Iqbol
12-17-2005, 09:13 PM
Muhammad Iqbal
If one were to reconstruct the form of Islam, which has been made to degenerate over the course of history, re-assemble it in such a way that its spirit could return to a complete body, and transform the present disorientated elements of Islam into that spirit, as if the trumpet of Israfil were to blow in the 20th century over a dead society and awaken its movement, power, spirit, and meaning, it is then that exemplary Muslim personalities like Muhammad Iqbal would be reconstructed and reborn.
Muhammad Iqbal is not just a Muslim mystic who is solely concerned with mysticism or gnosis as were Ghazzali, Muhyi Din ibn Arabi, and Rumi. They emphasized individual evolution, purification of the soul, and the inner illuminated 'self'. They only developed and trained a few people like themselves but, for the most part, remained oblivious to the outside world, having been almost unaware of the Mongol attack and the subsequent despotic rule and suppression of the people.
Iqbal is also not like Abu Muslim, Hasan Sabah or Saladin Ayyubi and personalities like them who, in the history of Islam, are simply men of the sword, power, war, and struggle and who consider the exercise of power and the defeat of the enemy enough to effect reform and revolution in the minds of the people and in their social relationships.
Nor is Iqbal similar to those learned individuals like the Indian, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, who imagined that no matter in what situation Islamic society is (even if it is under the domination of a British viceroy), it can be revived with modern scholarly interpretations or with 20th century scientific and logical commentaries on Islamic tenets and Quranic verses, as well as through profound philosophical and scholarly research.
Iqbal is not among some Western people who consider science to be sufficient for human salvation, for evolution, and for curing anguish. He is not one of those philosophers who thinks meeting economic needs is tantamount to meeting all human needs. Nor is he like his fellow countrymen, that is, the great Hindu and Buddhist thinkers who consider peace of mind and spiritual salvation to be transmigration, or who consider the cycle of kanna to Nirvana to be the fulfillment of the mission of humanity, and who imagine that in a society where there is even one hungry person, where slavery, deprivation and disgrace exist, one can still develop pure, elevated spirits and disciplined, educated people who have attained well-being and even a sense of morality !
No. Iqbal demonstrates through his very being and through his School of Thought that thoughts which are related to Islam are thoughts which, while paying careful attention to this world and the material needs of humanity, also give the human being a heart. As he himself says, "I find the most beautiful states of life during the yearnings and meditations between daybreak and dawn."
He is a great mystic, with a pure spirit, delivered from materialism and, at the same time, a man who respects and honors science, technological progress, and the advancement of human reason in our age. He is not a thinker who debases science, reason, and scientific advancement having had his emotions aroused by Sufism, Christianity, the religion of Lao Tzu, or Buddha. Neither is he a proponent of "dry" factual science like the science of Francis Bacon or Claude Bernard, which is limited to the discovery of the relationships between phenomena or material manifestations and the employment of natural forces for material life. At the same time, he is not a thinker who links philosophy, illumination, science, religion, reason, and revelation together in an incongruous way, as some have done. Rather, in his outlook and attitude towards this world, he regards reason and science in the very sense they are understood today as allies of love, emotion, and inspiration in the evolution of the human spirit, but he does not accept their goals.
The greatest advice of Iqbal to humanity is: Have a heart like Jesus, thought like Socrates, and a hand like the hand of a Caesar, but all in one human being, in one creature of humanity, based upon one spirit in order to attain one goal. That is, to be like Iqbal himself: A man who attains the height of political awareness in his time to the extent that some people believe him to be solely a political figure and a liberated, nationalist leader who is a 20th century anti-colonialist. A man who, in philosophical thought, rises to such a high level that he is considered to be a contemporary thinker and philosopher of the same rank as Bergson in the West today or of the same level as Ghazzali in Islamic history.
At the same time, he is a man we regard as being a reformer of Islamic society, who thinks about the conditions of human and Islamic society, a society in which he himself lives and for which he performs jihad (i.e. struggles nobly in the way of God) for the salvation, awareness, and liberation of Muslim people. His efforts are not just casual and scientific or of the kind that Sartre called "intellectual demonstrations of political, pseudo-leftists" but rather of the kind exhibited by responsible individuals. He struggles and strives and, at the same time, he is also a lover of Rumi. He journeys with him in his spiritual ascensions and burns from the lover's flames, anguishes, and spiritual anxieties. This great man does not become one-dimensional, does not disintegrate, does not become a one-sided or one-dimensional Muslim. He is a complete Muslim. Even though he loves Rumi, he is not obliterated by him.
If one were to reconstruct the form of Islam, which has been made to degenerate over the course of history, re-assemble it in such a way that its spirit could return to a complete body, and transform the present disorientated elements of Islam into that spirit, as if the trumpet of Israfil were to blow in the 20th century over a dead society and awaken its movement, power, spirit, and meaning, it is then that exemplary Muslim personalities like Muhammad Iqbal would be reconstructed and reborn.
Muhammad Iqbal is not just a Muslim mystic who is solely concerned with mysticism or gnosis as were Ghazzali, Muhyi Din ibn Arabi, and Rumi. They emphasized individual evolution, purification of the soul, and the inner illuminated 'self'. They only developed and trained a few people like themselves but, for the most part, remained oblivious to the outside world, having been almost unaware of the Mongol attack and the subsequent despotic rule and suppression of the people.
Iqbal is also not like Abu Muslim, Hasan Sabah or Saladin Ayyubi and personalities like them who, in the history of Islam, are simply men of the sword, power, war, and struggle and who consider the exercise of power and the defeat of the enemy enough to effect reform and revolution in the minds of the people and in their social relationships.
Nor is Iqbal similar to those learned individuals like the Indian, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, who imagined that no matter in what situation Islamic society is (even if it is under the domination of a British viceroy), it can be revived with modern scholarly interpretations or with 20th century scientific and logical commentaries on Islamic tenets and Quranic verses, as well as through profound philosophical and scholarly research.
Iqbal is not among some Western people who consider science to be sufficient for human salvation, for evolution, and for curing anguish. He is not one of those philosophers who thinks meeting economic needs is tantamount to meeting all human needs. Nor is he like his fellow countrymen, that is, the great Hindu and Buddhist thinkers who consider peace of mind and spiritual salvation to be transmigration, or who consider the cycle of kanna to Nirvana to be the fulfillment of the mission of humanity, and who imagine that in a society where there is even one hungry person, where slavery, deprivation and disgrace exist, one can still develop pure, elevated spirits and disciplined, educated people who have attained well-being and even a sense of morality !
No. Iqbal demonstrates through his very being and through his School of Thought that thoughts which are related to Islam are thoughts which, while paying careful attention to this world and the material needs of humanity, also give the human being a heart. As he himself says, "I find the most beautiful states of life during the yearnings and meditations between daybreak and dawn."
He is a great mystic, with a pure spirit, delivered from materialism and, at the same time, a man who respects and honors science, technological progress, and the advancement of human reason in our age. He is not a thinker who debases science, reason, and scientific advancement having had his emotions aroused by Sufism, Christianity, the religion of Lao Tzu, or Buddha. Neither is he a proponent of "dry" factual science like the science of Francis Bacon or Claude Bernard, which is limited to the discovery of the relationships between phenomena or material manifestations and the employment of natural forces for material life. At the same time, he is not a thinker who links philosophy, illumination, science, religion, reason, and revelation together in an incongruous way, as some have done. Rather, in his outlook and attitude towards this world, he regards reason and science in the very sense they are understood today as allies of love, emotion, and inspiration in the evolution of the human spirit, but he does not accept their goals.
The greatest advice of Iqbal to humanity is: Have a heart like Jesus, thought like Socrates, and a hand like the hand of a Caesar, but all in one human being, in one creature of humanity, based upon one spirit in order to attain one goal. That is, to be like Iqbal himself: A man who attains the height of political awareness in his time to the extent that some people believe him to be solely a political figure and a liberated, nationalist leader who is a 20th century anti-colonialist. A man who, in philosophical thought, rises to such a high level that he is considered to be a contemporary thinker and philosopher of the same rank as Bergson in the West today or of the same level as Ghazzali in Islamic history.
At the same time, he is a man we regard as being a reformer of Islamic society, who thinks about the conditions of human and Islamic society, a society in which he himself lives and for which he performs jihad (i.e. struggles nobly in the way of God) for the salvation, awareness, and liberation of Muslim people. His efforts are not just casual and scientific or of the kind that Sartre called "intellectual demonstrations of political, pseudo-leftists" but rather of the kind exhibited by responsible individuals. He struggles and strives and, at the same time, he is also a lover of Rumi. He journeys with him in his spiritual ascensions and burns from the lover's flames, anguishes, and spiritual anxieties. This great man does not become one-dimensional, does not disintegrate, does not become a one-sided or one-dimensional Muslim. He is a complete Muslim. Even though he loves Rumi, he is not obliterated by him.