Iqbal: An Intellectual Giant

[ManFan]

It amazes me at how granted the people of Pakistan take Dr. Iqbal. The man was an extraordinary individual who remains an authority on metaphysics, religion, sociology, economics, politics, philosophy and law. No one in the past century has achieved the feat he has in his 60 year life. He proved that Eastern philosophy is compatible with Western sciences. Religion and science are two targets of the same arrow of knowledge.
Credentials:
P.H.D from Munich University
Knighthood from King George V in 1932
" Allama " title in Islamic studies
18,000 books published in an attempt to decode his 15 works
Fluent in six languages ( German, English, Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi )
Education Administrator at Punjab University
Called to the Bar after 1 year at Lincoln's Inn
Predictions:
The use of atomic energy as evident in his poetic verse " the blood of the sun will fall in droplets, of we split the heart of an atom "
WWI and WWII
Pakistan ( Allahbad Address ) Only the 3rd nation-state in history to be developed on religious grounds after Medina and before Israel.
His influence was recognized and reached a global level during his lifetime and in the future:
Mussolini: Asked Dr. Iqbal from England to visit him via his ambassadors to give him one piece of advice. Dr Iqbal said, " Stop following the West. It's lost its morals and values. Mussolini asked for clarification to which Dr. Iqbal responded, " When a city is overpopulated, it loses its economic, political, and social power. Find new areas to relocate the overpopulation". Mussolini got up, applauded and said " Bravo"!
Supreme Court Associate Douglas Williams: Stated that Dr. Iqbal's advocated morals and values should be assumed by Western civilization and would benefit from them.
Iqbal University offers a P.H.D on Dr. Iqbal's works
Khomeini: Once declared that Dr. Iqbal's works reawakened the Muslims of the world and his poetry was an inspiration for the Revolution.
The road he stayed on in Germany is named after him.
Funeral: The weight of a man's impact is evident by those surrounding his coffin as nobody can harm or benefit from him. Dr. Iqbal's funeral was so largely gathered that the photographer could not grasp it in one frame.
Legacy: Dr. Iqbal had left the global Muslim population in a far better position that which he had inherited it. He was born, raised, and passed away in the midst of the British Empire. He blamed the state of Muslims on themselves. Their egos, corruption, inability to acquire and apply new scientific knowledge. Yet, he is the intellectual force that woke them from their sleep. He was in my opinion, the Mujaddid of the 20th century. He made religion see and science walk. We should understand, appreciate, and act upon his teachings to reach our highest Self ( Khudi ).

 

[Black Zero]

I do not think he ever had any original idea.


Regarding urdu poetry, critics have rated other poets higher. ( I do not know about his persian poetry)

 

[ManFan]

I do not think he ever had any original idea.


Regarding urdu poetry, critics have rated other poets higher. ( I do not know about his persian poetry)

The origins of his Khudi philosophy were asked by an individual and he pointed directly to a verse in the Quran. As for his poetry, he himself stated that whoever calls me just a poet, I will not look at him on the Day of Judgement. If his poetry inspired the creation and statutes of a nation-state, there must be some form of fortitutude in it.

 

[tandapanii]

Indeed a great philosopher and political thinker and without whom a free Muslim state in Asia would not exist.

 

[Black Zero]

The origins of his Khudi philosophy were asked by an individual and he pointed directly to a verse in the Quran. As for his poetry, he himself stated that whoever calls me just a poet, I will not look at him on the Day of Judgement. If his poetry inspired the creation and statutes of a nation-state, there must be some form of fortitutude in it.

Sorry, you need to read about iqbal.
And FYI, there is no day of judgement.

 

[ManFan]

Sorry, you need to read about iqbal.
And FYI, there is no day of judgement.

First of all, I was quoting about what HE said. This is through his student's student's lectures which are available on Youtube, Dr. Israr Ahmed. If you are an atheist, than that is perfectly fine. The point of my post is not to convert anyone but to show them the genius of Dr. Iqbal.

 

[IAJ]

I do not think he ever had any original idea.


Regarding urdu poetry, critics have rated other poets higher. ( I do not know about his persian poetry)

He (ra) was what you in cricketing term would call «genuine allrounder», a truly great man and one of the main persons behind the nation Pakistan.

 

[Black Zero]

He (ra) was what you in cricketing term would call «genuine allrounder», a truly great man and one of the main persons behind the nation Pakistan.

I can agree with that title..

However...an intellectual giant..is a different thing.

 

[CricketCartoons]

I found his urdu poetry to be very dry..but heard that his persian work (which i don't understand) is great..

 

[DW44]

While it's understandable that most Pakistanis in Pakistan only know the official, "state sponsored", version of Pakistani history (mostly inaccurate, often entirely fictitious), I can't for the life of me figure out how that version made its way out of Pakistan and became the most commonly accepted version among those of Pakistani origin born and raised overseas. So much history fail in this thread.

 

[cricketjoshila]

While it's understandable that most Pakistanis in Pakistan only know the official, "state sponsored", version of Pakistani history (mostly inaccurate, often entirely fictitious), I can't for the life of me figure out how that version made its way out of Pakistan and became the most commonly accepted version among those of Pakistani origin born and raised overseas. So much history fail in this thread.

Enlighten us.

 

[DW44]

Enlighten us.

This gem for starters:

"one of the main persons behind the nation Pakistan."

This is straight out of the national myth making factory. Of all the people usually considered the founding fathers of Pakistan, Iqbal had the least (if anything at all) to do with the creation of Pakistan.

 

[www787]

This gem for starters:



This is straight out of the national myth making factory. Of all the people usually considered the founding fathers of Pakistan, Iqbal had the least (if anything at all) to do with the creation of Pakistan.

couldn't have agree with this more

 

[ManFan]

This gem for starters:



This is straight out of the national myth making factory. Of all the people usually considered the founding fathers of Pakistan, Iqbal had the least (if anything at all) to do with the creation of Pakistan.

Are you talking about the OP or comments?

 

[DW44]

Are you talking about the OP or comments?

In general. The post you quoted contains one example of what I was talking about.

 

[WebGuru]

This gem for starters:



This is straight out of the national myth making factory. Of all the people usually considered the founding fathers of Pakistan, Iqbal had the least (if anything at all) to do with the creation of Pakistan.

ok so Iqbal had nothing to say about two nation theory and the whole credit should be given to Sir Syed...

 

[CricketCartoons]

If he was alive today, he would have condemned the likes of Mumtaz Qadri.

 

[Black Zero]

This gem for starters:



This is straight out of the national myth making factory. Of all the people usually considered the founding fathers of Pakistan, Iqbal had the least (if anything at all) to do with the creation of Pakistan.

what about following?

The poet philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938) provided the philosophical exposition and Barrister Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1871–1948) translated it into the political reality of a nation-state.[23][page needed] Allama Iqbal's presidential address to the Muslim League on 29 December 1930 is seen by some as the first exposition of the two-nation theory in support of what would ultimately become Pakistan

 

[WebGuru]

Remove Iqbal from Pakistan history and thn there is no Pakistan and no Pakistan movement based on two nation theory...

Iqbal and Jinnah both are the founding fathers of Pakistan...

 

[ManFan]

In general. The post you quoted contains one example of what I was talking about.

Allahbad Address

 

[CricketCartoons]

Remove Iqbal from Pakistan history and thn there is no Pakistan and no Pakistan movement based on two nation theory...

Iqbal and Jinnah both are the founding fathers of Pakistan...

Rahmat Ali too..Pakistan was lucky to have such founders like syed ahmad (practical), iqbal (philosophical), Q-e-A(political) who led to Muslim Awakening. We Hindus on the other hand got self hating and meek leaders like nehru and gandhi..who perpetually kept the hindus under slavery..and we are still waiting for our deliverance.

 

[ManFan]

Rahmat Ali too..Pakistan was lucky to have such founders like syed ahmad (practical), iqbal (philosophical), Q-e-A(political) who led to Muslim Awakening. We Hindus on the other hand got self hating and meek leaders like nehru and gandhi..who perpetually kept the hindus under slavery..and we are still waiting for our deliverance.

I would say India got the best of Gandhi and Pakistan the worst of Jinnah. But both men played their part. And they were from the same area in India too.

 

[Eagle_Eye]

Now I have heard it all.... Iqbal had no influence in creation of Pakistan!!

Whilst we at it.... rehmat ali didn't propose the name Pakistan either.

 

[DW44]

Allahbad Address

Yeah, about that:

For too long now there has been a parochial understanding of what Pakistani history as an academic discipline entails, as there is a firm assumption that it has to be accountable to the public eye.

Many are of the idea that history is perhaps, already present in the past. And that the historian’s role is only one of assorting facts and events along a chronological and byte-sized narrative; as if it were a jigsaw puzzle in which the pieces were facts that fit in a fixed tapestry of national belonging.

These traditionalist frameworks become very real when narratives associated with Dr Muhammad Iqbal’s statements regarding the official demand for separation led to the public de facto assuming that Iqbal also called for a partitioned Muslim state.

The infamous Pakistan studies textbook presents Iqbal as a pious orthodox Muslim thinker with the message being that Pakistan, the homeland, can be accredited to his vision.

It is not surprising then that Iqbal has become the father of Pakistan as he was the first to call for “the Punjab, North West Frontier Province, Sind and Balochistan amalgamated into a single state” in his presidential address to the 21st session of the All-India Muslim League that was held in Allahabad on the 29th of December, 1930.

What is surprising, however, is that if one were to read Iqbal’s seminal presidential address in the historical context, it becomes clear that his vision never actually called for the partitioned Muslim state of Pakistan.

From the very onset of Iqbal’s address, it is clear that he was posing the ideological dichotomy between Islam and Western nationalism as a conflict as it had the potential to disrupt Islam as an edifice of life.

In setting the parameters of this conflict between Islam and modern nationalism within the South Asian context, the genius of Iqbal neither chose an isolationist approach, such as the one adopted by the Deobandi school of thought, nor did he want to appease the colonial powers and their separation of church and state.

Also read: The Pakistan Ideology — History of a grand concoction

Instead, Iqbal expounded the idea that Islam was not just an “ethical ideal” but also an overarching legal political “social structure” which, throughout the “life-history of the Muslims of India” had unified “scattered individuals and groups”.

For Iqbal, Western nationalism was centred on a “narrower system of ethics” which took agency of religion away from the public to the private sphere.

Iqbal countered the idea of territory arguing that Islam was a “force for freeing the outlook of man from its geographical limitations” and that religion was a power of the utmost importance in the life of individual, as well as of states.

He maintained that if democracy were to be applied there had to be recognition of the “units of Indian society” not from a territorial standpoint but rather through accounting for the diverse nature of India’s “communal groups”.

Within them, Indian Muslims were the most homogenous and united in India and were the only people who could be “fitly described as a nation in the modern sense of the word”, he argued.

But does that mean Iqbal was talking about a partitioned Muslim state?
For many the demand for Pakistan after Iqbal’s address which called for the North-West to become a single state and the added oppression under the “Hindu” Congress is enough to solidify the notion that Iqbal envisioned Pakistan.

School histories cite remote statements from Iqbal’s 1930 address contending that he can be viewed as a separatist; various communal groups could simply not “sink their respective individualities in a larger whole” are those gold lines which tickle the patriotic heart.

Yet nationalist narratives conveniently forget Iqbal stating that were communal groups entitled to the autonomous development of their cultures in their own “Indian home-lands” then they would be ready to safeguard the “freedom of India”.

Also read: What is the most blatant lie taught through Pakistan textbooks?

The omission of Iqbal’s arbitration between Western ideals of state and the role of Islam as mentioned in his address from our school histories is unfortunate – his answer for this disruption is what makes Iqbal an unequivocal visionary for Muslim nationalism in a land as diverse as India.

“Muslim India within India”
There is also a need to contextualise the December 1930 presidential address and Iqbal’s historical situation before painting with a brush the Pakistani green of national zeal as the poet-politician's tract on autonomous states within a federation goes amiss in our mainstream narratives.

The intended audience for the address was not just Indian Muslims, but the speech was a direct rebuttal to the Nehru report of 1929 which “rejected the crucial Muslim demands for a separate electorate and weightage for minorities”.

The concept of a federation for Iqbal warranted an abolition of the Central Legislative Assembly and instead called for an assembly which would represent the federal states and thus eliminate the “communal problem”.

How can one argue for a partitioned Muslim state if Iqbal himself affirmed that “proper redistribution will make the question of joint and separate electorates automatically disappear from the constitutional controversy of India”.

Allama Iqbal at the Round Table Conference in 1931. —Photo by The Citizens Archive of Pakistan

Allama Iqbal at the Round Table Conference in 1931. —Photo by The Citizens Archive of Pakistan
A solution could not be reached until all parties understood that the argument of the Muslims in India was “international and not national” as communal groups were nations in themselves.

When Iqbal called for a consolidated Muslim state, which would be centralised in a specific territory, namely the North-West of India, let us not forget that he argued for a “Muslim India within India”.

Perhaps, what makes Iqbal’s rhetoric even more powerful was that his political proposal was adjoined and fitted neatly into his theory of the universal Muslim millat.

The consolidation of the Muslim state was a stepping stone towards the unification of the world Islamic community, as Islam was a “peoples building force” and again not just an “ideal”.

A consolidated state for Islam was an “opportunity to rid itself from the stamp of Arab imperialism” and instead to revamp its “law, culture, education and to bring them in closer context with the spirit of modern times”.

Also read: Independence, not partition

There is nothing orthodox about Iqbal and he never called for a Pakistan as a partitioned Muslim state in his December 1930 presidential address to the All-India Muslim League – an address that is recalled as the first stepping stone towards a separate homeland justified in our school histories through isolated statements of sovereign marked territory.

Instead, we need to read Iqbal’s statements closely on that day, and uphold him as a Muslim nationalist of the time, whose political proposals called for harmony between Western democracy and Islamic nationalism through an overarching concept of Islam as a cultural force within India.

It is ironic that answering a question about who spelt out the idea of Pakistan in school histories has become something of a joke because the kind of separatism Iqbal had been spelling out actually never had its desired effect on Indian Muslims.

The question put up to the Pakistan studies student about the 1930 address should not be filtered through an already present Pakistan in mind. Rather, points of study during the 1930s should flesh out how Muslim proposals projected their visions for syncretic power between religiously marked categories of “majorities” and “minorities” in a British free India.

“In the world of Islam today, we have a universal polity whose fundamentals are believed to have been revealed, but whose structure … stands today in need of renewed power by fresh adjustments. I do not know what will be the final fate of the national idea in the world of Islam,” said Iqbal.

References:

Pirzada, Syed Shariffuddin, Foundations of Pakistan: All-India Muslim League Documents (1906-1947) Volume 2, (National Publishing House, 1970).
R.J. Moore, ‘Jinnah and the Pakistan Demand,’ Modern Asian Studies, XVII, 4, (1983): pp. 529-546.
Naim, C.M, Iqbal, Jinnah, and Pakistan: The Vision of Reality, (New York, 1979).

https://www.dawn.com/news/1219465

In a nation where the official narrative is king with very little room for independent thought or argument, I'm glad there's still a section of academia and civil society keeping our actual history alive and the fact that there's a media outlet in Dawn willing to give a voice to such people, something the rest of the media is loathe to do.

 

[SarfiBabarHaris]

As a kid his poetry was one of the things which showed me there is some meaning in life. Poems like Hamdardi, Aarzoo etc are really good and luckily were there in our Urdu books and taught lessons like Humanity, Brotherhood..

Some of Iqbal's poems are written in easy Urdu and help you get into Urdu poetry.. As you grow old you start understanding Ghalib, Faiz etc I personally think poetry is a must if you want to broaden your views.. especially for Pakistani upper and lower middle class who don't have top class English...

Although i don't agree with 10% of his Iqbal's but yes he is an intellectual giant.. I love how he conveyed beautiful ideas in simple words..

My fav Iqbal shair:

Hain log wohi jahan ma achay
atay hain jo kaam dosrun kay

simple words, beautiful meaning!

 

[KB]

Iqbal, while calling for a Muslim homeland, was certainly hostile to the idea of territorial nationalism. A geographic basis of division had the effect of undercutting the extra-territorial claims of a community informed by the universal ethics of Islam. He warned “the national idea is racialising the outlook of Muslims, and thus materially counteracting the humanising work of Islam.” He certainly called for a consolidated Muslim enclave in British India, which would protect Islam and would indeed be a space where Islam could flower once more, but the nation was not an end in itself. This does indeed make his relationship to Pakistan, as it was actualised in 1947, deeply ambiguous.

But there is also no denying that his support for the Muslim League gave it an intellectual credibility and even more importantly his ideas influenced the concept of Pakistan as it was projected in the 1940s and beyond into independent statehood.

Iqbal stressed human will, indeed the absolute necessity of human action, in the making of an Islamic society. In his Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Iqbal points the centrality of action as he declares ‘the final act is not an intellectual act, but a vital act which deepens the whole being of the ego and sharpens his will into creative assurance that the world is not just something to be seen and known through concepts, but to be made and remade by continuous action.’

In one of his poems, Iqbal begins ‘They built the mosque overnight, these men fired by religious zeal. But the mind, confirmed in sin, could not yield to prayer and worship.’ As the anthropologist Naveeda Khan notes, this was not merely an expression of resignation, but also a statement of the importance of personal responsibility. ‘If one goes to prayer in a mosque it is by one’s own choice. Thus this resignation is also an exaltation of self-willed spiritual effort…one’s spiritual bearing is ultimately only one’s responsibility.’

The individual was empowered. For Iqbal, a Muslim community was not made up of unthinking individuals, but by individuals actively committed to Islam. The community's will was seen not as a product of blindly following Muslim leaders, but as a personal, active, commitment of individuals to Islam. Iqbal imagined this Muslim community as being made up of individuals striving for Islamic fulfillment, striving for self-realisation. This was a community seen in sharp counterpoint to actual existing divisions amongst Muslims and as transcending the narrow bonds of ‘blood relationships’.

Iqbal’s ideas were powerful in constructing an image of a Muslim community. As David Gilmartin has demonstrated, the League, taking its cue from Iqbal, ideologically appealed for the need for individual moral transformation, with individuals identifying with the ‘higher’ moral ideal of the Muslim community, symbolized by the existence of a Muslim state, which transcended local division. What the Muslim League attacked rhetorically (whilst still working through in practice) was the politics of local influence. Biraderi was attacked as being akin to fitna, as bringing moral disorder. In contrast, in the League’s rhetoric, support for Pakistan was projected as a demonstration of a personal commitment to Islamic ideals, which were threatened by the existence of worldly self-interest. Commitment to Muslim unity, in the Muslim League appeals, was depicted as a moral imperative rooted in Muslim principles and offered in sharp contradistinction to the local influences in which most people were enmeshed.

Naveeda Khan, in her work Muslim Becoming, has argued that “Iqbal's picture of Muslim aspiration” continued to influence popular conceptions of Pakistan after 1947, and “how the earliest constitution-making body in Pakistan used the language of experimentation to set the new nation-state on the course of an Iqbal-inspired striving to be Muslim.”

 

[ManFan]

Iqbal, while calling for a Muslim homeland, was certainly hostile to the idea of territorial nationalism. A geographic basis of division had the effect of undercutting the extra-territorial claims of a community informed by the universal ethics of Islam. He warned “the national idea is racialising the outlook of Muslims, and thus materially counteracting the humanising work of Islam.” He certainly called for a consolidated Muslim enclave in British India, which would protect Islam and would indeed be a space where Islam could flower once more, but the nation was not an end in itself. This does indeed make his relationship to Pakistan, as it was actualised in 1947, deeply ambiguous.

But there is also no denying that his support for the Muslim League gave it an intellectual credibility and even more importantly his ideas influenced the concept of Pakistan as it was projected in the 1940s and beyond into independent statehood.

Iqbal stressed human will, indeed the absolute necessity of human action, in the making of an Islamic society. In his Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Iqbal points the centrality of action as he declares ‘the final act is not an intellectual act, but a vital act which deepens the whole being of the ego and sharpens his will into creative assurance that the world is not just something to be seen and known through concepts, but to be made and remade by continuous action.’

In one of his poems, Iqbal begins ‘They built the mosque overnight, these men fired by religious zeal. But the mind, confirmed in sin, could not yield to prayer and worship.’ As the anthropologist Naveeda Khan notes, this was not merely an expression of resignation, but also a statement of the importance of personal responsibility. ‘If one goes to prayer in a mosque it is by one’s own choice. Thus this resignation is also an exaltation of self-willed spiritual effort…one’s spiritual bearing is ultimately only one’s responsibility.’

The individual was empowered. For Iqbal, a Muslim community was not made up of unthinking individuals, but by individuals actively committed to Islam. The community's will was seen not as a product of blindly following Muslim leaders, but as a personal, active, commitment of individuals to Islam. Iqbal imagined this Muslim community as being made up of individuals striving for Islamic fulfillment, striving for self-realisation. This was a community seen in sharp counterpoint to actual existing divisions amongst Muslims and as transcending the narrow bonds of ‘blood relationships’.

Iqbal’s ideas were powerful in constructing an image of a Muslim community. As David Gilmartin has demonstrated, the League, taking its cue from Iqbal, ideologically appealed for the need for individual moral transformation, with individuals identifying with the ‘higher’ moral ideal of the Muslim community, symbolized by the existence of a Muslim state, which transcended local division. What the Muslim League attacked rhetorically (whilst still working through in practice) was the politics of local influence. Biraderi was attacked as being akin to fitna, as bringing moral disorder. In contrast, in the League’s rhetoric, support for Pakistan was projected as a demonstration of a personal commitment to Islamic ideals, which were threatened by the existence of worldly self-interest. Commitment to Muslim unity, in the Muslim League appeals, was depicted as a moral imperative rooted in Muslim principles and offered in sharp contradistinction to the local influences in which most people were enmeshed.

Naveeda Khan, in her work Muslim Becoming, has argued that “Iqbal's picture of Muslim aspiration” continued to influence popular conceptions of Pakistan after 1947, and “how the earliest constitution-making body in Pakistan used the language of experimentation to set the new nation-state on the course of an Iqbal-inspired striving to be Muslim.”

Iqbal considered nationalism a form of shirk. It takes great foresight to recognize that.

 

[ManFan]

Yeah, about that:


https://www.dawn.com/news/1219465

In a nation where the official narrative is king with very little room for independent thought or argument, I'm glad there's still a section of academia and civil society keeping our actual history alive and the fact that there's a media outlet in Dawn willing to give a voice to such people, something the rest of the media is loathe to do.

Could you explain in your words the point of the article?

 

[ManFan]

As a kid his poetry was one of the things which showed me there is some meaning in life. Poems like Hamdardi, Aarzoo etc are really good and luckily were there in our Urdu books and taught lessons like Humanity, Brotherhood..

Some of Iqbal's poems are written in easy Urdu and help you get into Urdu poetry.. As you grow old you start understanding Ghalib, Faiz etc I personally think poetry is a must if you want to broaden your views.. especially for Pakistani upper and lower middle class who don't have top class English...

Although i don't agree with 10% of his Iqbal's but yes he is an intellectual giant.. I love how he conveyed beautiful ideas in simple words..

My fav Iqbal shair:

Hain log wohi jahan ma achay
atay hain jo kaam dosrun kay

simple words, beautiful meaning!

He also wrote Sare Jahan Se Accha. But my favorite poetry of his is his magnum opus, " Iblees Ki Majis-e-Shura ". That should be studied by every individual following Abrahamic religion.

 

[Black Zero]

Mard-e-momin, Shaheen, Khudi all these are stolen concepts ...(of course we can give the credit to Iqbal that he spiced these up)

 

[ManFan]

Mard-e-momin, Shaheen, Khudi all these are stolen concepts ...(of course we can give the credit to Iqbal that he spiced these up)

With that logic, we can say Lenin stole the concept of communism from Marx and Jesus but managed to spice things up. Just a little.

 

[Black Zero]

With that logic, we can say Lenin stole the concept of communism from Marx and Jesus but managed to spice things up. Just a little.

Jesus, really?

Plus, no one calling Lenin an intellectual giant.

 

[saadibaba]

He has become dough in the hands of our so called historians and nationalists. They can mold him into anything they want based on their liking. The duality of his thought is given credence by his poetry which though majestic and inspiring can be a bit confusing at times if taken in its totality.

 

[IAJ]

This gem for starters:



This is straight out of the national myth making factory. Of all the people usually considered the founding fathers of Pakistan, Iqbal had the least (if anything at all) to do with the creation of Pakistan.

So what makes your history more authentic?

When people talk about his dream or vision of a place for muslims of course they would associate Pakistan to this.

You posted a lengthy article from Dawn, these are also interpretations and not some final answers. Allama sahib wanted a state in North-West of Pakistan, where the majority of muslims were, so tell me what does a muslim state in India mean? I mean, if you say he didn't want boundaries, how would that have worked practically?

Even his son has said that the dreams and his thinkigs most certainly point towards Pakistan.

 

[ManFan]

Because Lenin's intellectual achievements did not equal to those of Iqbal. Jesus advocated for universal equality, so I guess he was the first communist.

 

[Mughal]

http://archive.org/details/DrMuhammadIqbal

http://archive.org/details/Pakistan

http://archive.org/details/MuhammadAliJinnah

 

[Mughal]

1)To understand iqbal, jinnah or pakistan one has to understand deen of islam.

2)To understand deen of islam one has to understand the quran.

3)To understand the quran one has to learn things which are necessary for trying to understand the quran.

4)Only when people have learned sense of gathering related facts and making proper sense of things they could succeed in understanding the message in the quran. Humanity has not yet reached that level of knowing things.

Most people in our world are quarrelsome and many are killed and displaced or sleep hungry, why? Because most people in our world are senseless who do not use their God given brains, senses, bodies and things as they should and that is why they do things to each other which turn our world into what we see ie a hell hole. Had people learned sense by cooperating with and helping each other then things will have been very different because people will have learned message of God properly and will have acted upon it faithfully. For a detailed explanation of things one can see http://archive.org/details/QuranExplainedInEnglish

 

[DW44]

Could you explain in your words the point of the article?

The gist of the article is that our history has been rewritten to reflect that Iqbal demanded a separate homeland for Muslims in the Allahabad address when the fact of the matter is that he simply called for a federation of Muslim majority states within an India (hence the "Muslim India within India") with a weak center and strong, largely autonomous federating units.

So what makes your history more authentic?

When people talk about his dream or vision of a place for muslims of course they would associate Pakistan to this.

You posted a lengthy article from Dawn, these are also interpretations and not some final answers. Allama sahib wanted a state in North-West of Pakistan, where the majority of muslims were, so tell me what does a muslim state in India mean? I mean, if you say he didn't want boundaries, how would that have worked practically?

Even his son has said that the dreams and his thinkigs most certainly point towards Pakistan.

What makes it more authentic is that unlike the official history, it is supported by a far larger body of evidence and also unlike the official version, there is little to no evidence meticulously documenting when are where which parts of it were modified by successive Pakistani governments. In the case of the official history, we are fortunate to have people who have documented all the inaccuracies introduced into our history in order to facilitate the creation of national myths. K.K Aziz's seminal work, "The Murder of History" documents in great detail the extent to which our history has been distorted to promote a certain narrative.

The Dawn article can only be considered "another interpretation" if it is considered in isolation and without context because the point of the article is supported by other evidence. Here's an excerpt from a letter Iqbal wrote to The Times in 1931:

"Although I would oppose the creation of another cockpit of communal strife in the Central Punjab, as suggested by some enthusiasts, I am all for a redistribution of India into provinces with effective majorities of one community or another on lines advocated both by the Nehru and the Simon reports. Indeed, my suggestion regarding Moslem provincess merely carries forward this idea. A series of contented and well-organized Moslem provinces on the North-West Frontier of India would be the bulwark of India and of the British Empire against the hungry generations of the Asiatic highlands"

This was a year after the Allahabad address where he supposedly called for a separate state. Iqbal died in 1938. Pakistan movement i.e. a movement for an independent state, as opposed to a Muslim India within India as suggested by Iqbal in the letter above, barely lasted a year from 1946 to 1947 since it only really started in earnest after the failure of the Cabinet Mission in 1946. Prior to that, even in 1940, the Lahore Resolution, rechristened the Pakistan Resolution by historic revisionists, had a similar demand for a Muslim India within India since the Muslim polity at the time was more focused on that idea than that of an independent state. The latter only came about after the cabinet mission failed, by which time Iqbal had been dead for eight years.

 

[CricketCartoons]

1)To understand iqbal, jinnah or pakistan one has to understand deen of islam.

2)To understand deen of islam one has to understand the quran.

3)To understand the quran one has to learn things which are necessary for trying to understand the quran.

4)Only when people have learned sense of gathering related facts and making proper sense of things they could succeed in understanding the message in the quran. Humanity has not yet reached that level of knowing things.

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Just shows how impossible it is to understand Iqbal, by even muslims..let alone others. They have to understand Quran, the deen of Islam, and only then they can graduate to understanding Iqbal.

 

[Black Zero]

1)To understand iqbal, jinnah or pakistan one has to understand deen of islam.

2)To understand deen of islam one has to understand the quran.

3)To understand the quran one has to learn things which are necessary for trying to understand the quran.

4)Only when people have learned sense of gathering related facts and making proper sense of things they could succeed in understanding the message in the quran. Humanity has not yet reached that level of knowing things.

Most people in our world are quarrelsome and many are killed and displaced or sleep hungry, why? Because most people in our world are senseless who do not use their God given brains, senses, bodies and things as they should and that is why they do things to each other which turn our world into what we see ie a hell hole. Had people learned sense by cooperating with and helping each other then things will have been very different because people will have learned message of God properly and will have acted upon it faithfully. For a detailed explanation of things one can see http://archive.org/details/QuranExplainedInEnglish

I claim to understand Quran and Deen, and Iqbal still not an intellectual giant to me.
of-course something lacking in my understanding.

 

[ManFan]

The gist of the article is that our history has been rewritten to reflect that Iqbal demanded a separate homeland for Muslims in the Allahabad address when the fact of the matter is that he simply called for a federation of Muslim majority states within an India (hence the "Muslim India within India") with a weak center and strong, largely autonomous federating units.


What makes it more authentic is that unlike the official history, it is supported by a far larger body of evidence and also unlike the official version, there is little to no evidence meticulously documenting when are where which parts of it were modified by successive Pakistani governments. In the case of the official history, we are fortunate to have people who have documented all the inaccuracies introduced into our history in order to facilitate the creation of national myths. K.K Aziz's seminal work, "The Murder of History" documents in great detail the extent to which our history has been distorted to promote a certain narrative.

The Dawn article can only be considered "another interpretation" if it is considered in isolation and without context because the point of the article is supported by other evidence. Here's an excerpt from a letter Iqbal wrote to The Times in 1931:



This was a year after the Allahabad address where he supposedly called for a separate state. Iqbal died in 1938. Pakistan movement i.e. a movement for an independent state, as opposed to a Muslim India within India as suggested by Iqbal in the letter above, barely lasted a year from 1946 to 1947 since it only really started in earnest after the failure of the Cabinet Mission in 1946. Prior to that, even in 1940, the Lahore Resolution, rechristened the Pakistan Resolution by historic revisionists, had a similar demand for a Muslim India within India since the Muslim polity at the time was more focused on that idea than that of an independent state. The latter only came about after the cabinet mission failed, by which time Iqbal had been dead for eight years.

Thanks for the clarification. It's not a drastic difference in my opinion but every country has cults of personality.

 

[ManFan]

I claim to understand Quran and Deen, and Iqbal still not an intellectual giant to me.
of-course something lacking in my understanding.

Rumi: " I searched for God and found only myself. I search for myself and found only God ". Maybe that can help.

 

[miandadrules]

1)To understand iqbal, jinnah or pakistan one has to understand deen of islam.

2)To understand deen of islam one has to understand the quran.

3)To understand the quran one has to learn things which are necessary for trying to understand the quran.

4)Only when people have learned sense of gathering related facts and making proper sense of things they could succeed in understanding the message in the quran. Humanity has not yet reached that level of knowing things.

Most people in our world are quarrelsome and many are killed and displaced or sleep hungry, why? Because most people in our world are senseless who do not use their God given brains, senses, bodies and things as they should and that is why they do things to each other which turn our world into what we see ie a hell hole. Had people learned sense by cooperating with and helping each other then things will have been very different because people will have learned message of God properly and will have acted upon it faithfully. For a detailed explanation of things one can see http://archive.org/details/QuranExplainedInEnglish

Or to understand Iqbal you can read Nietzsche.

I won't address the paucity of the rationale you have presented but the absurdity should be apparent to anyone who is willing to step back and read it analytically.

Circular reasoning of the ignorant mind.

 

[Black Zero]

Rumi: " I searched for God and found only myself. I search for myself and found only God ". Maybe that can help.

I searched for Man and found only Fan. I search for Fan and found only Man.

 

[ManFan]

I searched for Man and found only Fan. I search for Fan and found only Man.

Well played sir, well played.

 

[waqar goraya]

Iqbal did have an important role in the creation of Pakistan. One, he propagated two nation theory which is basis of creation of Pakistan and second, in 1930 he expressed his idea of a separate state for Muslims in north western part subcontinent, although at that time it was not clear whether he meant a separate country or within Indian subcontinent.

 

[KB]

As a footnote to the discussions, two famous letters from Iqbal to Jinnah in 1937:

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_iqbal_tojinnah_1937.html

 

[waqar goraya]

As a footnote to the discussions, two famous letters from Iqbal to Jinnah in 1937:

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_iqbal_tojinnah_1937.html

Thank you for sharing it here.

 

[Syed1]

Iqbal had no influence on creation of Pakistan and isn't one of the founding fathers ) ) )


Yehi sunna baqi reh gaya tha... what's next Muhammad Ali Jinnah never existed and he was a figment of our imagination.

 

[maxamax]

Sorry but I don't get turned on listening to poetry, maybe babays do, not me. For me he just said couple of things with common sense. That atom bomb thing is way exaggerated by OP.

Iqbal did have an important role in the creation of Pakistan. One, he propagated two nation theory which is basis of creation of Pakistan and second, in 1930 he expressed his idea of a separate state for Muslims in north western part subcontinent, although at that time it was not clear whether he meant a separate country or within Indian subcontinent.

A visionary person would have preferred the later one.

 

[ManFan]

Sorry but I don't get turned on listening to poetry, maybe babays do, not me. For me he just said couple of things with common sense. That atom bomb thing is way exaggerated by OP.




A visionary person would have preferred the later one.

It would be exaggerated if it wasn't there. It's an example of his prediction coming true.

 

[maxamax]

It would be exaggerated if it wasn't there. It's an example of his prediction coming true.

Drop of sun? That is self assumed.

 

[ManFan]

Drop of sun? That is self assumed.

Blood of the sun falling in droplets, if we split the heart of an atom. The proof is in the pudding.

 

[Black Zero]

Blood of the sun falling in droplets, if we split the heart of an atom. The proof is in the pudding.

It means that there is no blood in moon. Right?
Then why some people become wolf on full moon night?

 

[last_knight]

Anyone who thinks that Iqbal was not an intellectual giant, should read 'iblees ki majlis e shoora'. leave aside his entire work. This alone outweighs a lot of careers.

Maslow is an intellectual giant for saying same things in hierarchy of needs what Iqbal elaborated 40 years earlier than Maslow. Still some people will find a way to praise Maslow and overlook ( oppose) Iqbal. Their opposition, what I feel is, is sectarian and not academic.

 

[King-Misbah]

Anyone who thinks that Iqbal was not an intellectual giant, should read 'iblees ki majlis e shoora'. leave aside his entire work. This alone outweighs a lot of careers.

Maslow is an intellectual giant for saying same things in hierarchy of needs what Iqbal elaborated 40 years earlier than Maslow. Still some people will find a way to praise Maslow and overlook ( oppose) Iqbal. Their opposition, what I feel is, is sectarian and not academic.

It's Pakistani liberals in an attempt to denounce Pakistan and it's national poet. May they prefer Altaf Hussian's poetry

 

[Syed1]

It's Pakistani liberals in an attempt to denounce Pakistan and it's national poet. May they prefer Altaf Hussian's poetry

It's funny how these liberals have to put down everything Pakistani. I think comes with the job description of being a 'liberal'

 

[Black Zero]

Anyone who thinks that Iqbal was not an intellectual giant, should read 'iblees ki majlis e shoora'. leave aside his entire work. This alone outweighs a lot of careers.

Maslow is an intellectual giant for saying same things in hierarchy of needs what Iqbal elaborated 40 years earlier than Maslow. Still some people will find a way to praise Maslow and overlook ( oppose) Iqbal. Their opposition, what I feel is, is sectarian and not academic.

Define "intellectual giant"

 

[King-Misbah]

It's funny how these liberals have to put down everything Pakistani. I think comes with the job description of being a 'liberal'

Yes, I see it in my own family. Yet again, they are quick to back the likes of Nawaz who is far from being a liberal #SavingDemocracy

I am more liberal then Pakistani liberals, I see Pakistani liberals as weird individuals who are quick to serve their own interests. They like to stick out like a sore thumb and most of them are actually hypocrits.

 

[King-Misbah]

Define "intellectual giant"

Use a dictionary and some common sense pal.

 

[Black Zero]

Use a dictionary and some common sense pal.

.
I asked as you never know as people can set bar anywhere. And sometimes, they do not even have any bar.

If we are going by established norms, then iqbal is not an intellectual giant.

 

[CricketCartoons]

.
I asked as you never know as people can set bar anywhere. And sometimes, they do not even have any bar.

If we are going by established norms, then iqbal is not an intellectual giant.

Allama's tribute to Ghazi ilmuddin shaheed and calling Shri Ram as imam-e-hind alone prove that he was an intellectual giant.

 

[Madplayer]

If Iqbal was a western philosopher, only then he would have been an intellectual giant.

 

[ManFan]

If Iqbal was a western philosopher, only then he would have been an intellectual giant.

Yeah, the matter is here that he was a very religious individual. That's what is putting some people off. If someone secular had done 10% of what Iqbal did, we would never hear the end of it from them.

 

[last_knight]

Define "intellectual giant"

I could see it coming that's why I deliberately mentioned Maslow as an example for comparison.

Abraham Maslow is respected primarily for his work "Theory of Hierarchy of Needs" that was published some 30 years after "Asrar-e-Khudi". These two works discuss something that is basically a same concept. Iqbal discussed it some 30 to 40 years earlier than Maslow.

You can read through summaries of both theories. Easily available across Web.

Now you either have to debate that Maslow wasn't an intellectual giant or you indirectly accept that Iqbal was a superior one as his work preceded Maslow's.

If you want to prove that Maslow wasn't an intellectual giant, I leave you with something that you can recall from another thread, a quote of another giant, Bertrand Russel : "Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires."

 

[yasir]

As a footnote to the discussions, two famous letters from Iqbal to Jinnah in 1937:

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_iqbal_tojinnah_1937.html

Are these letters written by Iqbal? - I am assuming they are written by him. Here are my two cents on these letters...

The atheistic socialism of Jawahar Lal [Nehru] is not likely to receive much response from the Muslims.

Interestingly Iqbal did mention Nehru as Atheist and Socialist, but did not get into the detail of why Socialism will not appeal Muslim population, maybe somewhere else he did explain the reason for his position. This is more of a statement here...

Happily there is a solution in the enforcement of the Law of Islam and its further development in the light of modern ideas. After a long and careful study of Islamic Law I have come to the conclusion that if this system of Law is properly understood and applied, at last the right to subsistence is secured to every body. But the enforcement and development of the Shariat of Islam is impossible in this country without a free Muslim state or states.

This has little to no intellectual depth. Solution to Muslim problems is Shariat? he cannot be more wrong in his thinking. He is talking like Madarasa's Mulvi here, respect for Iqbal has gone down many fold, if this letter is written by him with honesty...Again I would love to here the intellectual side of his argument, this letter does not go into the intellectual side, he is only making emotional statements...Its hard to convience anybody based on those statements...So he wanted to create a Muslim Country to implement Sharia?? - That means Jamiatias were so right and we were making intellectual out of the Q & I for nothing

For Islam the acceptance of social democracy in some suitable form and consistent with the legal pnncp!es of Islam is not a revolution but a return to the original punty of Islam.

Now here, I am questioning the integrity for Iqbal. First four Muslim Caliph were murdered, atleast one of them very brutally, then we had 150 years of rule by one family and then 300 years of rule by another...Where in early history or any history of Islam, was social democracy practice? - We would not be using western words, if we had invented that in first place like Algebra/AlChema/Algorithm etc. There is more emotional bias in his way of thinking then intellectual reasoning... I wonder when and why did he changed? - He was more open minded person in past...

I have carefully studied the whole situation and believe that the real cause of these events is nither religious nor economic. It is purely political. I.e., the desire of the Sikhs and Hindus to intimidate Muslims even in the Muslim majority provinces. And the new constitution is such that even in the Muslim majority provinces, the Muslims are made entirely dependent on non-Muslims.

This is one of the few places, I get the reasoning of Iqbal, you want a separate state because of suppression by majority. But he muddied his reasoning, earlier by bringing Sharia into the equation, which is a disaster policy, 7th century trible culture is not solution to any problem as we have seen in last 70 years...

I remember Lord Lothian told me before I left England that my scheme was the only possible solution of the troubles of India, but that may take 25 years to come.

These statements raises eye brows, did he come-up with these ideas or somebody was feeding him?

Now I would love to go through all letters exchange between Q&I to make up my mind about them, what and why were they thinking. Can you point to such an archive?

Thanks.

 

[Black Zero]

[MENTION=5869]yasir[/MENTION]
First caliph got sick and died cause of old age...he was not killed.

 

[Black Zero]

Allama's tribute to Ghazi ilmuddin shaheed and calling Shri Ram as imam-e-hind alone prove that he was an intellectual giant.

I think he should have used the term Rasool-e-hind for Shri Ram.
(Iqbal was sunni and Imam is not a divine title in sunni islam)

This alone proves that Iqbal was definitely not an intellectual.

 

[Black Zero]

I could see it coming that's why I deliberately mentioned Maslow as an example for comparison.

Abraham Maslow is respected primarily for his work "Theory of Hierarchy of Needs" that was published some 30 years after "Asrar-e-Khudi". These two works discuss something that is basically a same concept. Iqbal discussed it some 30 to 40 years earlier than Maslow.

You can read through summaries of both theories. Easily available across Web.

Now you either have to debate that Maslow wasn't an intellectual giant or you indirectly accept that Iqbal was a superior one as his work preceded Maslow's.

If you want to prove that Maslow wasn't an intellectual giant, I leave you with something that you can recall from another thread, a quote of another giant, Bertrand Russel : "Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires."

If you go through the thread, I stated that:

"Mard-e-momin, Shaheen, Khudi all these are stolen concepts ...(of course we can give the credit to Iqbal that he spiced these up)"

And I think it's fair that we should give credit to original owners.

 

[cricket083]

His poetry are the words of wisdom that opens the window of my mind.

 

[yasir]

[MENTION=5869]yasir[/MENTION]
First caliph got sick and died cause of old age...he was not killed.

Yeah, that's right, he did not resigned or killed or let go after finishing his term(Ops, there was no such thing), he just expired. My point largely stays, there was no democratic model, only way to get rid of Chaliph was to wait for him to die or kill him...Even Chaliph was selected(by few) not elected. Roman was republic much before Muslims, so its not like they had never heard of those ideas of representative govt... If Iqbal thinks Muslim pioneers democracy, I do question his intellectual honesty...

 

[Black Zero]

Yeah, that's right, he did not resigned or killed or let go after finishing his term(Ops, there was no such thing), he just expired. My point largely stays, there was no democratic model, only way to get rid of Chaliph was to wait for him to die or kill him...Even Chaliph was selected(by few) not elected. Roman was republic much before Muslims, so its not like they had never heard of those ideas of representative govt... If Iqbal thinks Muslim pioneers democracy, I do question his intellectual honesty...

I agree with your over all case.