.
-
In rhis paper we arc not conce rned ,vith Iqbal's poetry as
such. Iqbal used b oth p oetry and prose to co nvey his ideas and
ideals. Also , much has been \Vritten about his poetry and poetic art.
Iqbal, as we kno,v, was deeply conce rned with the fate of the
Muslims in the modern world. He was pained to see Muslim 11
caught in a deep crisis all over the ,vorld. Their religion, as h e
saw it , was encu mbered with unlslamic dogmas under the alien
influences thro ugh medieval ;1ges. Mystic ism, ,vitb its elaborate
1
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IQBAL ON JSLA~l ~3
system of ri tua ls, and philosophy of self-denial and self-mortifi-
cation, he thought, had done great harm to them . He, therefore,
th ought it nec-e ssary to do some thing about it. Being an idealist'
Iq bal asc ribed th e ~'luslims' decline to their mi si nterpretation of
Islam or accepting idca5 which arc fundamentally contradictory
to those of I slam, in the garb of [slam. In keeping with this ideal -
istic inte rpreta ti on of history, he thought th.\t mysti cism ,vith its
life-denying philosophy, ,vhich itself was a produc t of a decadent,
moribund society, \.Vas the real cause of Muslims' sad plight and,
therefor<', with all vehemence, he propounded hie. O\.Yn concept of
"self" (k.hudi). Not so much as social revolution , he see ms to have
thought , as the development of oneself, ca n be a real boon to soci -
ety. (It docs not , however , mean that he wac. opposed to socia l
change. Revolu tio n, for him, begins at the top, th ough, unlike
Nietzsche, he docs not hold masses in cootempt).
Approach to Mysticism
I qbal was not opposed to lasawwuf (m ysticism} as such as
some people think; he was opposed to the decadent form of mysti-
cism as he found it around him and to the Persian influence and
trends incorporated into it through Greek sources. Thus he writes,
in a letter to Hafiz M u hammad Aslam J ai rajpuri: " Prizada Muzaf-
faruddin did not understa nd my real intent at all. If tasawwuf
means si ncerit y of action (and th is is wh a t it meant in the earlier
centuries of I slam}, th en no Muslim should objec t to it. Yes, when
tasawwu:.f tend s to become philosophy and, under non-Arabian
(aja mi) influences, involves itself in h air splitting dicussio n about
the syste m of o ur universe a nd the existence of God, then m y
soul re vol ts againi; t it." 4 Though I qbal's overall approach wa s
that of a n idealist, at times, he tended to adopt objective appro ach
too. Thus in a letter to Sirajuddin Pal dated 19 July 19 16, he
writes: "This is surprisin g that the entire m ysti c poe try was creatC'd
during the period of political decline or
Muslims a nd it ought
to be so. That community whi ch loses its streng th as it happened
with the Muslims after the Mongol invasion, then its very point of
view changes. For its weakness becomes some thing beautiful and
g raceful and renunciation brings satisfaction. Nations try to hide
their indolence and inactivity and its defeat in th e struggle for
existence behind this facade of renunciation. Take the India n
Muslims, for exa mple. The highe st achievemC'nt of their literary
genius ended with elegies of Lucknow!•6
Iqbal had a great desire to reinterpret Isla m. He believed
that a person who wishes to develop his "self" ought to carve out
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54 SOCIAL SCI ENTIST
his own path. He expressed this through poetry a s well as in his
statements, speeches and letters. In a significant quatrain, he
says:
Take thou thine axe, and excavate thy path,
To go another's road is cruel hard;
If by thy labour something rare is wrought,
Thoug h it be sin, it hath its own reward.
In a letter written to Suleiman Nadvi in 1926, he says: " My
intention is to decide Islamic affairs in the light of modern juris-
prudence, not in slavish ma nner, but in a critical way. Before this
too, Muslims have dealt with their beliefs in this fashion. Greek
philosophy was once thought to be the culminatio n of human
knowledge. But when Muslims developed critical fac ulty, they eon·
fr onted Greek philosophy with its own weapons. In o ur age also il
is necessary to do so."0 Iqbal ser a bout to do this necessary task
and he was eminentl y suited lo do it with his knowledge of western
philoso phy.7 He made a systema tic attempt in this direc tio n when
he was requested to d eliver lectures by the M adras Muslim Associa-
Deceptive Front
On theoreti cal level Iq bal had a very broad concept of reli-
gion. In his first lect ure he approvingly quotes Whitehead•s
dtfini tion of religion as " a system of general truth s which have the
effect of transforming character when they are sin cerely held and
vividly apprehcnded! '8 Iqbal remarks: "No one would hazard
action on the basis of a doubtful principle of conduct. Indeed, in
view of its function, religion stands in greater need of a rational
foundation of its ultimate princi ples than even the dogmas of
science .... But to r atio nalise faith is not to admit the superiority
of philosophy over religion. Philoso phy, no doubt, has jurisdic-
tion to judge religion , but what is to be judged is of suc h a nature
that it will not submit to the jurisdiction of philoso phy except on
its own terms.'' 0 This approach is deceptively ration al and, it
is because of this approach, that despite high sounding phrases
like reconstruc tion, creative reinterpretation of religion and so on,
Iqbal, in the ultimate analysis, tends to be conservative and
opposed to any real change as we shall sec later,
Again. it is for this reason that Iqbal holds Ghazali in very
high esteem and , in fact, calls him Kant of Islam. Gazali (twelfth
century AD) was first attracted by Greek philosophy in his
search for the truth but later on rejected it in favour of religion.
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IQBAL ON ISLAM 55
He even wrote a book Tahafat-Ul-Falasifa refuting the arguments
of Greek philosophers. Iqbal thus says: "It cannot, however, be
denied that Ghazali's mission was almost apostolic like that of
Kant in Germany of the eighteenth centu r y. In Germany rati onal-
ism appeared as an ally of religion, but she soon realised that the
dogmatic side of religion was incapable of domonstration. The
only cou rse open to her was to eliminate dogma from the sacred
record. With the elimination of dogma came the utilitarian view
of morality, and thus rationalism completed the reign of unbelief.
Such was the state of theological thought in Germany when Kant
appeared. His Critique of Pure Reason revealed the limitations of
human rr.ason and reduced the whole work of the rationalists to a
heap of ruins. And justly has he been described as God's greatest
gift to his countr y." Thus whosoever subordinates reason to intui-
ti on or even mystic experience attra cts Iqbal's respect and
veneration.
Theories of Time
He reaffir med th e possib ility of knowl edge of God which
Kant had denied . Thus he says: " K ant , consis tentl y with his
princi ples, co uld not affirm the possib ility of a knowl edge of God.
Ghaza li, findin g no hope in analyt ic thoug ht, moved to mystic
experi ence, and there fou nd an indep enden t conte nt for religio n.
In this way he succee ded in securi n g for reli gion th e right to exist
indepe ndentl y of scienc e and mcta physics. 11 10 He even consid ers
mystic experi ence as objec tive in a way as " the mystic state is a
mome nt of intima te associ ation with a uniqu e Other self, transc end-
in g, en compa ssing, and mome ntaril y suppr essing th e privat e
person a of the subjec t experi en ce. Consi dering its co ntent the
mystic state is hi ghly objective and canno t be regard ed as a mere
retirem ent into the mists of pure subjec tivity :' 11 This ma y be a
surpri se to those wh o arc fas cinate d by the poetry of Iqbal that
he wh o never tires of talkin g of chan~ c and revolu tion and even
vexes eloque nt on this subjec t in hi s poetry has very unhist orical
and non-d ynami c conce ption about the highe r truth which he takes
off the d omain of space and time. The in tuiti onal or mystic
knowl edge ~s it is beyon d space and time, is supra -histo rica l and
conse quentl y would raot reflect any social , politic al o r econo mic
chang es taking place in the huma n organ izatio nal struct ure. Iqbal,
it seems, agrees with a su.fi who is report ed to have said that God-
concio usness begins where intellec t ceases to opera te.
In view of this static conce pt of truth , Iqbal' s conce rn with
the theori es of time assum es impor tance. Tbe serial time which
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56 SOCIAL SCIEN TIST
in volves cha nge is not accep table to him. He says in clea r word s:
11
Person ally, I am inclin ed lO think that time is an essent ial eleme nt
in Realit y. But real time is not serial time to which the dist inctio n of
past, presen t and future is essent i a l; it is pure durati on, i.e., change
with ou t success ion which McTa gga rt's argum ent docs not touc h.
Serial time is pure durati on pulvar ised by thoug ht- a kind of
device by whi ch Realit y expose s its ceasel ess crea tive activi ty to
quant itative measu remen t ... " 1!l This is a strang e a nd bafflin g
conce pt indeed . In orde r co get rid of ph ysica l time whi ch is
nothin g but a measu remen t of movem ent of astral bodies , he
invent s (rathe r borrows) the myth of pure durati on,, or an "eter-
Cf
nal now' '. It is no thing more than a charm ing, m ys tical fiction to
soothe a troubl ed mind in quest of eterni ty a nd eth erial perma -
nan cy. In one of his poems Iqbal says:
Iqbal is o pposed to the ve ry spirit of Greek philoso phy as
its basis is intellec tio n and specula tive thoug ht as opposed to the
concrete spirit o f the Koran. H e severely criticizes all those who
interpreted the K oran in th e lig ht of G reek philoso ph y. Thus h e
says, "Not realising that th e spiri t of th e Quran was essentially
anticlas~ical, and putting full confidence in Greek thinkers, their
first impulse was to understand th e Quran in the lig h t o f G reek
philosophy. In view of th e co ncret e sp irit of the Quran , a nd th e
specula ti ve nature o f Greek phi loso phy which enj oyed th eor y and
was neglectful of fac t, th is attempt was foredoomed to fa ilure.
And it is what follows their fai lure t hat brings out th e real spiri t
of the culture of I slam, a nd lays the found atio n o f modern culture
in some of i ts m o~t important aspects/' 17 H erc too, Iqba l is takin g
a hig hl y ide alistic position . H e ig nores th e ma terial foundations of
the spirit o f a ny culture, be it Greek o r I slami c. It is a well kno wn
fact that I sla m o rigin a ted in M ecca and la ter on developed further
in Medina. Both th ese cities, th ough a d vanced compared to th e
nomadic culture of d esert Ara bs, were quite primitive when com-
pa red to th e H ellenic o r Persi a n cities. And a stud ent of history
knows th a t sophisticated th oug ht wi th emphasis o n intellection
canno t develop in a primitive culture. Neither ca n a primitive
culture prod uce d eeper spiritua l experiences with emph as is on
inner pro bings. Ve r y primiti ve communities o f course resort to
m agical rites in order to control n a tural for ces. T h e desert com-
munity with very sca rce m ean s a t i ts disposal can h a rdly develop
any sophisticated cultt>re a nd specula ti ve th o ug ht. It tends to be
extrovert a nd direct o bserva tion of n a ture is the onl y means of
obta ining kno wledge. T he Koran was a ddressed , a pa r t from th e
peo ple of M ecca a nd Medina , to th e dese rt Ara bs. It, therefore,
emph asized knowledge th rough sense per ceptio n, th a t is, through
direc t o b~ervat ion.
Wrortg Assumptions
Morever, the Islamic revolution had benefited the ci ty Arabs
most. The Bedouins (nomadic Arabs), who were used to natural
freedom of the desert and tribal democracy, deeply resented the
domination of these city Arabs through a vast bureaucratic state
machine created by them ,and soon they also rebelled. They
seceded from the army of Ali. They drew their strength from the
Bedouin soldiery and from time to time the I slami c state saw many
violent insurrec tions by them. Needless to say, the Bedouins'
attempt to shatter the state machine and recreate the tribal demo-
cracy of the desert Arabs failed as the historical forces favoured
the city Arabs. Similarly the Persia n mawalis generally favoured
Shiite heterodoxy as they were not necessarily against the state
machine but agai nst its domination by the Arabs. (The Persian
mawalis were, by and large, ·city dwellers and already used to a
vast bureaucratic state machine in Persia for a long time). Thus
what ultimately matters is historical condition and socio-economic
forces rather th a n an ideal. Iqbal never adequately understood
this. In our own time we have seen that Communist international-
ism remains a mere dream as sti ll historical forces have not
created conditions for it to become a reality and we find the
socialist states divided into n ational states with antagonistic or
nonantagonistic contradic tions between them. Iqbal believed
that if Islamic teachings arc implemented sincerely, everything
will fall into place. He did not reckon with the fact that this will
remain a mere drea m until the whole socio-economic structure is
changed. The M uslim states themselves are divided into nation
states and some of them arc each other's sworn enemies. Also,
despite I slamic ideals, there is hardly any Muslim state where
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IQBAL ON ISLAM 61
human rights are full y honoured . Again, the reason is actual
material conditions.
