'Allama Iqbal and the Concept of Muslim Nation\r'

'IQBAL S CONTRIBUTION TO THE REAWAKENING OF THE Moslem WORLD Muhammad A valet de chambre Hob ohm Some clock time before his death the poet and philosopher Mohammad Iqbal, in whose memory this meeting is held, wrote the pastime quatrain: â€Å"When I fit from this area both whiz will claim: â€Å"He was kn point in to me But in truth, none knows this traveller, Or what he tell, and to whom nor whence he came. â€Å"I arrive at neither the bang-up fortune of knowing Iqbal in person nor am 11 an Iqbal scholar. When I was asked by the unearned General Secretary, Pakistan Cultural Group, to participate in this meeting and to share with you some(a) of my horizons on the contribution made by Mohammad Iqbal to the conversion of the Muslim bitkind in everyday and to the re-awakening of Muslims of pre-partitioned India in particular, I accepted, mainly for the following two reasons:Firstly I pure tone that as a Muslim whose own understanding of Islam has been deeply influ enced by Iqbal it was my work to join you in paying judicature to this great and noble soul repaying some of the debt of gratitude I owe him for en light(a)ening me finished his writings on so numerous aspects of Islamic teachings and for in-creasing my love and respect for the messenger (peace be upon him) — and his message through Iqbals shake exposition of the organized religion of Islam, — the religion of my choice.Secondly credenza of your kind invitation to computer address tonight lies in the fact that I hail from a country for which Iqbal has always had the highest esteem and what is more, a deep and abiding love and perplexity i. e. Ger human beingsy. Iqbal himself tells us in the preface to Payam-e-Mushriq the earmark in which his art has in all probability reached the apex of power and perfection, that of the two great sages who choose influenced him more than anyone else in his career as a thinker and poet, one was Maulana Jalal-ud-Din Roomi  212; who hailed from the East, the otherwise was Goethe, who came from westside.Iqbal went to Germany in 1906 when he studied doctrine at the Universities of Heidelberg and Munich. He presented his doctoral dissertation entitled â€Å"The Development of Metaphysics in Persia” to the Munich University which, in November 1907, conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. His dissertation was an original contribution to the subject and it sedate retains its vastness. During his lie in Heidelberg and Munich he veritable deep admiration for Germany, German thought, and poetry.As every scholar of Iqbal knows there are unmeasured instances in his writings, his letters and in save conversation with him which clearly indicate that the kit and caboodle of German philosopher and poets submit been a obtain of great inspiration to him. I have in my possession a deed of letters which Iqbal wrote to his German tutor in Heidelberg. These letters, some of them written in legato German, express his love and admiration for Germany in a most touching and win over way. â€Å"It is impossible for me”, writes Iqbal to his tutor â€Å"to close up your charming country where I have intentional so a great deal”. My impediment in Heidelberg is nothing now but a beautiful dream. How Id wish I could take up it”. â€Å"I am very kindly of Germany. It has had great influence on my rarefieds, and I shall never forget my stay in that country”. Never shall I forget the days I spent at Heidelberg, where you taught me Goethes Faust, those were very happy days, indeed”. — And a final quotation, â€Å"Germany was a kind of back up home to my timber. I learned much and I thought much in that country. The home of Goethe has found a ineradicable place in my soul”.Iqbals stay in Europe from 1905 public treasury 1908 has had, I think one fecal matter adjure it, â€Å"revolutionizing” effect on his attitude to life, and nowhere does this find a more strong expression than in his poetry. Iqbals career as a poet began during his school days. His earlier poems immortalize him as a lover of temper and as a patriot to his country, united India. Iqbal was, indeed, an ardent Indian nationalist, until he went abroad. However, during his stay in Europe he had an opportunity of studying modern nationalism at close quarters in its arious manifestations, with the- contribute that he came to realize the fundamental, antithesis between the shockable creed of racial and geographical verity and the broad humanistic outlook of Islam. outright he was no longer the poet of a particular nations. Despite he became the poet of Islam, and as such I dare say the poet of humanity. Likewise, his penetrating study of Western philosophy and social thought at their source, so to say, his stay in Europe enabled him probably as the first Muslim in Modern lines, — to study Islam in the light of modern philosophical concepts.In this process and this is operative as it shows the mettle of which Iqbal was made, his faith in his religion — Islam and signifi basece and lasting reference book of the fundamental values of Islam which far from weakening, gained so much in strength and condemnation and assumed such dimensions that from now on he devoted himself wholly and solo to The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam — to use the title, of his well known prayer of lectures on the subject — he became the best Muslim thinker of our age.But we cannot say him the philosopher of Islam, for he was far more than a genuine lover of wisdom. His feet were managewise firmly deep-seated in the earth. The very essence of his teachings was movement, dynamism, inventive activity and not passive contemplation. wile thou alive? Be enthusiastic, be a creator, Be a conqueror of the Universe like me Smash the domain into pieces if it does not suit thee And bring forw ards another world from the depth of thy being It is irritating for a free man to live in a World made by othersHe who is devoid of productive power Is naught for me but an heathen and a heretic. This is the note which made him take upon himself the gigantic task of rousing millions of familiar spirit countrymen, millions of human beings and making them cast glum the moral inertia which had paralysed their mind and spirit in the course of centuries. And this is similarly the spirit which prompted him, perhaps even compelled him to associate himself actively with politics from the later 1920s till the day of his death. It is because the governmental ideas such as are taking shape in India today, may affect the structure of Islam”, Iqbal is account to have said, â€Å"that I am elicit in politics”. And he said elsewhere: â€Å"Politics has its roots in the spiritual life of man — piety is a force of great importance in the life of the individual as well as of nations”. â€Å"And religion which in its highest manifestations is neither dogma nor priesthood nor clean ritual, can alone ethically pre-pare modern man for the burden of the great responsibility which the advancement of modern science necessarily involves….It is plainly by rising to a alert vision of his origin and future, his whence and whither, that man will eventually triumph over a society motivated by an inhuman competition and a shade which has lost its spiritual unity by its inner conflict of religious and semipolitical values”. So far Iqbal, the political thinker and visionary, who in this capacity too has found a place in history, through his famous presidential address at the Annual Session of the every India Muslim League at Allahabad in December 1930, in which he gave the world the concept of a consolidated, independent Muslim State in the Indo-Pakistan Sub-Continent.He thus became the founder, the condition of the Pakistan idea, thou gh the word â€Å"Pakistan” was not coined by him. Iqbals unique contribution to Muslim thought is his concept of the Ego and of the perfect man, as other speakers tonight are seeming to dwell upon at length. This is a point, should like to make check to Iqbal â€man can achieve his highest possibilities only within and through society. This society mustiness, however, fulfil certain conditions which Iqbal has speculate very clearly and which I may be permitted to enumerate, because of the importance which I personally attach to them.The high-minded society must have a spiritual priming coat which is provided by the principle of Tawhid. â€Å"The state according to Islam, is only an effort to realize the spirituality in a human transcription”. â€Å"Islam, as a policy, is only a practical means of making this principle, the principle, of Tawhid, a living factor in the skilful and traditional life of mankind. It demands loyally to immortal, and, this in my opinion is a pointed reference to British raj in lndia, not to thrones. And since God is the net spiritual basis of all life, faithfulness to God virtually amounts to mans loyally to his specimen nature. Iqbal further insists that it must centre more or less the Prophet (peace be upon him), that it must have a code — the Holy account book and a focus — Mecca, and it ought to apply itself to subjection the forces of nature. Iqbal was convinced that the decadence of the East as it obtained in his days and before, its economic and political disintegration were caused to a large ex-tent by its neglect of science. But let us not forget that he also demanded that his ideal society must swan traditions, for traditions are a factor of stability. His ideal society is the Ummah as envisaged by Islam.His ideal man the Prophet (peace be upon him). At a time when the East was in an extremely distressing and difficult situation, overcome and humiliated by an adversity who seem ed to be all powerful while the West stood at the apex of its glory, when no one would have given a mannikin for the Muslims and their future †he brought out in verse/and rhyme/and prose — thus lay the foundation for the resurgence of Islam of which we are witnesses — he brought out restated fundamentals, nay essentials of Islam in a clarity which cannot be surpassed.And by doing so he restored confidence in the paddy wagon of millions of our brethren, fortified their belief and gave them new accept for the future. A future — and that was Iqbals most cherished vision — in which alI Muslims would form an indiscrete community, united in the belief that their religion, the religion of Islam — and here I may be permitted to quote Iqbal once again — that their religion, i. e. Islam is not a departmental affair. That is neither mere thought nor mere feeling, nor mere follow out; that it is the expression of the whole man. May God bless his s oul.\r\n'