Abstract
This paper argues that contrary to some popular perceptions, the ideological shift in Iqbal dates not from 1930 (when he apparently moved towards the acceptance of the two-nation theory at the Allahabad Session of the Muslim League) but to his stay in Europe from 1905 to 1908 (after which he made a complete and abrupt shift from Indian nationalism to revivalism and Pan-Islamism). This shift is powerfully expressed in the political and cultural imaginings of both his Urdu and Persian poetry. His poetry becomes suffused with the ideas of revivalism and Pan-Islamism in counter-position to those of composite nationhood and territorial nationalism on which the Indian national movement was premised. The shift is embodied in poetic imagery and metaphor incompatible with the modern idea of nationalism, especially the dominant idea of Indian nationalism. Iqbal’s later thoughts concerning Islam’s relations with non-Muslims in India and elsewhere promote an adversarial historical and cultural narrative of Islam.
Though triggered by a passionate rejection of the West and its modernity, the shift manifested not just in a critique of the West but also of all non-Islamic cultures and civilizations. Iqbal’s narrative of Islam is teleological and triumphalist. Far from being defensive about the charges of intolerance and aggression levelled against Islam by its critics, he proudly invokes imagery of the sword and the conquest in the history of Islam, while bemoaning the decline of its political power in the modern era. Iqbal’s quest is for a supposedly pure Islam of the past and its revival in the twentieth century in the form of a redefined, reconstituted and revitalized Umma which cuts across boundaries of nations, continents and ethnicities. Few poets in the history of the modern world have had such influence as Allama Iqbal, and fewer still have made such fundamental shifts.
Few poets in the history of the modern world have made as fundamental an ideological shift as Allama Iqbal (1877–1938). From being one of the most celebrated proponents of a composite Indian nationalism in his youth, in his presidential speech at the Allahabad Session of the Muslim League in 1930, he became a progenitor of the idea of a Muslim state in north-western India. Whether he merely meant the creation of a consolidated state within a loose Indian confederation, or a sovereign state for the Muslims of north-western India, he is still looked upon as the national poet of Pakistan, and as one of the fathers of the idea of Pakistan.
The ideological shift in Iqbal dates, not from 1930 but to around 1908, when he returned to India after his stay in Europe. The complete and abrupt ideological shift from a composite Indian nationalism to revivalism and Pan-Islamism is evident in both his Urdu and Persian poetry. It became suffused with ideas of Islamic revival and Pan-Islamism, rather than the ideas of the composite nationhood and territorial nationalism which the Indian national movement espoused. His poetic imagery and metaphors revealed a historical and cultural narrative of Islam depicting primarily adversarial relations with non-Muslims in India and elsewhere.
Iqbal appraised and passionately rejected the West and its modernity. He critiqued not just the West, contact with which triggered a strong reaction, but all non-Islamic cultures and civilizations, presenting them as adversaries, in an account which may now seem triumphalist and teleological. Far from being on the defensive about the charges of intolerance and aggression levelled against Islam by its critics, Iqbal proudly invoked the imagery of the sword and conquest in its long history. He bemoaned the decline of Islamic political power. His poetry after his return from Europe expressed a quest for a supposedly pure Islam of the past and looked to its revival in the twentieth century in the form of a redefined, reconstituted and revitalized Umma, cutting across the boundaries of nations, continents and ethnicities.
I
Allama Iqbal is among the most written-about poets and thinkers of modern India. Mohammad Mujeeb, Ali Sardar Jafri, Jagan Nath Azad and many others plead for seeing Iqbal as a poet of outstanding creativity, with little reference to his ideology or politics. 1 In a different vein, Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, writing extensively on Iqbal’s poetry from the perspective of a literary critic, refuses to place Iqbal on par with Mirza Ghalib, and holds that ‘Iqbal’s poetry, for better or worse, cannot be seen entirely in isolation from his philosophy and politics.’ 2 Rafeeq Zakaria in his work Iqbal: The Poet and the Politician benignly (and controversially) asserts that there was no trace of separatism in Iqbal and that he has been misrepresented. However, Khushwant Singh, who translated Iqbal’s Shikwa into English with the encouragement of Rafiq Zakaria, holds that ‘while lauding the achievements of Muslim warriors and the civilizing role of Islam, the poet also reveals a not-too-veiled contempt for non-Muslims, particularly Hindus.’ Going even further, Khushwant Singh writes that Shikwa may be regarded as ‘the first manifesto of the two-nation theory’. 3 His view is that Iqbal should be seen primarily as a poet, whose poetry can be enjoyed without being vitiated by his politics.
V. N. Datta recognizes Iqbal’s ‘shift from synthetic view of India to a cry for a separate Muslim homeland’, in a move which ‘was shaped by the changing historical circumstances and the exigencies of high politics’. 4 According to him, Iqbal ‘began to reflect on religious issues in the wake of the European aggression against the Muslim countries, including Turkey and Persia. To face the Western challenge, he advocated pan-Islamism as the political goal of the Islamic world.’ 5 Datta holds Iqbal partly responsible for the partition of India.
Sheila McDonough acknowledges that Iqbal is open to a very broad range of interpretations, being regarded as a fundamentalist, modernist, socialist and so on. Her explanation is that it was his unconventional way of thinking that caused so much dissonance. 6 Javed Majeed’s Muhammad Iqbal: Islam, Aesthetics and Post-colonialism offers a complex view of Iqbal, remarking that ‘there remains some uncertainty as to what kind of Muslim separatism Iqbal outlined in his work,’ but nevertheless concluding that ‘whatever the precise lineaments of the content of his separatism, Iqbal’s work is incomprehensible without the multiple significations of the trope of separatism.’ 7 In short, evaluations of Iqbal’s poetry elude consensus.
II
The tremendous impact exercised by Iqbal on Muslim India is amply recognized. This makes it important to take note of the influences on him. Iqbal wanted to be remembered even more as a thinker and philosopher than as a poet. Among Western thinkers, Nietzsche and Bergson probably stand out for their impact on him. In so far as Islamic influences from earlier centuries are concerned, the names of Al-Ghazali, Ibn Abdul Wahhab and Shah Waliullah stand out. 8 Among his near contemporaries, Syed Ahmad Khan, Jamaluddin Afghani, Amir Ali, Altaf Hussain Hali and Shibli Numani were important influences on him. 9
Iqbal’s poetry can be divided into two phases. The first phase consists of the poems he wrote before his departure for Europe on a scholarship in 1905. All these poems are written in Urdu. They have been compiled in the first part of his Urdu anthology Bang-i-Dara published in 1924. With their lyrical quality, these poems explore a variety of themes. The most famous ones celebrate the composite culture of India and are strongly nationalist in orientation. Tarana-e-Hindi (Sare Jahan se Acchha Hindustan Hamara) occupies the pride of place in his pre-1905 poetry. It has justly retained its great popularity among Indians for more than a hundred years. It is not only a paean to the composite culture of India in which all races, religions and cultures have arguably become one: it is also a glowing tribute to the antiquity and endurance of Indian civilization. Iqbal stresses that Indian civilization lives on, even as other ancient civilizations—the Greek, Egyptian and Roman—have vanished long ago. It is remarkable that Iqbal’s later association with the idea of Pakistan has not damaged the popularity of his song in India.
Tarana-e-Hindi was not the only such poem written by Iqbal during this phase. His poem Himala is a celebration of the sacred geography of India in which the Himalayas have occupied the pride of place since ancient times.
10
In a sense, Himala has the tenor of the Meghdutam of Kalidasa, which includes a magnificent description of the beauty and majesty of the Himalayas. Iqbal, thus, describes the Himalayas:
Ai himāla ai fasīl-e-kishvar-e-hindostān
Chūmtā hai terī peshānī ko jhuk kar āsmāñ
Tujh meñ kuchh paidā nahīñ derīna rozī ke nishāñ
Tū javāñ hai gardish-e-shām-o-sahar ke darmiyāñ…
Imtihān-e-dīda-e-zāhir meñ kohistāñ hai tū
Pāsbāñ apnā hai tū dīvār-e-hindustāñ hai tū
Matla-e-avval falak jis kā ho vo dīvāñ hai tū
Su-e-ḳhalvat-gāh-e-dil dāman-kash-e-insāñ hai tū
O Himalah! O rampart of the realm of India!
Bowing down, the sky kisses your forehead. You do not show any signs of old age, You are young in the midst of day and night’s passage. To the outward eye you are just a mountain, You are our sentinel in reality, you are India’s rampart. You are an anthology whose opening verse is the sky,
You open up the recesses of a man’s heart to him.
11
Similarly, Iqbal wrote a celebrated poem on Ram:
12
Labrez hai sharāb-e-haqīqat se jām-e-hind
Sab falsafī haiñ ḳhitta-e-maġhrib ke rām-e-hind
Ye hindiyoñ kī fikr-e-falak-ras kā hai asar
Rif.at meñ āsmāñ se bhī ūñchā hai bām-e-hind
Is des meñ hue haiñ hazāroñ malak-sarisht
Mash.hūr jin ke dam se hai duniyā meñ nām-e-hind
Hai raam ke vajūd pe hindostāñ ko naaz
Ahl-e-nazar samajhte haiñ is ko imām-e-hind
Ejaaz is charāġh-e-hidāyat kā hai yahī
Raushan-tar-az-sahar hai zamāne meñ shām-e-hind
Talvār kā dhanī thā shujā.at meñ fard thā
Pākīzgī meñ josh-e-mohabbat meñ fard thā
The cup of Hindustan is full of the wine of truth, Philosophers of the west have acknowledged India. It is the result of the flights of the Indian mind, That India is exalted higher than the sky.
Countless men of angelic disposition have taken birth in this land;
The name of India is famous all over the world because of them, India is proud of the existence of Ram, The discerning ones regard him as Imam-e-Hind.
It is the miracle of this light of righteousness
That the evenings in India are brighter than the mornings of other lands.
Ram was a great warrior and a man of great courage
He was a man of great virtue and had great love for all.
Naya Shivala is another poem of Iqbal written in 1905 that expresses veneration of India’s territory and reveals his commitment to Indian nationalism and a composite culture:
13
Sach kah duuñ ai barhaman gar tū burā na maane
Tere sanam-kadoñ ke but ho ga.e purāne
Apnoñ se bair rakhnā tū ne butoñ se sīkhā
Jañg-o-jadal sikhāyā vaa.iz ko bhī ḳhudā ne
Tañg aa ke maiñ ne āḳhir dair o haram ko chhoḌā
Vaa.iz kā va.az chhoḌā chhoḌe tire fasāne
Patthar kī mūratoñ meñ samjhā hai tū ḳhudā hai
Khāk-e-vatan kā mujh ko har zarra devtā hai
Let me tell you the truth O Brahmin! If you don’t mind;
The idols of your temple have grown old. The idols taught you enmity with your own, Just as Khuda taught his preacher how to fight his own. At last I left temple as well as mosque,
The lectures of the preacher as well as your tales;
You think God is there in these stone idols;
To me every dust particle of my country is god.
Many other poems fall in the same category. Hindustani Bachchon Ka Qaumi Geet celebrates the greatness of Indian civilization. Even Prophet Muhammad is said to have been inspired by India (Mir-e-Arab ko aai thandi hawa jahan se mera watan wahi hai). Iqbal’s poetry during this period is quintessentially patriotic and imbued with Indian nationalism.
III
There was to be an abrupt change in Iqbal. In 1905, he left India for higher studies in Cambridge and returned from Europe in 1908 with completely changed views about religion and nationalism. His new attitude was expressed in a letter written in 1909, where he asserted that ‘preservation of their separate national entities is desirable for both Muslims and Hindus’. 14 This was because ‘though common nationhood for India was a beautiful idea and has poetic appeal’ it could not work in practice. 15
His earliest Pan-Islamist poems included Bilad-e-Islamia (Islamic Cities) which celebrates Delhi, Baghdad, Cordoba and Constantinople as Islamic cities. Delhi is described here as the ‘shrine of the greatness of Islam’ (Khanqah-e-azmat-e-Islam), Cordoba as ‘the light of the Muslim’s eye’ (Didah-e-Muslim ka noor) and Constantinople as the ‘heart of the nation of Islam’ (Millat-e-Islam ka dil).
16
Of much greater importance was Tarana-e-Milli (Song of the Nation of Islam), often considered a counter to his Tarana-e-Hindi (Song of India) for which Iqbal continues to be so famous in India.
17
Tarana-e-Milli is the first clear expression of his repudiation of Indian nationalism and his embrace of revivalism and Pan-Islamism. Since the rhyme scheme followed is the same as in Tarana-e-Hindi, it seems to reinforce Iqbal’s repudiation of his earlier song.
18
This is evident from the very first couplet of the Tarana-e-Milli:
Chīn-o-arab hamārā hindostāñ hamārā
Muslim haiñ ham vatan hai saarā jahāñ hamārā
(China and Arabia are ours, India is ours We are Muslims, the whole world is ours)
The Tarana-e-Milli is reported to have perturbed even Gandhi, who alluded to it around the time of Round Table Conferences (in which Iqbal was invited as one of the representatives of the Indian Muslims). On 26 March 1932, Gandhi said, ‘Other Muslims too share Iqbal’s anti-nationalism; only they do not give expression to their sentiments. The Poet now disowns his song Hindustan Hamara (India is ours).’
19
Further, on being asked by Mahadev Desai, ‘Is not his Pan-Islamism the same as Shaukat Ali’s and Mohamad Ali’s?,’ Gandhi replied:
Yes, but this (Iqbal’s) anti-nationalism has nothing to do with pan-Islamism. I may defend a Muslim’s stand that he is a Muslim first and an Indian afterwards, for I myself say that I am a Hindu first and am therefore a true Indian. Mohamad Ali realized this. The present Muslim leadership do not understand ‘I am a Muslim first’ in the old sense. Nowadays, to be a Muslim is not to be a nationalist.
The dramatic change in Iqbal’s beliefs elicited an understandably strong reaction.
IV
Though a clear and powerful expression of Iqbal’s change of stance, Tarana- e-Milli is less comprehensive than his monumental poem Shikwa, to which we now turn. Shikwa is a complaint to Allah for not having taken care of the Muslims, despite everything that they had done for him. It is a sort of metanarrative of Islam. Often regarded as a religious poem to be recited by pious Muslims, Shikwa is rarely seen as a masterly poetic expression of a political metanarrative that puts Islam at the centre of world history. Emphasizing a relationship of conflict and conquest with non-Muslim peoples, this metanarrative sees other religious and cultural traditions as adversaries.
Iqbal’s complaint to Allah needs to be situated in a context in which Pan-Islamism and revivalism had become increasingly powerful influences on the Muslim elite in India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 20 The revivalist answer to all the woes contemporary Muslim societies was a return to the supposed days of purity when Islam was free of all deviations and accretions. Shikwa superbly sums up a prevailing sentiment of despondency among educated Muslims. It is the expression, rather than the theme, which is original.
The poem comprising of 31 stanzas of 6 lines each can be divided into three distinct parts. 21 The first and the longest part dwells upon Iqbal’s narrative of Islam in which its role in world history is celebrated. The second part deals with his complaint to Allah about what he has not done for the Muslims. The third part consists of his specific demands from Allah. A Pan-Islamist and revivalist sentiment pervades all three parts. Iqbal begins with an expression of sadness at the fate of Islam. He, then, goes on to decry the state of affairs in the world before the rise of Islam. (Ham se pahle thā ajab tere jahāñ kā manzar, Kahīñ masjūd the patthar kahīñ mābūd shajar). It was the might of the Muslims that put an end to such practices and made the world acknowledge the supremacy of Allah (Tujh ko mālūm hai letā thā koī naam terā, Quvvat-e-bāzu-e-muslim ne kiyā kaam terā). 22
Iqbal underlines the importance of those who reposed faith in the message of Allah and reinforces the image of Islam as the religion that spread through the world with the help of the sword. 23 It is notable that he conflates religious and ethnic communities. His choice of the complainant is both deliberate and purposeful, for religious identities can change, while ethnic identities cannot. He cannot write on behalf of the Arabs (who alone could argue that out of all the peoples of the world, it was they who spread Islam), as his primary objective is to unite the Muslims of the world and strengthen the Umma. To have focused on the Arabs would have risked serving merely the interests of Arab nationalism and exceptionalism within Islam. That is why Iqbal writes that out of all the communities that inhabited the world before the rise of Islam, such as Turanis, Chinese, Sassanids, Greeks, Jews and Christians, it is Muslims alone who raised the sword for Allah (Par tere naam pe talvār uThā.ī kis ne, Baat jo bigḌī huī thī vo banā.ī kis ne).
Referring to Azaan in the churches of Europe (Diñ azāneñ kabhī Europe ke kalīsāoñ meñ, Kabhī africa ke tapte hue sahrāoñ meñ), Iqbal evokes the Islamic conquest of Spain (Al Andalus) and parts of France in the eighth century, as well as to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Churches were converted into mosques. The conversion of the great Orthodox Cathedral in Constantinople into the grand mosque of Istanbul is probably the most well-known example of this kind. For Iqbal, these events are an integral part of his triumphalist narrative of Islam.
His allusion to Mahmud Ghaznavi’s attack on the Somnath temple in 1024
In another stanza, (Tū hī kah de ki ukhāḌā dar-e-ḳhaibar kisne, Shahr qaisar kā jo thā us ko kiyā sar kisne) Khaiber could refer either to the Battle of Khaibar fought between the forces of Prophet Muhammad and the Jews living in the oasis of Khaiber in 628
The ethical ideal of equality of all Muslims is celebrated in Shikwa (Ek hī saf meñ khaḌe ho ga.e mahmūd o ayaaz, Na koī banda rahā aur na koī banda-navāz). Often regarded as a crucial factor behind the spread of Islam, it is invoked by Iqbal by referring again to Mahmud Ghaznavi and his slave Ayaz. Whereas Islam had historically provided for a legally instituted form of slavery in which slaves were granted certain rights, Iqbal’s mention of the predominantly Turkish slaves who were in reality trusted soldiers and commanders of the Muslim rulers and had a powerful position in many Muslim polities glosses over the fact that they were slaves only in name. 25
Further, Iqbal claims that Muslims have destroyed all false beliefs (Safha-e-dahr se bātil ko miTāyā ham ne, Nau-e-insāñ ko ġhulāmī se chhuḌāyā ham ne). With great disappointment, he tells Allah that despite Muslims doing so much in his name, if Allah still thinks that they are not faithful enough to him, he is ungenerous. In order to underline the Muslims’ devotion, Iqbal invokes the Islamic belief that it was a religion that destroyed all false faiths.
With shock and dismay, Iqbal asks Allah whether he is aware of how infidelity is flourishing and whether he cares for his message of Tawhid (Khanda-zan kufr hai ehsās tujhe hai ki nahīñ, Apnī tauhīd kā kuchh paas tujhe hai ki nahīñ) for spreading which Muslims had done so much over the centuries. The material progress of other communities at a time when Muslims were not doing well makes for a very serious complaint from Iqbal. What is most shocking to the poet is that those who are not civilized enough to talk in a polite gathering have their treasuries full (Ye shikāyat nahīñ haiñ un ke ḳhazāne māmūr, Nahīñ mahfil meñ jinheñ baat bhī karne kā shu.ūr). The allusion here is to Hindus who (especially during the Hindi–Urdu debate of the early twentieth century) were accused of lacking the high culture embodied by the Urdu-speaking Muslim elite in North India. 26 Why is it so rare, Iqbal queries, to find wealth among Muslims (Kyuuñ musalmānoñ meñ hai daulat-e-duniyā nāyāb, Terī qudrat to hai vo jis kī na had hai na hisāb), when the power and mercy of Allah are not bounded by any limits, when he can produce bubbles of water in a desert? A little later, Iqbal asserts that by switching his friendship between Muslims and non-Muslims, Allah himself becomes faithless (Kabhī ham se kabhī ġhairoñ se shanāsā.ī hai, Baat kahne kī nahīñ tū bhī to harjā.ī haī). While Congress nationalism saw colonialism as the cause of the poverty of Indians regardless of their religion, Iqbal’s powerful poetry, bemoaning the predicament of Muslims in particular, took a different track.
V
The Muslim, written in June 1912, is probably the first Pan-Islamist poem written after Shikwa. Iqbal combines a narrative of despair with an assertion of Islam’s historical role in creating tawhid (the unity of God) when he wrote, ‘O friend! I am a Muslim, a bearer of the message of unity of God’ (Hum nasheen! Muslim hun mein, tawhid ka hamil hun main), and describes the Muslim as abolisher of the worship of false faith (Gharat-gar-e-batil parasti).
27
Also written in 1912, Naved-e-Subah (Good News of the Dawn) called upon the Muslims to wake up from their dreams and get into action.
28
The Balkan Wars of 1912–13, in which an alliance of Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and Bulgaria fought against the Ottoman Empire for liberating their ethnic populations, evoked a deep emotional response from Iqbal. He wrote many poems expressing his solidarity with the Ottomans and his faith in Pan-Islamism in general.
29
Telling the story of an Arab girl who died serving water to the Arab Ghazis, Fatima Bint-e-Abdullah (Fatima Daughter of Abdullah), he described her as the ‘pride of the community of deceased’ (aabroo-e-ummat-e-marhoom) and complimented her for being fortunate enough to serve the warriors of Islam.
30
Jawab-e-Khizr, especially the section Dunya-e-Islam, lamented that the blood of Muslims had become as cheap as water and called upon the Muslims to become cohesive and united for the defence of Islam:
31
Aik hoñ muslim haram kī pāsbānī ke liye
Neel ke sāhil se le kar tā-ba-ḳhāk-e-kāshġhar
(Let Muslims be united for the defence of the Haram, From the banks of the Nile to the deserts of the Kashghar)
Another important poem of this kind is Jawab-e-Shikwa. Written in 1913, this poem was supposed to be Allah’s reply to Iqbal’s numerous complaints made in Shikwa. It described the presumed flaws of the Muslims, which were responsible for their suffering, and prescribed solutions for regaining their past glory. The flaws included idolatry, irregularity in offering namaz, not keeping fasts during Ramzan and being unskilled. He further pointed to ethnic and racial divisions, infighting and the acceptance of cultural practices of Christians, Hindus and Jews. Cowardice, lack of enthusiasm for the cause of Islam, an inability to sacrifice and the lack of an enterprising spirit were also mentioned. Muslims were told Tumme hooronn ka koi chahne wala hi nahin, jatwa-i-toor to maujood hai moosa hi nahin. The solution to all these ills consisted of becoming truly faithful Muslims once again. 32
In Tulu-e-Islam (Rise of Islam), one of Iqbal’s most important long poems, Iqbal admitted that it was the storm in the West that made Muslims into true Muslims. The poem reiterated his commitment to a Pan-Islamism, deeply rooted in his historical narrative of Islam.
33
He called upon the Muslims of the world to abolish all their ethnic and national boundaries and merge themselves in the Islamic Millat, predicting that from their present sufferings (such as those of the Ottomans) a better future would soon be born:
Musalmāñ ko musalmāñ kar diyā tūfān-e-maġhrib ne
Talātum-hā-e-dariyā hī se hai gauhar kī seerābī
(The storm in the West made Muslims into true Muslims
From the buffetings of the sea are produced abundant pearls)
Atā momin ko phir dargāh-e-haq se hone vaalā hai
Shikoh-e-turkamānī zehn hindī nutq ārābī
(From the court of God the believers will again receive
The grandeur of the Turkmans, the intellect of the Indians, and the eloquence of the Arabs)
Agar usmāniyoñ par koh-e-ġham TuuTā to kyā ġham hai
Ki ḳhūn-e-sad-hazār-anjum se hotī hai sahar paidā
(Even if a mountain of sorrow has broken upon the Ottomans, why grieve
From the blood of a hundred thousand stars is born the new dawn)
Butān-e-rañg-o-ḳhūñ ko toḌ kar millat meñ gum ho jā
Na tūrānī rahe baaqī na īrānī na afġhānī
(Breaking the idols of color and blood, lose yourself in the Muslim brotherhood
Let there be no Turanian, no Iranian, and no Afghan)
In a broadly similar category, his poem Sultan Tipu Ki Wasiyat (the Testament of Tipu Sultan) echoed his belief expressed elsewhere that the fall of Tipu Sultan ‘meant the extinguishment of Muslim hopes for prestige in India’. 34
During his return journey from the Round Table Conference in 1931, Iqbal paid a visit to Spain. He was generously hosted in Madrid and delivered a lecture on the Intellectual World of Islam and Spain under the chairmanship of Prof Palacios, the author of the famous book, Islam and the Divine Comedy.
35
During this stay in Spain, on his visit to the site of the famous mosque in Cordoba, he wrote a poem titled Masjid-e-Qurtaba (The Mosque of Cordoba). The mosque was built by the Arab conqueror Abd al Rahman of the Umayyad dynasty in 734
Aaj bhī is des meñ aam hai chashm-e-ġhazāl
Aur nigāhoñ ke tiir aaj bhī haiñ dil-nashīñ
(Eyes like those of gazelles are common in this country even today
And the arrows shot from the eyes pierce the heart even today)
Bū-e-yaman aaj bhī us kī havāoñ meñ hai
Rañg-e-hijāz aaj bhī us kī navāoñ meñ hai
(The fragrance of Yemen is found in its air even today
Its music carries the strains of the melodies of Hijaz even today)
This long reflective poem embodies a profound sense of nostalgia for the Islamic past of southern Spain.
VI
Till 1915, Iqbal wrote only in Urdu; between 1915 and 1938, he wrote in both Urdu and Persian. Although he started writing poetry early, his earliest published poems can be traced back only to 1899 when he was about twenty-two years old. From this time to 1905 when he left for England he wrote prolifically. The first part of his Urdu anthology Bang-i-Dara, published in 1924, consists of poems written till 1905. While celebrating Indian nationalism and syncretic culture he did not write any Persian poetry, though he knew the language well enough. Even after his return from England, he did not write in Persian for many years. His first Persian book was published only in 1915.
Why, after 1915, did Iqbal write much of his poetry in Persian, which was neither his mother tongue, nor a language widely understood in India any longer? Once the official language ofNorth Indian empires and the language of the educated Muslim and Hindu elite, who used it for official purposes and literary writings, Persian had been replaced by the second half of the nineteenth century. The official language, language of culture and literature in North India, became Urdu. Urdu was cultivated by the Muslim and Hindu elite, who used it to write poetry. The dominant literary culture in the north shifted from Persian to Urdu. Urdu was a purely indigenous language in terms of its syntax and grammar. By the late nineteenth century, the trend to Persianize it by replacing Hindi words gathered momentum. Iqbal was well aware that Persian was no longer widely understood even among the Muslim elite. This was probably the reason that till about the age of thirty-eight, he wrote in Urdu. Even after he began to write in Persian, he continued to write in Urdu as well.
There were good reasons for this, though Iqbal did not make them explicit. Abandoning Urdu would have disconnected him from the Indian Muslim community, whereas he wished to strengthen its consciousness as part of the Umma. At the same time, writing Persian poetry could help him reach the larger Muslim world. He probably acquired a preference for Persian, which enhanced his literary credentials and authority within the cultural world of Islam. Persian was regarded as the second most important language after Arabic. Writing in both languages seemed to work for him. Nevertheless, his greatness as a poet rests largely on his Urdu poetry, which has been extensively read in the Indian subcontinent over the last hundred years. By contrast, although it has been analysed and written about by literary critics, his Persian poetry has never gained popularity, either in India or elsewhere.
In this section, all seven Persian anthologies of Iqbal, Asrar-i-Khudi, Rumuz-i-Bekhudi, Payam-i-Mashriq, Zabur-i-Ajam, Javid Nama, Pas Che Bāyad Kard Ai Aqvām-i-Mashriq and Armughan-Hijaz, have been taken up in a chronological order for analysis from the viewpoint of identifying and explaining the themes of Pan-Islamism and revivalism.
Asrar-i-Khudi
Asrar-i-Khudi (Secrets of the Self) was his first book of Persian poetry. Published in 1915, it is primarily a philosophical book whose principal theme is building the self (khudi), so as to serve the community. However, there are a few poems in this book that express the political and cultural ideas of Allama Iqbal. Such is the poem that tells the story of Saiyyad Makhdoom Ali Hujweri, one of the earliest and the most prominent Sufi saints of the Indian subcontinent, who moved to Lahore and settled there in 1009 in the wake of the conquest of the region by Mahmud Ghaznavi, just as some two centuries later Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti would settle in Ajmer around the time of the victory of Shahabuddin Muhammad Gauri over Prithviraj Chauhan, which might be indicative of a trend of Sufis’ migration being linked to the conquests of Muslim rulers. It might be argued that Iqbal was well aware of the symbiotic relationship between the Islamic conquests in India and the geographical distribution and religio-cultural entrenchment of the Sufis. Hujweri’s shrine located in Lahore is visited by a large number of people. Notwithstanding his general critique of Sufism, Iqbal also frequented the shrine and has celebrated Hujweri here as the man responsible for sowing the seed of Islam in the Indian subcontinent by breaking down mountain barriers, as also the man under whose feet even the dust of Punjab came to life:
sayyad-e-hujvair makHdūm-e-umam
marqad-e-ū pīr-e-sanjar rā haram
band hā-e-kohsār āsāñ gusekHt
dar zamīn-e-hind tuḳhm-e-sajdeh reḳht….
kHāk-e-panjāb az dam-e-ū zinda gasht
subh-e-mā az mehr-e-ū tābinda gasht
Saiyyed Ali Hajwir who was venerated by the Muslim peoples, And whose tomb was visited by Pir-i-Sanjar, i.e., Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, He broke down the mountain barriers with ease,
And sowed the seed of Islam in India…
He brought to life the dust of Punjab, His sun-like splendour made our mornings splendid.
Another important poem of this kind with deep cultural undertones is Hekayat (e) sheikh va berahman, which tells the story of a learned Brahmin who goes to a Shaikh for spiritual knowledge and is told to remain true to his own faith, that is, infidelity, since even that is a basis for unity and community life. The Brahmin is addressed by the Sheikh reverently as the inheritor of an ancient culture. It might, thus, be argued that for Iqbal both Muslims and non-Muslims, that is, faith and infidelity, are legitimate constituents of political organization, even if placed in an implicitly adversarial relationship to each other, unlike modern territorial nationalism, which cuts across ties of religion and is, therefore, rejected by Iqbal as a basis for political organization.
dar banāras barhamande mohtaram
sar firo andar yam-e-būd-o-’adam
bahra-ī vāfir ze-hikmat dāshte
bā-ḳhudā joyāñ irādat dāshte …
ai amānat-dār-e-tahzīb-e-kohan
pusht-e-pā bar maslak-e-ābā ma-zan
gar ze-jam’īyat hayāt-e-millatasat
kufr ham sarmāya-e-jam’īyatast
tū ki ham dar kāfirī kāmil na.ī
dar kHur-e-tauf-e-harīm-e-dil na.ī
There lived a venerable Brahmin in Varanasi,
He was immersed in the thoughts of being and non-being,
He had an ocean of knowledge,
And was well-disposed to seekers after God…
O! Inheritor of ancient culture,
Do not abandon the path of your forefathers;
Since unity is the heart of a people’s existence,
Infidelity too is the basis of unity;
You who are not even a perfect infidel,
Are not fit to worship at the shrine of the heart.
Similarly, in another poem, Iqbal declares that the fundamental duty of a Muslim is to love others, failing which he is reduced to an infidel, which again highlights one of the central tropes in Iqbal’s poetry of visualizing the Muslims and Hindus as two communities whose fundamental traits are counterposed to each other, in this case, love or emotion being the characteristic trait of a Muslim and by implication lack of it as the characteristic trait of the Hindus who are elsewhere portrayed as shrewd and driven by self-serving calculations:
qalb rā az sibaġhatullāh rañg deh
‘ishq rā nāmūs-o-nām-o-nanañg deh
tab’-e-muslim az mohabbat qāhirast
muslim ar ‘āshiq na-bāshad kāfirast …
Suffuse your heart with the colour of Allah,
And give honour and glory to love;
Love is in the very nature of the Muslim, He is an infidel, if he be not loving.
In another poem titled Precepts Written for the Muslims of India by Mir Najat Nakshband, Allama Iqbal expresses his deep sense of dismay at the hegemony of Western knowledge and how it has led to the degeneration of Islam. Modern or Western knowledge is described here as the most undesirable thing from the viewpoint of a Muslim, in as much as it is idol-worshipping, idol-selling and idol-making, idol being a familiar trope in Iqbal meant to contrast faith with infidelity. Moreover, the old imagery of Somnath alluded to in his poem Shikwa is explicitly invoked here in an interesting manner by equating it with cold intelligence which is conquered by the Mahmud of love:
dānish-e-hāzir hijāb-e-akbar ast
but-parsat-o-but-farosh-o-but-gar ast …
jumla ‘ālam sājid-o-masjūd-e-’ishq
somnāt-e-’aql rā mahmūd-e-’ishq…
bazm-e-muslim az charāġh-e-ġhair sokHt
masjid-e-ū az sharār-e-dair sokHt
Modern knowledge is the thickest veil, Idol-worshipping, idol-selling, idol making!…. The world bows down to the power of love,
To the Somnath of intellect, love is Mahmud the conqueror…
The lamps of strangers are lighting up the assembly of Muslims, The sparks of monasticism are eating up his mosque.
Romuz-e-Bekhudi
The Romuz-e-Bekhudi (Secrets of Selflessness) was published by Iqbal just three years after Asrar-e-Khudi in 1918 and is regarded as a sequel to the first. The focus of the book is on Muslims as a community and their social and ethical life. The individual here is portrayed as part of a larger community meaning the Umma for whose advance he is urged to sacrifice the self, which has presumably been exalted by the impact of Asrar-e-Khudi. The Romuz contains many poems where Iqbal’s political and cultural views regarding Islamic revivalism and Pan-Islamism are passionately expressed. Arguably the most important poem of this kind is the one titled Emperor Alamgir and the Tiger, which echoes the dominant perspective among the Muslim elite at that time of portraying Aurangzeb as the ideal man and ruler, while denigrating Akbar as a non-orthodox, even heretic who deviated from the righteous path of Islam. It should be noted that this perspective had come into existence mainly as a result of the British policy of divide and rule to promote which they had in their historiography started pitting Aurangzeb against Akbar in order to widen the rift between the Hindus and Muslims. Most of this colonial historiography was uncritically accepted by sections of the Muslim elite whose politics was driven by their desire to retain whatever power they could after the disintegration of the Mughal empire. In the poem, the political conflict between Aurangzeb and Dara is rather simplistically portrayed as one between faith and infidelity. All praise is reserved for Aurangzeb who is described as the pride of the Mughals, the pillar of Islam, the last arrow in the quiver of Islam in India, and as the faqir who was sent by Allah to suppress the seed of heresy sown by Akbar and nourished by Dara:
shāh-e-’ālam-gīr gardūñ āstāñ
‘etibār-e-dūdamān-e-gorgāñ
pāya-e-islāmiyāñ bartar azū
ehtirāam-e-shar’-e-paiġhambar azū
darmiyān-e-kār-zār-e-kufro-dīñ
tarkash-e-mā rā kHadañg-e-ākHrīñ
tukHm-e-ilhāde ki akbar parvarīd
baaz andar fitrat-e-dārā damīd
sham’-e-dil dar sīnah-hā raushan na-būd
millat-e-mā az fasād aiman na-būd
haq-gazīd az hind ‘ālam-gīr rā
aañ faqīr-e-sāheb-e-shamshīr rā
Emperor Alamgir dwelling in heaven, Who is the pride and renown of the Gurgans,
The pillar of Islam became stronger because of him;
In him the Prophet’s law found the highest honour;
In the conflict between faith and infidelity,
He was the last arrow in our quiver;
When the seed of heresy sown and nourished by Akbar
Sprouted again in the heart of Dara, The heart’s candle did no longer light up our community,
And the Millat was afflicted with conflict;
Then God sent to India Alamgir, The faqir and the warrior.
The Pan-Islamist sentiment that rejected modern territorial nationalism is strongly expressed in another poem in the Romuz which explicitly states that it is the religious community, and not the country, that should be the main organizing principle of human affairs:
aañ chunāñ qate’-e-ukHūvat kardah and
bar-vatn -ta’amīr-e-millat kardah and
tā-vatan rā sham’-e-mahfil sākHtand
nau’-e-insañ rā qabā.il sākHtand
And thus brotherhood has been cut to pieces by Europe, Country has become the basis of community, Country has acquired the pride of place, And humanity has been divided into separate tribes.
This is followed by another poem asserting that life of the community can only be maintained with the help of Sharia, whose binding force alone makes it into a bouquet of roses. This would logically lead Iqbal to conclude that since Sharia could not possibly prevail in composite nationhood, separate nationhood was the only way:
millat-e-rā raft chuuñ aa.iin ze-dast
misl-e-kHāk ajzā-e-ū az ham shikast
hastī-e-muslim ze-ā.īn ast-o-bast
bātin-e-dīn-e-nabī iiñ ast-o-bast
barg-e-gul shud chuuñ ze-ā.īn bastah shud
gul ze- ā.īn-e-bastah shud guldastah shud
If a community abandons its law,
Like the dust, it gets scattered;
The existence of the Muslim rests on obedience to the law,
The crux of the message of the Prophet;
When the petals are joined together by the force of law they become flowers;
And flowers alike joined together become the bouquet.
Payam-i-Mashriq
Rubaiyat
The Payam-i-Mashriq (The Message of the East) was written by Iqbal in 1923 as a response to the West-östlicher Diwan composed by Goethe, the famous German poet, in 1820. The book contains a number of quatrains or rubaiyat and other poems expressing Iqbal’s political and cultural ideas. Underlining his own contradictions born out of his Brahmanical origins or initiation in modern western knowledge, he describes himself as an idol-worshipping Kafir who is nevertheless driven by love of God, the hallmark of a man of faith, that is, Muslim:
dimāġham kāfir-e-zunnār dārast
butāñ rā banda-o-parvardigārast
dilam rā biiñ ki nālad az ġham-e-’ishq
turā bā dīn-o-ā.īnam che kārast
My brain is a committed infidel,
It creates its own idols and worships them;
But see how my heart cries for the love of God,
What is your concern for my creed?
Another quatrain gives a passionate call for abandoning all distinctions of race and creed within Islam and become unified. Thus, Afghans, Turks and Tartars are called upon to give up their racial identities and become one, as if that was a panacea for all the troubles of Islam in the twentieth century. Interestingly, just as in his Urdu poetry, here too, Iqbal does not call upon the Arabs to give up their racial identity, since in his imagination they are the chosen people of Allah who are justified in keeping aloof from this scheme of merger of identities. He simply ignores the fact that in the heyday of its power Islam had accommodated multiple racial, ethnic and national identities, which implies that there was no clear connection between political power and unity of different Muslim groups:
na afġhānem-o-ne turk-o-tatarem
chaman-zādem-o-az yak shākHsārem
tamīz-e-rañg-o-bū bar mā harāmast
ki mā parvarda-e-yak nau bahārem
Neither Afghans, nor Turks, nor Tatars;
We belong to one great garden, one great tree;
Distinctions of colour are forbidden to us;
For we were born out of one splendid springtide.
The imagery of Somnath is again invoked in a rubaiyat which laments how people of faith may break a hundred idols but remain prisoner to being’s Somnath, which indicates that for Iqbal it is not enough to break the idols of stone but also to destroy all the idols of mind:
hakīmāñ gar che sad paikar shikastand
muqīm-e-somnāt būdand-o-hastand
chasāñ afrishta-o-yazdāñ bagīrand
hanūz ādam bafitrake na bastand
Though the wise may break a hundred idols,
They remain imprisoned in being’s Somnath;
Though they chase God and his angels, They are yet to capture even man.
Another rubaiyat calls upon the Muslims to give up practices such as worshipping tombs and shrines, which Iqbal sees as deviation from the true faith caused by the influence of Hinduism:
ramīdī az kHudā-vandān-e-afran.g
vale bar-gaur-o-guñbad sajda-pāshī
ba-lālā.ī chunāñ ’ādat giraftī
ze-sañg-e-rāh maulā-e-tarāshī
You deny the western demi-gods,
Yet you bow down to tombs and domes;
So used are you to servitude
That you carve idols even from the stones of the road.
Iqbal calls upon the Muslims not to remain down and out anymore but to face the challenges of the world just as the falcon does by flying high and seeking his food in the sky:
qabā-e-zindagānī chaak taake
chū morāñ āshiyāñ dar kHaak taake
ba-parvāz ā-o-shāhīnī ba-yāmoz
talāsh-e-dāna dar kHāshāk taake
How long will you remain depressed?
How long will you keep your nest in the dust like ants?
Learn to fly high like a falcon;
How long will you search for food on the ground?
Underlining the great power his poetry exercised on the minds of the believers, Iqbal laments that though his fervour has warmed up the blood of the Muslims, he has not yet been successful in bringing them around completely to his view, so that they do not see the world through his eyes. Little did he know that soon after his death in 1938 a powerful section of the Muslims in India would indeed come around to his view of Islam in India, a change that would bring about stupendous consequences for both Muslims and the country as a whole:
rag-e-muslim ze-soz-e-man tapīd ast
ze-chshmash ashk-e-be-tābem chakīd ast
hanūz az mahshar-e-jānam na-dānad
jahāñ rā bā-nigāh-e-man na-dīd ast
The fire of my poetry has warmed up the Muslim’s blood,
My tears are shed from his eyes;
But he still knows not the upheaval in my heart, Because he does not see the world through my eyes.
Moving on to nazms in Payam-i-Mashriq, among the most significant of these is Maykhana-e-Farang in which the poet seems to reminisce about his own student days in Europe, asserting that despite having great temptations, such as the eyes of the Saqi (perhaps an allusion to the women he met there) which are as intoxicating as wine and pierce the hearts of the drinkers straight and deep, the West has no Moses or Abraham because it does not understand the language of love but only of intellect. Thus, the love seen in those eyes is not really love as Iqbal might have wanted it, but some kind of shrewd snare capable of captivating as well as unsettling the minds of the lovers and throwing them into a deep sea of internal conflict from which escape would be very difficult, if not impossible. This, one could argue, may well have been the experience of Iqbal himself during his stay in Europe between 1905 and 1908:
yaad ayyām-e-ki būdam dar chamnistān-e-farañg
jam-e-ū raushan-tar az ā.īna-e-askandar ast
chashm-e-mast-e-mai-e-firdoshash baada rā parvardigār
baada kHvārāñ rā nigāh-e-sāqi-ash paiġhambar ast
jalva-e-ū be-kalīm-o-sho’la-e-ū be-kHalīl
’aql-e-nā-parvā matā’-e-’ishq rā ġhārat-gar ast
dar havāyash garmī-e-yak āh-e-be-tābāna niist
rind-e-īñ mai-kHāna rā yak laġhzish-e-mastāna niist
I remember the days I spent in the tavern of the West;
Its wine-bowls shine more than Alexander’s looking-glass;
Its saqi’s eyes are as intoxicating as its wine;
Their every glance is a message to a drinker’s heart;
But the West has no Moses and no Abraham
Its careless intellect destroys the feeling of love;
There is no deep sigh of emotion in its air;
No one sways on his feet in the tavern of the West.
Just as in his Urdu poetry Iqbal celebrated the Islamic conquests of large parts of the world and thus supported the view expressed by the critics of Islam that its expansion happened because of the sword, in the Payam-i-Mashriq too he proudly invokes the conquest of Spain and Portugal by Tariq Ibn Ziyad in the early eighth century by echoing a legend that he burned up the ships that carried his armies to Spain so as to forgo the option of going back without conquest:
tāriq chū bar-kanāra-e-undulus safīna sokHt
guftand kār-e-tū ba-nigāh-e-khirad kHatāst
dūrem az savād-e-vatan baaz chuuñ rasem?
tark-e-sabab ze-rū-e-sharī’at kujā ravā ast
kHandīd-o-dast-e-kHvesh ba-shamshīr burd-o-guft
har mulk mulk-e-māst ki mulk-e-kHudā-e-māst
When Tariq burned his boats on Andalusia’s coast,
His companions said you have done an unwise thing;
We are far from home; how shall we return?
Where is foregoing the means of return provided for in Sharia?
Laughing, he put his hand on his sword and said, All lands are God’s and they are all our homeland too.
In one of the most powerful Persian poems written by Iqbal, Song of the Hejazi Camel Driver, he apotheosizes the Arabs as the leader of the caravan of Islam and symbolically calls upon the Muslims of the world to move faster towards the ideal faith represented by the Arabs, because time for action was running out and the destination, which is presumably Hijaz, is not far:
nāqa-e-sayyār-e-man
āhū-e-tātār-e-man
dirham-o-dīnār-e-man
andak-o-bisyār-e-man
daulat-e-bedār-e-man
tez turk gāmazan manzil-e-mā duur niist …
naġhma-e-man dil-kushā.e
zer-o-bamash jāñ-fizā.e
qāfila haarā dara.e
fitna-rubā fitna-zā.e
ai ba-haram chehra.e saa.e
tez turk gāmazan manzil-e-mā duur niist
My fleet-footed dromedary, My doe of the Tartar country, O my entire money, O my patrimony, O my fortune, Quicken your pace a little; journey’s end is near. The song I sing is lively, Lively, but full of foreboding, For the caravan it is a warning, That the hour has struck for starting,
O you going towards the Harem!
Quicken your pace a little; journey’s end is near.
Zabur-I-Ajam
Zabur-i-Ajam (Persian Psalms), published in 1927, consists of two long poems, Gulshan-i Raz-i Jadid (The Garden of New Secret) and Bandagi Nama (Book of Servitude), both of which have philosophical themes. In one of the stanzas from Zabur-i-Ajam, the complexities and contradictions of Iqbal’s poetic imagination come out forcefully in a rare personal allusion. Here he takes pride in his Brahmin ancestry, but the comparison with Tabriz and Rum also proclaims his transition from the intellectual world of India to that of Islam:
marā ba-nigar ki dar hindostāñ digar namī biinī
barhaman-zāda ai ramz āshnā-e-rum-o-tabrez ast
Behold! For in the land of India you will not see one like me again, Though a Brahman’s son, I know Rum and Tabriz very well.
Another poem addressing Allah laments that the Muslim is now too old in both body and spirit to fight for him. Iqbal, then, sarcastically asks Allah either to bring around the Brahmin to accept his message or to command him to replace Allah by creating new gods. Lamenting that Adam’s descendants, that is, mankind, have deteriorated to the level of Satan, Iqbal calls upon Allah to create another Adam:
yā musalmāñ rā mada-e-farmāñ ki jaañ bar kaf ba-neh
yā darīñ farsūda paikar taaza jaane āfrīñ
yā chunāñ kun yā chunīñ
Either do not command the Muslim to sacrifice his life, Or create a new spirit In his old body.
yā barhaman rā bafarmā nau kHudāvande tarāsh
yā kHud andar sīna-e-zunnāryāñ kHalvat-guzīñ
yā chunāñ kun yā chunīñ
Either give command to the Brahmin to carve another god for you, Or make his heart your dwelling place.
yā digar aadam ki az iblīs bāshad kamtark
yā digar iblīs bahr-e-imtihān-e-a’ql-o-dīñ
yā chunāñ kun yā chunīñ
Either create another Adam a little less evil than Iblis, Or create another Satan to assail Adam’s wisdom and faith.
The familiar trope of critiquing the West and its modernity for causing the moral and spiritual decline of mankind, especially of the Muslims, is evoked in a stanza which alludes to his own stay in Europe during which he underwent the emotional and ideological transformation:
ze-mīnā-e-ki kHurdam dar firañg andesha tārīk ast
safar varzīda-e-kHud rā nigāh-e-rāh binī deh
After drinking the West’s wine bowl darkness settled over my soul, O God! Give me the sight to see the right path.
According to Iqbal, both the Arabs and the Persians have declined so much that they are almost devoid of their old respective virtues of bravery and cultural refinement:
’arab ki baaz dahad mahfil-e-shabāna kujāst
’ajam ki zinda kunad rud ’āshiqāna kujāst
Where is the Arab to revive the old night-revelry, And where the Persian, to bring alive the love-lute?
The decline of religion in the modern world supposedly because of modernity is powerfully expressed in a poem in which the Sheikh is described as misleading the Muslims and the Brahmin deceiving the Hindus. According to Iqbal, science has brought humanity to such a pass that Ahirman (the old Zoroastrian god of evil) is replacing the true god, Yazdan (literally, kind or merciful, often used as a synonym for Allah). Both Muhammad and Jesus Christ have been abandoned by their followers. To Iqbal’s mind, all of this calls for a revolt.
sheikh-e-shahr az ristha-e-tasbīh-e-sad momin badām
kāfirān-e-sādā dil rā barhaman zunnār-e-tāb
inqalāb inqalāb ai inqalāb
The city Sheikh misleads hundreds of Muslims with his string of beads,
The simple Kafirs too are misled by the Brahmin with his sacred thread.
Revolt, revolt, revolt!…
ai musalmānāñ fuġhāñ az fitna-hā-e-’ilm-o-fan
ahraman andar jahāñ arzāñ-o-yazdāñ der yaab
inqalāb inqalāb ai inqalāb
O Muslims! Let us lament the havoc wreaked by modern knowledge,
Ahirman has become cheap and Yazdan has gone out of reach.
Revolt, revolt, revolt! …
dar kalīsā ibn-e-maryam rā ba-dār āvekHtan
mustafā az ka’aba hijrat karda bā-ummul-kitāb
inqalāb inqalāb ai inqalāb
In the Churches, the Son of Maryam (Jesus Christ) is sacrificed on the cross,
The Prophet too has left the Kaba with the Quran,
Revolt, revolt, revolt! …
There is a complete rejection of the West in a stanza, which also suggests that just like great emperors Darius, Alexander and others who had only a brief existence, the current dominance of the West would also prove to be a fleeting phenomenon:
ba-guzar az kHāvar-o-afsūnī-e-afrañg masho
ki nayarzad ba-jūe iiñ hama derīna-o-nau
Abandon the West, be not bewitched by its wizardry, Not worth even a barley is its culture both ancient and new.
chuuñ par-e-kāh ki dar rahguzare baad uftād
raft askandar-o-dārā-o-qubād-o-kHusrau
Like a blade of grass lying on the way, swept away by the wind
Are mighty Alexander, Darius, Qubad and Khusrau.
Javid Nama
Published in 1932, Javid Nama (Book of Eternity) is frequently regarded as the best book of Persian poetry written by Iqbal in which many of his political and cultural ideas find powerful expression. Inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, Iqbal’s Javid Nama depicts him visiting different spheres of the heavens along with his guide poet Rumi, who introduces him to various people and explains things to him. Important characters depicted in the book are Zinda Rud, who is Iqbal himself, Jamaluddin Afghani (the father of Pan-Islamism), Halim Pasha, Ahmad Shah Abdali, Martyr King (Tipu Sultan), Jahan Dost (Indian sage Vishvamitra), great Sanskrit poet Bhartrihari and others. Representative samples from the book have been taken up here for our analysis. We find, for example, Jamaluddin Afghani asking Zinda Rud (Iqbal) to tell him about the condition of the Muslims on the earth:
zinda rud az ḳhāk-dān-e-mā ba-goī
az zamīn-o-āsmāñ mā ba-goī
kHākī-o-chūñ qudsiyāñ raushan basar
az muslamānāñ ba-deh maarā ḳhabar
O Zinda Rud, tell us of the terrestrial world, Tell us about the earth and sky,
Living on earth, your eyes are yet as sharp as those of angels;
Tell us something about the Muslims.
In response, Zinda Rud laments that Muslims—who once conquered the world—are now conflicted between the ideas of religion and country, that the Turks, Persians and Arabs have all come under the ideological sway of the West, whose imperial domination has led to the degeneration of the East, and that Communism has also reduced the lustre of religion and Millat. Thus, once again Iqbal rejects any alternative scheme of human organization, be it nationalism or Communism, and asserts that religion is the only valid basis of human organization:
dar zamīr-e-millat-e-getī shikan
dīda-am āvezash dīn-o-vatan
ruuh dar tan-e-murda az zo’f-e-yaqīñ
nā-umīd az qūvat-e-dīn-e-mubīñ
turk-o-īrān-o-’arab mast-e-firañg
har kase rā dar gulū shast-e-firañg
mashriq az sultānī-e-maġhrib ḳharāb
ishtirāk az dīn-o-millat burda tab
In the heart of a community that shattered the world
I see a conflict between religion and country;
The spirit in his body has died because of weakness of faith;
The Muslim despairs of the strength of his religion, The Turks, the Iranians and the Arabs are trapped by the West, The noose of the West is around every neck, The East has been ruined by the Western misrule, Communism has taken away the splendour of both faith and community.
Afghani then agrees with Zinda Rud and says that the West has introduced the concept of country as a cunning device to divide the Muslims, and calls upon them to forget that they are from separate countries like Syria, Iraq, and Palestine and become one, implying thereby, in the face of all historical evidence to the contrary, that before the Western influence, Muslims of the world had been one community without any distinctions of sect, race, ethnicity, etc:
lard maġhrib-e-āñ sarāpā makr-o-fan
ahl-e-dīñ rā daad ta’alīm-e-vatan
uu ba-fikr-e-markaz-o-tū dar nifāq
ba-guzar az shām-o-filistīn-o-’irāq
The lord of the West is cunning out and out;
He has taught the concept of country to the faithful;
While he is focused on the centre, you are engaged in discord;
Give up this talk of Syria, Palestine, and Iraq!
Then Said Halim Pasha, who had been the Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1917, asserts that in the name of renewing and reforming Islam Kemal Ataturk is changing its very essence, that he is in effect reinstalling the expelled idols of Lat and Manat in the Kaaba (a deep-rooted fear in Iqbal), and that he has no original vision and is merely mimicking the West:
mustafā kū az tajaddud mī surūd
guft naqsh-e-kohna rā bāyad zedūd
nau na-gardad ka’aba rā rakHt-e-hayāt
gar afrañg āyadash lāt-o-manāt
turk rā āhañg-e-nau dar chañg niist
taaza ash juz kohna-e-afrañg niist
sīna-e-ū rā dame dīgar na-būd
dar zamīrash ālame dīgar na-būd
Mustafa Kemal sang the song of rejuvenation,
He said that the old images must be abolished;
But the Kaba cannot get a new life,
If new Lat and Manat from Europe enter it;
The Turks have no new song to sing,
The old tune of Europe they call new;
In their hearts, there is no other breath;
In their minds, there is no other vision of the world.
The familiar trope of division and treachery is employed in the verses titled as The Spirit of India Laments. Here, Mir Jafar, who had gone over to the side of the East India Company against Nawab Sirajudaullah at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, is squarely blamed for the pitiable condition of India. It is said that though Jafar is dead his spirit pervades India in the sense that there are many traitors who murder the nation. Similarly, Mir Sadiq, a minister of Tipu Sultan who is said to have turned traitor, is mentioned as the cause of the ruin of Tipu. What is critical to note here is that Iqbal is referring to the loss of power suffered by the Muslims in India because of such traitors, and not to the loss of freedom for India as such:
sham-e’-jāñ afsurd dar fānūs-e-hind
hindiyāñ be-gāna az nāmūs-e-hind …
kei shab-e-hindostāñ aayad burūz
murd-e-ja’far zinda rūh-e-ū hanūz …
taa ze qaid-e yak badan wa mi rahad
Aashiyan andar tan-e-digar nihad…
ja’far andar har badn millat kushast
iiñ musalmān-e-kohan millat kushast …
millate rā har kujā ġhārat garīst
asl-e-ū az sādiqe yā ja’farīst
al-amāñ az rūh-e-ja’far al-amāñ
al-amāñ az ja’farān-e-īñ zamāñ
The soul’s candle is quenched in the lamp of India;
The Indians have become strangers to her fair name;…
O how will the nights of India turn into days?
Though Jafar is dead, his spirit lives on;…
When it leaves the confines of one body,
It makes its abode in another;…
Whatever the body, Jafar murders the nation;
This good old Muslim murders the nation;…
When a nation is destroyed anywhere
A Sadiq or a Jafar is at its root;…
God save me from the spirit of Jafar;
God save me from the Jafars of the present time.
Interestingly, Zinda Rud, that is Iqbal himself, is made to say that the Indians, presumably the Indian Muslims, have rejected the statutes of Europe as alien imports that could be no good for them:
hindiyāñ munkir ze-qānūn-e-firañg
dar nagīrad sahr-o-afsūn-e-firañg
ruuh rā bār-e-girāñ ā.īn-e-ġhair
gar che aayad ze-āsmāñ ā.īn-e-ġhair
The Indians reject the laws of Europe,
The magic and charms of Europe do not affect them;
Alien laws are a heavy burden on the soul, Even if they are ordained by heaven.
Then the Martyr King, that is, Tipu Sultan sings a moving song to the memory of the river Kavery which flowed through his territories, calling it dearer to him than Oxus and Euphrates, its water the very essence of life—an invocation that echoes Iqbal’s belief that local patriotism as such need not be in conflict with the unity of Millat. He laments the fate of his capital Mysore situated on the banks of the river:
rūd-e-kāverī yake narmak kHirām
kHasta.ī shāyad ki az sair-e-dvām
dar kohistāñ ’umrahā nālīda.ī
rāh-e-kHud rā bā-miza kāvīda.ī
ai marā kHushtar ze-jaihūn-o-forāt
ai dakan rā āb-e-tū āb-e-hayāt
aah shahre kū dar āġhosh-e-tū buud
husn-e-naushīñ jalva az nosh-e-tū buud
kohna gar diidī shabāb-e-tū hamāñ
pech-o-tāb-o-rañg-o-āab-e-tū hamāñ
mauj-e-tū juz dāna-e-gohar nazād
turrah-e-tū tā abad shorida baad
O river Kaveri! Flow gently for a while,
The continuous wandering has perchance tired you;
You have been crying in the mountain for ages,
With your eyelashes you have made your path;
O Kaveri! You are sweeter to me than the Oxus and Euphrates,
Your water is the elixir of life for the Deccan;
Alas! for the city which lay in your embrace,
Whose beauty was a reflection of your sweetness;
You have grown old, but your beauty is still young,
The rise and fall of your waves, the lustre of your water are unchanged;
Your waves have always begotten the purest pearls;
May you keep flowing strongly like this forever!
Pas Chih Bayad Kard Ay Aqwam-I-Mashriq
Pas Chih Bayad Kard ay Aqwam-i-Mashriq (What Should Then Be Done, O People of the East?) published in 1936 contains some important poems expressing Iqbal’s deep concern for the Umma. As shown earlier, Iqbal’s shift to Pan-Islamism and revivalism also led to an idealized formulation of the Arabs who were then presented as the fountainhead of all virtues supposedly required by the Muslims and the world. As the people to whom the Quran was revealed, the Arabs’ role in history is regarded by Iqbal as unique. Though Iqbal wants a united Umma, the Arabs as the first people of Islam have a special place in it. He wishes that the land of the Arabs ‘prosper for ever’ and describes the Arabs as the people from whom the world got knowledge and wisdom:
ai darū dasht-e-tū baaqī tā abad
na’ara-e-‘lā qaisr-o-kisra’ ki zad?
dar jahān-e-nazd-o-dūr-o-der-o-zūd
avvalīñ kHvānanda-e-qur.ān kei buud?
ramz-e-illallāh kā ra āmokHtand?
iiñ charāġh-e-avval kujā afrokHtand?
’ilm-o-hikmat reza-e az kHvān-e-kīst?
Āya ‘-e-fa asbahatum’ andar shān-e-kīst?
May your land prosper for ever!
Who gave the call, no Caesars and Khusraus?
In this world of near and far, fast and slow,
Who was the first to recite the Qur’an?
Who learnt the secret of la ilah first?
Where was this lamp lighted first?
From whom did the world get knowledge and wisdom?
For whom is the (Qur’anic) verse revealed: “You became”?
In another poem, all the woes of mankind are attributed by Iqbal to the West, even though he asserts that the long night of the East brought about by the West is coming to an end. Alluding to the devastating First World War, Iqbal asserts that the West has undermined religion and that it has harmed itself by its abandonment of religion. Though the West appears to be innocent and charming like a lamb, in reality, it is wily and cruel like a wolf:
ādamiyat zaar nālīd az farañg
zindagī hañgāma bar-chēd az farañg
pas che bāyad kard ai aqvām-e-sharq
baaz raushan mī shavad ayyām-e-sharq
dar zamīrash inqalāb aamad padīd
shab guzisht-o-āftāb aamad padīd
yūrap az shamshīr-e-kHud bismil fitād
zer-e-gardūñ rasm-e-lā-dīnī nihād
gurge andar postīn-e-barrah.ī
har zamāñ andar kamīn-e-barah.ī
mushkilāt-e-hazrat-e-insāñ azūst
ādamiyyat rā ġham-e-pinhāñ azūst
Mankind is crying because of the West;
Life has lost all charm because of the West;
What should then be done, O people of the East?
To brighten up the life of the East once again;
A revolution has manifested in the East’s heart,
Night has passed away, and the sun has risen;
Europe is wounded by its own sword;
It has laid the foundation of irreligion in the world;
It is a wolf in the garb of a lamb,
Every moment in ambush for a prey;
The troubles of mankind are due to Europe;
It is the source of all the hidden anguish of mankind.
As this paper argues, Iqbal’s historical narrative of the rise and growth of Islam is triumphalist and adversarial. The heroes and villains of that narrative are, therefore, almost predetermined. Thus, Mahmud Ghaznavi has been given a hero’s treatment by Allama Iqbal. Some of the verses cited earlier have alluded to Mahmud’s breaking of the Somnath temple, which is widely regarded as a traumatic event in Indian history. In fact, both in popular memory and in historical writings, Mahmud’s devastating invasions of India are well-acknowledged and constitute his image as predominantly an invader. Nevertheless, Iqbal here writes a full poem on Mahmud paying rich tributes to his life and memory, comparing his ‘ruthless sword’ to lightning, describing his flag as the ‘symbol of Allah on earth’, and finally asserting that ‘angels are reciting the Quran on his grave’:
kHezad az dil nāla-hā be-ikHtiyār
aah aañ shahre ki iiñ jā buud yaar
aañ dayār-o-kāKh-o-kū vīrāna iist
aañ shakoh-o-fāl-o-far afsāna iist
guñbade dar tauf-e-ū charkh-e-barīñ
turbat-e-sultān mahamūd ast iiñ
aañki chuuñ kūdak lab az kausar ba-shust
guft dar gahvāra nām-e-ū nakHust
barq-e-sozāñ teġh be-ze-nihār-e-ū
dasht-o-dar larzanda az yalġhār-e-ū
zer-e-gardūñ āyat-ullāh rāyatash
qudsiyāñ qurāñ sarā bar turbatash
Cries arise from my heart spontaneously,
Alas! That city which flourished here in the times past;
Those palaces, streets are all ruined now,
That glory, splendour, magnificence is a mere tale now;
The cupola circumambulated by the lofty sky,
This is the grave of Sultan Mahmud;
Whose name an infant when weaned of mother’s milk,
First uttered in the cradle;
His ruthless sword was like lightning,
On his onslaught lands quivered;
His flag was a symbol of Allah on the earth;
Angels are reciting the Qur’an at his grave.
In a similar poem on Babur, Iqbal reaffirms his own faith in Islam, celebrates the success of the Ottomans, bemoans the fate of the Timurids, and expresses satisfaction about Babaur’s grave being situated in Kabul, which is supposedly untouched by the Western influence:
biyā ki sāz-e-firañg az navā bar uftāad ast
darūn-e-parda-e-ū naġhma niist faryād ast
zamāna kohnā butāñ rā hazār baar ārāst
man az haram na-guzishtam ki pukHta bunyād ast
darafsh-e-millat-e-’usmāniyāñ dobāra buland
che goimat ki ba-taimūr yaañ che uftād ast
kHushā nasīb ki kHāk-e-tū āmīd iiñ jā
ki iiñ zamīñ ze-tilism-e-firañg āzād ast
hazār martaba kābul nikotar az dillī ast
ki aañ ’ajūza ’arūs-e-hazār dāmād ast
darūn-e-dīda nigah dāram ashk-e-Khūnīñ rā
ki man faqīram-o-īñ Daulat-e-kHudā daad ast
Come, for the harp of the West has fallen out of tune,
There is only a wail, but no notes, in its chords;
The world has adorned old idols a thousand times,
But I have not gone out of the Harem because it has a firm foundation;
The banner of the Ottomans is again high,
I cannot tell you what has befallen the Timurids;
How fortunate you are that your body is resting here!
Because this land is untouched by the witchcraft of the West;
A thousand times better than Delhi is Kabul,
Delhi has been the bride of a thousand bridegrooms;
I hold back the bloody tears in my eyes, For I am a poor faqir and these tears are God-given wealth.
Armughan-I-Hijaz
The Armughan-i-Hijaz (Gift from Hijaz) is the last poetry book of Allama Iqbal, which was published posthumously in 1938. Iqbal had planned to publish it after his return from Hajj which he had wanted to do in the last few years of his life but could not because of ill health. The book was, thus, conceived as a gift or message to Indian Muslims from the heartland of Islam which Iqbal had idolized and celebrated in his poetry for thirty years.
In one of the short poems of the collection, Iqbal gives voice to the predicament of a Muslim tied up with a foreign land for whom the conflict between religion and fatherland could become serious. This is probably a veiled expression of Iqbal’s own repressed sense of inadequacy as a true Muslim because of his Indian as against Arab origins:
III
dile dar siina dāram be-surūre
che goyam qissa-e-dīn-o-vatan rā
musalmāne ki dar band-e-farañg ast
na-kHvāham iiñ jahān-o-āñ jahāñ rā
che mī kHvāhī az mard-e-tanā saa.e
My heart knows not the bliss of his flame,
How to tell tale of conflict between ‘deen’ and fatherland,
A Muslim tied up with a foreign land,
I want neither this world nor the other,
What do you want from an easygoing man?
In another such poem, he laments the infighting among the Muslims of the world and laments that the Muslims are foreigners everywhere, before asserting that he had broken the magic of the modern age, an emphatic expression of his complete rejection of modernity which he perceived as the ideology that was most detrimental to his idealized Umma:
XI
Musalman bekhishan dar satizand
Jabin ra pesh-e gairullah sudem
bedast-e maikashan Khali iyag ast
besuye khankahan Khali az mai
Musalmanam garib har diyaram
Beaan bale ki bakhshidi paridam
Man andar mashriq wa magrib garibam
Tilsam-e ilm-e hazir ra shikastam
The Muslims are fighting among themselves,
Our foreheads are bowed to other than Allah;
The drinkers have empty glasses in their hands,
The pitchers of the Khanqah are empty, too;
The Muslims are strangers everywhere,
I fly with the wings you gave me;
So alien am I in East and West,
But I have broken the spell of modern knowledge.
The Armughan-i-Hijaz also contains a powerful poem Ai Farzande Sehra (O Son of the Desert) which is a tribute to the Arabs for being chosen by God to lead the caravan of Islam and also celebrates their freedom from the Ottomans, even though this apparently contradicts his idea of one Umma as well as his general enthusiasm for the Ottoman Empire which he like many other elite Muslims of India saw as the symbol of Islamic unity:
sahar-gāhāñ ki raushan shud dar-o-dasht
sadā zad murġhe az shākHe naKhīle
farohil kHīmā ai farzand sahrā
ki natāñ ziist be-zauq-e-rahīle
’arab rā haq dalīl-e-kārvāñ kard
Ki uu bā faqr-e-kHud rā imtahāñ kard
agr faq-e-tahī dastāñ ġhaūr ast
jahāne rā tah-o-bālā tavāñ kard
draañ shab-hā kHarūsh-e-subh-e-fard ast
ki raushan az tajallīhā-e-sīnāst
tan-o-jāñ moham az baad dar-o-dasht
tulū’-e-ummtāñ az koh-o-sahrāst
When all sides of the desert were bright from dawn,
A fowl perched on a fig branch gave a call;
O, son of the desert, leave your camp!
Because life cannot be enjoyed without travelling. God chose the Arab to lead the caravan,
Because he passed the test by his simplicity;
If a poor man were to have pride,
He can turn the world topsy turvy;
The nights of Arabia contain glimpses of the future dawn, Because that vale is lighted by the fire of Moses, The winds and houses of the desert make their soul and bodies strong, It is the deserts and mountains that beget the people who rise in the world.
Finally, Iqbal asserts that the Brahmin has wisely enough clung to his faith, while the Muslims are involved in conflicts and have abandoned their faith:
dar-e-sad fitna rā bar kHud kushādī
dogāme raftī-o-az pā fatādī
barhamn az butāñ tāq-e-kHud ārāst
tū qurāñ rā sar taaqe nihāde
You opened a hundred doors of conflict for yourself,
You fell down just after walking two steps;
The Brahmin makes his idols and adorns them, But you have put the Quran on the vault.
VII
Why did Iqbal shift from a celebration of Indian nationalism to Pan-Islamism within a few years from 1905 to 1908? The answer must be located during his years in Europe, more intensive studies of which would repay investigation.
Those with a taste for conspiracy theories would accord much weight to British machinations in moulding Iqbal. Seeing the brilliance of the young Indian nationalist poet the British, whose empire in India depended upon the policy of divide and rule, would have wanted to bring him to their side. Unknown to Iqbal, the British cultivated him through Sir Thomas Arnold, the friend of Syed Ahmad Khan who had taught between 1888 and 1898 at the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College (which later became the Aligarh Muslim University), before accepting a professorship in philosophy at Government College, Lahore. This view would hold that Iqbal was granted a scholarship to Cambridge to indoctrinate him against the rising tide of Indian nationalism. 38 This was after all the period of Swadeshi Movement in Bengal which threatened to unite large sections of Indians, including Muslims, against the British. 39 It was also the time of the founding of the Muslim League at Dacca in 1906—reportedly joined by Iqbal in Europe—at the behest of the British. 40 It would have made sense for the British to try to win over a brilliant young Muslim who was emerging as the poet of the Indian national movement.
While the British no doubt tried to attract talent to their side, as many world powers have done in history, the conspiracy theory is rather unsatisfactory. Iqbal was a man of passion, intellect, poetic sensibility and erudition: he cannot be seen merely as a hapless instrument of the colonial regime.
It may be hazarded by those with a taste for psychological explanations that a more personal factor may have disturbed Iqbal, even ideologically. They would point to Iqbal’s relationship with Atiyya Faizi and his romantic inclination towards his German teacher and friend Emma Wegenast. He underwent an emotional crisis when faced with a new kind of womanhood, which simultaneously attracted and repelled him. According to such an argument, a personal crisis produced a rethinking that was political. But drawing connections of this sort always involves conjecture. 41
During his stay in England and Germany, Iqbal was confronted by their modernity, which he chose to see as evidence of the moral and religious decay of the West. 42 Exposure to a powerful alien culture generated a wide range of emotional and intellectual responses, which racial discrimination often sharpened, among visiting Indians from Rammohan Roy to Jawaharlal Nehru. 43 Iqbal’s pan-Islamism arose in the immediate context of a challenge he perceived from a triumphant Western civilization, which was marginalizing Islam and its civilization.
How could the Islamic world, which virtually lay prostrate before the ascendant West, cease to decline and regain its former glory? Nietzsche’s concept of Uberman seems to have had deep impact on Iqbal. It influenced his famous concept of Khudi, developed in his Urdu and Persian writings. The concept of Khudi, to which his 1915 Persian book Asrar-i- Khudi (Secrets of the Self) is devoted, is generally considered his most important philosophical contribution. The effort to strengthen the self and to elevate the human will to the superhuman level, expressed in Iqbal’s concept of Insan-e-Kamil (the perfect man) and Mard-e-Momin (literally, man of faith), builds upon the existing Islamic idiom as well as the thought of Nietzsche. The exaltation of the self to a superhuman level, advocated by Iqbal, was in some respects similar to the will to power in Nietzsche’s thought.
However, in important respects, Iqbal stood apart. Unlike Nietzsche, Iqbal made no comprehensive critique of religion, because he saw Islam and Christianity as very different from each other. He believed that Islam was based on a greater acceptance of the real world as it is, compared to religions like Christianity which emphasized the next world, or the guilt or mystical experiences of their devotees. He was also opposed to the influential Sufi doctrine of fanafillah, the annihilation of the self as a result of the realization of God. Iqbal believed in the necessity of replacing humility and weakness with assertiveness and power.
VIII
Emanating from a rejection of territorial nationalism and Western modernity as he saw it, Iqbal’s fateful shift away from Indian nationalism towards revivalism and pan-Islamism was a part of a larger trend. In the aftermath of the Revolt of 1857, there had developed primarily two responses from within the Muslim elite in India in the late nineteenth century: revivalism exemplified by the Deoband Madrasa and modernist reformism led by Syed Ahmad Khan. 44 The first involved a rejection of modernity and a call to go back to the supposedly pure Islam of an earlier period. The second involved an embrace of modern Western education, an emphasis on Muslim separateness and a distancing from the nascent Indian National Congress-led nationalist movement. 45 Both responses emanated partly from the insecurity of a Muslim elite disempowered in different parts of the world. 46 Iqbal’s shift was a piece of this larger story: He turned into a Pan-Islamist and revivalist who asserted that the Muslims of India were a distinct people more similar to Muslims elsewhere in the world, than to the Hindus of India with whom they had lived for hundreds of years, and from whom the vast majority of them had converted.
What is noteworthy, however, is that Iqbal’s turn to Pan-Islamism was not accompanied by any conscious attempt to create hostility with the Hindus. On the contrary, he continued to argue for a very long time that there was no contradiction between Indian patriotism and Pan-Islamism. His view was that
Patriotism is a perfectly natural virtue and has a place in the moral life of man. Yet that which really matters is a man’s faith, his culture, his historical tradition. These are the things which, in my eyes, are worth living for and dying for, and not the piece of earth with which the spirit of man is temporarily associated.
47
He felt that patriotism and pan-Islamism could flourish together in an India that freely acknowledged the distinctiveness of Muslim culture and accepted the allegiance of Indian Muslims to the Umma.
Redefining patriotism as merely a geographical attachment dissociated from culture and historical tradition was evidently an effort on the part of Iqbal to reconcile it with the Umma. But his conviction that faith (which to his mind included culture and tradition), superseded the allegiance to a modern nation-state, ran counter to the tide of modern history. The modern nation-state demands unquestioned loyalty from its members and expects them to live and die for it. In the end, Iqbal was to be most remembered not for his pan-Islamism but as one of the founders of a nation-state.
In his narrative of Islam, like many other Muslim leaders, Iqbal ignored the countless pragmatic accommodations that it had to make. 48 In this narrative, the Muslims of India constituted a monolithic community bound by the ties of faith, irrespective of the differences of class, caste and language. He glossed over the divisions between Shias and Sunnis, Ashraf, Ajlaf and Arzal, social and economic hierarchies, linguistic and ethnic groups and the division between Muslim converts and those of foreign origin. 49
Large sections of the Muslim elite in India were hostile to Indian nationalism which they perceived as the rise of Hindus as a nation. Iqbal associated the loss of Muslim power with a degeneration of character:
Ever since their political fall the Mussalmans of India have gone through a rapid ethical deterioration. Of all the Muslim communities of the world they are perhaps the meanest in the point of character. I do not mean to deplore our former greatness in this country, for, I confess, I am almost a fatalist to the various forces that ultimately decide the destinies of nations.
50
But in another context (that of Spain during the Spanish Civil War) Iqbal identified the difference of economic creeds as the cause of its predicament. His commitment to the idea of a homogenous Islam precluded such a treatment of its vicissitudes. 51 The powerful poetry through which he celebrates revivalism and Pan-Islamism would have been irreconcilable with the complexities and contradictions inherent in the actual Islamic past.
Much of Iqbal’s poetry is apparently philosophical, without an explicit political message.
Nevertheless, the message of the self as in the concept of Khudi—the cultivation of moral virtues such as courage, determination, simplicity and enterprise—addresses what he perceived as the weaknesses of the Muslims. In the post-1908 period, the primary concern of his poetic imagination is neither country nor humanity, but the redefined and reimagined Umma. The political and cultural vision so forcefully expressed in his poetry was the foundation of his political activism.
This produced the idea of a consolidated Muslim state in north-west India which Iqbal expounded at the Allahabad Session of the Muslim League in 1930, though it was only in a letter written to Jinnah towards the end of his life in 1938 that he decisively tilted in favour of a separate state for Indian Muslims. 52 The position he took was a logical culmination of his poetic imagination, assiduously cultivated and passionately expressed for more than two decades, in which the history of human civilization was recast as Islam versus the rest, believers versus the non-believers, Umma versus the non-Umma. His ideological framework postulated a religious and cultural purity, and the distinctiveness of the Muslims of India as well as of the world. It was incompatible with a composite Indian nationhood and a modern Indian territorial nationalism. In his first phase, Iqbal had regarded Islam as part of Indian civilization: in his second, he regarded India as part of Islamic civilization.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.