IQBAL DAY IN TUNISIA

IQBAL is well known to Tunisians, for not only has his philosophy a deep meaning for every thinking Muslim in the world but this fact has been translated by the Tunisian Government into a living reality. The study of Iqbal's work is a compulsory subject for Tunisian graduate students, and even the more advanced school boys are conversant with his name and works. Accordingly it is the policy of Pakistan Embassy to hold Iqbal Day functions in different towns of Tunisia so that a wide cross-s ection of the Tunisian people are able to participate in the function.

This year Iqbal Day was celebrated in Sousse, Tunisia's third largest town, capital of the province of Sahel, which has produced Tunisia's greatest leaders, most notably its President, Habib Bourguiba. Sousse is a beautiful town, 80 miles south of Tunis and 20 miles west of Kairoan, the famous capital of the days of the glorious Muslim rule. Iqbal Day was celebrated at the Municipal Hall and the civic rooms were packed to capacity. The officials of the province and town were present as also a large number of students — both boys and girls. Many could not even see the speakers but listened patiently to the speeches over the microphone. The meeting was presided over by His Excellency Mr. Abdul Ghayur, Pakistan's Ambassador to Tunisia and the guest of honour was His Excellency Mr. Ahmed Nooreddin, Minister of Works and also Mayor of Sousse. The Governor of Sousse, Mr. Omar Sheshia, also sat at the Head table.

The meeting began with the recitation of verses from the Holy Quran followed by a welcome address by His Excellency Mr. Abdul Ghayur. They followed two recitations of Iqbal's poems by Mr. Farid Hashmi, a Pakistan teacher in Sousse, and Mr. Ghayoor Ahmed, a member of the Embassy There followed Dr. Ahmed Khalid's masterly address which held the audience in attention for over two hours. The meeting concluded after a speech of thanks by Mr. Ahmed Nooreddin and the presentation of books on Iqbal by the Ambassador to noted citizens and students of Sousse.

An American professor, Dr. Tom Irvin, had the opportunity of listening to this speech by Dr. Khalid. In a letter to him he says:

During the past few days too, I have been busy reading your excellent article on the Pakistani philosopher, Dr. Muhammed Iqbal. Then just as I was finishing it, the July issue of al-Fikr arrived, and I see that besides the mimeographed form, your article is now in print.

Thus, allow me to congratulate you. Muhammad Iqbal is one of the contemporaries whom everyone should know, especially in the Islamic world, and I am glad to see that they are taking notice of him in North Africa through your efforts. I know that he is dead, and that he died .before the founding of Pakistan. but still that will probably remain one of his monuments in history. He is important for his attempt to reconcile 'Islamic needs and contemporary thinking, and in doing so, that he did not flee reality or the present, but tried to show his followers how to adjust to the situation in which they must live. So congratulations on your effort!

THE PRINCIPLE OF MOVEMENT AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE EGO IN IQBAL

DR. AHMAD KHALID[1]

It is indeed a great honour for me to be invited by the Pakistan Embassy to address you on the occasion of the 27th death anniversary of Iqbal and to speak on the principle of movement and the philosophy of the Ego of this national poet-thinker of Pakistan. I accepted this invitation quite gladly, for I look upon him with great respect and my heart overflows with love for him. It is due to this unbounded love that I have named my own son after him.

Iqbal was born at the darkest period in the history of lndo-Pakistan sub-continent when the Muslims were vanquished by the British and therefore were forced for the first time to taste the fruit of subjection along with the Hindus whom they had ruled for more than 600 years. With the loss of political power, they lost everything : their language and their laws were swept away. This decline of the Muslims in the sub-continent coincided with their decline in the Middle East as well as in the Muslim West. Greater than this decline in the political field, was their utter indifference to the eternal values of their religion and culture. They forgot that life was an evolutionary process and that mere looking backwards was no solution of their problems. The dynamic spirit of their religion had given place to a deadening inertia and darkness of ignorance. When in this state of decadence, they came in contact with the superior civilization of the West, they were overawed with its external brilliance. This was the beginning of the modern age. Gradually however the Muslims woke up and decided to catch up with the progressive forces of the new civilization.

Jamaluddin Afghani and his pupils Mohammad Abduhu, Rashid Rida, Kawkabi and Ibn-i-Badis took up the challenge of the times and started a movement of reform which aimed at moral transformation and religious revival. They wanted to reinterpret Islam in the light of modern thought without breaking with the past and thus to purify Islam of all the various accretions that had come to be identified with it. You can learn the history of these movements from several books like Mustafa Gilani's Al-Islam Ruh al-Madaniyya (Islam is the Essence of Civilization) and Abbas Muhammad Aqqad's Al-Islam fial-qarn al-arbain (Islam in the Twentieth Century).

These reformers undertook defence of Islam in order to refute the ridiculous charges of extremists among orientalists and the fanatic anti-Muslim sociologists like Henri Lamens, Lord Cromer and Renan who put forth the claim that Islam was reactionary and stood in the way of its followers' progress. Many poets also took part in this defence. One of these is Ma'ruf al-Rasfi. He says :

It is prefectly wrong to say that Islam stands in the way of the progress of its followers. If it be true, how could the Muslims of the first generation achieve what they did? If the Muslims of the present generation are steeped in ignorance, how can this charge be levelled against Islam? Acquiring knowledge is a duty imposed by Islam on everybody. Can any nation prosper without knowledge? Islam awakened people and sharpened their insight when these Europeans were unware of all this . . . Tell those who, by misusing their political power, have been oppressing us, to be aware of their sins. We were supreme when you were lowly but we did not treat you so meanly. In spite of deep differences with you we never gave up our moral duty towards you, for this is the only way for a true gentleman. But when by change of fortune, you acquired ascendancy, your behaviour towards us was shameful. Don't be complaseent for the time is changing as it has changed before...

In India several reform movements appeared to meet the new challenge of the times. They arrived at the conclusion that the decline of the Muslims was due to lack of true faith-without which they had lost their grip on reality. These reformers called the Muslims back to the Quran and following the spirit of times were influenced by the nineteenth century rationalism. Sayyid Ahmad Khan, born in 1817 in Delhi, realized that the Muslims of the sub-continent were suffering from ignorance and a blind allegiance to the past and that true enlightenment through education can be the only way to elevate their status. His reformist activity therefore centered round educational advance and moral transformation of the Muslim community. In 1877 he founded Anglo-Muhammadan College in Aligarh which soon developed into a Muslim University. Following this example, schools and colleges in almost all the important towns of the sub-continent grew up till in 1947 the state of Pakistan came into being.

Sayyid Ahmad Khan fully realized the importance of moral transformation in the reconstruction of a new society. His journal Tahzib al-Akhlaq played a very important role in this respect. It tried to bring home to the people the need for re-appraisal of their position and to inculcate in them the spirit of free and critical enquiry. This journal also served to create new patterns in literature. Its success can be measured by the fact that almost all important people of the age contributed in it.

The movement started by Sayyid Ahmad Khan was continued after him by several important people, among whom we may mention Sayyid Amir Ali whose work, The Spirit of Islam, published first in 1891, was a splendid defence of Islam against prejudices and false accusations. But the greatest of all these reformers was Iqbal. With a unique penetrating insight, he studied the past history of Islam and the Muslims and came to certain most relevant conclusions. He was moved deeply by the decline of the Muslim community and wanted to show his people the way to greater glory and new awakenings.Today we are gathered here to celebrate his 27th death anniversary, for he died at the age of 65 on 21st April, 1938, in Lahore.

The result of his mature thinking is incorporated in his English work, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, in which he tries to re-interpret Islam on philosophical basis. It consists of six lectures[2] which he delivered in different universities of India.

According to Iqbal, the main causes of the decline of Muslim community were two : (1) indifference towards conquest of nature and material and economic welfare, and (2) lack of spiritual vigour and renewal. These two, according to Iqbal, were the result of wrong interpretation of Islam under the influence of Greek philosophy. As Iqbal puts it, Greek philosophy very much broadened the outlook of Muslim thinkers but it, on the whole, obscured their vision of the Quran (Reconstruction, 3). For this reason Iqbal tried to build up his interpretation of the Quran on the basis of a different philosophy so that there may be no possibility of any deviation from the true spirit of Islam. Thus he tried to arrive at a reconciliation between religion and philosophy.

In his lecture on "The Spirit of Muslim Culture", he maintains that ancient philosophy was in its spirit absolutely contrary to the real teachings of the Quran. While affirming the reality of the spirit, Islam does not deny the validity of the world of matter. The Quran says:

"We have not created the Heavens and the Earth and that continuous effort and perpetual struggle in life lend strength to the human ego and lead it to the love of the Perfect Man through proper education.

Iqbal has raised the question of the nature and reality of the ego in the (Urdu) Introduction to Asrar-i-Khudi. What is this unity of experience which is visible with regard to its activities and hidden with regard to its nature ? Is it real or a mere illusion? He raises these questions because, according to him, the character and ultimate destiny of individuals and communities depends upon right answer to these questions. Man is subject to constant change and his psychological states are in a continual flux but this centre of experience gives unity to this diversity, bestows order on an aggregate of changing states and brings the past into relation with the present and future.

In his fourth lecture "The Human Ego — his freedom and immortality", Iqbal emphasises another characteristic of the ego. He holds that every ego is unique. "My feelings, hates and loves, judgments and resolutions are exclusively mine" (Reconstruction, 100). This reminds us of Ibn Sina (d. 428/1037) who employs this very argument, viz., unity amidst the diversity of psychological states, as a proof for the existence of the ego and its continuity as a personality (Albir Nadir, Ibn Sina and Human Self, 17).

Discussing the nature of this "I," Iqbal critically reviews the ideas of Ghazali as representative of Muslim scholasticism and some modern thinkers like Kant, Laird and William James and reaches the conclusion that "my real personality is not a thing, it is an act. My experience is only a series of acts, mutually referring to one another, and held together by the unity of a directive purpose" (Reconstruction, 103).

In Asrar-i-Khudi also Iqbal discusses the nature of. the ego. He compares the attitudes of the East and West towards human self. In the East, people generally believe that this self is an illusion and that salvation lies in negating it. He holds that Hindu thinkers by identifying self with constant activity had shown great philosophical profundity but the conclusion led them to the belief, totally inimical to human civilization, that the individual should try to annihilate it, for without dissolving the self the individual cannot extricate himself from vicious effects of Karma. He states that this teaching is totally against the spirit of Islam which stresses the importance of a life of activity. Human self no doubt is created according to Islam but it can gain immortality through constant activity and persistent effort. This thought of Iqbal is expressed almost in all his books. I give here a quotation from Reconstruction (p. 119) :

"And how to make the soul grow and save it from corruption ? By action:

Blessed be He in whose hand is the Kingdom! And over all things is He potent, Who hath created death and life to test which of you is best in point of deed ; and He is the Mighty and Forgiving" (lxvii. 2).

It is clear that Iqbal's philosophy is dynamic which revolves round the concept of constant effort and continuous struggles. Dr. Abdul Wahab Azzam Bey holds the same view in his book Muhammad Iqbal, his life, philosophy and poetry (Arabic).

This conception runs throughout his works specially in the two famous books, Asrar-i-Khudi and Rumuz-i-Bekhudi, which besides expounding philosophical doctrines are couched in a beautiful poetry. In the Urdu introduction to Asrar-i-Khudi he tries to explain the true significance of the term Khudi which usually means selfishness in Urdu but which Iqbal uses in the sense of self-conciousness, self-affirmation, self-knowledge. Similarly by Bekhudi he means consciousness of collective self, conscious identification of oneself with the social whole. The goal of an individual is to educate and discipline one's ego so as to develop one's natural characteristics which belong or should belong to him as man. The Himalayas say to the Ganges (S.S., 11. 1295-6) :

To live is to grow in thyself

And gather roses from the flower-bed of thyself.

Iqbal criticises sufis for their doctrine of self-negation as well as for their advocacy of sukr and pantheism. Such a mysticism in his view is totally un-Islamic. He holds that negation of the self is a doctrine invented by the decadent races. To illustrate this point Iqbal relates a story. In a jungle inhabited by a flock of sheep there came fierce lions who began to devour the sheep. In order to save the flock from this misfortune, one crafty sheep decided to use intrigue. Declaring himself to be a prophet sent to the lions, he preached the advantages of negation of Khudi. The lions gladly accepted this advice and the result was, in the words of Iqbal (Ibid., 53-55) :

The tiger-tribe was exhausted by hard struggles,

They had set their hearts on enjoyment of luxury.

This soporific advice pleased them,

In their stupidity they swallowed the charm of the sheep.

The tigers took kindly to a diet of fodders:

At length their tigerish nature was broken.

The fodder blunted their teeth

And put out the awful flashings of their eyes.

By degrees courage ebbed from their breasts,

The sheen departed from the mirror.

That frenzy of uttermost exertion remained not,

That craving after action dwelt in their hearts no more.

They lost the power of ruling and the resolution to be independent,

They lost reputation, prestige, and fortune.

'Their paws that were as iron became strengthless,

Their souls died and their bodies became tombs.

Bodily strength diminished while spiritual fear increased :

Spiritual fear robbed them of courage.

Lack of courage produced a hundred diseases

Poverty, pusillanimity, lowmindedness.

The wakeful tiger was lulled to slumber by the sheep's charm :

He called the decline Moral Culture.

The moral is clear. A full and richer life in this universe is dependent on the right development of the self and not in its negation. Iqbal thinks that every being in the world, plant, animal and man, has a self which occupies its own place in the universe and develops according to its own laws. Quoting Ibn Miskawaih, he says,

Plant-life at the lowest stage of evolution does not need any seed for its birth and growth. Nor does it perpetuate its species by means of the seed. This kind of plant-life differs from minerals only in some little power of movement which grows in higher forms, and reveals itself further in that the plant spreads out its branches, and perpetuates its species by means of the seed. The power of movement gradually grows further until we reach trees which possess a trunk, leaves, and fruit. At a higher stage of evolution stand forms of plant-life which need better soil and climate for their growth. The last stage of development is reached in vine and date-palm which stand, as it were, on the threshold of animal life. In the date-palm a clear sex-distinction appears. Besides roots and fibres it develops something which functions like the animal brain, on the integrity of which depends the life of the date palm. This is the highest stage in the development of plant-life, and a prelude to animal life. 1 he first forward step towards animal life is freedom from earth-rootedness which is the germ of conscious movement. This is the initial stage of animality in which the sense of touch is the first, and the sense of sight is the last to appear. With the development of senses the animal acquires freedom of movement, as in the case of worms, reptiles, ants, and bees. Animality reaches its perfection in the horse among quadrupeds and the falcon among birds and finally arrives at the frontier of humanity in the ape which is just a degree below man in the scale of evolution. Further evolution brings physiological changes with a growing power of discrimination and spirituality until humanity passes from barbarism to civilization (Reconstruction, 134).

Thus Iqbal agrees with Miskawaih that the process of evolution is universal. Man both on its material and spiritual sides is a unique centre of life but is still far off from the ideal of Perfect Individual, a stage nearest to God. This nearness (qurb), however, according to Iqbal, is not in the sense of the pantheistic sufis, viz,, self-annihilation in God.

He clarifies his position in this respect in his letter to Dr. Nicholson where he explains his philosophy. In the introduction to the English translation of Asrar-i-Khudi, he says (xix-xx) :

Life is a forward assimilative movement. It removes all obstructions in its march by assimilating them Its essence is the continual creation of desires and ideals and for the purpose of its preservation and expansion it has invented or developed out of itself certain instruments, e.g., senses, intellect, etc., which help it to assimilate obstructions. The greatest obstacle in the way of life is Matter, Nature, yet Nature is not evil, since it enables the inner powers of life to unfold themselves.

The Ego attains to freedom by the removal of all obstruction in its way. It is partly free, partly determined, and reaches fuller freedom by approaching the Individual who is most free — God. In one word life is an endeavour for freedom.

In a poem "Hourie and Poet" written in reply to a poem of Goethe under the same title Iqbal speaks of constant desire, constant effort and constant journeying (Payam-i-Mashriq, 148-9):

چہ کنم کہ فطرت من بہ مقام د ر نسازد

دل ناوبور دارم چو صبا بہ لالہ زارے

چو نطر قرار گیردب ہ نگار کوب روئے

تپد آں زمان دل من پئے خوب تر نگارے

ز شرر ستارہ جویم ز ستارہ آفتابے

سر منزلے ندارم کہ بمیرم از قرارے

چو ز بادۂ بہارے قدحے کشیدہ خیزم

غزلے دگر سرایم بہ ہوائے نو بہارے

طلبم نہایت آں کہ نہایتے دارد

بہ نگاہ نا شخیبے بہ دل امید وارے

Can I help it if my nature loves no dwelling, if my spirit

Be as fitful as the dawn-breeze when it flutters through the tulips?

While a mistress stands before me and her loveliness enchants me,

Even then my thoughts are pining for a mistress yet more lovely;

In a spark I crave a star, and in a star a sun: my journey

Has no bourn, no place of halting; it is death to me to linger.

When I lift the winecup brimming with the nectar of one springtime,

A desire of unborn springtides comes awake to change my music,

And with eyes full of unrest, with inextinguishable longing,

I go seeking the fulfilment of what cannot know fulfilment.

Iqbal has expressed these ideas time and again in different places. I feel there is no poet who sings so passionately and persistently of a life of activity; there is no philosopher who expounds his thought so explicitly in a language that touches the very chords of our heart.

Khudi is the centre of Iqbal's dynamic philosophy. He regards it as the criterion of good and evil. In the Introduction to the English translation of Asrar-i-Khudi, he says, "That which fortifies personality is good, that which weakens it is bad. Art, religion, and ethics must be judged from the standpoint of personality" (xxi-xxii).

Khudi is strengthened through love. In Iqbal's philosophy, love has a very wide significance. It is life as well as life's flame; it is a force that creates desires and at the same time urges one to attain them. Through love of the Perfect Man — who is no other than the Prophet Muhammad — all the hidden potentialities of Khudi become manifest. For an individual mature in love, all obstacles and hindrances melt away, forces of nature become subservient to him and the secret of Existence is revealed to him. He speaks of love ;11. 323-8, 331-4):

قطعۂ نورے کہ نام او خودی ست

زیر کاک ما شرار زندگی ست

از مہبت می شود پائندہ تر

زندہ تر سوزندہ تر تابندہ تر

از محبت اشتعال جوہرش

ارتقائے ممکنات مضمرش

عشق را از تیغ و خنجر باک نیست

اصل عشق از آب و باد و خاک نیست

در جہان ہم صلح ہم پیکار عشق

آب حیوان تیغ جوہردار عشق

The luminous point whose name is the Self

Is the life-spark beneath our dust.

By Love it is made more lasting,

More Living, more burning, more glowing.

From Love proceeds the radiance of its being

And the development of its unknown possibilities.

Love fears neither sword nor dagger,

Love is not born of water and air and earth.

Love makes peace and war in the world,

Love is the Fountain of Life,

Love is the flashing sword of Death.

When the poet reaches higher regions through love, he discovers the secrets of Existence. He often says that he has experienced Reality and that he has risen like a new sun to break the spell of darkness. In the Prologue to Asrar-i-Khudi, he says (pp. 4-6) :

در جہان خورشید نو زائیدہ ام

رسم و آئین فلک نا دیدہ ام

بامم از کاور رسید و شب شکست

شبنم نو برگل عالم نشست

انتظار صبح خیزان می کشم

اے خوشا زرتشتیان آتشم

نغمہ از از زخمہ بے پروا ستم

من نوائے شاعر فردا ستم

نغمۂ من از جہاں دیگرست

ایں جرس را کاروان دیگرست

اے بسا شاعر کہ بعد از مرگ زاد

چشم خود بر لبست و چشم ما کشاد

نغمہ از ز اندازۂ تار ست بیش

من نترسم از شکشت عود خویش

قطرہ از سیلاب من بیگانہ بہ قلزم

از آشوب او دیوانہ بہ

برقہا خوابیدہ در جہان من ست

کوہ و صحرا باب جولان من ست

پنجہ کن با بحرم ار صحراستی

برق من درگیر اگر سیناستی

چشمۂ حیوان براتم کردہ اند

محرم راز حیاتم کردہ اند

ذرہ از سوز نوایم زندہ گشت

پر کشود و کرمک تابندہ گشت

I am born in the world as a new sun,

I have not learned the ways and fashions of the sky :

From the East my dawn arrived and routed Night,

A fresh dew settled on the rose of the world.

I am waiting for the votaries that rise at dawn :

Oh, happy they who shall worship my fire !

I have no need of the ear of To-day,

I am the voice of the poet of To-morrow,

My song is of another world than theirs :

This bell calls other travellers to take the road.

Many a poet was born after his death,

Opened our eyes when his own were closed,

My songs exceeds the range of the chord,

Yet I do not fear that my lute will break.

'Twere better for the waterdrop not to know my torrent,

Whose fury should madden the sea.

Lightenings slumber within my soul,

I sweep over mountain and plain.

Wrestle with my sea, if thou art a plain :

Receive my lightning, if thou art a Sinai.

The Fountain of Life hath been given me to drink,

I have been made an adept of the mystery of Life,

The speck of dust was vitalised by my burning song :

It unfolded wings and became a firefly.

Iqbal's poetry is highly inspiring and fiery which serves to revitalise strong and assertive peoples. His philosophy is dynamic so much so that it kindles fire of desire in the heart of subject nations and urges them on to incessant activity. Iqbal's poetry and philosophy aimed at a universal human appeal although he addressed primarily the Muslims of the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent and there is no doubt that his poetry awoke them from slumber, thereby preparing them for the fight for freedom against the British. The Quaid-i-Azam's words aptly speak of the great and important role that Iqbal played in this struggle : "Iqbal was my friend, Guide and philosopher".

According to Iqbal, there are three stages of the education of the ego : (1) obedience to the law, (2) self-control and (3) Divine Vicegerency. Obedience means willing submission to the law of Islam so that the conquest of nature be made possible (Ibid., 73):

نا کس از فرمان پزیری کس شود

آتش را باشد ز طغیان خس شود

ہر کہ تسخیر مہ و پروین کند

خویش را زنجیرئی آئین کند

By obedience the man of no worth is made worthy:

By disobedience his fire is turned to ashes.

Whoso would master the sun and stars,

Let him make himself a prisoner of law.

Self-control is possible only after one has subdued fear and greed. He who does not command himself becomes subject to the command of others. Divine vicegerency is the highest stage in man's evolution. God's Vicegerent is His representative on earth and as a reformer and creator has achieved full control over matter and material forces.

He is the completest Ego, the goal of humanity, the acme of life both in mind and body; in him the discord of our mental life becomes a harmony. This highest power is united in him with the highest know. ledge. In his life, thought and action, instinct and reason, become one-He is the last fruit of the tree of humanity, and all the trials of a painful evolution are justified because he is to come at the end. He is the real ruler of mankind, his kingdom is the kingdom of God on earth. Out of the richness of his nature he lavishes the wealth of life on others, and brings them nearer and nearer to himself. The snore we advance in evolution, the nearer we get to him. In approaching him we are raising ourselves in the scale of life. The development of humanity both in mind and body is a condition precedent to his birth. For the present he is a mere ideal; but the evolution of humanity is tending towards the production of an ideal race of more or less unique individuals who will become his fitting parents. Thus the Kingdom of God on earth means the democracy of more or less unique individuals, presided over by the most unique individual possible on this earth (Introduction to the Secrets of the Self, xxvii-xxix.)

This vicegerent of Iqbal is quite different from the Perfect Man of Ibn Arabi and other pantheistic sufis, for, according to him, these mystics uphold passivity, sukr (intoxication), annihilation of self. To them the perfect man merges his self in God, a belief which resembles Hulul (incarnation) as expounded by Hallaj :

I am He whom I love and He whom I love is I,

We are two spirits, dwelling in one body.

His cry of Anal Haq and his statement "There is nothing in my garb except Allah" are all so many expressions of Hulul. Iqbal totally repudiates this conception of pantheistic self-annihilation and advocates the necessity of self- affirmation.

Another important point that Iqbal emphasises is that Khudi develops fully only in the context of society. In Rumuz-i-Bekhudi (Mysteries of Selflessness, 5-6) he says :

فرد تا اندر جماعت گم شود

قطرۂ وسعت طلب قلزم شود

ما بہ دار سیرت دیرینہ او

رفتہ و دیرینہ را آئینہ او

اصل استقبال و ماضی ذات او

جوں ابد لا انتہا اوقات او

در دلش ذوق نمو از ملت ا ست

احتتساب کار او ز ملت است

پیکرش از قوم و ہم جانش زقوم

ظاہرش از قوم و پنہانش ز قوم

When in the Congregation he is lost

'Tis like a drop which, seeking to expand,

Becomes an ocean. It is strong and rich

In ancient ways, a mirror to the Past

As to the Future, and the link between

What is to come, and what has gone before,

So that its moments are infinite

As is Eternity. The joy of growth

Swells in his heart from the Community,

That watches and controls his every deed;

To them he owes his body and his soul,

Alike his outward and his hidden parts.

When society is overtaken by sloth and loses the strength of will, life devises a way of recovery by producing some men of outstanding insight who lead it out of the abyss of decadence to the heights of glory. Iqbal describes this leader in the following words (Ibid., 9-10):

ساز پردازے کہ از آوازۂ

خاک را بخشد حیات تازۂ

زندہ از یک دم دو صد پیکر کند

محفلے رنگین زیک ساغر کند

دیدۂ او می کشد لب جان دمد

تا دوئی میرد یکے پیدا شود

از تف او ملتے مثل سپند

برجہد شور افگن و ہنگامہ بند

بیک شرر می افگند اندز دلش

شعلۂ در گیرمی گردد گلش

a minstrel he

Whose piercing music gives new life to dust.

Out of his single breath

Two hundred bodies quicken; with one glass

He livens an assembly. His bright glance

Slays, but forthwith his single uttered word

Bestows new life, that so Duality

Expiring, Unity may come to birth.

At his fiery breath

A people leap like rue upon a fire

In sudden tumult, in their heart one spark

Caught from his kindling, and their sullen clay

Breaks instanty a flame.

Iqbal welcomes the Perfect Man (S.S., 84):

شورش اقوام را خاموش کن

نغمۂ خود را بہشت گوش کن

خیز و قانون اخوت ساز دہ

جام صہبائے محبت باز دہ

باز در عالم بیار ایام صلح

جنگ جویاں را بدہ پیغام صلح

نوع انساں مزرع تو حاصلی

کاروان زندگی را منزلی

ریخت از جور خزان برگ شجر

چون بہاران بر ریاض ما گزر

Silence the noise of the nations,

Imparadise our ears with thy music !

Arise and tune the harp of brotherhood,

Give us back the cup of the wine of love !

Bring once more days of peace to the world,

Give a message of peace to them that seek battle!

Mankind are the cornfield and thou the harvest,

Thou art the goal of Life's caravan.

The leaves are scattered by Autumn's fury:

Oh, do thou pass over our gardens as the Spring!

Are we not justified in saying that this Perfect Man was Iqbal himself? By the coming of this Perfect Man, people of his land are relieved of doubts and misgivings and are revitalised into a well-knit community with a strong will aiming at throwing off the yoke of subjection and regaining freedom from slavery.

This "divine vicegerent" of Iqbal reminds us of Nietzsche's Perfect

Man described in Thus Spake Zarathustra. Though one may fiind similarities between the two conceptions here and there, Iqbal repudiates Nietzsche's atheism in the introduction to the English Translation of Asrar-i-Khudi, "Nietzsche had a glimpse of this ideal race, but his atheism and aristocratic prejudices marred his whole conception" (xxix).

When a man wishes to influence the course of history, to bring the forces of material world under his control and to impress the world with the stamp of his unique creative genius, he must first bring about a change within his own personality and strengthen his ego. Thus Iqbal whom we regard as a Perfect Man and who is the highest symbol of a creative artist, says to God (Payam-i-Mashriq, 132):

تو شب آفرید چراغ آفریدم

سفال آفریدی ایاغ آفریدم

بیابان و کہسار و راغ آفریدی

خیابان و گلزار و باغ آفریدم

من آنم کہ از سنگ آئینہ سازم

من آنم کہ از زہر نو شینہ سازم

You created night; I produced a lamp to dispel its darkness:

You created clay and I made cups out of it;

You created deserts, mountains and slopes,

I produced gardens and flower-beds;

I produced mirrors out of stones

And antidote out of poison.

Through this dynamic and creative thought, sane mystic approach and humanism, it became possible for Iqbal to evolve a synthesis of the East and West. He had drunk deep at the fount of Western thought and was greatly impressed by the philosophy of Bergson, Nietzsche and Goethe but no less deep was his acquaintance with the history of Muslim thought. It was this unique position of Iqbal which enabled him to formulate a system of thought which was his own.

Iqbal was a poet and yet a great seer. He gave a message of bright future and resplendent hope to his people and sang of a new dawn. In his poems he describes himself as a new and glorious sun that has arisen to dispel the darkness of fear, doubt and unbelief and to diffuse around him the light of true faith and guidance. I would request you to sing with me his beautiful and melodious verses (S.S., 3-4):

در جہان خورشید نو زائیدہ ام

رسم و آئین فلک نا دیدہ ام

رم ندیدہ انجم از تابم ہنوز

ہست نا آشفتہ سیمابم ہنوز

با مم از خاور رسید و سب شکست

شبنم نو برگل عالم نشست

انتظار صبح خیزاں می کشم

اے خوشا زرتشیاں آتشم

I am born in the world as a new sun,

I have not learned the ways and fashions of the sky:

Not yet have the stars fled before my splendour,

Not yet is my quicksilver astir;

From the East my dawn arrived and routed Night.

A fresh dew settled on the rose of the world.

I am waiting for the votaries that rise at dawn:

Oh happy they who shall worship my fire!

It was a new morning that had shone over the dark and grim night of the Muslims of the sub-continent.

In spite of manifold handicaps and untold sufferings which he bore so gladly, he put in their hearts the burning desire to carry on the fight for freedom against the oppresive rule of the British and for establishment of an Islamic State. In 1937 (June 21) he wrote to the Quaid-i-Azam, "The only way to a peaceful India is a re-distribution of the country on he lines of racial, religious and linguistic affinities" (Letters of Iqbal to Jinnah, 23). But he did not live to see the realisation of his dreams and died 9 years before the birth of Pakistan.

I have said before that his role was truly prophetic. He saw with his mind's eyes what was sure to happen in future but was hidden from the eyes of the common man. He could see the rise of a free Muslim State long before it appeared on the map of the world. He says about it in the following beautiful verses (Ibid., 14):

من کہ ایں شب را جو مہ آراستم

گرد پائے ملت بیضا ستم

ملتے در باغ و راغ آوازہ اش

آتش دلہا سرود تازہ اش

ذرہ گشت و آفتاب انبار کرد

خرمن از صد رومی و عطار کرد

 I who give beauty to this night, like the moon,

Am as dust in devotion to the pure Community‑

A community renowned in hill and dale,

Which kindles in men's hearts a flame of undying song :

It sowed an atom and reaped a sun,

It harvested a hundred poets like Rumi.

These are a few hints about the activist philosophy of Iqbal and his poetry. I have not tried nor do I claim to give any exhaustive account of this philosophy. Anyhow I am sure this brief discussion must have proved the originality of this Muslim philosopher and poet of Pakistan who believed in the progressive evolution and life of Man. He vehemently repudiated the thesis of those thinkers of decadence who held that Islam came into the world as a strange phenomenon and shall soon return to the same position once again. It would mean denial of man's capacity to march from good to better and from better to best and to doom him to utter inactivity. Iqbal was unique among the thinkers and reformers of the new age as he laid the foundation of his reform on the basis of a unique thought-system. Like other thinkers of the age Iqbal no doubt accepted the challenge of the times and undertook to defend Islam against it critics but he was unique in this respect no because he had a deep penetrating insight into the true spirit of Islam and had passed thrcughas mystic experience that was sober and within the limits of the law. He was a thinker par excellence for whom it was possible to present different strands of thought in a coherent and unified forms. His achievements have indeed immortalised him!

Notes and  References