Muhammad Iqbal (9 November 1877 - 21 April 1938), widely known as Allama Iqbal, was an academic, poet, barrister, philosopher, and politician in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement. He is considered one of the most important figures in Urdu literature, with literary work in both the Urdu and Persian languages. At age four Iqbal was admitted to the mosque for learning the Qur'an. He learned the Arabic language from his teacher Syed Mir Hassan, the head of the Madrassa and Professor of Arabic language at Scotch Mission College in Sialkot, where Iqbal completed matriculation in 1893. He received Intermediate with the Faculty of Arts diploma from Murray College Sialkot in 1895. The same year he enrolled Government College Lahore where he qualified for Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, English literature and Arabic as his subjects from Government College Lahore in 1897, and won the Khan Bahadurddin FS Jalaluddin medal as he took higher number in Arabic class. In 1899, he received Master of Arts degree from the same college and had the first place in Punjab University, Lahore.
Iqbal is admired as a prominent classical poet by Iranian, Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan and other international scholars of literature. Though Iqbal is best known as an eminent poet, he is also a highly acclaimed "Muslim philosophical thinker of modern times". His first poetry book, Asrar-e-Khudi, appeared in the Persian language in 1915, and other books of poetry include Rumuz-i-Bekhudi, Payam-i-Mashriq and Zabur-i-Ajam. Amongst these his best known Urdu works are Bang-i-Dara, Bal-i-Jibril, Zarb-i Kalim and a part of Armughan-e-Hijaz. In Iran and Afghanistan his poetry enjoys immense popularity among the masses, as well as strong support from ideologues of the Iranian Revolution. Along with his Urdu and Persian poetry, his various Urdu and English lectures and letters have been very influential in cultural, social, religious and political disputes over the years.
Iqbal was born in Sialkot within the Punjab Province of British India (now in Pakistan). His grandparents were Kashmiri Pandits, the Brahmins of the Sapru clan from Kashmir who converted to Islam. In the 19th century, when Sikhs were taking over rule of Kashmir, his grandfather's family migrated to Punjab. Iqbal's father, Sheikh Noor Muhammad, was a tailor, not formally educated but a religious man. Iqbal's mother Imam Bibi was a polite and humble woman who helped the poor and solved the problems of neighbours. She died on 9 November 1914 in Sialkot. Iqbal loved his mother, and on her death he expressed his feelings of pathos in a poetic form elegy: "Who would wait for me anxiously in my native place? / Who would display restlessness if my letter fails to arrive? / I will visit thy grave with this complaint: / Who will now think of me in midnight prayers? / All thy life thy love served me with devotion-/ When I became fit to serve thee, thou hast departed".
Iqbal was influenced by the teachings of Sir Thomas Arnold, his philosophy teacher at Government College Lahore. Arnold's teachings determined Iqbal to pursue higher education in the West. In 1905, he traveled to England for his higher education. Iqbal qualified for a scholarship from Trinity College, University of Cambridge and obtained Bachelor of Arts in 1906, and in the same year he was called to the bar as a barrister from Lincoln's Inn. In 1907, Iqbal moved to Germany to study doctorate and earned Doctor of Philosophy degree from the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich in 1908. Iqbal published his doctoral thesis in 1908 entitled: The Development of Metaphysics in Persia.
Iqbal, after completing his Master of Arts degree in 1899, initiated his career as a reader of Arabic at Oriental College and shortly was selected as a junior Professor of philosophy at Government College Lahore and worked there until he left for England in 1905. In 1908, Iqbal returned from England and joined the same college again as a Professor of philosophy and English literature. At the same period Iqbal began practicing law at Chief Court Lahore, but soon Iqbal quit law practice, and devoted himself in literary works and became an active member of Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam. In 1919, he became the general secretary of the same organisation. Iqbal's thoughts in his work primarily focus on the spiritual direction and development of human society, centered on experiences from his travels and stays in Western Europe and the Middle East.
The poetry and philosophy of Mawlana Rumi bore the deepest influence on Iqbal's mind. Deeply grounded in religion since childhood, Iqbal began intensely concentrating on the study of Islam, the culture and history of Islamic civilization and its political future, while embracing Rumi as "his guide". Iqbal would feature Rumi in the role of guide in many of his poems. Iqbal's works focus on reminding his readers of the past glories of Islamic civilization, and delivering the message of a pure, spiritual focus on Islam as a source for sociopolitical liberation and greatness. Iqbal denounced political divisions within and amongst Muslim nations, and frequently alluded to and spoke in terms of the global Muslim community or the Ummah. Iqbal's poetry has been translated into many European languages, at the time when his work was famous during the early part of the 20th century. Iqbal's Asrar-i-Khudi and Javed Nama were translated into English by R. A. Nicholson and A. J. Arberry respectively.
Here I put some famous Iqbal quotes: "I lead no party; I follow no leader. I have given the best part of my life to careful study of Islam, its law and polity, its culture, its history and its literature". "The ultimate aim of the ego is not to see something, but to be something". "People who have no hold over their process of thinking are likely to be ruined by liberty of thought. If thought is immature, liberty of thought becomes a method of converting men into animals". "Since love first made the breast an instrument of fierce lamenting, by its flame my heart was molten to a mirror, like a rose I pluck my breast apart, that I may hang this mirror in your sight". "Islam is itself destiny and will not suffer destiny". "Nations are born in the hearts of poets; they prosper and die in the hands of politicians". "A wrong concept misleads the understanding; a wrong deed degrades the whole man, and may eventually demolish the structure of the human ego". "Words, without power, are mere philosophy". "Thus passing through the infinite varieties of space we reach the Divine space which is absolutely free from all dimensions and constitutes the meeting point of all infinities". "Vision without power does bring moral elevation but cannot give a lasting culture".
"Become dust - and they will throw thee in the air; Become stone - and they will throw thee on glass". "The ultimate purpose of religious life is to make this evolution move in a direction far more important to the destiny of the ego than the moral health of the social fabric which forms his present environment". "The scientific observer of Nature is a kind of mystic seeker in the act of prayer". "But inner experience is only one source of human knowledge". "It is true that we are made of dust. And the world is also made of dust. But the dust has motes rising". "The truth is that the religious and the scientific processes, though involving different methods, are identical in their final aim. Both aim at reaching the most real". "The wing of the Falcon brings to the king, the wing if the crow brings him to the cemetery". "Rise above sectional interests and private ambitions... Pass from matter to spirit. Matter is diversity; spirit is light, life and unity". "Unbeliever is he who follows predestination even if he be Muslim, Faithful is he, if he himself is the Divine Destiny". "Destiny is the prison and chain of the ignorant. Understand that destiny like the water of the Nile: Water before the faithful, blood before the unbeliever". "Though the terror of the sea gives to none security, in the secret of the shell. Self preserving we may dwell". "The thought of a limit to perceptual space and time staggers the mind".
In 1922, Iqbal was knighted by King George V, giving him the title "Sir". While studying law and philosophy in England, Iqbal became a member of the London branch of the All-India Muslim League. Later, in one of his most famous speeches, Iqbal pushed for the creation of a Muslim state in Northwest India. This took place in his presidential speech in the League's December 1930 session. His tomb is located in Hazuri Bagh, the enclosed garden between the entrance of the Badshahi Mosque and the Lahore Fort, and official guards are provided by the Government of Pakistan.
The writer is a retired Professor of Economics, BCS General Education Cadre.
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