IQBAL’S CONCEPT OF MENTAL HEALTH

S. M. Rahman

An important dimension which has eluded the interest of writers on Iqbal, both in the East as well as in the West, is his profound psycho-dynamic and therapeutic insight into human personality, its growth potentialities, as well as the factors that lead to its decay and disintegration. This short paper is a modest venture to interpret Iqbal’s basic concepts and ideas in the light of some of the contemporary researches and findings in the field of clinical psychology and psychiatry. It is not attempted here to systematise or interpret Iqbal’s theory of personality, which deserves a concerted and serious attention in its own right, but merely to focus that Iqbal, through his bold imaginative genius, could foresee and comprehend what prac­titioners of modern psychotherapy have discovered through tedious and intensive probing and diagnostic testing of those afflicted with worries and anxieties and live in a state of perpetual disharmony with themselves. It is interesting to discover that among the contemporary personality theorists there is a fairly significant number who fall into the broad humanistic cadre and have corrected the image of man from that of a “noble savage” to that of a self-actualiser, from one constantly responding to stimuli to one of actively seeking, organising and enriching life. Koch[1] rightly laments the unhappy image of man in modern psychology :

“For if psychology does not influence man’s image of himself what branch of scholarly community does? That modern psycho-logy has projected an image of man which is as demeaning as it is simplistic, few intelligent and sensitive non-psychologists would deny. To such men—whether they be scientists, humanists or citizens— psychology has increasingly become an object of derision. They are safe even when most despairing. But for the rest, the mass dehumanization which characterizes our time—the simplification of sensibility, homogenization of experience, attenuation of the capacity for experience—continues apace. Of all fields in the community of scholarship, it should be psycho-logy which combats this trend. Instead we have played no small role in augmenting and supporting it. . . . Is it not true that we raise the courage to relent?”

The notable among those who took the courage are Carl Roger,[2] Abraham Maslow,[3] Gordon Allport,[4] Erich Fromm,[5] and some existentialistically-oriented psychologists, whose thoughts and ideas bear close resemblance to those of Iqbal. This group of psychologists, contrary to classical psychoanalytical thinking of Freud,[6] have laid considerable emphasis on the growth motivation of individuals. Freud[7] being infatuated with the physicalistic and materialistic view of man ignored his spiritual and undermined religion. He also ignored the limitless potentialities of the soul, particularly the imagination, which he characterised as the Great Deceiver and “illusion” and not a reality. Although he accepted that the concept of the Supreme Being is experienced in early childhood, he bitterly criticised the dogma of religion. But his worthy disciple Jung,[8] explicitly affirmed that religion was an integral factor in the emotional adjustment of an individual. He believed that religion which could satisfy intellect as well as emo­tion was a fundamental requirement of psychotherapy. Gordon Allport[9] went to the extent of saying that religion is superior to psychotherapy in dealing with the individual’s emotional problems. Mowrer[10] is of the view that the acceptance of the great moral teachings is essential for the treatment of mental illnesses.

A very perceptible trend in contemporary Western thinking is a growing collaboration of psychiatry, behavioural sciences and religion. In primitive times medicine and religion were administered by one and the same person who met both the physical as well as the spiritual needs of an individual. In modern times, psychiatry and its sister discipline clinical psychology are beginning to realise the importance of meeting the deeper and spiritual requirements of the self. A large number of Christian Minsters are incorporating the findings of modern psychiatry and have developed a new discipline called “Pastoral Care”. Professor Burtt’s [11] book, Man Seeks the Divine, is an attempt to integrate themes of religious experience with those of teachings of psychiatry and psychoanalysis. This has created a new brand of philosophy of religion. On the other hand, there are a large number of thinkers who are integrating psychiatry, biological and behavioural sciences with that of essential teachings of the great religions of the world. Julian Huxley’s book entitled Religion Without Revelation[12] is a notable example of this trend. Montagu,[13] in a similar vein says : “To love thy neighbour as thyself is not only good text material for Sunday morning sermons but perfectly sound biology.”

Contemporary philosophers and eminent literary writers have written abundantly on the predicament of modern man and characterised his malady as that of chronic atomisation, “dispersion into multiplicity” estrangement of the self and a haunting sense of meaninglessness in life. Iqbal made relentless struggle to give man his true identity, dignity, purpose and centrality in the universe. He categorically affirmed:

[Thou art neither for the earth nor for the sky,

The world is ordained for thee and not thee for the world.]

In a’ beautiful verse he depicts the sacredness and grandeur of man :

[Love proclaimed that a bruised-hearted creation is born,

Beauty trembled that a visionary is born.

Nature was perturbed that from the dust of a predetermined world, A creature, self-evolving, self-destroying and self-evaluating is born.]

What better eulogising of man could be than this couplet :

[Humanity consists of the respect for man,

So acquaint thyself with the dignity of man.]

The job of being a self-respecting human is the governing principle of life, as Iqbal views it. Jesus taught : “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul” (New Testament). A Chinese philosopher, Laotse,[17] from whose teachings Taoism has developed, says :

“Fame or one’s own self, which does one love more ? One’s own self or material goods, which has more worth ? Loss of self, or possession of goods, which is the greater evil ?”

Confucious was also reported to have said : “If one hears the Tao or the way of life in the morning one can die in the evening.” Thus all great religious thinkers have emphasised the need for proper attention to the welfare of the self or soul. Iqbal views “self” or individuality as an achievement of man, through constant strife and struggle, and not something genetically deter-mined. “The life of the ego,” he says, “is a kind of tension caused by the ego invading the environment and the environment invading the ego.”[18]

[Flow long, 0 heart, this burning like the moth ?

How long this aversion to the ways of true manhood ? Burn thyself in thy flame,

How long this fluttering round the stranger’s fire ?]

Erich Fromm[20] has characterised five basic orientations toward life, namely, receptive, exploitative, hoarding, marketing and productive. The typical traits of passive orientation are lack of character, submissiveness and cowardliness. In exploitative orientation, one manifests traits of aggression, egocentricism, conceit, arrogance and seductiveness. A person with hoarding orientation shows stinginess, unimaginativeness, suspiciousness and possessiveness. Similarly, in the marketing-oriented indi­vidual, there are traits of opportunism, inconsistency, aimlessness, lack of principle, stubbornness and possessiveness. The productive orientation, which undoubtedly is Fromm’s own. ideal, reflects modesty, adaptability, trust, activeness, pride, confidence, practicability, patience, openmindedness and an experimenting spirit. If we add the supreme trait of spiritualism and love for God, he can be identified as Mard-i Mu’min of Iqbal. Rogers[21] also maintains that a “fully functioning individual” is one who shows complete openness to experience, i.e. opposite of defensiveness. He says : “One aspect of this process which I am naming `the good life’ appears to be a movement away from the pole of defensiveness toward the pole of openness to experience”. Such an individual is basically creative. He further elaborates : “The process of good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one’s potentialities.”

The self-actualiser as conceived by Maslow[22] also manifests same traits as those of Fromm’s productive type and Roger’s fully functioning individual. There is an acceptance of the self, the others and the material world ; spontaniety, task-orientation, sense of privacy, independence ; appreciativeness and spiritual-ism (not necessarily religious in the formal sense but the ability for peak experiences) ; sense of identity with mankind, creativeness and nonconformism. The “self-actualiser” also in essence approximates Iqbal’s concept of ideal man or healthy personality. Apart from Iqbal’s basic insistence on the privacy of individual’s religious needs and something fundamental for his normalcy, these two thinkers from different fields are surpris­ingly very similar in their ideas and approach, particularly on aspects of meta-motivation. Iqbal, being intensely religious and inheriting from the rich sufi tradition of Islam, sees unity in the knowledge and Being, and cannot entertain any idea of separateness from God. “The norm of mental health,” as Dr Ajmal[23] puts it, “is the psychological closeness to God.” Any tendency to deceive God, to hide and conceal oneself is self-defeating as it leads to dissociative tendencies and disintegration of personality.

Both Iqbal and Maslow have given considerable importance to love (‘ishq) as self-actualising principle. Maslow maintains that in self-actualising the quality of love relationship and sex satisfaction may both improve with the length of relationship. This urge for insatiable longing is uniquely expressed by great mystic poet Bedil :

[I drank the goblet for all my life with thee as partner but the intoxication does not wither.

What a tragedy that thou dost not reach from my side toward my side.]

From his rich clinical experience Erich Fromm[24] sums up as follows :

“There is no more than convincing proof that the injunction, `love thy neighbour as thself,’ is the most important norm of living and its violation is the basic cause of unhappiness and mental illness than the evidence gathered by the psychoanalysts. Whatever complaints the neurotic patient may present are rooted in his inability to love, if we mean by love the capacity for experience and responsibility and respect and understanding of another person and the intense desire for that other person’s growth. Analytic therapy is essentially the attempt to help the patient to gain or regain his capacity for love. If this aim is not fulfilled, nothing but surface change can be accomplished.”

Psychologists agree that the conflict of desires is at the centre of mental illnesses and personal happiness. This agreement is explicitly stated by Karen Horney[25]:

“The temptation (the devil) speaks to two powerful desires ; ‘The longing for the infinite (glory) and the wish for an easy way out. . . . Speaking in symbolic terms, the easy way to infinite glory is inevitably also the way to an inner hell of self-contempt and self-torment. By taking this road, the individual is in fact losing his soul—his real self.”

The ability to see oneself with detachment, and keep one’s life always open to inspection, i.e, muhāsibah-i nafs, is a psycho-logical requirement. In the words of Iqbal :

[The Mu’ min is alive and at war with himself,

He sweeps down on himself as the wolf on the deer.]

A patient who constantly criticises other people for being egotistical, authoritarian or aggressive, often has these character­istics in himself ; only he does not see these characteristics in himself as clearly as he sees them in others. As a matter of fact, when a patient comes to see these characteristics in himself, he generally becomes more tolerant and less critical toward other people.

By briefly comparing some of the basic ideas of Iqbal with those of some contemporary psychiatrists and clinicians one can-not help being impressed how deep his understanding of human psyche was. His philosophy has immense therapeutic potentials for individuals as well as the community in which he was vitally interested.

[Trustee, unaware of the Sacred Trust, Grieve not, look into thyself.

NOTES