{"id":6376,"date":"2016-08-22T09:16:41","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T09:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/?p=6376"},"modified":"2016-08-22T09:16:41","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T09:16:41","slug":"the-legacy-of-muhammad-iqbal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/2016\/08\/22\/6376\/","title":{"rendered":"The Legacy of Muhammad Iqbal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Part 1: On unity and identity <\/strong><br \/>\nIn a quiet neighbourhood in Oldham, Greater Manchester, amidst vibrant greenery and rows of quaint houses lies 31 \u2018Allama Iqb\u0101l road. Although it may at first seem an anomaly amongst the other more \u2018English\u2019 street names around, Iqb\u0101l\u2019s influence, and indeed his mastery over western thought, render his name perfectly at home in Oldham. Iqb\u0101l\u2019s ideas inspired a political revolution, his academic work greatly contributed to the discourse on Islamic thought, but it is mostly his unique and rock-\u00acsolid sense of identity that we, as Muslims in the 21st century Britain, are most in need of.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Early beginnings<\/strong><br \/>\nIqb\u0101l was born in Sialkot, India. He studied Arabic and the Qur\u2019an at a young age, later graduating with a BA in Philosophy, English, and Arabic literature. After qualifying for a scholarship from the University of Cambridge, he qualified as a barrister in the UK and went on to complete his doctorate in Philosophy in Germany.[1] What makes this discussion valid in 21st century Britain is that Iqb\u0101l\u2019s experience fuses the traditional and contemporary; the Eastern and Western, both in thought and culture.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Poet of the East <\/strong><br \/>\nOne would expect that Iqb\u0101l, having spent many years in institutions like Cambridge\u2019s Trinity College after being educated in Punjab, would attest to the superiority of in the West in terms of its institutions, culture and thought. Surprisingly, this is not the case. One of his poems, a sarcastic portrayal of the West\u2019s superiority, The Wisdom of the West, includes the lament of a man who has died and requests God to send the Angel of Death to the West for training.<br \/>\nThe West develops wonderful new skills<br \/>\nIn this as in so many other fields<br \/>\nIts submarines are crocodiles<br \/>\nIts bombers rain destruction from the skies<br \/>\nIts gasses so obscure the sky<br \/>\nThey blind the sun\u2019s world\u00ac-seeing eye.<br \/>\nDispatch this old fool to the West<br \/>\nTo learn the art of killing fast\u2014and best.[2]<br \/>\nOne very distinct mark in Iqb\u0101l\u2019s writings is his confidence in his ethnic and religious Identity. Given he lived in colonial India, he staunchly believed that colonialism stemmed from nationalism, and he frequently clashed with his contemporaries over his view of nationalism as \u2018the greatest enemy of Islam\u2019.[3]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Unity <\/strong><br \/>\nIqb\u0101l\u2019s vision of Islam was perforce a simple and pristine one. This notion was of great importance and consequence to Muslim politics of India at the time and, as such, made Iqb\u0101l a central intellectual figure in the drama of the Muslim-\u00acHindu stand-\u00acoff of the period. For, it was the argument of the British and the Indian National Congress that Muslims of India were not one community, and were so diverse that no one party or leader could claim to speak for them, or to characterise as one people with one aim.<br \/>\n\u201cAnd one your Ka\u02b9ba,<br \/>\nOne your God,<br \/>\nAnd one your great Quran;<br \/>\nYet, still, divided each from each, Lives every Mussalman.<br \/>\nYou split yourselves in countless sects,<br \/>\nIn classes high and low;<br \/>\nThink you the world its gifts will still<br \/>\nOn such as you bestow?<br \/>\nYou are known as Syed, and Mughal,<br \/>\nyou call yourselves Pathan;<br \/>\nBut can you truly claim as well the name of Mussalman?\u201d[8]<br \/>\nAt a time when us Muslims are divided into numerous labels, the idea that we need to unite, especially to co\u00acoperate in initiatives that unite us, is perhaps as necessary in our era as it was in his.<\/p>\n<p><strong>East vs West: Iqb\u0101l\u2019s legacy <\/strong><br \/>\nThroughout his life Iqb\u0101l grappled with the religious, social, and political implications of the occlusion of Islam in his homeland. For Iqb\u0101l, the question was not that of choosing between the East and West but rather to find a middle ground where Muslims do not have to abandon their Islamic identity to be part of the modern world. The Muslim future does not just depend on gaining Western knowledge but also by balancing this knowledge against their own tradition. The native under colonial rule, for Iqb\u0101l, is not just fighting for or appealing for inclusion in the colonial system; he is, rather, offering his own system as a solution to the problems of the colonial masters.[5]<br \/>\nFor Iqb\u0101l, the encroachment of the West was an experience being shared by almost all Muslims, and so there was an increasing need to find a sense of identity as they grappled with the meaning of the modern state in colonial form.[6] What concerns us, then, and what pained him most was the impact of nationalism on various Muslim countries, eroding the concept of \u201cUmmah\u201d, enfeebling the Muslim world, and laying it open to European aggression and exploitation.[7]<br \/>\nIn part 2 of this series on Iqb\u0101l, we will explore some of his Arabic poetry, his thirst to understand and explore the Qur\u2019\u0101n and sunnah, and his \u00ac\u00acunderstanding of identity in an increasingly chaotic world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Notes:<\/strong><br \/>\n[1] Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Iqb\u0101l\u2019s impact on contemporary understandings of the Islamic polity<br \/>\n[2] Iqb\u0101l, Paym\u00ace\u00acTahriq<br \/>\n[3] Sevea, Iqb\u0101l Singh. The Political Philosophy Of Muhammad Iqb\u0101l . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Print.<br \/>\n[4] Mustansir Mir, Iqb\u0101l<br \/>\n[5] Masood A.Raja, Islam, the West, and the Quest for a Modern Muslim Identity<br \/>\n[6] Masood A.Raja, Islam, the West, and the Quest for a Modern Muslim Identity<br \/>\n[7] Sharif al Mujahid, Iqb\u0101l\u2019s synthesis of Pan\u00acIslamism and Nationalism<br \/>\n[8] Iqb\u0101l, Jawab\u00ace\u00acshikwah<\/p>\n<p>Source: <em><strong>www.islam21c.com<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Part 1: On unity and identity In a quiet neighbourhood in Oldham, Greater Manchester, amidst vibrant greenery and rows of quaint houses lies 31 \u2018Allama Iqb\u0101l road. Although it may at first seem an anomaly amongst the other more \u2018English\u2019 street names around, Iqb\u0101l\u2019s influence, and indeed his mastery over western thought, render his name [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c42-articles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Legacy of Muhammad Iqbal - SunniOnline<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/2016\/08\/22\/6376\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Legacy of Muhammad Iqbal - SunniOnline\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Part 1: On unity and identity In a quiet neighbourhood in Oldham, Greater Manchester, amidst vibrant greenery and rows of quaint houses lies 31 \u2018Allama Iqb\u0101l road. 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