IQBAL'S IDEA OF THE SELF
Mohammad Rafiuddin
From the earliest times men have endeavoured to solve the riddle of the universe, having had an intuitive conviction that the world is a unified whole. To the idealist philosopher or to the man of religion this view is quite natural, since he believes that the universe is the creation of a single personality and is permeated by a single purpose. But even the materialist philosophers have been unable to get away from the urge of their nature, common to all philosophers and all thinking men, to look upon the world as a unity. Indeed if those who are engaged in search of knowledge were not to start with the idea, that there is a unity and uniformity of design and purpose in the universe, neither science nor philosophy would have been possible. Iqbal too looks upon the world as a unity.
No one, therefore, can do justice to Iqbal unless he explains all his ideas with reference to a single central idea with which they are shown to be rationally connected.
There is no doubt that, since the death of Iqbal, a large amount of very able criticism of his works has come into existence, but no ordered and systematic exposition of his philosophy is yet known to be available. No one has so far explained his ideas as parts of a comprehensive theory of the universe. He is our national poet-philosopher, and we claim with him rightly that his message is of supreme importance to anxious humanity now face to face with complete annihilation on account of the series of world wars in which it has got entangled and from which it knows no refuge. But unless we, arrange-his ideas in a logical order, work out their full implications and carry them to their conclusions, neither we nor the rest of the, world, can benefit from his valuable teachings.
One who undertakes this highly important task will have to satisfy at least two conditions. First, he should go back to the very source, the very fountain-head of his ideas, to that basic feeling or intuition of his mind from which all his ideas emanate. In other words, he should acquire Iqbal's own vision of reality, his own 'mystic or spiritual experience. How little is it realized, in spite of repeated, unequivocal pronouncements of Iqbal, that, although he is both a poet and a philosopher, he is fundamentally neither a poet nor a philosopher but a mystic. His gifts of poetic expression and philosophical knowledge are both subservient to his mysticism. All that he has done is to interpret his mystic experience in the familiar intellectual and intelligible language of philosophy and to express his philosophical ideas born in this way through the forceful medium of verse that influences deeply and strongly the minds of others. It is not his object to please his readers by songs or stroies of love like other poets. Accordingly, he repudiates the title of a poet which is sometimes attributed to him.
نہ پنداری کہ من بے بادہ مستم
مثال شاعراں افسانہ بستم
نہ بینی خیز ازاں مرد فرو دست
کہ بر من تہمت شعر و سخن بست
او حدیث دلبری خواہد زمن
رنگ و آب شاعری خواہد زمن
کم نظر بے تابئ جانم ندید
آشکارم دید و پنہانم ندید
نغمہ کجا و من کجا، ساز سخن بہانہ ایست
سوئے قطار می کشم ناقۂ بےزمام را
Don't you think that I feel intoxicated without drinking wine and that I have fabricated a story like poets ?
You can never expect any good from that inferior man who caluminates me as a mere versifier.
He wants me to speak sweet words of love and expects the style and radiance of poetry from me.
The short-sighted fellow did not see the restlessness of my soul; he simply saw my outwardness and not my inwardness.
There is a vast difference between me and the melody; the instrument of poetry is only a pretext. I do lead the bride-less dromedary to the string of camels.
He hates, and dissociates himself from, all philosophy that is the outcome of a distorted and incomplete vision or intuition of Reality on the ground that it is divorced from the love of God.
تڑپ رہا ہے فلاطوں می اں غیب و حضور
ازل سے اہل خرد کا مقام ہے اعراف
Plato is feeling restless between the concealed and the visible;
the place of the wise has been purgatory since the very beginning.
نہ فلسفی سے نہ ملاّ سے ہے غرض مجھکو
یہ دل کی موت، وہ اندیشہ و نظر کا فساد
بلند بال تھا لیکن نہ تھا جسور و غیور
حکیم سر مہبتسے بے نصیب رہا
پھرا فضاؤں میں شاہیں اگرچہ کرگس وار
شکارزندہ کی لذت سے بے نصیب رہا
حکمتش معقول و با محسوس در خلوت نرفت
گرچہ فکر بکر او پیرایہ پوشد چوں عروس
طائر عقل فلک پرواز او دانی کہ چیست؟
ما کیاں کز زور مستی خایہ گیرد بے خروس
I have no concern whatsoever either with the philosopher or with the Mulla; the former is the death of the heart while the latter represents a conflict of thought and sight.
He knew how to fly high but he lacked courage and high-mindedness. That is why the philosopher remained deprived of the secrets of love.
Although the Shaheen (falcon) continued to fly in the sky like a vulture, yet he felt deprived of the ecstacy of the live prey.
What he says about Hegel applies equally to other philosophers.
His wisdom did not indulge in the privacy of the touchable, though the virginity of his thought appeared in the garb of a bride.
Do you know what the bird of his high-flying wisdom is like? It is like the hen which in the moments of profound lust gets germinated without a cock.
On the other hand, he openly and repeatedly claims for himself the experience of a mystic. He often uses such words as:ذوق نگاہ، سوز درون جان بے تاب etc.
عصر حاضر را خرد زنحیر پاست
جان بے تابے کہ من دارم دارم کجاست؟
Wisdom is proving a shackle to the present-day world.
Where is the man who possesses a restless soul like myself?
اے پسر! ذوق نگاہ از من بگیر
سوختن در لا الہ از من بگیر
مرے کدو کو غنیمت سمجھ کہ بادۂ ناب
نہ مدرسہ میں باقی نہ خانقاہ میں ہے
اعجمی مردے چہ خوش شعرے سرود
سوزد از تاثیر او جاں در وجود
درویش خدا مست نہ شرقی ہے نہ غربی
گھر میرا نہ دلی نہ صفاہاں نہ سمرقند
سرآمد روزگار ایں فقیرے
دگر دانائے راز آید کہ ناید
قلند جز دو حرف لا الہ کچھ بھی نہیں رکھتا
فقیہ شہر قاروں ہے لغت ہائے حجازی
O my son! get the joy of inner sight from me. Learn from me how to burn in the fire of `None is worthy of worship except God'.
Treat my pumpkin as a boon since the pure wine is available neither in schools nor in monastries.
What a lovely couplet was sung by a non-Arab! The soul is still burning from inside due to its forceful effect.
He loves to use for himself such words as فقیر قلندر درویش etc., each of which signifies a mystic.
A derwesh who is intoxicated with the love of God, belongs neither to the East nor to the West. Delhi, Isfahan, Samarqand-neither of them is my abode.
The days of this Fakir have come to an end; it is to be seen whether or not another secret-knowing sage appears on the scene.
The devotee knows nothing except a couple of words of `None is worthy of worship except God', while the theologian of the town is the master of all the religious vocabularies.
Secondly, in order to understand Iqbal's philosophic interpretation of his own spiritual experience, he should have a thorough knowledge of philosophy and of the latest discoveries of science. Evidently, when such a man begins to systematise Iqbal's philosophical rendering of his own mystic experience (which will be common between him and Iqbal), he will build upon that rendering and carry it a step further.
But these two conditions are such that, while each of them may be fulfilled by several men individually, their combination in a single man is rare. There is a great dearth of intellectual mystics in this age of irreligious intellectualism and intellectual barrenness of religiosity.
It is not possible for me to attempt a systematic exposition of Iqbal's idea of the self in. this small article. But I shall endeavour to give below its salient features and to explain each as much as I can within the space at my disposal.
(A) Khudi is the fundamental reality of the universe.
پیکر ہستی ز آثار خودیسست
ہرچہ می بینی ز اسرار خودیست
زمین و آسمان و چار سو نیست
دریں عالم بجز اللہ ہو نیست
The structure of man's existence is a relic of his own self;
whatever you see around, is one of the secrets of the self.
It is not the earth and the firmament that is spreading in all directions. In this universe there is nothing except the manifestation of God.
Khudi signifies mind or consciousness. Since, wherever there is mind or consciousness there is life, Iqbal has frequently used the words حیات and زندگی for خودیor consciousness. We know that consciousness is to be found in both man and animal. But the standard of human consciousness is higher than that of animal consciousness. Because an animal is conscious, it knows, feels and thinks. But a humanbeing not only knows, feels and thinks, but when he does so, he also knows that he knows, feels and thinks. Thus in the human being consciousness knows itself and human consciousness is of the nature of self-consciousness. It is this self-consciousness which is described more briefly by the word "self". Iqbal gives the Urdu or Persian translation of this word as Khudi. It was hardly possible to find a more appropriate Urdu or Persian equivalent of this old and simple philosophical term. Yet, unfortunately, it has been widely misunderstood by the readers of Iqbal. The reason is that this word is already in use in Urdu and Persian in a very different sense, in the sense of pride and selfishness, and Iqbal, too, in view of our present lassitude, has stressed one out of the several characteristics of Khudi, the characteristic, namely, of self-assertion. This has led many persons to imagine that the philosophical term Khudi has something in common with the meaning of this word in everyday language. This, of course, is not true.
Iqbal's view of the reality of consciousness is not a new idea in philosophy. It is a view that has been very popular with philosophers throughout. Most of the philosophers have been idealists, i.e., have believed in the primacy of mind. Consciousness in man and the universe is the one great theme of not only mediaeval European philosophy, the object of which was the rationalization of Christianity, but also of the great philosophical systems of the modern age expounded by philosophers like Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Croce, Bergson, etc.
This view, however, received a serious setback on account of the 18th Century science which, on the basis of actual experiments in the laboratory, concluded that matter was indestructible and was, therefore, self-existent and the only reality behind the universe. Consequently, it was believed that mind or life is only a property of matter that appears when matter assumes a particular chemical composition. Berkeley challenged the conclusion of the scientists and stood up boldly against them, defending the view of the idealist philosophers. But his contention appeared to be a losing one. Twentieth. Century hypotheses in Physics and Biology like Relativity Theory, Quantum Theory, Second Law of Thermodynamics and the theories of Creative Evolution and Emergent Evolution have, however, entirely changed the situation. These hypotheses have compelled the scientists to revise their theory about the nature of matter and to favour, instead, the view, long advocated by religion and idealist philosophy, that consciousness is the basic force in the universe and that matter is its emanation. Thus materialism, the ideal of scie nce, has been shattered by science itself.
The result is that the materialistic philosophies, built on the 18th Century view of the nature of matter, are gradually losing their ground and the idealistic philosophy is acquiring a new force. The scientists, bewildered by their own discoveries, are busy giving a spiritual explanation of the universe. They have wandered out of the realm of matter into the world beyond, because it is now there that they hope to discover the Ultimate Reality. This is evident from the numerous books written by top scientists of the world like Einstein, Eddington, James Jeans and others on the subject. "The present state of physical knowledge," writes load, "seems to prominent scientists to point to conclusions directly contrary to those of the old materialism and to favour a spiritual interpretation of the univserse as strongly as the science of fifty years ago was thought to favour a materialist interpretation."
(B) Evolution is a fact.
چو فطرت می تراشد پیکرے را
تمامش می کند در روزگارے
یہ کائنات ابھی نا تمام ہے شاید
کہ آرہی ہے دما دم صدائے کن فیکون
When nature carves out a figure, then it completes it in the course of time only.
This universe is perhaps still incomplete, for the voice of the command, 'Be and it came into being' is being constantly heard.
But the cause of evolution is the creative activity of the consciousness of the universe. Evolution is the method of creation which is always gradual. Consciousness, in creating anew the universe from moment to moment for the sake of its own self-expression, is continually breaking through its own resistance and outgrowing itself, and thereby gradually advancing towards its goal, its destination or ideal. Consciousness is going on and on in search of that goal like a swiftly running stream that meets with obstacles of hills and rocks and turns right and left to avoid them or washes them away to make a passage for itself. The onward creative march of consciousness resulted in the evolution of matter till matter became ripe for the production of animal life. During the animal stage, stretched over a period of millions of years, the evolutionary process resulted in the production of innumerable species of animals out of which those that did not suit the purpose of evolution continued to be destroyed side by side with the creation of others that suited the needs of evolution and bore promise for the future. The story of evolution is related by Iqbal in اسرار خودی and ساقی نامہ from which the following lines are quoted:
وہ جوئے کہستاں اچکتی ہوئی
اٹکتی لچکتی سرکتی ہوئی
اچھلتی پھسلتی سنبھلتی ہوئی
بڑے پیچ کھا کر نکلتی ہوئی
Flows the rocky rivulet jumping, entangling, bending, moving, springing, sliding, recovering and coiling.
رکے جب تو سل چیر دیتی ہے یہ
پہاڑوں کے دل چیر دیتی ہے یہ
ذرا دیکھ اے ساقئ لالہ فام
سنات ہے یہ زندگی کا پیام
دما دم رواں ہے یم زندگی
ہر اک شے سے پیدا رم زندگی
اسی سے ہوئی ہے بدن کی نمود
کہ شعلہ می ں پوشیدہ ہے موج دود
گراں گر چہ ہے صحبت آب و گل
خوش آئی اسے صحبت آب و گل
یہ ثابت بھی ہے اور سیار بھی
عناصر کے پھندوں سے بیزار بھی
یہ عالم یہ بت خانۂ شش جہات
اسی نے تراشا ہے یہ سومنات
ٹھہرتا نہیں کاروان وجود
کہ ہر لحظہ تازہ ہی شان وجود
زمانے کے دریا میں بہتی ہوئی
ستم اس کی موجوں کے سہتی ہوئی
تجس کے راہیں بدلتی ہوئی
دما دم نگاہیں بدلتی ہوئی
سازد ازخود پیکر اغیار را
تا فزاید لذت پیکار ر
It cuts the slabs of stones when it pauses and penetrates into the hearts of mountains.
Just look here, O tulip-coloured sweetheart! The rivulet conveys the message of life.
The ocean of life is flowing ceaselessly; every thin records the flight of life.
It is responsible for the manifestation of the body, for in the flames lie hidden the waves of smoke.
Though the company of water and earth proves incongenial, yet the association of water and earth is pleasing to it.
It is stationary as well as moving and yet it is fed up with the shackles of the elements.
This universe, this idol-temple of six dimensions; this great idol-temple has been carved by it.
The caravan of life does not stop anywhere; the pomp and show of existence is every movement green and fresh.
Bearing the tyrannies of its waves, changing the ways of searching and constantly displaying the changing eyes, it floats on the river of time.
It builds out of itself the structure of opponents to avoid augmenting the ecstasy of conflict.
می شود از بہر اغراض عمل
عامل و معمول و اسباب و علل
وا نمودن خویش را خوئے خودی است
خفتہ در ہر ذرہ نیروئے خودی است
پیکر ہستی ز اسرار خودی است
ہر چہ مے بینی ز اسرار خودی است
For the various stages of action it becomes itself the subject, the object, the cause and the stimulant.
Displaying of the self is customary with the ego. In every particle lies hidden the power of the ego.
The structure of existence is of the signs of the ego. Whatever you behold is of the secrets of the ego.
Passing through the earner forms of life, consciousness came to its own and gained its freedom and self-consciousness in the human being for the first time since the beginning of creation.
ازل سے یہ ہے کشمکش میں اسیر
ہوئی خاک آدم میں صورت پذیر
خودی کا نشیمن ترے دل میں ہے
فلک جس طرح آنکھ کی تل میں ہے
From the very beginning it is struggling hard to appear in the shape of man.
The abode of the ego is in your heart just as the firmament is seen in the pupil of the eye.
And now consciousness will make man the instrument of its own self-realization. It will express itself in man more and more till in him it will behold itself in its full splendour. The perfect man of the future is the final objective of all this tedious and lengthy process of evolution.
آیۂ کائنات کا معنئ دیریاب تو
نکلے تری تلاش میں قافلہ ہائی رنگ و بو
یہ ہے مقصد گردش روزگار
کہ تیری خودی تجھ پہ ہو آشکار
Thou art the late-discovered meaning of the verse of the universe. Caravans of hue and scent are roaming about in thy search.
The purpose underlying the revolution of time is that thy ego should reveal itself to thee.
When he comes, the strife of the nations will end and peace and prosperity will reign on the earth. Iqbal addresses the man of the future as follows:
اے سوار اشہب دوراں بیا
اے فروغ دیدۂ امکاں بیا
رونق ہنگامۂ ایجاد شو
در سواد دیدہ ہا آباد شو
شورش اقوام را خاموش کن
نغمۂ خود را بہشت گوش کن
O white rider of the horse of time, come forth. O splendour of the eyes of this world! Come forth.
Be the elegance of the commotion of inventions, take thy abode in the environs of the eyes.
Put down the discontent of the nations; fascinate them with the melody of your songs of peace.
The process of evolution involves a good deal of waste and experimentation which one is likely to mistake for cruelty or purposelessness in nature. For example, consciousness creates millions of solar systems in order to have one that suits its ends; it creates millions of species for the sake of one that is perfect; and it creates innumerable prophets before the Perfect Prophet makes his appearance. Really in all such cases the end justifies the means. Because the final results is extremely precious, it more than compensates for the loss that is involved in its creation.
خود فریبی ہائے اور عن حیات
ہمچو گل از خوں و ضو عین حیات
بہر یک گل خون صد گلشن کند
از پئے یک نغمہ صد شیون کند
شعلہ ہائے او صد ابراہیم سوخت
تا چراغ یک محمد بر فروخت
عذر این اسراف و این سنگین دلی
خلقو تکمیل جمال معنوی
His self-deceits are the essence of his life, like the rose which derives life from the redness and radiance.
He destroys a hundred flower-beds for the sake of a single rose, and indulges numerous lamentations for creating one melody.
In order to lit one lamp in the shape of Prophet Mohammad (may peace be on him), its flames have burnt one hundred Abrahams.
Creation and completion of the inner beauty was the pretext for all this lavishness and hard-heartedness.
While Iqbal's view of the causes of evolution is entirely Quranic. it is the only one that is compatible with the most recent hypotheses of Physics. These hypotheses point to consciousness as the sole reality of the world. This view is further supported by the most up-to-date scientific investigations in the field of Biology. Serious students of Biology, according to Professor Haldane, no longer entertain the view that life is the result of a definite chemical composition of matter, The experiments of the German Biologist, Driesch, in particular, have led to the conclusion that there is an internal regulating principle active in the organism which moulds and forms it in the interest of the whole, changing and directing its purpose to suit this interest. This regulating priciple must be interested not only in the growth of the individual organism, but also in the growth and evolution of life as a whole. Bergson supports this contention in his book Creative Evolution by a seris of highly cogent arguments.
Lamarck explained the evolution of life as a result of adaptation by living beings to the conditions of environment. Adaptation causes a sight alteration in the form of the animal — an alteration inherited bythe offspring, which, being itself subjected to the necessity of adaptation, undergoes a further change. In this way, modifications go on accumulating gradually till we have a new species. But it is now well-established that variations may not only be due to an accumulated effect, but may also take place suddenly. This is impossible unless there is a conscious drive in the organism itself causing it to develop a sudden change or improvement. Briefly, the 19th Century view advocated by Lamarck and Darwin that evolution is the chance result of the play of mechanical forces, is now being abandoned in favour of the view that evolution is purposive and is the outcome of a conscious and creative activity in nature.
(C) Self-consciousness — whether as the Universal Self-consciousness or as expressed in the human being — has only one urge and that is Love or the urge or quest for Beauty. But what is self-consciousness to love? Where is that Beauty which it seeks ? The answer is that self-consciousness itself is Beauty. The human self-consciousness loves the Universal Self-consciousness (which is really within it) and the Universal Self-consciousness loves the human self-consciousness. The latter, on account of its love for the former, is in a perpetual process of creation. As a result of this process, it will reach the height of its beauty and perfection in due course of time.
حسن را اذ خطد برطں جستن خطاست
آنچہ می بایست پیش ما کجاست
It is a mistake to search for the beauty outside the self. Where is it that which ought to be before us ?
Loving or seeking that is going on at both ends of consciousness, is really the cause of history or the process of evolution, leading to the perfection of the universe or rather to the perfection of man who is the essence of the universe.
ما از خدائے گم شدہ ایم او بجستجوست
چوں ما نیازمند و گرفتار آرزوست
گاہے بہ برگ لالہ نویسد پیام خویش
گاہے دورن سینۂ مرغاں بہ ہاؤ ہوست
در نرگس آرمید کہ بیند جمال ما
چندں کرشمہ داں کہ نگاہش بگفگوست
آہی سحر گہی کہ زند در فراق ما
بیروں و اندروں، زیر و زیر و چار سوست
ہنگامہ بست از پئے دیدار خاکئے
نظارہ را بہانہ تماشائے رنگ بوست
در خاکدان ما گہر زندگی گم است
ایں گوہرے کہ گم شدہ، ما ایم یا کہ اوست؟
We have gone astray from God and He is in search of us. Like us he is also supplicating and slave to longings.
He sometimes writes His message on the leaves of tulips; and
sometimes he sings songs through the chirpings of the birds.
He has concealed Himself in the marcissus just to witness our beauty. He is so tricky that His very looks are in conversation.
The heart-rendering sigh that he heaves in our separation in the morning, echoes in all directions, outside and inside, above and beneath.
All this tumult has been made just to behold the portrait of one made of clay. Inspection is only a pretext to enjoy the sight of hue and colour of the same.
The pearl of life is lost in our earthen body. Are we this lost pearl or He?
یہ راز ہم سے چھپایا ہی میر واعظ نے
کہ خود حرم ہے چراغ مرحوم کاپروانہ
خود تجلی کو تمنا جن کے نظاروں کی تھی
وہ نگاہیں نا امید نور ایمن ہو گئیں
The head-preacher has kept back this secret from us that the sacred enclosure of Mecca is itself the lover of the lamp of the Haram.
The divine lustre itself had a keen desire to witness those eyes, which have now become hopeless of seeing the light of the valley of Aiman.
Man expresses his love for the Divine Self by worshipping It, adoring Its qualities and acting in Its service, i.e., by expressing Its qualities in his own action. Self-consciousness (human or Divine) is Love and Beauty at the same time. When it is seeking self-consciousness, it is Love; and when it is being sought by self-consciousness, it is Beauty. The Divine Self is actual Beauty, but the human self-consciousness is potential Beauty that has yet to be actualized or revealed as a result of the creative process. Beauty includes all its qualities like Power, Goodness, Truth, etc., which are all lovable and admirable and which are always expressed in the service of Love. They belong to Self-consciousness of the Universe, and, therefore, also to man to the extent to which he is able to increase his love and his knowledge of Beauty, and thereby to evolve and display his latent self-consciousness.
By adoration and action the self evolves its self-consciousness, identifies itself more and more with the qualities of Beauty and adds to its knowledge of Beauty as well as to its power to give a better and fuller expression to its urge for Beauty.
چست جاں؟ جذب و سرور و سوز و درد
ذوق تسخیر سپہر گرد گرد
از ہمہ کس کنارہ گیر، صحبت آشنا طلب
ہم ز خداخودی طلب، ہم ز خودی خدا طلب
What is soul? It is absorption, exhilaration, burning and affliction; it is the incentive to conquer the spans of the revoling heavens.
Shun the association of all of them and seek the company of the person akin to your nature. Ask God to give you the ego and demand God from the ego.
|خودی کا سر نہاں، لا الہ الا اللہ
خودی ہے تیغ، فساں لا الہ الا الللہ
دل ما آتش و تن موج دودش
تپیدن دم بدم ساز وجودش
بذکر نیم شب جمعیت او
چو سیمابے کہ بندد چوب عودش
The secret of the ego is; 'None is worthy of worship except God'; the ego is a sword and the whatstone is 'None is worthy worship except God.'
Our heart is fire and the body is a wave of its smoke. Frequent burning is in harmony with its existence.
The mid-night prayers are a source of its strength; like a mercurial artist who remains restless without his musical instrument.
Knowing the Self-consciousness of the Universe and knowing one's own self, are one and the same thing, because the growth of the self's knowledge in one direction results simultaneously in the growth of its knowledge in the other.
تلاش او کنی جز خود نیابی
تلاش خود کنی جز او بہ نہ بینی
نمود اس کی نمود تیری، نمود تیری نمود اسکی
خدا کو تو بیحجاب کر دے خدا تجھے بیحجاب کر دے
اگر کواہی خدا را فاش بینی
خودی را فاش تر دیدن بیاموز
When you search for Him, you will find nothing but your self; when you search for your self, you will see nothing but Him.
His manifestation is your manifestation and your manifestation is His manifestation. You unravel God, and God will unravel your ego.
If you wish to witness God unveiled, then learn to see your ego in a clearer manner.
(D) Action is a tool which the self uses as a means for the satisfaction of its urge for Beauty. The self acquires knowledge (cognition) for the sake of action. All action is really directed to the removal of resistance in the path of the self's urge for Beauty. By effort and action it gains in power for further effort and action. When the self is obstructed in the achievement of its ends, it musters the whole of its power to smash resistance. The Divine Self and the human self are, therefore, both perpetually in action.
دما دم رواں ہے یم زندگی
ہر اک شے سے پیدا رم زندگی
ٹھہرتا نہیں کاروان وجود
سفر اس کا انجام و آغاز ہے
یہی اس کی تقویم کا راز ہے
یہ ہے خلاصۂ علم قلندری کی حیات
خدنگ جستہ ہے لیکن کماں سے دور نہیں
The ocean of life is in constant flow. Everything reveals the flight of life.
The caravan of life does not pause anywhere since every moment displays the grace of life afresh.
Its journey is its beginning and its end. This is the secret of its almanac.
This is the gist of the knowledge of truth-seekers that life is a released arrow but not far from the bow.
(E) The fact that Love or the search for Beauty is the sole urge of human self-consciousness has implications which bring to light some highly important facts of human psychology. Iqbal alludes to this possibility when he addresses the psychologist in the following words:
جرات ہے تو افکار کی دنیا سے گذر جا
ہیں بحر خودی م یں ابھی پوشیدہ جزیرے
کھلتے نہیں اس قلزم خاموش کے اسرار
جب تک تو اسے ضرب کلیمی سے نہ چیرے
IIf you possess boldness, then pass on from this world of worries. There are still islands hidden in the ocean of the ego.
The secrets of this quiet see are not revealed until you smite it with the rod of Moses.
I make a brief survey of the implications of these couplets below:
(i) It is only the Divine Self and Its attributes that can really satisfy a man's urge for Beauty. Consequently, when a man is loving, and seeking by action and service, the consciousness of the universe and its qualities, he is expressing his urge for Beauty in the right way. But when, owing to his ignorance of the real desire of his self, he is not doing so, his urge for Beauty finds expression in some other idea to which he wrongly attributes all the qualities of Beauty. The reason is that we cannot hold any urge of our nature, least of all the most powerful urge of all, in abeyance for a single moment. This substitute-idea chosen by man becomes the ideal of his life, and dominates all his activities. The idea of his choice, no doubt, appears to possess some qualities of the Real Ideal and that is the reason why he is allured to it. But his love for the wrong ideal will not endure long. Sooner or later, his urge of the self, his inner criterion of Beauty. will begin to operate and the man will discover the elements or qualities of Beauty that the ideal is lacking. When this happens, he will be disillusioned and disappointed, and will come to know that the apparent qualities of Beauty in the idea that had lured him to it were no more than illusions. Therefore, he will turn immediately to another ideal for the satisfaction of his urge for Beauty. In the new ideal he will try to avoid those elements of ugliness or imperfection of which he had become conscious. But in the absence of his knowledge of the Right Ideal and the qualities of Beauty, he introduces some other unknown elements of imperfection into it, and these, sooner or later, make him dissatisfied with it and then he abandons it totally for another ideal. This process of trial and error continues as long as he does not hit upon the Right Ideal. What idea a person will choose as the ideal of his life at a particular time, will depend upon the state of his knowledge and experience at that time, and, therefore, as his knowledge and experience improve, he will approach nearer the qualities of true Beauty in the choice of his ideal. But the process is very long, for innumerable combinations of right and wrong, perfect and imperfect, are possible. It is also difficult as every new choice is the result of a painful adjustment.
Thus the urge for Beauty in man takes the form of the urge for ideals and is capable of being fully satisfied, by an ideal of the highest beauty and perfection, and that is the Divine Self. Ideals form stages in the development of the self. We are never absolutely wrong, but we advance trom a lower to a higher and from a less perfect to a more perfect ideal.
This is what Iqbals means when he says:
زندگی شرح اشارات خودی است
لا و الا از مقامات خودی است
Life is a commentary on the signs of the ego. 'None' and `But' are some of the stages of the ego.
لاstands for the self's stages of wrong ideals; and
الا stands for the Right Ideal.
(ii) Because the urge for Beauty or the urge for ideals is the only urge of man's self-consciousness, it is prior to his instincts and rules them. Instincts are those psychophysical dispositions or compelling tendencies of action which man inherits from his animal ancestors and shares with them now. Evidently, their object is to compel the half-conscious animal to act for the preservation of its life and race. Without them, the current of life would have never reached the human being and self-consciousness would have never come to its own. When the instincts reach higher up in man, they naturally perform in him their original function of compelling action for the preservation of life. But man preserves his life for the sake of the urge of his self for Beauty. The instincts in him do not obstruct the urge of the self, which is free to have its way, but only help it to satisfy itself, if called upon to do so. The proof is that man can oppose any of his instincts, even the most compelling of them, and even lay down his life whenever he thinks his ideal needs this sacrifice. Animals below man in the scale of evolution cannot do so, because they are not self-conscious and do not possess the urge for ideals. This urge, in man, proves stronger than his instincts. It is his ideal of Beauty and not any one of his instincts, or all of them together, that dominates his life.
(iii) Since Politics is an aspect of the life of an individual which is completely dominated by his ideal, the individuals who form a state have a common ideal — the ideal of their state — and that is the reason why they come together to form a state. Thus all the aspects of the life of a state are ruled and controlled by the ideal that it has come to adopt for the time being. The ideal of a state, i.e., the common ideal of its members, determines very strictly all its political, ethical, legal, economic, constitutional, educational, diplomatic and military activities. These activities take a definite direction, and there can be no change in them, unless the ideal from which they result is itself changed.
(iv) Since an ideal has to exercise a complete control over a man's relation to the universe around him, it answers, to the entire satisfaction of the man who loves it, all possible questions about himself, about the society of which he is a member and about the rest of the universe, no matter how vague, incorrect and even fantastic these answers may be to others. An ideal, therefore, develops around itself a system of ideas becomes an ideology or a philosophy of life which may be vague or definite, developed or undeveloped, correct or incorrect, according to the intellectual stage of the society that believes in it.
(v) Variety of states is due to the variety of wrong ideals or ideologies and must persist or cause bloodshed as long as humanity does not agree upon a single ideology throughout the world. No wrong ideal can unite mankind permanently, for a wrong ideal is based on a part of our nature and satisfies only a part of our urge for Beauty. Therefore, even if it succeeds in uniting humanity for once, it must, in due course, break up and give rise to a number of different ideals, dividing humanity again into hostile fragments. The Right Ideology is the only stable and enduring foundation of our unity. Without it, unity or any other value will be difficult to achieve, and if achieved, will be impossible to maintain.
(vi) Since an ideal is the ideal of the highest beauty or perfection known to the self, the self's efforts to realize it are really its efforts to amass as much glory and power as possible. Every state, i.e., every ideological group, has, therefore, an urge for unlimited expansion which brings it at once into a life and death struggle (sometimes open and sometimes concealed) with all the other states in the world. Thus a perpetual war of ideals is going on. In this struggle only the Right Ideology can emerge victorious. The reason is that every wrong ideal is not only being smashed from outside by the attacks of other ideals, but is also being disrupted from within by the elements of its own contradiction and imperfection. It may protect itself from outside, but cannot protect itself from its inner negations, which sap its vitality continuously and ultimately render it too weak to withstand external attacks. This must be the fate of every ideal except the Right Ideal which, atone, will survive the war of ideals.
(vii) As in the case of the individual, so in the case of society, ideals must advance by a painful and laborious process of trial and error towards the Right Ideal. If the ideal of a society is wrong, a time must come sooner or later when its latent elements of imperfection become known to it. This may come about when the internal strength of an ideal is put to test and found wanting at a critical point of its struggle with other ideals or by a slow realization of its weaknesses. In any case, when this happens, the society at once begins to feel the real or imaginary beauty of another ideal and makes a rush towards it. This phenomenon is known as a political or social revolution. Philosophy deals with ideals, and that is why original thought in philosophy giving fresh theories of man's relation to the universe, is always the fore-runner of political revolutions. We all know that there was no great revolution in history that was not preceded by a philosophy. Thus when a society abandons one ideal and adopts another, it rigorously avoids in the new ideal those elements of defect which marred the old ideal and caused its disruption. But in the absence of its knowledge of the Right Ideal (since it can have no means of making sure that its new choice is correct), it tends to adopt an ideal which contains certain other unsuspected elements of imperfection, and then these elements prove to be the seeds of another revolution which comes inevitably sooner or later. The potential revolution concealed in the nature of the ideal may take centuries to actualize, but it is there and must ultimately come to the forefront. No state, no political, economic or social set-up is stable or permanent, unless it is created and determined by the Right Ideal. Thus, man's idea of Beauty is evolving with the growth of his knowledge and experience and is being conserved in history. One day he will come to know that nothing but the Right Ideal can satisfy him perfectly and permanently.
خیال او کہ از سیل حوادث پرورش گیرد
ز گرداب سپہر نیلگوں بیروں ظشود روزے
فروغ مشت خاک از نوریاں افزوں شود دروزے
زمین از کوکب تقدیر او گردوں شود روزے
یکے در معنئ آدم نگر از ما چہ می پرسی
ہنوز اندر طبیعت می خلد موزوں شود روزے
His thought which is nursed by the current of accidents, will one day come out of the whirlpool of the bluish sky.
Then his devotion and service to the Right Ideal will enable him to unfold the deepest possibilities of his nature and reach the height of his perfection.
The glory of man, made of clay, will one day surpass that of the angels, the creatures of light. The very earth will, one day, become as exalted as the firmament on account of the brightness of his fate.
What do you want to ask me? Think over the significance of Adam. That which still pricks the nature from within will become agreeable one day.
This view contains the fundamentals of a new Social Psychology and of a new Philosophy of History, which, in contradistinction from the Historical Materialism of Marx, may appropriately be described as Historical Idealism.
(viii) Since all the activities of man are dominated by his love of the ideal, reason plays only a subordinate role in his life.
ذندگئ سرمایہ دار از آرزوست
عقل از زائیدگان بطن اوست
من بندۂ آزادم، عشق است امام من
عشق است امام من، عقل است غلام من
The life is enriched by ambitions and desires. Wisdom is one of its offsprings.
I am a free man, love is my only leader. Love is my only master while wisdom is my slave.
Reason is a discriminating faculty that only helps the self in the realization of its ideal. An ideal is a judgment of Beauty which has to be made directly with the help of intuition. Intuition is the urge of Beauty itself playing a cognitive role. Ideas of beauty are wholes or totalities of knowledge which have to be directly felt. Love makes its own judgments. Realization of Beauty does not come within the scope of reason which cannot see a totality of knowledge but can see only its parts. Reason cannot make judgments of Beauty, although it rules with new wholes of knowledge and thereby can spur the self to intuit Beauty. Thus it serves the self in two ways, by helping it how to act in the service of it existing ideal and by enabling it to vision a higher ideal. Reason cannot enter the domain of Love and cannot feel Beauty. That is the privilege of the urge of the self alone to feel. Because reason goes with us a part of the way we forget when we reach the end of our journey that it had left us long ago.
خرد سے راہ رو روشن بصر ہے
خرد کیا ہی چراغ رہ گزر ہے
درون خانہ ہبنگامے ہیں کیا کیا
چراغ رہگزر کو کیا خبر ہے
The wayfarer is enlightened by wisdom. What is wisdom? It is a lamp on the road side.
The outside lamp is totally ignorant of the tumults that prevail inside the house.
According to this view of reason — and this view is certainly more consistent with facts of human psychology, more defensible and more convincing than any other — Ethics, Politics, Education and Philosophy are determined by Love and not by Reason at all.
Ethics is the direct outcome of a person's ideal. Everybody knows that in order to achieve his ideal he has to do certain things and to avoid doing certain others. He is aware of a code of do's and dont'sa code of right and wrong which he follows strictly on account of an inner pressure created by his love of the ideal. Thus every ideal has its own moral system or moral law and there are as many moral laws as there are ideals. This is the reason why states with different ideologies cannot agree on what is justice, truth goodness, morality, civilization or culture in their international assemblies. Unless nations have one ideology they cannot have the same moral view-point. The Moral
Law which is dictated by the Right Ideal is the only moral law which is right and on which men can agree and must agree sooner or later. The very urge of their nature is gradually driving them towards it. When a person's ideal is right, all his activities will be right; when the ideal is wrong, to the same extent will all his activities be wrong.
Politics, like Ethics, is not a separate science. It is the image of our ideals a reflection of our views on life generally. An ideological group or society cannot live without an internal organization or government. As every ideal has its own ethics, so every ideal has its own politics, its own ideas and theories of the constitution and management of human societies. Since all aspects of the life of an individual or a state are strictly controlled by the single force of the ideal, a state or a nation that is able to banish religion successfully from its politics will be compelled to banish it from the whole of its life. This is what Europe has been forced to do.
The foundation of every system of philosophy is the philosopher's intuition or vision of the nature of Reality. While the philosopher actually rationalizes his intuition, he imagines, and makes others imagine that he has been led to his conclusions by a process of hard and close reasoning. But if his intuition is wrong, his rationalization must be wrong and lead to wrong conclusions. His reasoning never crosses the limits of his intuition or vision of the universe. The correct vision of Reality is that of a prophet or that of a man who acquires a true spiritual experience on account of his being a true lover and follower of a prophet. All prophets have a true vision of Reality, but there can be only one prophet who is able to give a complete idea of his vision in its application to practical life. When such a prophet comes into the world, no more prophets are needed or created by nature, and so he becomes the last of them. It is on the intuition of such a prophet passed on by him to the best of his followers that we can construct an all-correct philosophy, perfectly relevant to all the known and unknown facts of existence, and therefore, capable of enduring till the end of the world. Such is the philosophy of Iqbal. This explains why Iqbal, in spite of being a philosopher himself, has attacked and condemned philosophy and philosophers. According to him, no philosophy, which is based on an incomplete or sectional vision of Reality, can be true.
Education, like Ethics, Politics and Philosophy, is not an independent system of knowledge. Every system, programme or plan of education is the creation of an ideal. The text-books, the mentality of the teacher and his general attitude towards life, the views of the managing and governing authorities, whether they are public or private bodies, the environment and the atmosphere of the school in so far as they uphold that system, and programmes or plans of education, reflect the ideal. Therefore, the ideal is continually attracting pupils towards itself. Education is a servant of ideals, whether wrong or right, and can be adapted to serve every one of them equally. Moral behaviour, in accordance with absolute and universal principles of morality, is impossible without a strong love of the Right Ideal which it should be the object of education to create. The learners are inspired by the love of wrong ideals, imperceptibly, through the agency of the schools that embody the educational systems created by those ideals.
گلا تو گھونٹ دیا اہل مدرسہ نے ترا
کہاں سے آئے صدا لا الہ الا اللہ
مکتب از مقصود خویش آگاہ نیست
تا بجذب اندر و نش راہ نیست
علم تا از عشق برخوردار نیست
جز تماشا خانۂ افکار نیست
The school personnel have already throttled thee; where-from can now come the voice of 'None is worthy of worship except God'?
The school is unaware of its aims and objects, until it has an access to the urge within.
As long as knowledge does not taste the fruits of love; it is nothing but an exhibition of thoughts.
یہ بتان عصر حاضر کہ بنے ہیں مدرسے م یں
نہ ادائے کافرانہ نہ تراش آذرانہ
These ideals of the present era, the product of the school, are endowed neither with the manners of the infields nor with the masterly cut of Abraham's father.
(F) The principal form in which the urge for Beauty expresses itself is the love of an ideal, since the self attributes to the ideal that it loves all the beauty that it desires. But this urge finds an independent expression also in three other ways which are meant to serve the Right Ideal, the real embodiment of Beauty (since their source is the urge of the self), but which the society that indulges in them makes subservient to the ideal it charishes.
These three ways of living and seeking Beauty are:
(1) the love of Goodness;
(2) the love of Truth or the search for knowledge;
and (3) the love of Art.
(1) Man has not only an urge of love for the consciousness of the world, but also an urge of love for its qualities which are all beautiful and lovable. Each quality of consciousness is a quality of Beauty and implies all its other qualities. Hence an individual has a desire to express these qualities in action. But when he comes to love a wrong ideal, his wrong love does not allow him to judge correctly what a good action is. His urge for goodness comes into conflict with his love for the ideal, and in this conflict it is always the latter that wins. The result is that the man feels inwardly dissatisfied with his decision, and cannot get rid of the idea that there is something wrong with it. On the other hand, the moral judgment of a man who loves the Right Ideal will take the correct line.
(2) The man who loves a wrong ideal may try to engage himself in the search of knowledge dispassionately, but his love for such an ideal will twist his line of search in the wrong direction in spite of himself. This is what is now happening to general Philosophy, social and individual Psychology. Politics, Economics, Ethics, Education and other social sciences. But in the case of Mathematics (and of the physical sciences, in so far as they use Mathematics), the margin for the interference of a misplaced love is small, since Mathematics is a form of tautology. But men who love wrong ideals use the results of their mathematical investigation in the wrong manner. The use of the atom bomb, resulting from the mathematical theories of Einstein, for the mass-destruction of peaceful citizens is an example.
It is, however, true that, on the whole, knowledge is evolving and correcting its own errors more and more in the course of its evolution. Since the urge of the universe is in the direction of the Right Ideal, all real advancement of knowledge in the domain of Science and Philosophy is meant to, and must, ultimately strengthen the Right Ideal in theory as well as in practice.
(3) Like the above two activities, the source of art is the urge of the self, and, therefore, it cannot be at its best and highest, unless it subserves the urge of the self. Every variety of art that is divorced from Goodness, Beauty and Truth, the principal qualities of consciousness, is not only a grave disservice to the cause of evolution but also low and inferior as art.
سرد و شعر و سیاست، کتاب و دین و ہنر
گہر ہیں ان کی گرہ میں تمام یکدانہ
اگر خودی کی حفاظت کریں تو عین حیات
نہ کر سکیں تو سراپا فسون و افسانہ
اے اہل نظر! ذوق نظر خوب ہے لیکن
جو شے کی حقیقت کو نہ دیکھے وہ نظر کیا؟
شاعر کی نوا ہو کہ مغنی کا نفس ہو
جس سے چمن افسردہ ہو وہ باد سحر کیا؟
Melody, poetry, politics, the book, belief and skill, are pearls in his possession, all incomparable gems.
If they take care of the ego it is real life; if they fail to do it then it is simply an enchantment and a fable.
O discerning one's the joy of perceiving is commendable, but useless is the sight that does not penetrate into the reality of things.
Be it a message of the poet or a melody of the musician; if the morning breeze withers the flower-beds it is of no use.
(G) Moral action is based on correct moral judgments and correct moral judgments are possible only at a high stage of self-consciousness.
نمود جس کی فراز خودی سے ہو، وہ جمیل
جو ہو نشیب میں پیدا، قبیح و نا محبوب
Beautiful is he whose manifestation emerges from the heights
of
the ego; things born in the low hollows are ugly and detestable.
But a high stage of self-consciousness presupposes continued moral action. Moral evolution would have been impossible if consciousness had not created the phenomenon of prophethood which provides a natural agency for teaching the Moral Law to human society, and thus raising it to that high stage of self-consciousness where it can have an intimate personal realization of the distinction between right and wrong — a distinction necessary for its continued advancement to ever higher and higher levels of self-consciousness.
خوب و نا خوب عمل کی ہو گرہ وا کیونکر
گر حیات آپ نہ ہو شارح اسرار حیات
How is the knot of what is excellent and what is not to be unfastened if the life itself does not interpret the very secrets of life.
Prophethood is the natural outcome of the urge of the Universe for Beauty, on account of which evolution takes the direction of the Right Ideal. Whenever the actions of a society violate flagrantly the urge of the universe, i.e., whenever consciousness is confronted with serious obstacles in its search for Beauty through the process of creation, it takes — on account of its nature to crush resistance — a sudden push forward which results in the appearance of a prophet who teaches the Law of the Right Ideal to that society, revives its faith in truth and virtue, and thus brings it (and through it the rest of humanity as far as possible) back to the path of evolution.
The sudden appearance of a prophet in a deteriorating society Is like the sudden appearance of a storm in an area where the pressure of atmosphere has lowered or like the sudden reaction of an organism to disease which results in the restoration of its health.
The phenomenon of prophethood is really a continuation, in a different shape, appropriate to the human stage of evolution, of the phenomenon of sudden variation of species which nature manifested earlier in the animal stage of evolution. Whenever the movement of life became too slack in the animal stage of evolution, consciousness made an extraordinary push forward and took a sudden leap which resulted in the sudden appearance, as if by miracle, of a distinct species, registering a considerable improvement upon the previous one. In the human world, the extraordinary leaps of consciousness on such occasions of retarded evolution have resulted in the sudden appearance of men of genius whom we call prophets. One can assume that, just as in the animal world, the sudden variations of species came to an end with the appearance of man, so, in the human world, the phenomenon of prophethood will come to an end with the appearance of a prophet who sets before himself and others the Right Ideal in all its grandeur, i.e., whose life offers him full opportunities to set an example of how the human society of the future ought to live and grow, struggle and expand in the actual process of evolution. The career of such a prophet will represent the full expression of the latent possibilities of life. Such a prophet, therefore, must be the last link in the chain of prophethood; the last embodiment of the exceptional drives of consciousness in the human stage of evolution. He would be the most perfect as well as the last one among the prophets. The reason is that in him life would have achieved its completion, a completion to be maintained and preserved by life in the form of a community of his followers who would keep alive his teachings till the end of the world. This explains why the appearance of a last and perfect Prophet is indispensable for the evolution of the world — this or any other.
ہر کجا ہنگامۂ عالم بود
رحمۃ اللعالمینے ہم بود
خلق و تقدیر و ہدایت ابتداست
رحمۃ اللعالمینی انتہا ست
ہر کجا بینی جہان رنگ و بو
آں کہ از خاکش بروید آرزو
یا ز نور مصطفی او را بہاست
یا ہنوز اندر تلاشی مصطفیٰ است
Wherever there are world-wide tumults and disturbances, the "Blessing for the world" (i.e. Prophet Mohammad) is also there.
Creation, fate and divine guidance are only the beginning; the quality of being a "Blessing for the world" is the end.
Wherever you behold the world of hue and smell, it is these objects which give birth to longings.
He is either blessed by the light of the Prophet Mohammad (may peace be on him) or he is still in search of the Prophet.
Thus, while Iqbal's view of human nature, as sketched above, is entirely Quranic, it is yet a challenge to the psychological theories of McDougall, Freud, Adler and Karl Marx.
According to McDougall, all the activities of man are due to the instincts which man inherits from his animal ancestors and shares with them now. Still labouring under the delusion created by the teachings of Aristotle about the place of reason in human nature, he thinks that reason is the only distinction enjoyed by man over the animals and, therefore, his higher activities, like religion, morality and the search for knowledge are due to the control of reason over the instincts. He fails to see that reason is not an urge for action and cannot intefere with the instincts, each of which has an unchangeable course of activity, which, once started, must run its course, and that, if man is actually able to interfere with the activity of his instincts, it must be due to some other purge of his nature which is more powerful than these instincts. His theory cannot give an adequate explanation of that powerful impulse in man, known as violation, on account of which man is able to act for an ideal for its own sake and even to sacrifice his life in opposition to his instincts. McDougall traces the volitional effort of men to the instinct of self-assertion, which, although intended to enable the animaLto overcome danger to its life, takes an entirely different course in man — a course involving even the necessity of endangering his life. According to McDougall, our instinct of self-assertion seeks its realisation in moral action, because human society admires our moral efforts and we like to win their admiration. The admiration of society for moral behaviour is, in his view, due to the tradition founded by rare personalities like saints and prophets by their admirable moral efforts. But he does not explain why the saints and prophets themselves act morally and why we admire their moral action as well as our own, if there is no independent urge in our nature for such action. Our admiration for all forms of activity that is above the plane of instincts is really due to the urge of the self for Beauty.
Freud thinks that the dominating urge in man which resides in his unconscious mind is sex. This urge operates from childhood onwards and the first sexual attachment of the child is to his parents. The child loves the parents and, therefore, fears their harshness and the loss of their love. When the child comes of age, the parents lose their charm for him gradually and their function is taken up by ideals which he calls the superego. According to Iqbal's theory, the love of ideals is not a substitute of an earlier complex of sex-love, but it is itself an essential and independent urge of human nature. That Freud himself is not convinced of his fantastic theory will be apparent from this observation of his. "I cannot tell you," he says, "as much as I could wish about the change from the parental function to the super-ego .... partly because we ourselves do not feel we have fully understood it."
Adler, a pupil and co-worker of Freud, came to differ from his master about the nature of the urge in the unconscious mind and advanced his own theory about it. According to him, the fundamental urge of the unconscious human mind is for power and not for sex. The child develops not a sex complex but an inferiority complex on account of the presence around him of persons who are superior to him in everything and, therefore, the whole of his life is one long painful story of his endeavours to compensate for his inferiority. Iqbal's answer will be that man does really strive for power but, firstly, power is a quality of Beauty itself. We feel inferior not only when we are unable to get power but also when we are unable to act morally. Thus, power partakes of Goodness, Beauty and Truth. — Secondly, man's desire for power is not an end in itself. If we examine closely a person's motives in his search for power, we find that he seeks it for the sake of realising his ideal (his idea of the highest Beauty) which may belong to a lower plane like pleasing one's friends and vexing one's enemies or to a higher one like seeking to glorify a race; a nation or a religion. The power that a man may have in a desolate desert is of no use to him.
Karl Marx's theory that the economic urge of food, shelter and clothing is the controlling urge of human life is equally unable to stand investigation. The economic urge is evidently subservient to self-maintenance. If the maintenance of life is the only source of human activity, how is it that one becomes ready to lay down one's life for an ideal ? Facts of human nature and human history lead very clearly to the conclusion that the ultimate desire of man is not the maintenance of life, but the maintenance of the ideal, and that the activity directed to the former end is really subservient to the latter. Men will give up their lives more easily than they will give up their ideals.
None of these theories can give an adequate explanation of man's higher activities. The scope of this article does not permit me to show in detail how Iqbal's view of human nature has laid bare the fallacies of these theories and how it is capable of meeting them on their own grounds and smashing them by employing their own technique. Suffice it to say, that some of the greatest men of learning in the West, including psychologists, admit that their knowledge of human nature is inadequate and this inadequacy of their knowledge has brought their civilization face to face with the danger of a final collapse. McDougall writes as follows: —
"Our ignorance of the nature of man has prevented and still prevents the development of all the social sciences. Such sciences are the crying need of our time; for lack of them our civilization is threatened gravely with decay and perhaps complete collapse."
"My thesis is that in order to restore the balance of our civilization...we need to have far more knowledge (systematically ordered or scientific knowledge) of human nature and of the life of society than we yet have."
"Here, then, is the only remedy of the perilous and ever more dangerous state of our civilization. We must actively develop our social sciences into real sciences; and, in order to do that, we must first create a science of human nature and of its activities."
"What, then, in practical terms, is the remedy? I can give my answer, most concisely, by suggesting what I would do if I were a dictator ... I would, by every means, seek to divert all our most powerful intellects from the physical sciences into research in the human and social sciences."
The knowledge of human nature is a matter of inner experience, and Iqbal is, perhaps, the best exponent of that knowledge. Every social science, in order to be definite, has to develop around itself an ideal or a view of human nature. At present, all the social sciences are confused or vague, because none of them specifies what the ideal of man should be. No social science can be really a science unless it is based on the Right Ideal. No social science, moreover, can be independent of other social sciences. All the activities of man are determined by the single uniting force of the ideal. These activities, therefore, overlap and partake of each other. No activity of man can be purely political economic, ethical or educational. The purely economic man, whose existence is assumed by the economists in the formulation of their science, does not exist, because the economic man is also the social, ethical and political man simultaneously. We cannot, therefore, have separate social sciences but only one science of society based on the Right Ideal.
Iqbal's idea of the Self, thus properly developed and unfolded, is relevant to all the scientific facts now known. It is a complete philosophy of the universe and, as such, it is a philosophy of Economics, a philosophy of Ethics, a philosophy of Education, a philosophy of Art, a philosophy of Politics, a philosophy of Law, a philosophy of History, all in one, and a psychology of the individual and society. It gives the lead to all these departments of knowledge and places them on a correct footing. It is this scientific Weltanschauung, or religio-socio-political ideology which has always been the search of all religions, philosophies and sciences.
Political equality known as Democracy and economic equality known as Communism are just the two aspects of the Right Ideal. Butwe cannot have a part of the Right Ideal and ignore the rest. If we do so, we shall not be able to realise the part that we wish to realize. These ideals can be achieved only in the whole of which they are the parts, i.e., as parts of the Right Ideology. Only a state founded on the Right Ideology can make them realities and put them into practice successfully. If we sacrifice a part of our nature to serve the rest of it, we shall fail miserably and shall not be able to serve any part of it whatsoever, Equality, political or economic, cannot be established by force. To be genuine it needs an inner moral realization which is made possible by an intense love of the Right Ideal. It can come only from within the hearts of men as a spontaneous expression of their nature at a very high stage of their self-consciousness. Education for the Right Ideal is the only means of achieving it and since the state is the greatest instrument of education, it can be achieved only by a state founded on the Right Ideal.
It is futile to compare Islam with Democracy or with Communism and to show the superiority of Islam over them. The question is not what Islam and Democracy or Islam and Communism have in common with each other and what they have not. The question is whether Democracy and Communism can realize without Islam the ends for which they claim to stand. The answer contained in the immutable laws of the nature of man is: They cannot, and the world will not take long to discover the correctness of this answer.
Dreams of world-peace and world-unity can never come out true unless all abandon their false ideologies and adopt the Right Ideology which has now fortunately taken a scientific shape in the philosophy of Iqbal. Peace will come to the world, not because we shall succeed in harmonising conflicting ideologies, but because one ideology will replace the rest and dominate the Whole world. The ideology that will dominate the world and bring ever-lasting peace can only be the Right Ideology as sketched by Iqbal. He knows, this fact and therefore writes:
سبزہ نا روئیدہ زیب گلشنم
گل بشاخ اندر نہان در دامنم
بالم از خاور رسید و شب شکست
شبنم نو بر گل عالم نشست
انتظار صبح خیزان می کشم
اے خوشا زردشتیان آتشم
نغمہ از از زخمہ بے پرواستم
من نواے شاعر فرداستم
نغمۂ من از جہان دیگر است
ان جرس را کاروان دیگر است
My garden is adorned with a verdure which is yet to sprout from the earth. My skirt is full of flowers which are yet to emerge from the branch.
The light of dawn has shone in the East. The flower of world is bedewed afresh.
I wait for the early-risers of the morning. How fortunate the worshippers of my fire !
I am a note which does not require the hand of a musician to tune I am the song of the poet of tomorrow.
My song belongs to a different world. My bell is calling a different caravan.
Signs of the emergence of Iqbal's philosophy as a political force in the world are already visible.
All of us love and admire Iqbal as a great man, but few of us know wherein lies his real greatness. Karl Marx is the intellectual king of the present Communist state of Russia. But Iqbal is the intellectual king of the future world-state which will endure for ever, bringing to man all the blessings of permanent peace and unity and enabling him to achieve that highest progress-material, mental, moral and spiritual of which the promise resides in the potentialities of their nature. It is for this reason that Iqbal deserves our admiration and gratitude.
