NEW IQBAL MATERIAL

The Iqbal Academy has been trying to collect all available material bearing on Iqbal's life and thought from all possible sources. We have so far published 2 collections, one in Urdu entitled Anwãr-i Iqbal in 1967 (pp. 350) and the other in English entitled Letters and Writings of Iqbal in 1967 (pp.130). Both these books contain several letters, statements and articles of Iqbal hitherto not contained in any collection of Iqbal's writings. Since then another very important publication in Urdu in this field is Mr. Rafiq Afzal's Guftar-i-Iqbal, The editor has taken great pains to collect this material from daily newspapers. It is a rich contribution to Iqbal Studies.

The Academy has acquired some further material in this field, both English and Urdu. We are giving below material in English only. The Urdu material will be given in the next issue of Iqbal.

Below is given a letter of Iqbal addressed to somebody with the title of Mir. It does not reveal the identity of the correspondent. The original was presented by Sardar Rashid Ahmad to the Lahore Museum as reported in the Pakistan Times of 13 February 1969. The Academy is grateful to Dr. F.A. Khan, Director, Department of Archaeology, Government of Pakistan, through whose courtesy its photostat copy was received for the Academy's record.

Your friend must put himself in correspondence with the Secretary Advisory Committee Lahore if he wishes to proceed to England in March. He will have to go through the committee and it is on the Committee's recommendation that they will admit him there. He should send an application with two certificates from men of position who are in a position to say that the applicant has been known to them for more than a year, and that he bears an excellent character,

I have just written to the Secretary to send you a copy of the rules if he has got spare copies.

P.S. For other particulars about journey etc. my knowledge has become rather antiquated.

The following letter is addressed to Sayyed Fasih Allãh Kãzmi (b. 1895) of Allahabad (U.P., India). He wrote a book, Urdu-i-Fasih which remained for 12 years a prescribed text book in the Patna University.

I have glanced through Mr. Fasih's book called Urdu-i Fasih. The collection of passages from prose and poetry is careful and judicious. It seems that the author has taken pains over his work, and I have no doubt that his book will be useful to the students of Urdu.

A special issue of Modern Review, Calcutta (India), appeared in 1925. It contained messages of eminent people. Below is reproduced message of Iqbal which deals with the problem of education of the new generation. This message has a particular relevance for us now, as we are struggling to evolve a new policy of education in our country.

We are indebted to Mr. Ikramul Haq (Retd. C.S.P.), Advocate, Multan, for this material.

The spirit of Ancient India aimed at the discovery of God and found Him Fortified by this valuable possession Modern India ought to focus her forces on the discovery of man as a personality—as an independent whole in an all-embracing synthesis of life—if she wants to secure a permanent foundation for her New Nationalism. But does our Education today tend to awaken in us such a sense of inner wholeness? Myanswer is, no. Our Education does not recognise man as a problem; it impresses on us the visible fact of sentiplicity without giving us an insight into the immensity of life, and thus tends to make us more and more immersed in our physical environment. The soul of man is left untouched and the result is a superficial knowledge with a mere illusion of culture and freedom. Amidst this predominantly intellectual culture which must accentuate separate centres within the `whole', the duty of higher minds in India is to reveal the inner synthesis of life.

The acceptance by the All-Parties Conference at Lucknow in August I928 of the Nehru Report, a document proposing a future constitution for India, as envisaged by the Indian National Congression, proved a turning point in the political history of the Sub-continent. It reveals in no unmistakable terms how the mind of the Hindu community was working and to which even liberal Hindus like Moti Lal Nehru fully subscribed. The amendments to these proposals suggested by the Muslim League led by Mr. Jinnah, who was willing to cooperate fully with the Hindus against the British in boycotting the Simon Commission, were rejected outright by the All-Parties National Convention at Calcutta in the last week of December 1928. The situation is aptly described by M. Jamshed Nusserwanjee, a friend of Mr. Jinnah :

"One man said that Mr. Jinnah had no right to speak on behalf of the Muslims, that he did not represent them. He was sadly humbled, and he went back to his hotel.

"About half-past eight next morning, Mr. Jinnah left Calcutta by train, and I went to see him off at the railway station. He was standing at the door of his first-class coupe compartment, and he took my hand. He had tears in his eyes as he said, `Jamshed, this is the parting of the ways.'" [Hector Bolitho, Jinnah, Creator of Pakistan, p. 95].

Iqbal had arrived as early as 1927, at this conclusion which the Quaid-i-Azam's historic pronouncement of "parting of ways" describes.

The Hindu leaders are not interested in reaching an understanding with the Muslims. The frequent communal riots that are taking place in different parts of India these days, are deliberately engineered by the Hindus for two purposes: (1) to frighten the Muslims into submission to the Hindu majority rule, and (2) to boost up the morale of the Hindus and convince them that their aggressive attitude towards the Muslims will pay them without any fear of serious reprisals.

If Hindus and Muslims unite against the British, it will be beneficial to Muslims of the Muslim world which is at present under the heels of the British. For the sake of the Muslim World, we should try to come to terms with the Hindus against the British and cooperate with them.

Iqbal : But the fact is that the Hindus do not wish that the British should leave India. They want internal autonomy under the protective shield of the British bayonets and this is not the type of independence that the Muslim World needs or for that matter, the Muslims of India desire. It is the Muslims who desire complete independence while the Hindus visualise an India under British rule where they are free internally to rule over the minorities.

As a result of these developments, different groups of Muslims joined together and an All-Parties Muslim Conference was held in Delhi on 31 December, I928 under the Chairmanship of the Agha Khan. It adopted following demands:

1. The only form of government suitable to Indian conditions was a federal system with complete autonomy and residuary powers vested in the provinces ;

3. Existing weightage for the Muslims in the Hindu-majority provinces was to continue ;

4. Muslims should be given "their due share" in the central and provincial cabinets ;

5. A due proportion of seats should be given to Muslims in the public services and on all statutory self-governing bodies ;

6. There must be safeguards for "the protection and promotion of Muslim education, language, religion, personal laws, and Muslim charitable institutions";

7. "No Constitution, by whomsoever proposed or devised, will be acceptable to Indian Musalmans unless it conforms with the principles embodied in this resolution."

Iqbal participated in this conference and made a speech in support of this resolution. Urdu version of this speech of Iqbal has been given by Mr. Rafiq Afzal in Guftar-i-Iqbal, pp. 72-73. Below is given a report of Iqbal's speech in English from the records in the Academy's files dated 21st September, 1956. Most probably it is taken from some newspaper.

In supporting the resolution, Dr. Sir Mohammad Iqbal said that the experience which Muslims had been gaining for the last three or four years was very useful and full of consequence. What they only surmised formerly about their brother countrymen had all come to their knowledge with perfect certainty. He averred the reality that the line of action which the late Sir Syed Ahmed Khan had chalked out for Indian Muslims half a century back was quite right and, after bitter experiences, they were realising the importance of that policy. He declared in clear terms that if Indian Muslims wanted to live in India as Muslims, they ought forthwith to endeavour for their betterment and progress and prepare their own separate political programme. They know that in some parts of India the Muslims were in a majority, while in other parts they were in minority. In those circumstances, there was a dire necessity for their preparing a separate political programme. Every community in the country was then endeavouring to safeguard its rights. He wondered why Indian Muslims should not try to safeguard their particular rights. The resolution which that day had been unanimously put forward in that Conference was very proper. For its propriety, Dr. Sir Mohammad Iqbal said, he possessed a religious argument. It was their Holy Prophet (be peace and God's benedictions on Him) who had said that never would the consensus of his followers' opinion concentrate on a misleading issue. (loud shouts of Allah-o-Akbar and continued applause).

This letter is taken from Civil & Military Gazette, Lahore, for April 2I, 1951 (p. 3) from the fascimili supplied by the late Shaikh Ata Ullah. Its Urdu translation was included in his Iqbalnama, II, pp. 283-285. From its perusal, it seems that this letter was not completely reproduced in the Civil & Military Gazette.

Thank you so much for your letter which I hasten to reply to as I am likely to be too busy for correspondence next week. Even in London last November some of us suspected that there were differences inside the Cabinet. However let us wait and see what comes out of it.[1] Personally I am feeling very pessimistic about the future of India,

The Bombay riots which are still going on have upset me.[2] My fear is that democracy in India will bring nothing in its wake but blood. shed which will only prepare ground for the kind of unrest which nobody would like to see developing in this country. Some people are beginning to think that India must pass through blood-shed to some sort of Soviet form. It is my belief that even the best-informed Brit. isher does not quite realise what is going on beneath the surface of events. And the Indians who are promoted to high offices and thus come into closer contact with British policy are most of them job hunters, and though in some cases clever are men of no vision. Let us however hope for the better. I am thinking of making another trip to Europe, North Africa and Turkey and Spain. In a month or two I hope to be able to decide the matter finally.

Old Shaukat Ali has married a young English girl. He is now proceeding to America. The marriage has been the subject of much controversy in the Hindu press.

Hoping you are well and thanking you for all the work you are doing for the Muslims.

The following is a letter of Iqbal addressed to Dr. Riazul Hasan who had written an essay on "Economic Theory in Islam." This letter was published in the April 1968 issue of Iqbal Review along with the comments of the correspondent.

I am extremely sorry I have no time to read your essay. But I could suggest that you should make a careful study of the ideas of Mussolini. The essence of Islamic Economics is to render the growth of large capitals impossible. Mussolini and Hitler think in the same way. Bolshevism has gone to the extreme of abolishing capitalism altogether. In all aspects of life Islam always takes the middle course. Says the

و کذالک جعلنا کم امۃ و سطا لتکونوا شہداء علی الناس و یکون الرسول علیکم شہیدا[3]

The subject of the of Islam is only a recent discovery in Europe. Its importance is likely to attract the attention of European scholars. Indeed some German scholars have already begun to work at it. You may also read with advantage a book called the Sociology of Islam. I forget the name of the author.

The following letter is addressed to Lord Lothian who was a well-known liberal peer. He was for quite some time editor of Round Table and then British ambassador in the U.S.A. In July 1938 while on a visit to India he delivered convocation address at the Muslim University, Aligarh. He took active part in Round Table Conferences held in London (12 November 1930-November 1932).

He was a great admirer of Iqbal. It was through his efforts that Iqbal's Lectures (first published in Lahore in 1930) were printed by the Oxford University Press in 1934. In the Lahore edition there were six while the Oxford edition contains seven, the seventh lecture was delivered before the Aristotelian Society, London.

It was again through the efforts of Lord Lothian that the Rhodes Trustees requested Iqbal to deliver a series of 3 or more lectures to the Oxford University. Iqbal decided to speak on the important topic of "Space and Time in Muslim Thought" but unfortunately for us due to illness could not do so.

We are grateful to the Pakistan High Commission in London through whose courtesy we were able to get a photostat copy of this letter. 17th March 1933

Thank you so much for your kind letter which reached me yesterday on my return from Dehli. I left London on the 30^th of December I932 and after making some halt at Paris I left for Spain where I spent nearly three weeks. I reached India about the end of February. This is the reason why your letter reached me so late. I am so glad to learn that you liked my book of lectures. Mr. Thomson Edward of Oxford to whom you had written wrote to me to the same effect and I have sent him two copies of the book. In case the Oxford University decides to print and publish these lectures I should like to make a few alterations here and there and perhaps add the lecture "Is Religion Possible?" which I delivered to the Aristotelian Society of London. I had very interesting time in Spain and France. During my stay in Paris I met Bergson. Our conversation on modern Philosophy and Civilization lasted for about two hours. Part of the time we talked on Berkeley on whose philosophy the French Philosopher made some very interesting observations.' In Spain I came into contact with many professors of Arabic who are enthusiastic about the culture of Islam. The Madrid University requested me to address the University on "Spain and the Intellectual World of Islam."[4] My address was very much appreciated. Professor Asin, the well-known author of Divine Comedy of Islam, presided. The new Government of Spain is aiming at turning Granda into a kind of cultural Macca for the world of Islam.[5] I think it is high time that England should take some serious interest in cultural side of Islam. As a matter of fact Islam as an Economic system is much more interesting and likely to suggest much more practical solutions of our present difficulties.

The White Paper is coming out today. The Muslims of India are extremely anxious about their position in the Centre.[6]

1. Extract from a letter of Iqbal to Sir William Rothenstein as published in BA. Dar (ed.), Letters and Writings of Iqbal, Karachi, p. 103 :

The substance of Berkeley's philosophy is that in perception matter reveals the whole of itself without a remainder; not so the case with the mind. This is a way of putting Berkeley.

3. Extract from Iqbal's Statement of 26 February, 1933 in Shamloo (Ed.), Speeches and Statements of Iqbal (Lahore, September 1948), pp. 189-190 :

I visited Cordova, Granada, Sevile, Toledo and Madrid and besides seeing
the historic mosque at Cordova, and the Alhambra in Granada, I visited the ruins of Madinatuz Zehra, the famous palace built on a mountain by Abd-ur-Rehman for his wife Zehra, where excavations are still going on. It was there that the first demonstration of a flying machine was given in the twelfth century by a Muslim inventor. I had the privilege of meeting, among others, the Education Minister of See Page 91

Iqbal presented a copy of his Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, first published at Lahore in I930, to Sir Montagu Butler. He was a member of the Indian Civil Service and belonged to the Panjab Commission. He was the father of Mr. R.A. (now the Right Hon'ble Lord) Butler who was born at Campbellpur during his father's service.

Sir Montagu rose to be the Governor of the Central Provinces and Berar before he retired from service. It was while Sir Montagu was at Nagpur that Iqbal sent him this book on 5th May 1930. Sir Harcourt Butler, another member of the I.C.S., who served as governor of U.P., was one of Sir Montagu's cousin.

This copy of Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, bearing the autograph of Iqbal, was later presented by Sir Montagu to Professor Arberry under his signature below that of Iqbal. Besides the book he wrote a forwarding letter to Professor Arberry the Spanish Government, an exceedingly courteous gentleman with a breadth of vision hardly to be expected in a country like Spain, and Professor Asin, the well-known author of Divine Comedy and Islam. Under the directions of the Education Minister the department of Arabic in the University of Granada is being greatly expanded. The head of this department is a disciple of Professor Asin.

The Spaniards living in the south of the country are proud of their Moorish origin and of the great monuments of Islamic culture which are to be found there. A new consciousness is steadily growing in the country and will further expand with the development of education. The movement of reform started by Luther has not yet exhausted itself. It is still working quietly in different European countries and the hold of priesthood, especially in Spain, is gradually loosening.

On 20 March 1933, Iqbal issued a statement about the White Paper which is reproduced below :

It is of course impossible for a document of this kind fully to satisfy all sections of people, especially in a country like India. Whether a community would be willing to give a trial to the proposed scheme in spite of its unsatisfactory character depends on a multiplicity of actualities which would have to be carefully examined.

Muslims would be greatly disappointed by the proposed composition of Federal Legislature. In the Lower House the Muslims have been guaranteed only 82 seats out of a proposed total of 375. The Muslims' share works out at 21'8 percent of the total House. Indian States which on a population basis are entitled only to 25 per cent seats in the Federal Legislature have been given 33'3 per cent which means a weightage of 8 per cent. Such a weightage should in fairness have gone to Muslims as an important minority community and not to the states which are in See Page 92

We are grateful to Mr. Riaz Ahmad (Peterhouse, Cambridge) who sent photostat copy of the fly-leaf bearing the autograph of Iqbal, Sir Montagu Butler and Professor Arberry. We are equally grateful to Professor Arberry who apprised Mr. Riaz Ahmad about it. I am giving below a few relevant portions from Mr. Riaz's letter :

"I am enclosing herewith photostat copies of a letter of Lord Montagu Butler addressed to Professor Arberry. As you will see, the letter contains some important information about Allama Iqbal and is worthy of notice. It is preserved with an autograph copy of Allama Iqbal's lectures on Reconstruction of Islamic Thought in the Trinity

College Library. The book was presented by the author to Lord Montagu Butler on 5 May 1930 and by him to Professor Arberry on 5 May I948.

When the present Lord Butler became the Master of Trinity, Professor Arberry presented the book to the Trinity College Library, where it is preserved now .. .

The letter and the autograph copy were brought to my notice by Professor Arberry during a recent meeting."

no sense a minority and whose interests are in no danger of encroachment. The present scheme amounts to packing the Central Legislature with practically nominated members at the expense of Muslim minority which had demanded Federation for the protection of its own as well as the other minorities' interest.

The allocation of 9 seats to women as a `special interest' is another undesirable feature of the Federal Legislature. The electorate for these seats will be predominantly non-Muslim and it will be impossible for Muslim women to be elected. Muslim women ought to have been considered part of their community. In this respect Sir Mohammad Yakub's note of dissent to the Franchise Committee's Report has been completely ignored.

In the Upper House the system of a single transferable vote to be exercised by members of provincial Legislatures introduces the principle of joint electorates and would fail to secure a due proportion of seats for Muslims.

Under the new scheme ministers in the provinces will be as little responsible to the legislature and as much responsible to Governor as they are now. The special responsibilities of Governors cover a very wide field.

The scheme proposed for Baluchistan will never satisfy the Baluchis or the Muslim community in general. Nor do I find in the scheme any adequate safeguard for the personal law of Muslims.

The White Paper demands serious consideration by the Muslim community. I hope the Working Committee of the A11-India Muslim Conference will fully consider it and give the community a clear lead.

and by him to his friend and colleague Professor A.J. Arberry Litt. D. 5th May 1948

Below is reproduced the letter of Sir Montagu Butler addressed to Professor Arberry which says something important about Iqbal:

Here is the book with some recent cuttings about Iqbal. We were real friends, in my Lahore days especially, and it was on my suggestion that he was decorated. I wanted a Persian title revived for him, but the precedent was feared and he was knighted. He had magnetism and stirred his hearers powerfully when declaiming his poems. Politically he was the inspirer of the Pakistan idea—always within the British Commonwealth—and I should have said it was he who invented the name, but de Montmorency doubts this and attributes the name to Rahmat Ali here in Cambridge. As with the American tourists and the Archbishop of York "we shall never know".

On the death of Iqbal on 21 April 1938, the following note appeared in the Times, London.

This extract is reproduced here through the courtesy of Mr. Ashiq Husain Batalavi.

Sir Mohammad Iqbal, of Lahore, whose death at the age of 62 is announced by a Reuter message from Lahore, was the greatest Urduand Persian poet of his day, and his reputation in the West might have been comparable to that of his great Indian contemporary Tagore, had translations of his work into English been more frequent. He exercised an enormous influence on Islamic thought, and was an eloquent supporter of the rights and interests of his fellow Indian Muslims.

Iqbal was greatly influenced as a student at Lahore University by that ripe Islamic scholar, Sir Thomas Arnold, and for seven years he was Professor of Philosophy at the Government College, Lahore.

He went to Cambridge in 1905 and read Western Philosophy at Trinity College, under the direction of the late Dr. McTaggart, for the philosophical Tripos, in which he obtained his degree by research work. In 1908 he was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn and did some practice in Lahore. The Munich University conferred on him the Ph. D. for a dissertation on The Development of Metaphysics in Persia. He developed a philosophy of his own which owed much to Nietzsche and Bergson, while his poetry often reminded the reader of Shelley. The Asrar-i-Khudi (Secrets of the 3 elf), published in Lahore in 19I5, while giving no systematic account of his philosophy, put his ideas in a popular and attractive form. Professor R.A. Nicholson, of Cambridge, was so impressed by it that he obtained the leave of the poet to translate it into English, and the rendering was published in 1920.

Western readers found him to be an apostle, if not to his own age, then to posterity, and after the Persian fashion he invoked the Saki to fill his cup with wine and pour moonbeams into the dark night of his thought. He was an Islamic enthusiast, inspired by the vision of a new Mecca, a world-wide theocratic Utopian State in which all Muslims, no longer divided by the barriers of race and country, should be one. His ideal was a free and independent Muslim fraternity, having the Ka'ba as its centre and knit together by love of Allah and devotion to the Prophet.

In his Rumuz-i-Bekhudi (The Mysteries of Selflessness) (1916), he dealt with the life of the Islamic community on those lines and he allied the cry "Back to the Koran" with the revolutionary force of the Western philosophy, which he hoped and believed would vitalise the movement and ensure its triumph. He felt that Hindu intellectualism and Islamic pantheism had destroyed the capacity for action based on scientific observation and interpretation of phenomena, which distinguished the Western peoples and "especially the English". But he was severely critical of Western life and thought on the ground of its materialism. Holding that the full development of the individual pre-supposes a society, he found the ideal society in what he considered to be the Prophet's conception of Islam. In 1923 he published Payam-i-Mashriq (The Message of the East) and addressed the modern world at large in reply to Goethe's homage to the genius of the East. Two years later came Bang-i-Dara (The Call to March ?) a collection of his Urdu poems written during the first twenty years of the century. This was followed by a new Persian volume of which the title stood for "Songs of a Modern David."

A poet with his gifts and his theme could not fail to influence thought in an India so politically-minded as that of our day. He took some part in provincial politics being a Member of the Punjab Legislature in 1926-28. He was on the British Indian delegation to the second session of the Round Table Conference in London in 1931. His authority was cited, not without some justification, for a theory of Islamic political solidarity in Northern India which might conceivably be ex-tended to adjacent Muslim States.

In 1930 he publicly advocated the formation of a North-West Indian Muslim State by the merging of the Muslim provinces within the proposed All-India Federation. But his real interests were religious rather than political. A notable work published in I934 reproduced a series of lectures by the poet on The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Therein he sought to reconcile the carrying out of modern reforms, as in Turkey, with the claims of Shari'at. The lectures went to show that soundness and exactitude of historical judgment were not his special endowment. The fact was that in maturity as in youth he sought to reconcile the most recent of Western philosophical systems, into which he gathered up the latest scientific conclusions, with the teaching of the Koran. Like his earlier work the book was marked by penetrating and noble thoughts, though the connection of his argument was somewhat obscure.

He was knighted in 1923 and the Panjab University made him an Honorary D. Litt in 1933. He was elected Rhodes Memorial Lecturer at Oxford University for I935. For a long time he had been in indifferent health, and he became increasingly dreamy and mystical.

[1] As a result of discussions in London during Round Table Conferences about the problem of Muslims' rights in an independent India, the British Prime Minister at last announced the Communal Award on 19 August 1932 and thus removed the misgivings expressed in this letter.

[2] These riots which were engineered by the Hindus against the Pathan Muslims of Bombay, were the result of Hindu conspiracy to frighten Muslims to submission before they gained independence. In an Urdu letter dated 8 June 1932 to Maulvi Mohammad Irfan (Anwar-i Iqbal, p. 209) Iqbal expresses the same feeling about these riots.

[3] ii. 143: And thus we have made you an exalted nation that you may be the bearers of witness to the people and (that) the Messenger may be a bearer of ithness to you.

[4] Sociology of Islam by Professor Reuben Levy.

[5] "White Paper" refers to the White Paper issued by the British Government in March 1933. It embodied recommendations of the Round Table Conferences held in London. It was the first step towards the passing of the Government of India Act 1935.

[6] See Ibid., pp. 77-79 for a detailed account of Iqbal's stay in Spain.