing is more alien to the Quranic outlook than the idea that the universe is the temporal working-out of a preconceived plan.”[viii]

Of course in this, as in all other cases, having preferred his conceptualized formulations, Iqbal presents the authority of Qur’an. If this be Qur’anic, one might be tempted to ask, what then is original in Iqbal? To this it must be replied, that the intuitive apprehension of the revealed truths is itself revelatory, and revelation is the only thing original there is. Bergson and Iqbal were contemporaries, although Bergson was born before and died after Iqbal. Bergson lived long enough to see the rise and fall of his irrationalism as tried by Sorel and Mussolini.

Iqbal on the other hand died too soon to see his dream come true. They both came from migrant families: Bergson from Polish and Iqbal from Kashmiri. Bergson, though French by birth, was of Anglo-Polish descent; his mother was an English lady. Iqbal descended from a Kashmiri Brahmin stock. Bergson started his career as a diplomat, but later became an academic and remained so till the end. Iqbal started as an academic but later took to the legal profession and spent most of his life in retirement, writing poetry and campaigning against colonialism.

Bergson was a winner of Nobel Prize. Bergson wrote in French and occasionally lectured in English. Iqbal wrote and lectured both in English and in Urdu and was equally at ease with the Arabic, Persian, Sanskirt and German. Punjabi came as an unwanted legacy and Hindi as an extra bonus. They both came from orthodox religious families, Jewish and Muslim. Bergson preached morality without naming religion, and Iqbal preached religious morality. They are both equally widely translated writers of this century; although Bergson’s works in Oriental languages are a rarity, yet thanks to the universality of English language, Bergson is accessible throughout the world. Some of Bergson’s translations, particularly the “Two Sources of Morality”, were approved by Bergson himself.

The only work of Iqbal translated into English during his life-time: “The Secrets of the Self,” which was published with Iqbal’s own interpretation of the philosophy of the “Self”, came out rather in haste, and reflects all that goes with haste in matters of delicate exactitude:

Although they were both averse to the appellation Platonist, the perennial pietism disclosed by their systems has much in common with the philosophy of forms and ideas, rather than with Aristotelian “Tabula Rasa” or in plain English empty-headedness.

Besides, we cannot deny the profundity of Professor J. A. Notopoulos’s statement:

“It is perfectly possible to be a Platonist without knowing it, just as it is possible to think oneself a Platonist without actually being one. ‘[ix]

Of course one does not immediately associate these men with Platonism, but their epistemological quest to extend the range of human knowledge beyond reasoning and phenomena is essentially opposed to empiricism and sensationalism, and aligns them with Plato. Their conviction that reality lay beneath the surface and that the eternal mysteries were to be grasped by intuition only, undeniably bear the Platonic stamp, however faint it may be. But they reduced these notions to an existential level by turning them into practical reason or regulative truths. Iqbal learned this technique from Rumi, who taught him:

علم را برتن زنی مار سے بود
علم را بر دل زنی یار ے بود

Knowledge in pursuit of lower desires is (destructive) like a snake

Knowledge in pursuit of higher desires is a worthy gain. (My translation)

اگر یک سر موئے برتر پرم
فروغ تجلی بسوز د پرم

As the brief time graciously allocated to me comes to an end, I am constrained to exclaim, with the `Sheikh’, in ecstasy:

Should I transgress by a hair’s breadth,

I will have my wings burnt to ashes! (my translation)[x]

Notes and Reference

[i] i. Patrick (Lord) Devlin: The Enforcement of Morals, Oxford University Press, 1965.

ii. Basil Mitchell: Law, Morality and Religion, Oxford University Press, 1970.

iii. R. M. Hare. Freedom and Reason. Oxford University Press, 1978.

[ii] Carl F. H. Henry: The New Consciousness, Christianity Today, October 8, 1971.

[iii] Frederick G. Weiss: Hegel: The Essential Writings, Harper & Row, 1974.

[iv] ِIbid.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Kulliyat-e-Iqbal (Urdu), p. 421.

[vii] Bertrand Russell: “History of Western Philosophy”, Unwin University Books, 1975.

[viii] Soren Kierkegaard (Translated: Walter Lowrie) “Either/Or 11”, Princeton University Press, 1974.

[ix] Muhammad Iqbal: “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”, Sh. M. Ashraf, Lahore, 1975.

[x] Quoted by David Newsome: “Two Classes of Men: Patonisin and English Romantic Thought”, John Murray, 1974.

2021-02-20T06:38:43+00:00

by : Sayyid ‘Ali Khamane’i

Translated from the Persian by: Mahliqa Qara’i

Published by: al Tawhid Islamic Journal, III, No. 4
Islamic Republic of Iran

Introduction

I should admit candidly that today when I see that our country is holding a seminar for paying tribute to our beloved Iqbal, I am obliged to feel that this day would prove to be one of the most memorable and exciting days of my life.

That luminous spark that washed out from our hearts the darkness of the days of suffocation and repression (through his impressions, poetry, counsel and teachings) and projected a bright picture of the future before our eyes is now transformed into a bright torch to have attracted the attention of our people.

Our people who were the first foreign addressees of Iqbal were unfortunately very late to recognize him. The particular conditions in our country, especially the political domination of the colonialist powers during the last years of Iqbal's life in his favorite country, Iran, never allowed Iqbal to visit this country.

This great poet of Persian language, who composed most of his poetry in Persian and not in his own mother tongue, could never breathe in his dear and desired climes. Not only that Iqbal never came to Iran, but the same politics with which Iqbal was at war throughout his life did not allow his ideas, his ideology and his teachings to reach the ears of the Iranian people, who were ever eager to receive his message. I have an answer to this question as to why Iqbal did not come to Iran.

At that time, when Iqbal was at the pinnacle of his fame and glory and was known all over the subcontinent and all the renowned universities of the world recognised him as a great thinker, philosopher, scholar, humanist and sociologist (of course none of these titles corresponded to the title by which Iqbal desired to be known), in our country the politicians who ruled the country could not tolerate Iqbal and his ideas in any way.

For this very reason he was never invited to Iran and the ground for his visit to this country was not prepared. Not only were none of his books published for years in Iran, even the titles of his ‑ books remained unknown to us. During the days when the literary works and culture alien to both the Iranians and Muslims were flooding this country like a devastating deluge, not a single poem or work of Iqbal was allowed to catch the public eye.

Today the Islamic Republic (i.e. the embodiment of Iqbal's dream) has been established here, Iqbal, whose heart ached to see the Muslim people having lost their human and Islamic personality, and who viewed their loss of identity and spiritual poverty as the greatest danger to their existence and tried with all the power at his disposal to uproot this vicious weed from the human soul in general and from the inner being of the people of the East in particular and especially the Muslims,

Had he been alive today, he could have seen a nation standing on its feet, infused with the rich Islamic spirit and drawing upon the inexhaustible reservoirs of Islamic heritage, a nation which has become self‑sufficient and has discarded all the glittering Western ornaments and is marching ahead courageously, determining its own targets and moving to attain them, advancing with the frenzy of a lover, and has not imprisoned itself within the walls of nationalism and racialism.

I am glad to have this opportunity (though for a brief time) to introduce to our people this great figure, a great thinker, a great reformer of our age, a revolutionary and an unrelenting warrior.

I would, of course, be pleased if my presence in this function be free from all formalities, so that, firstly, I may enjoy with satisfaction this commemorative ceremony and, secondly, I may be given an opportunity to give vent to a fraction of my emotions about Iqbal before the audience.

I request the brothers and sisters to allow me to speak frankly like a person who for years had been a follower of Iqbal and has lived emotionally in his company, so that to some extent I can give him what is due to him on behalf of me.

Iqbal is one of the eminent personalities in the history of Islam. His is such a profound and sublime personality that it cannot be described and measured by only one dimension of his life. Iqbal was a scholar and a philosopher, but at the same time other dimensions of his life are also so bright that if we consider him to be just a philosopher and a scholar, we feel that we have belittled him.

Undoubtedly Iqbal is a great poet and is reckoned among the greatest. Those who know Urdu very well and have written about Iqbal's Urdu poetry maintain that Iqbal's Urdu poems are among the best in Urdu.

Of course this may not be a great tribute to him as the poetic tradition of Urdu is not so rich. But it cannot be disputed that his Urdu poetry made a great impact on large numbers of people, on Hindus and Muslims equally, living in the Subcontinent during the early decades of the twentieth century, and motivated them to participate in the struggle (for freedom) that was reaching its climax.

In his mathnawi (a long poem consisting of rhymed couplets) Asrar‑e-Khudi(The Secrets of the Self), he refers to this point:

باغبان، زور کلامم آزمود مصرعی کارید وشمشیری ورود

“Gardener tried the strength of my words
He plucked a verse of mine and (through it) my sword appeared
I infer from these lines that while he had been composing his Urdu poetry for quite a long time and was known to all Urdu knowing people of the Subcontinent, in my view Iqbal's Persian poetry is to be regarded as one of the miracles of poetry.

We have a large number of non‑Persian‑speaking poets in the history of our literature, but I cannot point out any of them whose poetry possesses the qualities of Iqbal's Persian poetry. Iqbal was not acquainted with Persian idiom, as he spoke Urdu at home and talked to his friends in Urdu or English. He did not know the rules of Persian prose writing.

A specimen of Iqbal's Persian prose is available to us in his prefatory note to his mathnawi Rumuz‑e-Bikhudi (The Secrets of the Selflessness) and Asrar‑e Khudi(The Secrets of the Self). If you read them you will see that it is hard for the people whose mother tongue is Persian to understand it.

Iqbal never studied Persian at any stage in a school or college during the years of his childhood or youth. In his father's house he used to speak Urdu. Iqbal chose the Persian language as his medium of literary expression only for the reason that he felt that his ideas and themes could not be effectively expressed in the Urdu language.

As such he was attracted towards Persian and he studied the collections of the Persian poets like Sa'di, Hafiz, and Mawlawi as well as the Persian poets who wrote in Indian style like `Urfi, Naziri Nishaburi and others.

In spite of not having tasted the Persian way of life, never living in the cradle of Persian culture, and never having any direct association with it, he cast with great mastery the most delicate, the most subtle and radically new philosophical themes into the mould of Persian poetry, some of which are unsurpassable yet.

In my view this is what can be explained as his poetic genius. When you compare his poetical works with those of other non‑Iranian poets who wrote poetry in Persian, you will realize the greatness of Iqbal. Some of the ideas that he has expressed with ease in one couplet, if one try to render them into prose it will take a long time and great deal of effort to do‑so. It is not an easy job even for us whose mother tongue is Persian.

Iqbal’s Poetry as his Introduction

There can be no better introduction of Iqbal than his poetry. In no other way we can introduce Iqbal more truly. Some of the Persian poems of Iqbal are the most sublime pieces of Persian poetry. Iqbal's verses are in different styles, in Indian style, in `Iraqi style, in Khurasani style, and in various poetic forms, likemathnawi (poetry composed of distiches corresponding in measure, each consisting of a pair of rhymes), ghazal (sonnet), qat`ah, dobayti (couplets) andruba'i (quatrains).

Their themes as well as their renderings are sublime; notwithstanding, he did not know how to speak and write Persian (prose), and this needs extraordinary genius. At the same time to commend Iqbal as a poet is to belittle him, for he was a great reformer and a great freedom fighter as well. Though Iqbal's position and status as a freedom fighter and social reformer is very high, he cannot be regarded as a mere social reformer either.

In the Indian subcontinent several Hindu and Muslim contemporaries of Iqbal were considered as social reformers, whose works are known and whose participation in the freedom struggle needs no introduction. Among the Muslims, there were great personalities like Mawlana Abu al‑Kalam Azad, Mawlana Muhammad 'Ali, Mawlana Shawkat 'Ali and the late Muhammad `Ali Jinah.

They also belonged to the same period and to the same generation and were great freedom fighters; but the greatness of Iqbal's work cannot be compared with any of them.

It does not mean in any way to minimise the great importance and value that we attach to Mawlana Abu al‑Kalam Azad, an eminent figure in his own right, or to Mawlana Muhammad 'Ali and Mawlana Shawkat `Ali (who were untiring Muslim freedom fighters who struggled for long years to drive out the British from their country), but Iqbal's case is different from all of them. Iqbal's problem was not the problem of India in particular, but his concern was for the whole Muslim world in general.

In his mathnawi, Pas chi bayad kard ay Aqwam‑e Sharq, he addresses himself to the Eastern nations and it indicates that his keen eyes had an all‑inclusive view of the entire Muslim world. He was not concerned with the problems of India alone. Therefore, if I describe Iqbal as a social reformer, I will fail to cover his entire personality.

I cannot find a proper term that can describe him. You can see that his personality, his greatness, his mind rich with ideas and the totality of his being, elude the power of comprehension of people like us. To be true to ourselves we have to confess that we have been far away from Iqbal.

As such this conference is one of the most useful things we have done so far. Even this is not enough. I would ask the honored Minister of Higher Education and Culture and my brothers in universities to think about the possibilities of establishing foundations in Iqbal's memory, and to name university halls and cultural centers in our country after Iqbal.

Iqbal belongs to this nation and this country, and one of his famous poems is dedicated to the people of Iran which begins with the following verse:

چو چراغ لاله سوزم درخیابان شما

ای جوانان عجم ، جان من و جان شما

“As the tulip lamp I burn on your paths
O Youth of Iran, my life is your life”

And he says:

میز صد مردی که زنجر غلامان بشکند دیده ام از روزن دیوا ر زندان شما

“ Leader of hundreds of men is coming so that chains of slaves can be broken
My eyes see him coming every day - through the walls of your prison.”

This poem also strengthens my belief as to why Iqbal could not visit Iran. He considered Iran as a prison and addressed the people living here in the way the prisoners are addressed. There are plenty of poems in Iqbal's collections which show his dissatisfaction with India at least the India of his own time.

It was for this reason that he turned his attention to Iran so that the flame that was burning inside his heart could be converted into a bright blaze in Iran. He was waiting for a miracle to occur here: This is Iqbal's due that we owe to him, and we should always remember our indebtedness to him.

Iqbal and His Times

If we wish to understand Iqbal and the significance of his message, it is necessary for us to know the conditions of the Subcontinent during his lifetime ‑ an epoch that culminated in Iqbal. Without this study we cannot understand the real meaning of Iqbal's message, the melody of his tone and the inner fire that kept him restless. The Subcontinent went through the hardest phase of its history during Iqbal's lifetime.

Iqbal was born in 1877, that is, twenty years after the quelling of the Muslims' revolt against the English in 1857, when they inflicted a final blow upon the Islamic rule in the Subcontinent. A great revolutionary upsurge overtook the whole country and continued for several years, but four months (the middle of 1857) marked its culmination.

The British used this opportunity to make an assault on Islam, which they had been contemplating to make for the last seventy or eighty years, and they imagined to have uprooted Islam from the Indian soil.

They put an end to the Muslim rule that was breathing its last breaths. The only obstacle in their way of the total colonization of the Indian subcontinent was the existence of the same rule, which they had succeeded in weakening during the course of time.

They liquidated its chief fighters and eminent personages in order to eradicate the deep‑rooted Islamic civilization and to completely uproot this corpulent and old tree which was shorn of any power of resistance at that time, and to make India a part of the British Empire.

The year 1857 was the year of absolute victory for the British in India. After having officially annexed India to Britain and named their country as the Empire of Britain and India, the colonizing of India did not pose any problem, for India was treated henceforward as one of the provinces of the Great Britain.

After that they took all possible precautions to crush every revivalist, nationalist and religious movement in that country. Their aim was to wipe out the Muslim population, as they knew it well that it were the Muslims who resisted them in India. They already had tested this.

The Muslims fought with the English and their mercenaries, the Sikhs, who were serving them since the early nineteenth century. This was known to the‑English very well and to those who were acquainted with the Indian affairs, who used to tell them that the Muslims were their real enemies in India and that they were to be eliminated.

From the year 1857, which was the year of their victory, an extremely oppressive and tyrannical plan was chalked out to suppress the Muslims. If we go into its detail it will take a long time. Many books were written on this subject. The Muslims were subjected to economic pressures as well as to cultural and social discriminations.

Collectively, they were subjected to the worst kind of humiliations. As regard to the conditions of employment their declared policy was to recruit non‑Muslims only.

The awqaf (endowments) that ran Islamic institutions and mosques were in large number and they were taken away. The Hindu merchants were motivated to lend money to the Muslims in order to seize their property in return for their debts. It was resolved that their relationship with the land should be cut off and their sense of belonging to the land be uprooted.

This process continued for a long time. The Muslims were killed without reason and arrested for no fault of theirs. All such people who were suspected of carrying on any activities against the English were suppressed and eliminated ruthlessly. These conditions prevailed for several years.

After one or two decades of this repression, which has no parallel anywhere in the world ‑ not in any of the colonized countries were the people suppressed so severely as the Indian Muslims ‑ ultimately some people began to think about the possible remedy for this situation; but of course the angry resistance against the English was not given up.

India should never be forgetful of the fact that the Indian Muslims played the most vital part in the battle against the English. In fact it will be an act of thanklessness on the part of India to forget her indebtedness to the Muslims of India. The Muslims did never sit idle during the freedom struggle as well as during the great revolution that was brought about there.

During the years after the incident of 1857, when there was peace and calm everywhere, the militant Muslim elements were active in every nook and cranny. There were two courses of action open to them, that is, either the politico‑cultural movement, or a purely cultural movement to meet the challenge threatening the position of the Muslims.

One of the movements was led by the `ulama' and the other was initiated under the leadership of Sayyid Ahmad Khan. These two movements represented two cross‑currents opposing each other, and this is not the occasion to go into detail concerning them.

The `ulama' believed in waging war against the English. They resolved to boycott the English and their educational institutions and not to accept any grant from them. The course followed by Sayyid Ahmad Khan was in opposite direction. He believed in having good relations with the Englishmen, benefiting from their institutions and making a compromise with them.

Unfortunately both of the two movements, though opposed to each other, ended in disastrous consequences for the Muslims. The first one that was led by the eminent Indian `ulama', many among whom were distinguished historical figures.

Their struggle was rightly guided and their ideology was also based on right thinking, but they tried to keep away the Indian Muslim community from acquiring the first and foremost thing they required and which could enable them to master modern developments in science and technology; for example, they did not include teaching of the English language in their school syllabi.

Perhaps they were justified in doing so at that time, as the English language was to replace the Persian language, which had been the favorite language of the Muslims for centuries as well as the official language of the Subcontinent. They viewed English as an intruder.

Anyhow, their opposition to the English language and their lack of interest in modern civilization, which at any rate had to govern the modes of the life of the people, kept the Muslim Ummah out of modern sciences along with their benefits and advantages, which were ultimately essential for the development of a society.

Sayyid Ahmad Khan's movement was more dangerous, and here I would like to express my considered opinion about him. (It is possible that some of the brothers may not agree with me.) Sayyid Ahmad Khan did not do anything positive for Islam and Indian Muslims. In my view, the movement initiated by Iqbal was a protest against the movement whose standard‑bearer was Sayyid Ahmad Khan in India.

Sayyid Ahmad Khan based his movement on friendly relations with the Englishmen under the pretext that after all the young generation of the Muslims had to be acquainted with the modern culture and that they could not afford to keep them alienated from and ignorant of the new currents.

In his view it was essential to reconcile with the Englishmen so that the Muslims might not be mistreated by them and the Muslim men, women and children might not suffer due to this antagonism. He was very naive to believe that he could win the sympathy of the English and could soften the hearts of those seasoned and villainous politicians by being friendly and humble towards them.

As a consequence, the English spared Sayyid Ahmad Khan himself, his associates and the intellectuals around him whereas the Muslims in general remained exposed to all sorts of victimisation till India won independence. Therefore, this policy of pleasing the Englishmen on the part of Sayyid Ahmad Khan proved to be harmful for the Muslims and brought disgrace and humiliation to them.

Iqbal and the State of Indian Muslims

More than anything what helps us to understand the significance and worth of Iqbal is the knowledge of the general conditions of the Muslims in those days. For the Muslim masses, intellectuals, scholars and all those who entered the broader fields of social life could acquire knowledge, master modern science and gain degrees and positions, but were completely oblivious of their Islamic identity.

Gradually the future hopes were lost for the colossal Muslim society of India that had the largest Muslim population in the world. (Even today we do not have a country that has such a big population of the Muslims as was at that time in Indian subcontinent.) A bleak future stared them in the face; they did not possess any awareness of their Islamic identity, and had lost all hope.

They suffered to such an extent that in the existing world and all its occurrences they saw nothing but bitterness, frustration and darkness in store for themselves. A sense of inferiority had gripped the being of the Indian Muslims, and a deep sense of humiliation and weakness had become a part and parcel of their personality.

They could not think of any way out of this predicament. At that time, when Iqbal returned from Europe, well‑versed in modern Western culture, and while his contemporary intellectuals, his friends and even those who shared the same ideas with him always looked towards the West and Western culture.

They were of the view that Westernisation of their individual lives and the assimilation of Western culture and the Western value system would add to their prestige and credibility. To be in the service of the British government which ruled India with an iron hand was considered to be an honor for the Muslims.

The Hindus, who were several years ahead of the Muslims regarding the adoption of the Western culture and manners, and who were quicker than them in winning the confidence of the Englishmen - had gained an advantageous position.

The Muslims must have been insulted and exploited by the Hindus also. Even the Sikhs, who were a very slim minority and had no religious or cultural traditions, considered it justified to oppress and insult the Muslims. Such was the state of the Muslim society during Iqbal's time.

The Lahore College where Iqbal received his education and obtained his bachelor's degree was bereft of all the signs of Islamic thinking which could inspire any future hope. The most respected book on Islam in those days was Sir Thomas Arnold's work entitled in Arabic al‑Da'wah ila al‑Islam (An Invitation to Islam), which has been lately translated into Persian also.

The book was written by Sir Thomas Arnold during his tenure at the Lahore College. It is of course a good book and I do not want to condemn it, but the thing which is remarkable about this book is that he has made every effort to lessen the importance of Islamic jihad. The main theme around which the book revolves is that Islam advanced through da'wah (invitation) and not by means of the sword.

These words sound to be good, but this English thinker has gone to the extent of considering the concept of Islamic jihad as a secondary issue. Sir Thomas is the person who is regarded as a sincere pro‑Islamic writer and was also Iqbal's teacher. Here I would like to praise Iqbal's judiciousness in this regard.

Despite his intimate relations with Sir Arnold, he was not unmindful of the political motives of his academic work. This point has been also emphasized by Mr. Jawid Iqbal in his biography of his father (one volume of which has been translated into Persian). He writes that Iqbal challenged his friend Sayyid Nadhir Niyazi, who believed Sir Thomas Arnold to be an Islamist.

Questioning Arnold's credentials, he asked, `Do you judge him by al‑Da'wah ila al‑'Islam?', and answered himself, `He works for the British government.' Iqbal further told the same friend that when he was in England, Arnold asked him to translate Edward Browne's `Literary of History of Persia', but he declined to do it as he realized that it was written with political motives.

Now you can see yourself how Iqbal evaluated Browne's book and compare it with the attitude of our writers who were Browne's friends and were proud of their relations with him.

You can see how simple, naive and ignorant these people were, having no inkling of their political objectives, whereas Iqbal was perceptive and intelligent enough to understand the hidden implications of the colonialist politics in the works of Thomas Arnold and Edward Browne. This is an indication of Iqbal's greatness.

At that time the Muslims were in a very precarious condition. The British administration and its main institutions were under the direct control of the British, and the secondary and less important positions were held by the Hindus. The freedom movement that was first launched by the Muslims was grabbed by the Congress party, and that too a prejudiced Congress party.

Later on the Indian National Congress rendered great service to the freedom struggle, but during those days it was dominated by communal prejudices. It was predominantly an anti‑Islamic, pro‑Hindu and anti‑Muslim communalist organization. There were Westernised Muslim intellectuals who were infatuated with the Western values on the one hand, and on the other there were the poor Muslim masses, crushed under the burden of extreme poverty and drudgery.

Iqbal’s awakening

The Muslim `ulama' and religious leaders were isolated from the freedom movement (after their initial defeat) and were alienated from it (except those who were in the vanguard of the movement, leaders like Mawlana Muhammad `Ali). Political isolation and economic deprivation ruled supreme.

The Muslims were reduced to the state of being a superfluous part of the Indian society, without any guiding star on the horizon. In such crucial moments Iqbal kindled the torch of ego hood. Of course, India was no exception; the above‑mentioned conditions prevailed throughout the Muslim world.

It was for the very same reason that Iqbal speaks about the whole Islamic world. Iqbal's day‑to‑day life in the city of Lahore in the colonized subcontinent of India led him to directly experience the pains and hardships of life. It was at this juncture that Iqbal raised the banner of his revolt. His was a cultural, political and revolutionary movement.

The first thing that was necessary for Iqbal to do was to make the Indian society aware of its Islamic identity, Islamic ego and the Islamic personality, or rather the human dimension of its personality. He asks the people as to why they were complacent, why they were forgetful and why they had abandoned their real selves. He asks them to regain their Islamic and human identity.

This was the first message delivered by Iqbal. But, could he succeed in awakening the nation of several hundreds of millions that had been subjected to severe exploitation and humiliation for a long time? A nation that was divested of the capacity to understand, to know and to hope against hope was now asked to assert existence and recover its identity as soon as possible.

It was almost an impossible task, very difficult to be realized. In my humble opinion no one could convey this message in a better way than Iqbal did. With a view to attain this end Iqbal evolved his philosophy of the self (khudi). The philosophy of ego hood in the sense of subjective philosophical views is not the subject of our discussion.

The conception of ego which has human and social implications was presented philosophically so that it could fit in a philosophical tradition. As Iqbal wished to make it the central theme of his poems, ghazals, and mathnawis, this notion required to be based on a sound philosophical outlook. Iqbal conceived ego as the source of feeling and knowing one's individuality through contemplation, introspection, self cognition and self realisation.

He explained this conception in philosophical terms. In my view, in the beginning the idea of ego might have occurred to Iqbal as a revolutionary idea, and afterwards he made an attempt to philosophise it. It may be argued that ego is the same thing that was the most needed in the Indian society, and in general was missing in the entire Muslim world as well.

In spite of having an Islamic value‑system the Muslim peoples had become unmindful of it, and eagerly surrendered themselves to an alien system with full faith. It was, therefore, necessary for them to return to their own selves, that is, to the Islamic value system. In this very sense Iqbal was trying to pursue 'it as a goal.

Such a sociological concept could not be impressed on the minds of people without being expressed in a philosophical manner. Iqbal had to present it philosophically. As said above, the idea of self or ego at first was conceived by Iqbal as a sociological and revolutionary notion.

In due course, after having witnessed the signs of degeneration and loss of self‑identity of the Eastern nations, especially the Muslims, and after examining its causes, this idea became permanent and deeply rooted in his being.

Afterwards he sought to provide a philosophical and subjective ground to it, and based this notion on a general conception of the self, something similar to the conception of existence as evolved by our philosophers ‑ an essence which is shared by all beings but needs to be interpreted philosophically.

Of course, wujud (existence) is something different from khudi (ego or self), and to interpret it as existence, as is done by some of the persons who have written commentaries on Iqbal's poems, is a great blunder in my view.

The notion of unity in plurality and plurality in unity, which has been recurrently used in his Asrar‑e khudi (The Secrets of the Self), is different from the metaphysical conception of unity in plurality and plurality in unity as interpreted by Mulla Sadra and others. It is altogether a different category. What Iqbal meant to refer to by this notion had cent per cent human and social connotation.

When I say it is social, I do not mean that it is not applicable to individual. Why not? Ego needs to be strengthened in an individual. But ego hood of the ego of an individual and the strengthening of the personality of the ego have social implications in Islamic framework. Unless the personality of the (individual) ego is strengthened, a strong and stable society in its real sense cannot come into existence.

The meaning of the ego is different from that of the existence. At the first instance he speaks in the manner of mystics about the generality and the extent of the concept of self. The world of being is actualised through the manifestations of the ego. Each one of the phenomena of the universe is a manifestation of a particular aspect of the self.

Of course, some of the themes that I have described in my own words have been differently presented by Iqbal in the headings of his poems. There are some other themes that are expressed far more beautifully in his poetry than their paraphrasing by Iqbal himself in the headings of certain poems.

The ideas, themselves produced by the self‑consciousness, are the manifestations of the ego in every being. The affirmation of one's ego is also an affirmation of others. When the presence of the ego in a human being is posited, it automatically posits the presence of egos other than one's own. Therefore there is self as well as the non‑self, that is, the existence of other is also posited.

Hence it may be inferred that the whole universe is contained as a possibility in the self. The ego is the source of hostility also. There are various selves that are at war with one another. This struggle, this perpetual conflict brings the world into existence. It is the ego which is responsible for the selection of the fittest and its survival as well.

So often, thousands of selves are sacrificed for the sake of one higher self. The concept of ego is a graded one and its grades vary in intensity and weakness. The degree of intensity and weakness of the ego in each one of the beings is the factor which determines their strength and firmness.

In this context he cites the examples of various entities such as the drop, the wine, the goblet, the cup‑bearer, the mountain, the desert, the wave, the sea, the light, the eye, the verdure, the candle, the silence, the candle‑bearer, the gem, the earth, the moon, the star, the sun, the tree, etc. Each one of them is measured by the intensity of its ego; for instance, a drop has a particular strength of ego, while a stream has a different strength of ego.

Similarly a gem on which an image can be engraved possesses an ego‑strength different from that of a stone on which no image can be engraved. Finite ego is never absolute. It always refers to a graded essence, which is present in things and human individuals, as well as in cosmic elements in diverse measures. He concludes this theme with the following verse:

چون خودی آرد بهم نیروی زیست می گشاید فلزمی از جوی زیست

" As the self mingles forth with the flow of life
I say it is then that an ocean surges from the stream.

Afterwards he expounds his views about the pursuit of ideals and aspirations, something which was most wanting in the Islamic world in those days. It means that the Muslims did not have any purpose in life. They did not have any high aspirations either. Their ambitions were confined to day‑to‑day life. He holds the view that the human life is nothing without purpose and aim. The ego attains selfhood through moving towards the desired ideals:

إِنمّا الحياتهَ عَقِیدتهٌ وجحهَادٌ

“Verily the life is faith and jihad (striving).”

He has expressed the same idea in a very comprehensive, profound, subtle and elegant way in his poetry. To desire for something and to strive unceasingly for attaining it is called purposiveness, without which life becomes synonymous with death.

It is desire that makes the universe throb with life. Nature is the shell and desire is the pearl. The heart which is incapable of cherishing desires is a bird with broken wings, unable to fly. It is aspiration which strengthens the life of the self, and transforms it into a restless sea ever surging. It is the joy of viewing that gives vision to the viewing eye.

It is the fun of walking that gives feet to the pheasant. It is the effort to sing that is instrumental in endowing the nightingale's beak with melody. It is the piper's hands and the lips that breathe musical notes into reed, which was nothing but a mere straw in the reed‑bed.

Science, culture, poetry, literature, law, everything is the product of human aspirations actualized through continuous struggle. Hence he says:

ما ذ تخلیق مقاصد زنده ایم از شعاع آرزو تابنره ایم

“The ideals we create for ourselves, sustains us
It is the ray of our aspiration that illuminates us.”

He reiterates the same theme in another verse:

گرم خون انسان زداغ آرزو آتش این خاک از چراغ آرزو

“Man is hot blooded from scorch of his desires,
This clay is set on fire by the lamp of aspirations.”

He considers love and passion essential for human society, and individual man, for it strengthens the individual as well as the social ego. He holds that the ego of an individual and the society cannot be strengthened without love. It is essential that the Islamic millah and all other human beings who desire to strengthen their selves should kindle the fire of love in their breasts.

It is remarkable that he himself determines an object of love, a point around which the Muslim Ummah has to rally. It is at this juncture that one feels how intelligently this man of awareness and insight comprehended the necessity of the unity of the Muslim world. His quest for the rallying point led him to believe that the love of the Prophet Muhammad al‑Mustafa (S) was the only passion that could motivate and rally the Muslim Ummah around a new consciousness:

نقطه نوری که نام او خودی است زیر خاک ما شارار زندگی است

ازمحبت میشود پاینرہ تر زندہ تر، سوزندہ تر، تا بندہ تر

از محبت اشتعال جوهرش از تقاء مکمنات مضمرش

فطرت او آتش اندوزد زعشق عالم افروزی بیاموزد زعشق

در جہان هم صلح وھم پیکارعشق آب حیوان تیغ جوھردار عشق

عاشقی آموز و محبوبی طلب چشم نوحی، قلب ایوبی طلب

کیمیا پیدا کن از مشت گلی بوسہ زن برآستان کاملی

“That luminous point whose name is Self,
Underneath your clay it is the spark of life

Through love it becomes ever more lasting
- more alive, more fervent, more enlightening.

Through love its essence is set ablaze to display wonders
And thereby is revealed - its hidden treasures.

The nature of Self is warmed through love
It thus learns to illuminate with its fire - the universe.

In world, the love brings peace and warfare.
Love is the water of life and accomplished warrior.

Learning to love and the beloved demands -
It demands for Noah’s eyes and Job's heart.

Create in handful of mud – (love’s) alchemy
And kiss the heights of divine sublimity.”

Subsequently he tells us as to whom that beloved who the Muslims should love devotedly is:

ھست معشوقی نہان اندردلت چشم اگرداری بیا بنمایمت

عاشقان او زخوبان خوبتر خوشتر وزیباتر ومحبوب تر

دل زعشق او توانا میشود خاک ھم دوش ثریا میشود

خاک نجد ازفیض او چالاک شد آمد اندر وجد و بر افلاک شد

در دل مسلم مقام مصطفی است آبروی ما زنام مصطفی است

طور موجی از غبار خانہ اش کعبہ را بیت الحرم کاشانہ اش

بوريا ممنون خواب راحنش طاق کسری زیر پای امتش

در شبستان حراء خلوت گزید قوم و آئین و حکومت آفرید

ماند شبھا چشم او محروم نوم تابہ تخت خسروی خوابید قوم

“Beloved is there - hidden in your heart
If eyes are able to see, come towards this gift

His beloved are most lovely and the best
They are the happiest, most beautiful and loved most

Through his love the heart gains strength,
And earth attains the exalted status of the Pleiades

The land of Najd became ingenious through his grace,
When he came, in ecstasy, it rose higher than the skies

Within the heart of a Muslim is seat of al‑Mustafa.
Whatever honour we have is due to name of Mustafa

Mount Sinai is just the dust that rose from his House,
Ka'bah became Bait-ul-Haram due to his residence

The mat is grateful that he rested there in sleep
Taq-e-Kisra is trampled under his Ummah’s feet

In Cave of Hira when he took solitary confinement
He came out with a nation, a constitution and government

His eyes were deprived of sleep night after night
So his Ummah - on Khusrow’s throne could rest.

He gives an account of the Prophet (S) and his high qualities. Not only here alone, but throughout his poetical works we can see an unceasing stream of his love for the Prophet (S) gushing out wave after wave.

A contemporary Pakistani scholar has written a book about Iqbal entitled Iqbal dar Rah‑e Mawlawi (Iqbal on the Path of Mawlawi), in which he states that whenever a poem that contained the Prophet's sacred name was recited in Iqbal's presence spontaneously tears flowed from his eyes. Indeed he passionately loved the Prophet (S). Iqbal has made out a very important point.

Where can the world of Islam find a personage more popular and dearer than the Prophet of Islam (S)? His personality is the focal point of the unity of the Islamic world.

Iqbal, while narrating the story of the daughter of Hatim al‑Tai, says that in one of the battles the daughter of Hatim al‑Tai was taken captive and brought in the presence of the Prophet (S). Her feet were chained and her head and body were bare. The disrespect showed to the daughter of a great and generous person like Hatim was so shocking that the Prophet (S) took out his cloak and flung it towards her so that she might cover herself. Iqbal concludes this story with the following verses:

ما از آن خاتون طی عريان تر يم پیش اقوام جھان بی چادريم

روز محشر اعتبار ماست او در جهان هم پرده دار ماست او

ما که از قید وطن بیگانه ایم چون نگه، نور دو چشمیم ویکیم

از حجاز و مصر و ابرانیم ما شبنم یک صبح خندا نیم ما

مست چشم ساقی بطحا ستیم در جهان مثل می و مینا ستیم

چون گل صد برگ،ما را بویکی است اوست جان ابن نظام و اوبکی است

“We are more naked than the Lady of al‑Ta’i
Before the world our robe has been stripped away

On the Day of Judgment in him lies our confidence
In the world, too, he has concealed our flaws.

We do not acknowledge the bounds of nationality,
As two eyes have the vision of one in reality

We may belong to Hijaz, Egypt or Iran,
In world we are the dew‑drops of a single dawn

We are intoxicated by eyes of the cupbearer of Batha's tavern
We are like, the goblet full to the brim with this wine,

Like a flower of a hundred leaves - our smell is the same one
For his life - this governance (system) and he are one.”

On so many occasions Iqbal has composed verses expressing his deep love for the Prophet (S) that it is not possible to quote all of them here. In Asrar‑e Khudi(The Secrets of the Self) he tries to awaken the sense of selfhood, that is, the sense of human identity in the individual as well as the society. A separate section in `The Secrets of the Self' deals with the idea that the selfhood is weakened by entreating.

When an individual or a nation stretches its hands in need before others, this act weakens the individuality of a person or the nation and consequently the process of deterioration sets in.

As a sequel to the problem of ego Iqbal elucidates the problem of selflessness. While discussing the problem of the self, the notion of the strengthening an individual's identity should not be interpreted in the sense of imprisoning one's being within the walls constructed around the self and living in isolation, cut off from other human beings as independent egos.

Neither has it meant that one should lose his identity among other selves in the society. Rather, an individual should live in close relationship with the society: this is the real meaning of selflessness.

The book Rumuz‑e Bikhudi (The Secrets of the Selflessness) is the second book of Iqbal that was composed and printed after Asrar‑e Khudi and is illustrative of Iqbal's ideas about the Islamic system. Iqbal's ideas about establishing an Islamic order are more elaborate and clearer in Rumuz‑e Bikhudi than any other of his works. On the whole, the problems elucidated in Rumuz‑e-Bikhudi are among the issues relevant to the establishment of an Islamic society and ought to be taken into consideration.

Iqbal on Tawhid

While going through the themes of the secrets of the selflessness, we notice that Iqbal paid attention to exactly the same questions that are predominant in our Islamic society today. The foremost among the most exciting ideas of Iqbal is his emphasis on the mission of the followers of tawhid. He believed that the Muslims and the Islamic Ummah are bound to spread the message of Islam and they should not rest unless they perform this duty.

It would be interesting, at this juncture, to quote a few selected verses of Iqbal in this regard. In these verses he says that the formation of an Islamic society and the emergence of an Islamic Ummah in this world have not been a simple matter.

The world had to wait for ages and history had to undergo countless experiments in order to reach the conception of tawhid and to arrive at a stage where an Ummah was inspired with the ideal of tawhid and people faithfully following Islamic thought could have evolved:

این کهن پیکر که عالم نام اوست زامتزاج امھات اندام اوست

صد نیستان کاشت تا یک ناله رست صد چمن خوں کرد نا يک لاله رست

نقشها آورد وافکند وشکست تابه لوح زندگی نقش تو بست

ناله ها درکشت جان کاریده است تا نوای یک اذان با لیدہ است

مد تی پیکار بااحرار داشت با خدا وندان باطل کار داشت

تخم ایمان آخر اندر گل نشاند با زبانت کلمه توحید خواند

نسقطه ادوار عالم لااله انتهای کار عالم لااله

چرغ را اذ زور او گردندگی مهر را پایندگی، رخشندگی

بھر گوھر آفرید از تاب او موج در در باذطپید از تاب او

خاک از موج نسیمش گل شود مشت پر از سوز او بلبل شود

شعله دردگهای تاک از سوز او خاک مینا تابناک از سوذ او

نغمه حايش خفته در ساز وجود جویدت ای زخمه رساز وجود

صد نواداری چوخون درتن روان خیز ومصرابی به تار او رسان

زان که در تکبیر رازبود توست حفظ ونشر لااله مقصود توست

تا نخیزد بانگ حق ازعالمی گر مسلمانی نیا سائی دمی

می ندانی آیه ام الکتاب امت عادل تو را آمد خطاب

آب و تاب چهره ایام نو در جحان شاهد علی الاقوام نو

نقته سنجان را صلای عام ده از علوم امی ای پیغام دہ

امی ای پاک از ھوی گفتار او شرح رمز ما غوی گفطار او

از قبای لاله ھای اين چمن پاک شست آلود گیھای کھن

“This ancient body whose name is the Universe

It is formed by mingling of core elements.

A hundred beds of reed are cultivated to produce a melodious tune
A hundred gardens are bled to make one tulip bloom

Several images were conceived, cast away and vanquished
For - on the tablet of existence - your image to be engraved

Many lamentations were sown and nurtured in the soul
Before, in air arose Idhan – the prayer’s call.

For ages war against the nobles occurred
People of faith were pitted against with those on falsehood

Finally within the blossom - faith appeared
And with your tongue statement of tawhid was read.

Focal point of revolution for universe is La ilah
The ultimate end of all actions in universe is La ilah

It is the force with which rotate the heavens
It is from this that the sun receives life and shines

Its warmth gives birth to pearl in the womb of ocean
It is the force with which river surges in motion

Earth transforms to flower with blow of morning breeze
And it brings the nightingale's song from a fistful of feathers

Its flame runs through the veins of the vine grape
With its heat the goblet of clay is set to sparkle

Numerous songs lie dormant within the instrument of this Being
It seeks to bring music out of the plectrum of your Being

As blood flows through body you vibrate with a hundred songs
Arise and spread music –strike on the plectrum’s strings

In takbir lies the secret of your existence,
Remembrance and spreading La ilah is purpose of your existence

Until the world echoes with the Universal Truth
If you truly are a Muslim, you will not pause for breath

Do you not know the verse in ‘Mother of books’?
You were here addressed as Just Ummah on your arrival

On the face of new era – you, are its luster and passion
In this world you are witness of all the Nations

Extend your invite to all who are punctilious
Spread the message of Ummi’s knowledge and his treasures

Umm i- whose words are pure from lust of any kind
He spoke to us to explain meaning of (Qur’anic) code

He washed in this garden - the tunic of all tulips
Purifying thus all from their old impurities.”

After elucidating the all‑embracing nature of Islamic teachings (which he has done a hundred times in his work), Iqbal addresses the Ummah of tawhiddeclaring that they are the standard‑bearers of Islam, and appeals to them to march forward with the purpose of delivering the message of Islam to the world. Subsequently he asks them to break into pieces the new idol carved by the swindlers of the West. What is this new idol?

ای که میداری کتابش در بغل تیز ترنه پا بمیدان عمل

فکر انسان بت پرستی، بت گری ھرزمان در جستجوی پیکری

باز طرح آذری انداخته است نازه تر، پروردگاری ساخته است

کاید از خون ریختن اندر طرب نام او رنگست وهم ملک ونسب

“You who carry the Book under your arm
Hasten steps faster in the arena of action

Human mind is always worshipping and carving idols
Man's quest for a new image has not ceased in any age,

Again he has rebuilt the temple of Adhar (the idol‑maker),
And has molded a god, newer than the other

He who takes joy in shedding blood of his worshippers -
His names are: color, country and creed.”

It is implied in these verses that nationalism, racialism and narrow patriotism draw boundaries to isolate peoples and countries. These imprisoned loyalties cause wars between one nation and another in the name of nationality, community, race and colour:

آدمیت کشته شد چون گوسفند پیش پای ابن بت نا ارجمند

ای که خوردستی زمینای خلیل گرمی خونت زصهبای خلیل

برسر این باطل حق پیرھن تیغ لا موجود الاھوبزن

جلوہ در تاریکی ایام کن آنچه بر نو کامل آمدعام کو

“Like a sheep is sacrificed – the Humanity
Is slaughtered at the feet of idols unholy

You, who have drunk bliss from the goblet of Khalil
You, whose veins throb with the passion of Khalil

Strike the head of falsehood with (nothing but Him exists) sword
Blow unto falsehood that disguises the unseen Truth.

Let your face shine on dark horizons of time
You spread the flames of perfect message universally.”

Iqbal, the Ummah and Prophet Hood

Iqbal's idea of propagating the message of Islam and breaking all the artificial boundaries drawn to divide nations leads him to expound certain other notions that are predominant in his philosophy of bikhudi (selflessness), that is, the unification of the individual with the society and his absorption therein.

According to him nubuwwah (prophethood) is the principal source of the organisation of the Ummah. It does not mean that a millah is formed by the merely gathering together of many individuals.

A particular mode of thinking and an ideology is essential in order to weave different threads together to form the fabric of a nation. For this purpose the most fundamental and the best of all the ideologies is the one that was propounded through nubuwwah, the prophetic mission, and it was propounded by the messengers of God.

This is the best of all the foundation‑stones upon which a nation is built. This mode of thinking imparts reasoning, faith, discipline and perfection to a nation. Another concept upon which Iqbal's system of thought rests is the negation of servitude ‑ servitude to the demigods sitting on the throne and standing at the altar.

بود انسان در جهان انسان پرست ناکس و نابود مند وزیردست

سطوت کسری و قیصر رهزنش بندها دردست وپا و گردنش

کاهن و بابا وسلطان و امیر بهریک نخچیر صد نخچیر گیر

صاحب اورنگ وھم پیر کنشت باج برکشت خراب او نوشت

“Man was worshipped by man in this world
He lived as a lowly non‑entity and under command

In the presence of kings and czars, he was openly robbed
He was bound - his hands, feet and neck too were chained

The Popes and the Priests and the Kings and the Lords
After one prey went the hunters after hundred hunters

By both his masters and through beliefs in the old church
High tolls were levied on his devastated harvest.”

Whatever was left after paying taxes to the King's officials was grabbed by the tax‑collectors of the Pope. This had been a customary practice all over the world, as Iqbal says:

در کلیسا اسقف رضوان فروش بھراین صید زبون دامی بدوش

برھمن گل از خیابانش ببرد خرمنش مغزادہ با آتش سپرد

از غلامی فطرت او دون شدہ نغمه ھا اندرنی او خون شدہ

تا امینی حق به حق داران سپرد بند گان رامسند خافان سپرد

“In Church, the guards of Paradise (Priest) in name of allotting apartment
- put heavy price for its sake on shoulders of the downcast

The Brahman plucked roses of his garden that were the best
The Magi's children made their fire by adding his harvest

Through slavery his human qualities were debased
His song remained unsung within and tainted with blood

Until the Trustworthy arrived when to the rightful were rights restored
To the slaves then the throne of Khaqans (emperors) was handed.”

Iqbal's poetry and philosophy aimed at humanising the world are very rich in the themes of human and social significance, such as the Divine mission of the Prophet (S) of Islam, the equality of man, the Qur’anic doctrine of judging a person according to his taqwa (piety):

إنَّ اَكْرَمَكُمْ عِند اللهِ اَتقيكُم

“The noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the best in taqwa,”

And many other similar issues that are indicative of his concern for higher values and the service of mankind. We cannot propagate these ideas in our country without making popular and public the works of Iqbal. This is a task to be carried out in Iran and Pakistan as well as in the countries where people understand Persian and where people are prepared to learn the language.

Iqbal: Between East and West

The poetry of Iqbal, the major part of which is in Persian, needs wider circulation. Out of the fifteen thousand couplets composed by him nine thousand are in the Persian language. This shows that his works in Urdu are fewer than those in Persian. Rather it can be said that the best and the finest part of his poetry is in our language, and, therefore, we are obliged to devote best of our energies to understand it.

For the first time when I read Iqbal's poetry I felt that many of his verses could be understood only with the help of detailed explanatory notes and comments, and regretfully I could find such commentaries nowhere. It is essential to compile such annotated editions.

Even the Persian speaking people are in need of such commentaries in order to fully grasp the ideas and themes dealt with by Iqbal. Today the major part of Iqbal's teaching directly concerns us, and some part of it is also relevant to the world that has not gone our way so far and has to understand it in the same manner as we did.

Our people have translated into action his doctrine of the selfhood. They have invigorated it and have brought it into action in the world of actuality. Now our people do not have to be asked to recover their selfhood. Today we are perfectly aware of being on our feet.

We are proud of our culture and our cultural heritage, and are confident that we can develop it further on the basis of our ideology and thought. Of course for a long time we were made to depend upon others regarding the material aspect of our life, but we are trying to get rid of these foreign fetters gradually and this process is going on.

The Muslim peoples are anyhow in need of comprehending the meaning of selfhood; especially the eminent Muslims, whether they are politically active or culturally creative, need to embrace Iqbal's message. They have to realize that Islam in itself, in its essence and in its nature, possesses the richest potentialities of conducting the affairs of the individual lives and human societies, and does not need to look towards others.

We do not advocate for summarily dismissing other cultures and close our doors to them. We should assimilate them, but in the manner as a living body absorbs the elements that are essential for its life, and not like a dead and unconscious body which is injected by others whatever they desire to inject into it. We have the capacity of assimilating from other cultures whatever is relevant to us. As Iqbal has said repeatedly, we can learn the modern science and philosophy from the West, but the ardor and zest for life can never be borrowed from others:

خرد آموختم ازدرس حکیمان ‌ فرنگ سوز اندوجتم از صحبت صاحبنظران

“We have learnt ground wisdom from teachings wise men from foreign
Ardor for life (however) we have acquired in company of insightful men.”

It means that the Western society and culture is wanting in ardor and fervor, and Iqbal was quicker than any other person in perceiving this phenomenon. He could anticipate the dangers inherent in the Western civilization and its materialistic culture, and warned the people in advance that it was devoid of the spiritual elements essential for human welfare.

Fortunately, today the consciousness of selfhood and Islamic identity is abounding in our country among the people. Our policy based on the principle of “Neither the East nor the West” is in conformity with what Iqbal advised and wished to be pursued. Our policy of self‑reliance is identical with Iqbal's views.

We, in our love for the Prophet (S), in our commitment to the Quran, in our emphasis on learning the Quran, and in our conviction that the Quran and Islam are to be made the basis of all the revolutions and movements, are exactly following the path that was shown to us by Iqbal. At that time, nobody was attentive enough to pay heed to Iqbal's counsel.

In those days there were not many people who could understand Iqbal's message and his language. Iqbal's books are replete with complaints and remonstrance as to why people do not understand his message and look towards the West for guidance. In his introduction to Rumuz‑e bikhudi also he remonstrates with the Islamic Ummah.

ای ترا حق خاتم اقوام کرد بر تو ھر آغاز را انجام کرد

ای مثال انبياء پاکان تو ھمـگر دلھا جگر چاکان تو

أی نظر بر حسن ترسا زاده ای ای زراه کعبه دور افتاده ای

إی فلک مشت غبار کوی تو ای تماشاگاه آلم روی تو

همچو موج. آتش ته پامیروی تو کجا بهر تماشا میروی؟

رمز سوز آموز از پروانه ای در شرر تعمیر کن کاشانه ای

طرح عشق انداز اندر جان خویش تازه کن با مصطفی پیمان خویش

خاطرم از صحبت ترسا گرفت تا نقاب روی توبالا گرفت

هم نوا از جلوه اغیار گفت داستان گیسو و رخسار گفت

“This is allocated right of Last Messenger on the entire nation
O all beginnings you are appointed to be the final end.

Your men of piety (‘ulama') were like the prophets;
Your martyred comrades could breathe life into split hearts.

Why are the eyes enchanted by the beauty of the church?
Why does one stand far from Holy Kabah’s path?

This heaven is handful of dust rising from your street
Your visage remains for the entire world - attraction point

Like a wave, and like fire under the feet of the rich -
Where you are for the entertainment of the rich?

Have you learnt from the secret of the burning moth?
Why does one build amidst the flames of fire, their nest?

Kindle the fire of love from within your soul;
Restore your connection with spirit of al‑Mustafa.

I have left the company of the Christians -
To see the veil being lifted over to reveal your face.

O my comrade, you who are bewitched by charm of others
Its time to sing odes to praise his locks and rosy cheeks (of Holy Prophet)

Here, by the epithet hamnawa (comrade) Iqbal means to refer to his contemporaries and those who were of late introduced to the Western culture and were intoxicated with the Western value‑system, He compares their attitude with that of his own:

قصه مغزادان پیمود او بردر ساقی جبین فرسود او

خاکم وآسوده کوی توام من شهید تیغ ابزوی توام

پیش هر دیوان فرونا ید سرم از ستایشگستگری بالا سرم

“At the doors of cup-bearer, his forehead is rubbed in
He is lost in the story of the Magi's children

While I am martyred, struck by your eyebrow’s crescent,
Content that my blood is soaked in dust of your street

My art has been over and above eulogizing worldly lord)s(;
Before the imperial courts - my head has never bowed”

He reminds the Muslim Ummah that it has never been his custom to sing praises, yet he eulogized her (Ummah) so passionately out of his deep love for Islam:

و زسکندر بی نیازم کردهاند ا ز سخن آئینه سازم کردهإند

در گلستان غنچه گردد دامنم بار احسان بر نستابد گردنم

“With my poetry I am able to make a mirror
And it has freed me of need of favor from Alexander.

I don’t want to be burdened by the favor of others
So from your garden, I collect in my lap - dust of flowers.”

After giving free vent to his feeling of disdain and indifference to the worldly attainments, Iqbal, who never humbled himself by prostrating before anybody, kneels down on his knees in front of the Muslim Ummah, and begs them to realize their own worth and pay heed to the words of the Qur’an:

هدیه سوزو گداز آورده است بردرت جانم نیاز آورده است

بردل گرمم دمادم می چکد زآسمان آبگون یم می چکد

تابه صحن گلشنت اندازمش من زجوبار یکترمی سازمش

“At your door my soul begs of you a small favor,
In return it offers you all her emotion and ardor

From the blue sky trickles down a river,
With warmth of my heart I distil its water

And direct its course through channels thinner than rivulets,
To make a steady flow to water your orchard.”

This was just a brief account and a short glimpse of our dear Iqbal's personality, who was undoubtedly a bright star on the horizon of the East. We hope that we shall acknowledge our indebtedness to him and would be able to recompense for the delay made by our people in recognizing Iqbal's worth during the span of last forty, fifty years.

I request the researchers, poets, orators, writers, publishers, the government organizations, the Ministry of Culture and Advanced Learning, the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Islamic Guidance, each of them, to do their best to reintroduce and revive the spirit of Iqbal in the manner befitting his memory.

I propose that his poetry and his writings be reproduced and compiled in the form of books, and his poetical works like Asrar‑e Khudi (The Secrets of the Self), Rumuz‑e-Bikhudi (The Mysteries of Selflessness), Gulshan‑e-Raz (Garden of Mystery), Jawid Nameh (Pilgrimage to Eternity), etc. be reprinted and each of them published separately.

This work has been done in Pakistan to some extent, but the people of Pakistan cannot be fully benefited from those ideas as today the Persian language is not in currency there as in the past. I wish this gap also to be filled.

It is further hoped that our Pakistani brothers present in this meeting as well as the writers of the Indian subcontinent realize their responsibility and rise to the occasion to resist the vicious policies of the past governments regarding the Persian language, which possesses great treasures of Islamic culture and in which the major part of Islamic culture is preserved.

They should give currency to this language in the Subcontinent where there are great numbers of Muslims; especially in Pakistan this work needs to be done with a sense of urgency.

In our own country also the publication of Iqbal's books should be carried out on a large scale and the artists should illustrate Iqbal's works with suitable paintings, the musicians should sing his poems set in popular tunes in order to render them effectively and bring to the tongues of the young and the old. I hope that God Almighty will enable us to repay the debt that the MuslimUmmah owes to him.

Wa al‑salam `alaykum wa rahmat Allah wa barakatuh.

wa rahmat Allah wa barakatuh.

2021-02-20T06:38:43+00:00

by Mujibur Rahman (Senior Advocate, Bangladesh Supreme Court, Former Minister Information, East Pakistan.)

Islam is a universal religion and Al-Quran is a guidance for mankind ( Hudal Lin Nas). Its address is to mankind as a whole. (Ya Aiyyu Han Nas). Islam does not admit of any geographical limitation.” It creates, rather, a League of Nations. 1

Allama Iqbal was not only the greatest Poet-Philosopher of Islam but also an outstanding thinker of the Century with international stature. So his approach was also to entire mankind. His conscious and sensitive mind used to sharply react on any invasion on human dignity, justice and equity, any where in the world. His protest was bold and highly reasoned. His criticism was deeply philosophical and pragmatic.

Iqbal’s Views on Western Democracy

Allama Iqbal having critically examined the concept of modern secular democracy as preached and practised by the West observed in Zarb-e-Kalim: Democracy counts the heads and does not weight the brain. His view on Payam-e_Mashriq is to remain aloof from Western democracy. According to him the brain of two hundred asses cannot produce the brain of single person. Iqbal could not reconcile with Western democracy on the main ground that popularity is yard stick, though without ability and wisdom a man can be popular. Iqbal gave this message to the West through his Gulshan-e-Raz that Satan was let loose through Western democracy which is a naked sword in the hand of the political factions. Iqbal heard the voice of imperialism in the flute of Western democracy(Khizr-e-Rah). In Bang-i-Dara (The Sound of the Caravan Bell) Iqbal castigated Western democracy and said that except imperialism there is nothing in it. In the garb of democracy a ghost of oppression has been dancing, mistakenly considered as a so-called beautiful fairy of independence. He observed inter alia that the sole function of Western democracy is to exploit the poor in the interest of the rich.2 According to him the institution and civilization built upon secular democracy can never be sound and best. Iqbal pointed out the defects of narrow concept of dialectical materialism and capitalistic Western democracy, and according to him Class War is the result of Western Democracy where as justice and unanimity are results of Islamic democracy.3 Islam does not allow to deal with others unjustly, nor it allows to be dealt with unjustly.4 He cautioned that democracy was a coat which several European countries discarded after trial and which a number of Asiatic countries have picked up to wear however ill fitting it may be.

Democracy – Secular

Allama Iqbal, in fact, was correct in his views about Western (Secular) democracy which despite its apparently lucrative and theoretical sense: Government of the people, by the People and for the People, in practice, failed to deliver goods. The outstanding Western political philosophers themselves had to admit the failure of secular democracy. Though sovereignty in Western democracy, it is theoretically claimed, lies with the people, but no sooner the election is over, the People in fact go under the domination of the elected rulers practically for all intents and purposes.

The Western views

Having studied the result of secular democracy, the Western political philosophers themselves are convinced that democracy cannot achieve at all the purpose for which it is theoretically expected and they had to corroborate Iqbal’s view.

England is considered to be the cradle of modern democracy, professor Harold J Laski observed that one cannot understand the parliamentary system in Great Britain unless one recognizes that, beneath the appearance of democracy, this is the economic and social system it is intended to uphold. It was made by the owners of the instruments of production in the interest of their property: and the safeguarding of their conception of their rights is inherent in all the rules by which it moves; it has been compelled to confer the franchise upon the masses; it has been careful to maintain for property the substance of effective authority.5

Professor Laski further observed that these are not characteristics of Great Britain only; they are universal in capitalistic democracies. Some forces are compelling the consolidation of Republicans and Democrats in the United States as a party of property seeking to resist the invasion of its hitherto uncontrolled empire.6 Professor Harold j Laski in his analysis of the conduct of the voters and the leaders in democracy in his book, Democracy in Crisis, observes that the decisions of the voters in choosing their Governors are influenced by considerations which escape all scientific analysis.7 Laski, refers to Rousseau and observes that there is a vital truth in Rousseau’s taunt that electorate is free only at election and that freedom is but the prelude to a new domination, it cannot choose the representative it wants; it can only strike blindly against those at whom it feels a passing indignation. Every political conflict is the battle of two active minorities for the possession of the inert multitude.8 Bertrand Russell observes that when it is a democracy, the ordinary citizen has very little sense of political power, he does not decide what are to be issues in the election and he is not concerned with matters remote from his daily life, which are almost wholly outside his experiences, and his vote makes so small a contribution to the total that it is negligible.9

British Statesman Sir Stafford Cripps in Democracy Up To Date is of the opinion that in fact democracy does not exist in any country to make an approach to achieve Government of the People, by the People and, for the People: and he further holds the view that Western European countries survive as democracies only in name.10 He points out that democratic system is highly expensive and paying capacity of the candidate contributes a lot in getting a success in the election.14 Stafford Cripps having analyzed modern democracy as a system of government, says : “ To all intents and purposes the British democracy is today accepting the dictatorship of the Prime Minister as substitute for its own actions. It is not necessary to review the very similar symptoms of democratic Government, which have made themselves apparent all over the world, in some places to a greater and in others to a lesser degree. 12

George Barnard Shaw (1856-1950) was of the view that democracy is constituted of by the votes of the incompetent many, for appointment of the corrupt few to run a bad government on a false slogan of public interest.

Shaw in Man and Superman, under the heading “The Political Need for the Superman” admits in an unambiguous way: “We have been driven to Proletarian Democracy by the failure of all the alternative systems. Democracy cannot rise above the level of human material of which its voters are made. When a Great Political movement takes place it is not consciously led nor organized: the unconscious self in mankind breaks its way through the problem as an elephant breaks through a jungle. He has other interesting but wise views against Western brand of democracy. Secular World without studying Islam as a system of life and its form of Government concluded that each Government throughout the world is unsatisfactory. Winston Churchill sarcastically says that democracy is the least unsatisfactory.

Let us turn to India. Mr. Kuldip Nayar in an article “Between The Lines” remarks on Indian Democracy: Parliament, though democratically elected, does not evoke trust; it is considered as a part of a system that is corrupt and antiquated. Many of its members are believed to be in pay of lobbies of industrialists and even when an M.P expresses himself honestly, there is a tendency to see some kind of hand behind him. The way many members are elected with money and muscle power, has devalued the image of democracy.13 In an article “Law: Ally And Corrective of Democracy “reported in AIR JOURNAL 1969, Mr. Justice Tek Chand, Punjab High Court observes, “The next question which waits enquiry is: has democracy, as an ideal worthy of pursuit, become outmoded because of its failure due to inherent weaknesses? The optimism that prevailed at one time with regard to democratic institutions is being dispelled. The democratic institutions recently seem to have abjectly surrendered before the onslaught of absolutism. Friends of democracy are supporting with declining conviction. According to some it is in retreat. According to others, it is at the cross roads. The future of democracy is said to be bleak and dismal”.14

In a conference held in Rhodes, in October, 1958, under the patronage of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, two important papers were read, one was by Western intellectual: Bertrand de Juouvenel of France and the other by Daya Krishna of India, both of them agreed that democracy is more a myth than reality.

To combat capitalism, the child of Western democracy and its other drawbacks, Karl Marx presented his concept of Communism as counterblast which also had to vanish away due to its inherent defects. The concept: “New World Order as the last stake of the Western political gamblers repeats the past mistakes. It is an old but a stale wine in a new bottle.

Absence of a sound, wise and impartial sovereign, absence of a complete code of life with an ideal sense of direction to solve basic human problem, the heterogeneous Western society, disregard to any ethical standards of life and absence of faith in accountability to the Supreme Power are the main reasons for the failure of Secular democracy.

The Western Political Philosophers wanted to graft democracy as a form of government with the Western secular society divided by racialism, colour, prejudice, difference of nobles and commoners, exploiters and exploited dictators, and dictated with unavoidable result that the values of democracy proved to be totally foreign bodies to the said society. The artificial graft had to die a sure death.

Basic Causes of Failure of Western Democracy

THE Western Political Philosophers have, themselves pointed out the basic causes of failure. Edward Benes said: Success of Democracy requires an integrated society based on equality but he finds European society otherwise.15 Professor Laski in his article “The Internal Conditions of Democracy” observed that democracy might endure so long as men felt that they had great ends of life in common and the values they sought to realize were the same values.16 John Dewey in his article “ Democracy ” observes that democracy is now challenged as they never have been before. The main cause of failure of Secular Democracy, according to him, is that Democracy had not become a part of the bone and blood of the people in daily conduct of life. Democratic forms were limited to parliament elections and combats between the parties and that unless democratic habits of thought and action are part of the fiber of a people, political democracy is insecure. It cannot stand in isolation. It must be buttressed by the presence of democratic methods in all social relations.17 Having realized the failure of democracy in the United States of America, Walt Whitman in his article Democratic Vistas prescribes that to meet the situation in future, whole mass of American mentality, taste and belief should be changed and a new breath of life is to be introduced into national life affecting politics for more than the popular superficial suffrage, accomplishing a religious and moral character beneath the political productive and intellectual bases of the states.18

The aforesaid pre-conditions for success of democracy as suggested by Edward Bens, Laski, John Dewey and Walt Whitman, though conspicuously absent in Western Society but are present in Islamic society in their totality. Let us examine social, political and economic democracies in Islam.

Islam and Social Democracy

Foundation of social democracy is laid on the concept of oneness of God (Tauhid) and Unity of mankind as members of a single Brotherhood. Islam established brotherhood and equality of man which are the basic ingredients of democracy. Al-Quran declares that from out of one pair, mankind is created and from out of it countless men and women are scattered.19 It is further declared that mankind was created out of one male and one female and made into Nations and Tribes only for knowing each other ( not that they may despise ach other), certainly the most honored in the sight of God is he who is the most Righteous.20 Prophet(PBUH) in his Farewell address also said. “O ye people, Allah says you are created from one male and one female and made into tribes and nations so that you could be identified. Verily in the sight of Allah, the most honoured is the one who is the most God fearing. There is no superiority for an Arab over a non-Arab and for a non-Arab over an Arab, nor for white over the black nor for the black over the white, except in piety. All mankind is the progeny of Adam who was fashioned out of clay. Behold, every claim of privilege whether that of blood or property, is under my heels.” Muslim Ummah is also compared with a building, by the Prophet, where each brick in co-operation with other bricks maintains and strengthens the building. The brotherhood of Muslims is also compared with human body. If one part feels pain rest also react (Al-Hadith). The social status of each human being along with Ideological goal of life is same which was preached and practiced by Islam. The Prophet (Peace be upon Him) took the lead not only to free the slaves but also to establish them with social prestige and dignity. Even during the Meccan period Hazrat Khadijatul Qubra(RA) spent her wealth on this programme, Zaid on being freed was taken as member of their family and married to Zainab, cousin of the Prophet (Peace be upon Him ). The Prophet ( Peace bre upon Him) gave him generalship of an army consisting of leading persons among Muhajreen and Ansars and on his death, his son Osama was given leadership to be followed by companions like Abu Bakar, Umar and others. Belal on being freed was put in a highly respectable position of the Muadhin. Having seen Belal coming, even Umar the Great used to address him with great respect that the leader was coming. Sultan Mahmud and his servant Aiyaz, as said by Iqbal, could stand side by side on the same line with no difference between them.

In the context of the failure of other religious and man made isms, modern world craves for a proper and practical guideline to solve human problems and to foster brotherhood and toleration to establish peace. Islam alone can take the leadership to fulfill the expectation of the world community and save mankind. Even the Western non-Muslim Scholars and Orientalists admit that Islam alone can give proper guidance in this respect. A.J. Toynbee in Civilization on Trial, observes: the extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding moral achievements of Islam and in the contemporary world, it is conceivable that the spirit of Islam might be the timely reinforcement which would decide this issue in favour of tolerance and peace.21 Having considered the merit of Islam for the solution of world problems, Toynbee invoked Islam in the following terms :”if the present situation of mankind were to precipitate for peace, Islam might be moved to play her historic role once again”. He on study of Islam was amazed with regard to Brotherhood in Islam and observed : that when the Ideology of the Brotherhood of men fired from the cannon mouth of Islam, it set the whole world ablaze. And he was highly convinced that Islam is the only framework within which the hopes and aspirations of mankind can be fulfilled.22 Islamic society by itself is a democratic one as such is an appropriate and a fertile field to facilitate the growth and development of political and economic democracies.

Islam and Political Democracy

In Islamic system of life, Democracy is an indispensable political ideal which as a form of world government is compatible with Quranic Way of life. Al-Quran provides a complete code of life to solve all human problems, material and spiritual. Every sphere of life is blended into one legal system Shariah of Islam which is the only system of life that has subordinate Government, Law and Justice to moral values. Iqbal criticized politics without moral basis in strong terms: If the Deen is divorced or separated from politics, what remains is Chengizi. H.G. Wells in his Outline of History, in appreciation of Islamic System of Life , said that it was the broadest, freshest and cleanest political ideal that had yet to come in to actual activity in the world and it offered better terms than any other to the mass of mankind.23

The Foundation of Islamic Democracy is laid down by Al-Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet, with all its ingredients and pre-conditions. Islam casts a duty upon men, the vicegerents of God on the earth, to individually and collectively implement Islamic Scheme of Life towards establishment of God’s Kingdom on this earth. Consultation in matters of administration had been made obligatory in Islam and to consult them in affairs (of moment). Then when thou has taken decision, put thy trust in God, for God loves those who put their trust (in Him).24 Mutual consultation has been enjoined in conducting affairs.25Prophet and Khulafa-e-Rashedeen rigidly followed the principle of consultation. Umar had two Shuras, the first one was special and second one was broad based with wise people from among the Muhajreen and Ansars. He was of the view that Khilafat, without Majlis-e-Shura, was impossible. Functions of Majlis-e-Shura may be compared with the functions of modern Parliaments with the difference that the former acts on Divine guidance, the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) and according to ideologically homogeneous values, whereas the latter acts without any divine code and ethical mooring. In the election of Khulafe-e-Rashedeen preliminary selection in the form of a nomination used to be made by the limited elderly and wise section with mutual consultation. In each case approval by the Community was essential. The elected Caliphs in their usual speeches after election, had to address the people ensuring them that the Caliph would act according to the dictates of Al-Quran and Sunnah which ensured people’s rights and prescribed obligation of the Caliphs. The people have all the freedom to criticise the activities of the Caliph. Deviation from the fundamentals of Islam would even entail removal from office. Umar was warned by a man “ I swear that If thou commitest errors, we shall not hesitate to punish thee with our swords”. To these frank words Umar replied:” I thank God that there may be found among the Muslims the one to correct Umar’s errors with a sword. “ While Umar was in the midst of his Khutba, one of the persons from the congregation rose up and asked: “ Where from you have got the cloth for long dress ?” His son Abdullah Bin-Umar stood up with his old and short dress and replied that he had given his share of the cloth to his father. According to Islam greatest Jihad is the expression of word of Justice before the Oppressive Ruler.26

Since Al-Quran and Sunnah give the basic guideline for a homogeneous, indivisible and integrated life style, there is no scope for the rulers and the ruled to be deviated from the paths of equality, justice and fair deal to all. The ingredients and basic principles of Democracy are, as such, inherently embedded in the Islamic system of life itself. There is no scope for any ruler to be either a dictator or an autocrat in Islam, by taking recourse to a free style exercise to power, so long he follows Quranic way of life. Unlike the secular West, Islam instead of taking democracy as an isolated and casual venture during election at long intervals establishes a society which by itself is based on liberty, equality and fraternity, the sheet anchors of democracy. So success of democracy under Islam is the necessary corollary to Islamic social, cultural, political and economic systems integrated under one code of life. Non-Muslim thinkers had to admit the superiority of Islam in respect of democracy. The religion revealed to Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon Him) not only taught the loftiest principles of liberty , equality and fraternity, but also ensured the principles of cultural, political and economic democracies. It was almost twelve centuries before the idea became known in Europe that democracy was preached and practiced by Islam with a unique success. Charis Waddy takes it as a surprise that Islam preached and practiced liberty, fraternity and equality, the principles of democracy, one thousand years before the French Revolution (1789 A.D) the historians of the West, date democracy from the French Revolution without ….But unless a society is mentally trained up with fundamental values of Equality, Brotherhood and Common Ideology, democracy can neither grow nor thrive even if thrust upon from above. It is a fact of history that Napoleon took up power within 15 years of French Revolution as a monarch and was declared Emperor. The slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity, evaporated away not only from France but also from European continent as a consequence of Napoleonic hegemony.

Sarojni Naidu in one of her speeches in London referring to Prophet Muhammad ( Peace be upon Him) drew the attention of the West to the fact that what the West dreamt today was not merely a dream but fulfilled fourteen hundred years ago when the lonely dreamer of the desert, communing with the stars, first realized the brotherhood of man and the right of every individual to freedom and equality.

Islam and Economic Democracy

The distribution of political power through democracy can not, in practice, ensure democracy without distribution of wealth. Political democracy without economic democracy is meaningless, rather, a misnomer. Ibn Khaldun the father of Sociology was the first political philosopher to pointedly tell in his Muqaddima (prolegomena ) to his Kitab al Iber that for the success of politics, the importance of economics is a condition precedent. Western philosophers also share the same view. Bertrand Russell specifically observed that old-fashioned democracy and new-fashioned Marxism have failed because the former was only political and the latter was only economic. But Islam is the only code of life to cover individual, social, political, economic, national and international spheres of life.

The economic system of Islam is an integral part of Islam within its own framework. The economic system of Islam has an inseparable relationship with political, judicial, legal, cultural and social systems of Islam. And all these branches are fundamentally based on the moral foundation of Islam. So its economic scheme functions in collaboration with other branches of Islam, a complete code of life, for achieving the highest benefit for mankind in a balanced way. Islam, through the concept of ownership of God and specific economic scheme, not only forbids capitalism and exploitation but also ensures equitable distribution of wealth. Ownership of property according to Islam, lies with God as political and legal sovereignty lies with Him: to Him belongs what is in the heavens and on earth and all between them and all beneath the soil.28 The Islamic economic system is based on the concepts of ownership of God, Khilafat, Fraternity and Trusteeship of men, His Vicegerents on this earth.

Around the first quarter of the 7th Century A.D. the declaration of right of the poor in the wealth of the rich was beyond imagination in the context of the then world. But Islam had recognized and declared the right of the needy in the wealth and possessions of the rich.29

Al-Quran declared that men shall be questioned by God as to how far they discharged their duties with regard to their possession and personal selves30. Payment of Zakat has been enjoined as a duty next to Salat (Prayer). Reward has been declared for spending in charity by day and night in secret and in public.31 It has been made incumbent to spend, out of love for Him, for kin, orphans, for the needy, the wayfarer, for those who ask and for ransom to free the slaves.32

Usury and Monopoly

The Islamic Economic System prohibits both usury and monopoly which breed capitalism. Usury is the vehicle of exploitation, so Islam forbids it and encourages trade.33A war is declared from God and the Apostle against usury.34 The Prophet declared : he that monopolises is a wrong doer (Al-Hadith). Under capitalistic system of the West, wealth is circulated among the few rich. Islam encourages circulation of wealth in society and in consequences, hoarding is also prohibited as a great sin.35 To ensure circulation of wealth its rotation between the wealthy people alone is forbidden.36 Islam discourages both niggardliness and extravagance and it strikes a balance between the two.37 Islam takes another revolutionary stand when Al-Quran enjoins that assets beyond the need of the rich one is to be distributed among the poor.38 It ensures equi-distribution of wealth. The success of economic system of Islam reached to the extent that during the Khilafat of Umar Ibn Adbul Aziz, none was available to accept Zakat.

On consideration of democracy practiced in different spheres of life: social, political and economic fields, it can be safely concluded that unlike other religions and man-made isms Islam guaranteed the success of democracy due to its own merit as an integrated system of life covering its all fields.

Charis Waddy having appreciated the Islamic system observes: “These ideas are not merely of moral value. They are legally implemented for Islam brought with it a legal system. A legal principle introduced by the Caliph Umar decrees that if a person dies of starvation, then the penalty for wrongful death should be imposed on all the citizens of the town as though they had killed him.39 She further observes that in Islam, for the first time, an economic theory of equal opportunities and fair distribution were outlined. Islam teaches that God is concerned not only with moral and ethical reforms, but also with social emancipation and economic condition.40

She further exclaimed on Prophet’s extraordinary contribution to world civilization in the field of human affairs including democracy. She in appreciation of the merit of Islam as a complete code of life and greatness of the Prophet of Islam observes:” What does the life of the Prophet mean to us ? When he died at the age of sixty-three, his life’s work had completely transformed his native land. Not only did a new pure faith prevailed, but the right of the woman and the protection of the minors had been put on a totally new basis, politics and economy were reorganized, democracy brought into public life all in a new manner incredibly audacious for those days.”41

The basis of Shariah, the Islamic Law, is Divine Wisdom and its purpose is human welfare both in this worldly life and the hereafter. The All-Wise Creator knows best the real need of mankind, His own creation and vicegerent on this earth, while the so-called secular political leaders can not even properly conceive, and prescribe any real solution of problems.

Iqbal’s criticism of the Western democracy is quite consistent with the caution in Al-Quran : “Wert thou to follow the common run of those on earth, they will lead thee away from the Way of God, they follow nothing but conjecture, they do nothing but lie.” 42 The only solution of man’s participation lies in Islamic brand of democracy which makes it acceptable only under the control and guidance as prescribed in Al-Quran.

Iqbal’s religious devotion without any trace of fanaticism and emotionalism led him to deal dispassionately with issues of life including democracy. Democratic spirit can never be sustained by confining it in casual election, but that spirit must pervade in all spheres of life, literature and culture to integrate and discipline the nation as a whole. Since democracy is inextricably connected with the entire code of life (Islam) so to correct any of the items, entire Islam as a complete code is to be accepted and put in to simultaneous operation, as such Iqbal emphasised and urged upon the Ummah to go back to the pristine purity of Islam, since the cause of the present debacle of Muslim world is departure from the teachings of Al-Quran.

He reminded the Muslim Ummah:

“Woh zamane main muazziz thay Musalman ho kar
Aur tum khwar huey tarek-e-Quran ho kar”

The Western World cunningly took the cover table slogan of democracy to win the election to switch over the various forms of dictatorship. Through the same method, Fascism and Nazism assumed power in Italy and Germany respectively. Even Marxism came to power on the slogan of democracy, i.e., Republic (USSR) in Russia.

Human Rights, Civil Liberty and Human Dignity were put into jeopardy and totally denied. Iqbal was fully justified to hold that Western democracy was a Tamasha (Fun) and according to him if Deen is divorced or separated from politics, what remains is mere Chengizi. According to Iqbal, none knows what would happen after the election is over. The cause of scathing criticism of Western democracy by Iqbal, inter alia, was to stop its un-chartered destination. The only solution of the problem of forms of government of the West, according to Iqbal, is Islam.

References

Dr. Sir Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Published by Javed Iqbal son of Late Iqbal, Sheikh Muhammad Ashraf, Kashmiri Bazar, Lahore, p.159
Ibid, p.179
Thought and Reflections of Iqbal,(ed.) Syed Wahid, Muhammad Ashraf Publications, Lahore. P.37
Al-Quran, Baqara. 279
Harold J. Laski, Parliamentary Government in England, Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, p.43.
Ibid.,p.96
Harold j. Laski, Democracy in Crisis , George Allen and Unwin Ltd.,p.68.
Ibid.,p.75
Bertrand Russell, The Taming of Power, p.177

10. Sir Stafford Cripps, Democracy Up-To-Date, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., Museum Street London,p.20

11. Ibid.,p.54

12. Ibid.,p.15

13. Kuldip Nayar, Bangladesh Observer, November 21,1989.

14. AIR. Journal, 1959,p.50

15. Edward Benes, Democracy Today and Tomorrow, MacMillan & Co., Ltd., St Martins Street London. 1940, p.218

16. Harold J.Laski, ”The internal Condition of Democracy”, Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. Allahabad Central Book Depot, p.189.

17. John Dewey, Democracy in Readings in Philosophy, John Harman Randal. Jr. (ed.),p.35.

18. Walt Whitman, “Democratic Vistas in Mass Culture,” The Popular Arts American. (ed.)Bernard Revenberg and David Manning White, The Free Press, New York, MacMillan, Ltd., London, p.35.

19. Al-Quran, Nissa :1

20. Al-Quran, Hujurat :13

21. A.J Toynbee, Civilization on Trial, Oxford University Press, 1949, pp.205-6.

22. Ibid, p.212.

23. H.G. Wells, Out Line of History, p.425.

24. Al-Quran, Al-e-Imran : 159.

25. Al-Quran, Shura :38.

26. Al-Hadith.

27. Charis Waddy, The Muslim Mind, Longman, p.40

28. Al-Quran,

Ta-Ha:6
Maryam :65

29. Al-Quran,

Zariyat :19
Maarij : 24-25

30. Al-Quran, Aal-e-Imran : 186

31. Al-Quran, Baqara : 274 and 277

32. Al-Quran, Baqara : 177

33. Al-Quran, Baqara : 275 and 178

34. Al-Quran, Baqara : 279

35. Al-Quran, Tauba : 34-35

36. Al-Quran, Hashr : 7

37. Al-Quran,

Bani Isra-il : 26-27
Furqan : 67

38. Al-Quran, Baqara : 219

39. Charis Waddy, op.cit.,p.39.

40. Ibid, p.47.

41. Ibid, p. 35-36

42. Al-Quran, An’am : 116

Source:

Iqbal Congress Papers,
Third Allama Iqbal International Congress,
November 9-11, 1998.
University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan.

2021-02-20T06:38:43+00:00

Abstract

Iqbal seems to be engaged in constructing his own metaphysical system; he moves all over a vast canvas of the annals of Islam’s intellectual history to seek support and inspiration. His ambitions are noble, and his concerns are invaluable– but what he does philosophically is beset with all kinds of problems.

If one considers the totality of Iqbal’s literary output as constituting a single integral whole, then there is hardly any important personage of Islamic intellectual and cultural history not to be found figuring in his horizons. Indeed, he cast an enormously wide net both in his imaginative world of poetry and his discursive world of metaphysical speculations, capturing so much in it that the sheer historical range and scope of his locutions are simply overwhelming. Hermann Hesse, the celebrated Swiss-German writer and Nobel-Laureate, once spoke of three spiritual realms of Iqbal (drei Reichen des Geistes): the world of India, the world of Islam, and the world of western thought.[1] Gerhard Böwering called Iqbal “a bridge between East and West,” drawing upon enormously variegated legacies of what he considers two distinct cultural spheres.[2] Aziz Ahmad, while discussing Iqbal’s thought process and thought structure in a somewhat critical vein, pointed out that Iqbal’s intellectual efforts embraced a “vast range” of positions culled from a whole multiplicity of schemes of thought.[3] Elsewhere, I have myself brought into fuller focus the fact that Iqbal not only drew upon the Arabo-Persian sources, but opened many other vistas too, receiving light also from the Indo-Persian, Greco-Arabic, Iranian, and of course Western and Indic traditions.[4]

I feel very strongly that Iqbal’s fundamental identity has been shaped by his poetry, not by his discursive thought. It is in the world of poetry, not of the discipline of philosophy, that he reigns supreme; indeed, it is Iqbal the Poet, not the speculative metaphysician, who rules over the hearts of millions and who has gained the grand stature of a global literary colossus. But, then, poetry does not construct rational systems; it often distorts natural realities to render them fictions, though meaningful fictions.[5] So to discuss Iqbal and classical Muslim thinkers in the context of his poetry is to move beyond a structured discourse and to follow poetry’s own rhythms and its own complex logic in which factual reality is only an instrument and not an end in itself– or as Iqbal would have said himself ‑ not the destination but only the lamp that illuminates the path leading to the destination. And yet, the context of this discussion of mine is rational-historical, not literary-subjective, and this means that we must restrict ourselves to those works of Iqbal in which he explicitly attempts to construct a discursive scheme, a system guided by formal logic, within which he treats factual empirical data of history, science, and nature.

And this means a limitation: that is, we are to narrow our consideration to two of his prose writings, generally regarded as his “philosophical” works– namely his doctoral work submitted to Munich University in 1907, The Development of Metaphysics in Persia,[6] and of course, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, first published in London in 1934.[7] However, it is widely known that Iqbal’s thought, active and animated as it was, went through its own development and evolution, and he subsequently distanced himself from many of the views he had expressed in the dissertation, reluctant to allow the publication of an Urdu translation of the work. This leaves us largely with one work that embodies the mature phase of his rational system-building, namely his Reconstruction. In what follows, therefore, the focus is very largely, though not exclusively, on this latter work. It is the Reconstruction that serves here as the point of departure as well as the point of return.

The list of classical Muslim thinkers that make an appearance in the work is fairly large– we see some of them appearing briefly, some extensively, and some appearing only once and some repeatedly. In fact, Alessandro Bausani has compiled a complete catalogue of all of these citations and invocations in both the Reconstruction and the Metaphysics, reproducing Iqbal’s text in every case. The Italian scholar has counted some twenty-three classical Muslim sources, both individuals and doctrinal communities, spoken of or directly quoted by Iqbal; furthermore, he classifies these Iqbalian sources very broadly according to their specific intellectual discipline.[8] This classificatory catalogue essentially embodies a mechanical exercise with minimal theoretical discourse or explanatory thrust. And yet, when the two bodies of Iqbal’s writings are viewed not qua collections of fragments as Bausani seems to have done here, but in their wholeness as forming two integrated units, then it becomes possible to generate another classification– a classification not merely mechanical but explanatory, shedding much light on our poet’s speculative methodology as well as the rather personal nature of his interpretive historical narrative

Thus, firstly, there are those sources invoked by Iqbal which have influenced him significantly both in the structure and substance of his thought. Quite naturally, such sources are referred to and discussed frequently and at length in his discourses. Then, secondly, there are those thinkers, philosophical groups, and traditions that are cited by Iqbal for the purpose of seeking support for his own ideas and to give these ideas a ring of traditional and established authority; or for the purpose of demonstrating a parallel between classical Islamic thought and modern Western intellectual and scientific developments, emphasizing what he sees as the historical and logical priority of the former in anticipating what was to be discovered by Europe only centuries later. And, finally, Iqbal cites many classical Muslim personages for the embellishment and ornamentation of his own assertions and claims. Less charitably, this last may well be called “name-dropping.” These three categories, however, are not mutually exclusive. Some focused research on this taxonomy would be most fruitful, but it is not undertaken in this article.

Here, another word about the limitations of this study of mine is to be said: I have largely limited myself, firstly, to those Muslim sources which fall in the first group, and, secondly, to those sources from this group that have been cited in Iqbal’s philosophical discourses, or rather, in his metaphysical constructions, leaving out those he draws upon in his disquisition on Islamic law and Sharīah.

Methodology of Metaphysical Constructs and the Iqbalian Spin

I shall begin with two important observations, one concerning Iqbal’s discursive methodology, the other having to do with his reading of the sources he invokes. As for his methodology, it happens to be almost invariably speculative. What does that mean? It means that whenever a tension arises within the elements of his doctrinal scheme, he fixes it by metaphysical constructs; this is practically a poetic fix, one ought to note. So, for example, speaking ontologically about God’s existence in non-serial time, he is confronted with the challenge of reconciling two assertions of the Qur’ān: One speaking about God’s command as being ‑ to say it in ordinary language – timeless; this is 54:50 which Iqbal translates as “Our command was but one, swift as the twinkling of an eye” (ka-lamhim bi’l-basar). And the other (25: 59) declaring that it took six days for God to create the cosmos– Iqbal renders it,

“Who in six days (fī sittati ayyāmin) created the Heavens and the earth, and what is between them.” How does one reconcile both the absence and presence of a time-period in one and the same process, twinkling of an eye on the one hand and six days on the other?

Now, typically, Iqbal’s method is quite unlike that of the traditional Muslim tafsīr, Qur’ānic hermeneutics, which would as a normal course resolve the variation by one or more of the standard exegetic devices– historicization (the sha’n nuzūl approach), contextualization, philological analysis, and explication by Hadith reports. As against all this, Iqbal explains the variation by a heavy metaphysical construct: there exist two kinds of selves, he teaches us, the appreciative self and the efficient self. A whole speculative edifice is now erected on this construct:

The unity of appreciative ego is like the unity of the germ in which the experiences of its individual ancestors exist, not as a plurality, but as a unity in which every experience permeates the whole. There is no numerical distinctness of states in the totality of the ego, the multiplicity of whose elements is, unlike that of the efficient self, wholly qualitative. There is change and movement, but this change and movement are indivisible; their elements inter-penetrate and are wholly non-serial in character. It appears that the time of the appreciative self is a single ‘now’ which the efficient self in its traffic with the world of space, pulverizes into a series of ‘now’ like pearl beads in a thread …

If we look at the moment embodied in creation from the outside, that is to say, if we apprehend it intellectually, it is a process lasting through thousands of years; for one Divine day, in the terminology of the Quran… is equal to 1,000 years. From another point of view the process of creation, lasting through thousands of years, is a single indivisible act, ‘swift as the twinkling of an eye’.[9]

This sounds unmistakably Bergsonian, distinguishing between pure duration (durée) and serial time with its multiplicity of moments as they come into manifestation in sequential succession.[10] Indeed, Iqbal does acknowledge that he is drawing upon or rather appropriating the French philosopher in this metaphysical adventure of explaining the differing Qur’ānic assertions. What Iqbal is doing embodies a highly imaginative exercise, but it is more pleasing poetically than philosophically, in the strict and technical sense of philosophy.

The reason for the philosophical weakness of the exercise is the idiosyncratic manner in which Iqbal recasts his sources and appropriates them to serve his own ends– even though these ends are, I must add, certainly noble ones. And this takes us to the second observation made above, namely his own reading of the sources that he invokes. In the particular case at hand, we see Bergson expounded, fundamentally readjusted, and finally mapped onto the framework of classical Muslim thinkers. Harmonizing Bergson with the kalām or sufi traditions, or with Greco-Arabic philosophy, is an impossible task due to the incompatible conceptual presuppositions upon which these various sets of ideas are severally grounded. Yet Iqbal tries to make this harmonizing possible by presenting to his audience a modern Bergsonian reading of classical Muslim thinkers; and in giving his own spin to both, in the end he effectively transmutes each beyond recognition.

Thus, on the hand, Iqbal introduces an Aristotelian teleology into the élan vital of Bergson, the primordial energy flowing in pure duration (durée), and on the other hand reformulates Abu’l-Hasan al-Ash‘arī’s (d. 937) time atomism, so that the two are brought into a compatible relationship. Iqbal then brings to bear a large number of Muslim thinkers to support this adventure of his, again reading these thinkers in his own personal manner. Here is a mixing of Bergson, Ash‘arī, and (derivatively) Ghazālī:

Pure time [durée] … is not a string of separate, reversible instants; it is an organic whole in which the past is not left behind, but is moving along with, and operating in, the present [Bergson] … It is time freed from the net of causal sequence– the diagrammatic character which the logical understanding imposes upon it [kalām/Ash‘arī/ Ghazālī] …

If time is real, and not a mere repetition of homogeneous moments which make conscious experience a delusion, then every moment in the life of Reality is original [kalām/Ash‘arī/Ghazālī] … To exist in real time is not to be bound by the fetters of serial time [Bergson], but to create it from moment to moment and to be absolutely free and original in creation [kalām/Ash‘arī/ Ghazālī].[11]

Now comes Iqbal’s re-casting of Bergson. The vitalism of Bergson, he declares, “ends in an insurmountable dualism of will and thought.”[12] Here enters ‘Urfī, largely for ornamental support, a Persian Muslim poet imaginatively appropriated to usher Iqbal into the psychological theory that “ends and purposes … form the warp and woof of conscious experience.”[13] Bergson then undergoes an Iqbalian transmutation:

Purposes … constitute the forward push of our life [Bergson’s élan vital], and thus in a way anticipate and influence the states that are yet to be … Thus past and future both operate in the present state of consciousness, and the future is not wholly undetermined as Bergson’s analysis of our conscious experience shows… On the analogy of our conscious experience, therefore, Reality is not a blind vital impulse wholly unilluminated by idea. Its nature is through and through teleological.[14]

Iqbal is not bothered by the fact that by introducing telos into the élan vital of Bergson, he is removing the very foundational principle on which the French philosopher’s whole metaphysical system stands: making the élan vital purposive negates the essential primordial freshness of the durée. If Bergson’s vitalism is given a specific ontological direction or is made to move towards an end, and its wholly undetermined nature is denied, then it is no longer Bergson’s élan vital. Again, note Iqbal’s methodological tendency to resolve conceptual tensions by metaphysical constructs: teleology, he says, is not mechanistic, but a vitalistic-creative process.

The Mélange: Bergson, Ash‘arī, Ibn Hazm, and Persian Thinkers

Bergson thus transmuted is then fully woven with classical Muslim thinkers. Iqbal has a corrective formula here for the famous Spanish writer, theologian, and legist Ibn Hazm. He hesitated to predicate life of God, observes Iqbal, out of his fear for conceiving Him in anthropomorphic terms. Ibn Hazm resolves this fear by proposing, our poet reports, “that God should be described as living, not because he is living in the sense of our experience of life, but only because he is so described in the Quran.”[15]An Ash‘arī-Bergson mélange now appears, a mélange which would be recognizable neither to Ash‘arī nor to Bergson, since it maps the cosmological-metaphysical atomism of the former onto the vitalistic-psychological pure duration of the latter. Iqbal reads Ibn Hazm in his own private manner and then offers a curative:

Confining himself to the surface of our conscious experience and ignoring its deeper phases, Ibn Hazm must have taken life as a serial change, a succession of attitudes towards an obstructing environment. Serial change is obviously a mark of imperfection; and, if we confine ourselves to this view of change, the difficulty of reconciling Divine perfection with Divine life becomes insuperable. Ibn Hazm must have felt that the perfection of God can be retained only at the cost of His life. There is, however, a way out of the difficulty.

The Absolute Ego … is the whole of Reality. He is not so situated as to take a perspective view of an alien universe; consequently, the phases of His life are wholly determined from within. Change, therefore, in the sense of movement from an imperfect to a relatively perfect state, or vice versa, is absolutely inapplicable to His life. But change in this sense is not the only possible form of life. A deeper insight into our conscious experience shows that beneath the appearances of serial duration there is true duration. The Ultimate Ego exists in pure duration wherein change ceases to be a succession of varying attitudes, and reveals its true character as continuous creation, ‘untouched by weariness’ and unsiezable ‘by slumber or sleep’.[16]

A few things need to be brought into focus here. Note, first, the speculative reading of Ibn Hazm on the part of Iqbal, a reading that is all his own (“Ibn Hazm must have taken …”; “Ibn Hazm must have felt …”). Then we see both Ash‘arī and Bergson brought to bear in the same breath, but without reference or acknowledgement. And finally, we find here Qur’ānic verses beautifully embellishing the discourse. This is typical of Iqbal the Metaphysician!

Interestingly, the weaving together of vastly distant Muslim and European thinkers– distant both in time and in terms of their fundamental doctrines– continues throughout the Reconstruction, and we have at one place the mixing of the sixteenth/seventeenth-century Iranian philosopher Mīr Damād, the teacher of the relatively better known Mullā Sadrā, and the nineteenth-century Bahā’ī, Mullā Bāqir. These two figures are brought together for the support of Iqbal’s Bergsonian-Ash‘arite metaphysics of serial time, pure duration, and the atomism of continuous creation. “The time of the Ultimate Ego is revealed as change without succession, i.e. an organic whole which appears atomic because of the creative movement of the ego. This is what Mir Damad and Mulla Baqir mean when they say that time is born with the act of creation by which the Ultimate Ego realizes and measures, so to speak, the infinite wealth of His own undetermined creative possibilities.”[17] Typically, Iqbal gives no references.

It is quite evident already that while the two Persians are invoked by Iqbal only for legitimizing his own views by a flash-back technique, he is definitely influenced profoundly by one trend in the classical intellectual history of Islam: namely, kalām atomism, especially as it is articulated in the Ash‘arite tradition. Indeed, Iqbal also had to be critical of this tradition since his metaphysical project needed to inject into the “objective” Ash‘arite cosmology the psychological theory of time picked up from Bergson. On the other hand, Iqbal does speak very highly of the mutakallims of this mould, paying them the tribute of being “on the right path” and for anticipating some of the “more modern” forms of idealism.” In fact, he often discusses them anachronistically, and does so even in the context of modern mathematics, a field in which he had no expertise. Thus, we are told, and accurately so, that the Ash‘arite did not believe in the infinite divisibility of space and time. “With them space, time and motion are made up of points and instants which cannot be further subdivided.”[18] But, then, Iqbal concludes that they therefore admitted the existence of infinitesimals. This was rejected by Ibn Hazm, Iqbal reports, saying that modern mathematics had now vindicated the Spanish sage.

Ash‘arite thinkers were superior to Kant, says Iqbal. Writing in the Metaphysics that the German philosopher in his inquiry into human knowledge stopped at the idea of “Ding an sich” (thing-in-itself) but these mutakallims went further and practically became the forerunners of the German logician Rudolph Lotze’s (d. 1881) idealism.[19] Declaring the Ash‘arite Abū Bakr Baqillanī (d. 1036) in the Reconstruction as the “most exact and daring thinker,”[20] Iqbal pays a resounding tribute to the mutakallims: the emergence and endurance of atomism in Islam was the first important indication of an intellectual revolt against the Aristotelian idea of a fixed universe; and this formed one of the most interesting chapters in the entire history of Muslim thought.

Earlier, in the Metaphysics, Iqbal says something that should serve as an antidote to a misleading presumption still lurking about in some contemporary circles– that science in Islam came to a halt after Ghazālī’s dismissal of causality and the assertion of his atomistic theory of continuous creation, both carried out, as they were, in an Ash‘arite vein. This view of the end of science from Muslim societies is arrogantly drawn from the now discarded thesis of Ignaz Goldziher, a view that is historically absurd but highly satisfying ideologically. Here Iqbal moves in exactly the opposite direction– he recognizes Ash‘arī, whom Ghazālī had followed, as having provided the very logical justification and metaphysical grounding that make experimental science philosophically respectable, thereby supplying a supporting intellectual muscle to these sciences for a renewed boost! “Such a state of thing [experimental-observational science of Ibn al-Haytham and al-Bīrūnī] could have existed, but could not have been logically justified before al-Ashari.”[21] 277 Bausani This is a highly original observation; it is contextual and therefore non-anachronistic, opening up rich and fruitful historical questions.

Anachronisms: Mutakallims, Sufis, and Poets Mapped onto Quantum Physics and Newton

But anachronism remains a part of Iqbal’s attitude, since he declares both the Mu‘tazilite Ibrāhīm al-Nazzām (d. 845) and the Ash‘arite thinkers rather awkwardly as the precursors of the modern theories of quantum physics.[22] Giving Ash‘arites a priority in intellectual history, Iqbal acknowledges that their doctrine of time is perhaps the first attempt in the history of Muslim thought to understand it philosophically.[23]And yet, he had no choice but to be critical of them in the same breath. Their position with regard to the philosophy of time leads to absurd conclusions, he says, because they looked at the subject of their inquiry from a wholly objective point of view. They are censured by Iqbal for having learned no lessons from the history of Greek thought. But, note, here is a clear ambivalence: surely, Iqbal had also hailed these very mutakallims as embodying a pioneering, heroic, and decisive revolt against Greek intellectual thralldom!

Again, with a messier anachronism Iqbal lumps together the Ash‘arites, Isaac Newton, and modern science. Giving his pronouncement that any notion of time that deems it wholly objective is doomed to run into difficulties, Iqbal observes that Newton’s view of time is equally objective and that “the verdict of modern science is exactly the same as those of the Ash‘arite … [T]he constructive endeavour of the Ash‘arite, as of the moderns, was wholly lacking in psychological analysis … [T]hey altogether failed to perceive the subjective aspect of time.”[24] Then in support and elaboration of his own (poetic) doctrine of time, Iqbal would draw upon Muslim mystical philosophers, all the time continuing with his characteristic methodology of making metaphysical constructs to resolve logical tensions.

The two figures in this particular case are the Shirazi theologian and philosopher, Mullā Jalāluddīn Dawwānī (d. 1502) and the famous Suhrawardī sufi-poet Fakhruddīn ‘Irāqī (d. 1289), who was part of the entourage of Bahā’uddīn Zakariya. It is interesting to note that both of these figures are influenced by Ibn ‘Arabī, something that indicates Iqbal’s own inclinations. This is what Iqbal has to say in a full-blooded metaphysical theory-construction:

Dawani tells us that if we take time to be a span which makes possible the appearance of events as a moving procession and conceive this span to be a unity, then we cannot but describe it as an original state of Divine activity, encompassing all the succeeding states of that activity. But the Mulla takes good care to add that a deeper insight into the nature of succession reveals its relativity, so that it disappears in the case of God to Whom all events are present in a single act of perception. The sufi Iraqi has a similar way of looking at the matter. He conceives infinite varieties on time, relative to the varying grades of being, intervening between materiality and pure spirituality.[25]

We are not told from which text exactly Iqbal gives these citations, but it is to be noted that he is not bothered by Dawwānī’s anthropomorphism: the thinker is cited as having spoken of God’s “act of perception”! Also, it becomes more and more evident that Iqbal is engaged in cobbling together support for his own views no matter from which quarter this support comes from: from a poet or a philosopher or a mutakallim or a sufi, or, decisively, from the Hadith or the Qur’ān. In the process he is wont to put his own spin on these sources– accepting them selectively when they suit him, or rejecting them selectively when they are at variance from his own asserted doctrines, or freely reconstructing them as needed, and doing all of this sometimes quite arbitrarily. In the passage just quoted one also notes a whiff of Neoplatonic ontology– “degrees of being” between materiality and spirituality.

In Iqbal’s metaphysics of space, we see a similar trend. Thus, two sufis are invoked for a thoroughly speculative construction of the notion of space– one of them is ‘Irāqī whom we have met above and the other is the early Naqshbandi sufi Khwāja Muhammad Pārsā (d. 1419); again, note that like ‘Irāqī, Pārsā too had affinities for Ibn ‘Arabī. Iqbal speaks of the “religious psychology” of the two sufis and claims that they bring us “much nearer to our [modern] ways of looking at the problem of space and time.”[26]. Now after citing the Qur’ān, Iqbal approvingly presents the speculative doctrine of ‘Irāqī: there are three kinds of space ‑ the space of material bodies, the space of immaterial beings, and the space of God. The first space is further subdivided into three sub-spaces– space of gross bodies, space of subtle bodies, and space of light. Then, typically, the Suhrawardi sufi-poet is declared to be the precursor of modern physics! He is “really trying to reach the concept of space as a dynamic appearance. His mind seems to be vaguely struggling with the concept of space as an infinite continuum … [His ideas] suggest the modern notion of space-time.”[27] Iqbal does not seem to distinguish between poetry and relativistic mechanics!

Iqbal’s Positivistic View of Science and Abū Bakr Rāzī, al-Bīrūnī, and Ibn Khaldūn

A very large number of classical Muslim thinkers are also criticized by Iqbal– they include, for instance, Ash‘arī, as we have seen, but also Ghazālī and Ibn Rushd. Yet there are a few who escape his censure, particularly the scientists Abū Bakr Rāzī (d. 925) and al-Bīrūnī (d.1048), and the philosopher of history Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406). It ought to be noted here that Iqbal espouses a positivistic view of scientific methodology which has long been discarded, a view that is now called the “myth of inductivism,” or the “Baconian myth,” given that Francis Bacon is its begetter. According to this myth, science begins with the observation of concrete reality, doing so often through experiments; out of these experiments and observations it discovers causal links between phenomena; and through repeated verification of these causal links universal scientific theories are then logically induced. With all good intentions, and despite the powerful rejection of causality by Ash‘arī, Ghazālī, and David Hume, all of whom are known to Iqbal, he goes as far as to pronounce that “The birth of Islam … is the birth of inductive intellect”! Here is Iqbal’s neat history with all its chronological awkwardness and highly suspect reading of the sources:

Abu Bakr Razi was perhaps the first to criticize Aristotle’s [logic], and in our own times his objection, conceived in a thoroughly inductive spirit has been reformulated by John Stewart Mill. Ibn Hazm, in his Scope of Logic, emphasizes sense perception as a source of knowledge; and Ibn Taymiyya [d. 1328], in his Refutation of Logic, shows that induction is the only form of reliable argument. Thus arose the method of observation and experiment. [!][28]

Daringly, Iqbal makes al-Bīrūnī the precursor of none other than Newton. al-Bīrūnī approached the modern mathematical idea of function, Iqbal claims, and saw the insufficiency of the Greek static view of the universe. By introducing time into the fixed cosmos of the Greeks, he rendered the universe a becoming rather than a being, we are told. Iqbal goes too far afield now and says, “al-Bīrūnī generali[zed] Newton’s formula of interpolation from trigonometric function to any function whatever”![29]In this way, Iqbal refutes Spengler’s claim that the idea of mathematical function is Western. But then, what Spengler seems to have in mind is calculus, and Newton is one of its inventers, a monumental mathematical development unknown to al-Bīrūnī. So, despite his greatness as a scientist, we cannot map al-Bīrūnī onto a Newtonian system of modern physics.

Iqbal lavishes profuse praise upon Ibn Khaldūn. One might venture to speculate a kind of back-formation here: by the time Iqbal was writing, Western scholars had begun to recognize the eminence of this Muslim philosopher of history, and he came into prominence in the twentieth-century Islamic world as an echo it seems from the West, not owing to any indigenous intellectual developments. In all likelihood, it is through Western sources that Iqbal too focused on Ibn Khaldūn. Moreover, it is also likely that he has no recourse to the original text of the Muqaddima since his Ibn Khaldūn is sometimes his own construction, an Ibn Khaldūn freely re-shaped. Thus, Iqbal makes him the forerunner of the modern hypothesis of subliminal selves,[30]and cites an orientalist in support. In the same psychological context, Iqbal discusses Hallāj’s mystical experience and his cry of “Ana’l- Haqq,” and then invokes Ibn Khaldūn as the Muslim sage who felt the need to develop an effective scientific method to investigate experiences of these kinds.[31] This is something that modern psychology has only recently realized, Iqbal claims. Ibn Khaldūn, then, had a priority in the world of modern psychology.

But the most problematic are the observations Iqbal makes with regard to Ibn Khaldūn’s view of time and the life of civilizations. Reiterating his observation that Muslim thought sees the universe in dynamic terms as a process of continuous becoming, he says that this position is reinforced by Ibn Khaldūn’s view of history. A keen sense of the reality of time, and the concept of life as a continuous movement in time, are the teachings of the Qur’ān, Iqbal tells us. Then, he goes on to say:

It is this conception of life and time which is the main point of interest in Ibn Khaldūn’s view of history… [C]onsidering the direction in which the culture of Islam had unfolded itself, only a Muslim could have viewed history as a continuous, collective movement, a real inevitable development in time. The point of interest in this view of history is the way in which Ibn-i-Khaldun conceives the process of change. His conception is of infinite importance because of the implication that history, as a continuous movement in time, is a genuinely creative movement and not a movement whose path is already determined … [Ibn Khaldūn] may well be regarded as a forerunner of Bergson.[32]

This reading of Ibn Khaldūn is hard to justify!

Going back to the observation made earlier, Iqbal seems to be engaged in constructing his own metaphysical system; he moves all over a vast canvas of the annals of Islam’s intellectual history to seek support and inspiration. His ambitions are noble, and his concerns are invaluable– but what he does philosophically is beset with all kinds of problems. As Aziz Ahmad once said: “In the fusion of two different streams of civilization, modern Western and medieval Islamic, of two currents of thought, philosophic and mystic, and two strands of value-recognition, ethical and dynamic, what he achieved was not a synthesis but his own thought-process and thought-structure, which is an individual expression embracing a vast range of isolated positions of Western and Islamic schemes of thought.”[33]

Notes And References

[1] Reproduced in Fikr wa Fann, 22 (1979), p. 1.

[2] G. Böwering, “Iqbal: A Bridge of Understanding between East and West,” Journal of South Asia and Middle Eastern Studies, 1 (1977), pp. 12-21.

[3] Aziz Ahmad, “Iqbal: Speculative Neo-Modernism” in Aziz Ahmad, Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan: 2857-1964. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967, pp. 141-63.

[4] S. Nomanul Haq, “Recovering Iqbal,” Dawn Books and Authors, 24 August 2008, pp. 2-4.

[5] In articulating my views I have drawn upon the many writings of Shamsur Rahman Faruqi. See particularly his How to Read Iqbal. Lahore: Iqbal Academy, 2004.

[6] Muhammad Iqbal, The Development of Metaphysics in Persia: A Contribution to the History of Muslim Philosophy. Lahore: Bazm-I Iqbal, n.d.

[7] Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Lahore: S. M. Ashraf, 1951.

[8] A. Bausani, “Classical Muslim Philosophy in the Work of a Muslim Modernist: Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938),” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 42 (1960), pp. 272-88.

[9] Reconstruction, p. 48.

[10] A detailed study of Iqbal metaphysics of time is A. Bausani, “The Concept of Time in the Religious Philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal,” Die Welt des Islams, N. S. 3 (1954), pp. 158-186.

[11] Reconstruction, 49-50.

[12] Ibid., 52.

[13] Ibid., 53.

[14] Ibid., 53.

[15] Ibid., 59.

[16] Ibid., 59-60.

[17] Ibid., 76-7.

[18] Ibid., 35.

[19] Metaphysics, 57.

[20] Reconstruction, 67.

[21] Bausani, 277

[22] Ibid., 69.

[23] Ibid., 73.

[24] Ibid., 74.

[25] Ibid., 75.

[26] Ibid., 134-35.

[27] Ibid., 127.

[28] Ibid., 129. Emphasis added.

[29] Ibid., 133.

[30] Ibid., 17.

[31] Ibid., 96.

[32] Ibid., 141. Emphasis added.

[33] Aziz Ahmad, “Speculative Neo-Modernism” repr. in M. I. Chaghatai ed., Iqbal: New Dimensions. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2003, p. 337.

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IQBAL REVIEW - Journal of the Iqbal Academy Pakistan

April, 2009– Volume: 50– Number: 2

Editor: Muhammad Suheyl Umar

Iqbal Academy Pakistan

Public Education Campaigns - International Iqbal Society - Allama Iqbal

Index

Topic

Author

Published

Farhan A. Shah

May 2016

Muhammad Umair

October 2015

Muzaffar Hussain

September 2014

Syed Nomanul Haq

October 2009

A. B. A. BAWHAB

1988

Sayyid ‘Ali Khamane’i

-

Mujibur Rahman

Sayed Mustafa Saiedy

2020

The opinions expressed in the Review are those of the individual contributors and are not the official views of International Iqbal Society

.

This Section is devoted to research studies on the life, poetry and thought of Iqbal and on those branches of learning in which he was interested: Islamic Studies, Philosophy, History, Sociology, Comparative Religion, Literature, Art and Archaeology.

Manuscripts for publication in the section should be submitted in duplicate, typed in double-space in Microsoft Office.

All contributions should be sent via email at info@iqbalsociety.org

Muhammad Iqbal`s Conception of God

Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo

References

Introduction

Iqbal and His Times

Iqbal and the State of Indian Muslims

Iqbal’s awakening

Iqbal on Tawhid

Iqbal, the Ummah and Prophet Hood

Iqbal: Between East and West