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Old Friday, February 17, 2006
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Iqbal ka Shaheen
 
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Iqbal-The Innovator

Scholars of Iqbaliat are aware that Iqbal is a multi-dimensional personality and his thought can be examined from different angles. However, the basic idea on which he constructed the superstructure of his philosophy and contributed to the cultural renaissance of Islam is his concept of the "Self". With his emphasis on the "Self", Iqbal desired the re-birth of the spirit of inquisitiveness and defiance among the Muslims so that they as individuals and as a society re-discovered their lost position in the fields of creativity and innovation.

According to his definition Islam in not a religion in the ancient sense of the word. He maintains: "It is an attitude-an attitude, that is to say, of freedom and even of defiance of the universe. It is really a protest against the entire outlook of the ancient world. Briefly it is the discovery of man." Therefore in his perception Islam as a religion and as a culture is humanistic and egalitarian. Any interpretation of Islam which sanctifies elitism of any variety and discriminates between man and man is not acceptable to Iqbal.

In the sphere of politics of Muslim India, his concept of the "Self" led eventually to the development of self-awareness amongst the divided and fragmented Muslims as a nation. Thus his vigorous poetry created a nation out of a scattered multitude. He has correctly stated: "Nations are born in the hearts of poets; they prosper and die in the hands of politicians."

He dreamt of carving out a state out of the Muslim majority areas of the North - West of the Indian Sub-continent and preached that they should claim their right of self-determination as an independent cultural unit. He even persuaded Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah to return from England and to lead the Muslims to the goal of Pakistan. Quaid-i-Azam’s efforts bore fruit and Pakistan was established as a Muslim nation-state. Consequently, the foundations of this State are laid on Iqbalian Idealism of "Individual Self" and "Collective Self" of the Muslim community.

Jinnah once remarked that Iqbal was one of the few individuals who originally thought of the feasibility of carving out an "Islamic" state in the historical homelands of Muslims in the Indian Sub-continent. In other words, Iqbalian Idealism was not only responsible for the creation of a new nation and a new state, but it also resulted in the development of Iqbal’s concept of the political and social order of this new State. The demand for the creation of Pakistan, in the eyes of Iqbal did not imply the establishment of any specific kind of sectarian Muslim State. It was a State for anyone who considered himself religiously and culturally a Muslim.

In view of the human and natural resources of the territories which were to constitute Pakistan, Iqbal was convinced that the separation of these areas from India would resolve the Muslim’s problems of economic development. Thus by reconciling traditional Islamic values with modern liberal ideas Iqbal highlighted the broad principles of a modern Muslim entity, and provided a political and intellectual framework of a new modern Islamic democratic welfare state, which Pakistan was expected to be.
If one tries to elucidate the main features of Iqbalian Islamic State, one can proceed with the argument that the State in Islam has always been in the process of becoming. Its political order is distinct from its legal order, because a state becomes "Islamic" only when it enforces Islamic laws for its Muslim citizens.

Although in the Prophetic era certain guiding constitutional principles were laid down, politically the state in Islam was not considered a finished product. During the Republican period, different experiments of constitutional dispensation were made namely: election, nomination, election through an electoral college and referendum. Thereafter establishment of numerous forms of autocratic monarchy, based on coercion and force became the order of the day until the abolition of the Caliphate and Sultanate in Turkey in 1924.

Iqbal realized that modern Islam requires emancipation from the medieval fancies of theologians and jurists, and proclaimed: "Spiritually we are living in a prison-house of thoughts and emotions which during the course of centuries, we have weaved round ourselves". It is in this background that he rejected the dynastic/hereditary Caliphate, Imamate or Sultanate as outmoded forms of government which the Muslims evolved in the past. Iqbal believed that the powers of the Caliph can be exercised by the popularly elected Muslim Legislative Assembly which would constitute a modern form of "Ijma" (consensus of the community).

In his view the Quranic rule of obeying those who exercise authority, from amongst you, in fact means obeying only those leaders who are like you in status, and not Kings, Sultans or Military Dictators. Similarly the Quranic command to decide matters through mutual consultation implies the establishment and supremacy of a Parliament for such consultations. Like many modem political thinkers Iqbal criticizes the western form of democracy as a political system, which is flawed in many ways. But as there is no other acceptable alternative, he advances the viewpoint that the establishment of popularly elected legislative assembly in his contemplated State would be a return to the original purity of Islam.

In Iqbalian terms, secularism is rooted in the spirit. If secularism means guaranteeing the rights of religious freedom and equality of all the citizens by the state, then it cannot be opposed as according to Iqbal Tawhid (God’s Unity) stands for human solidarity, human equality and human freedom. Iqbal’s Islamic State is expected to have "mixed laws." Islamic laws would apply not only to the Muslim citizens whereas the minorities would have the freedom to be governed under their own personal religious or customary codes of law. He takes pains in explaining that the division of the religious and political functions in his Islamic State does not amount to the separation of Church and State. It is only a division of functions.

Iqbal was the first Muslim thinker in South Asia who claimed that the real object of Islam is to establish a spiritual Democracy. Iqbal does not explain from where he derived this idea. Probably his concept of the state in Islam as a spiritual democracy implies a state in which all religions are equally free, genuinely tolerated, respected, accepted and protected. Thus Iqbal’s Islamic State stands for religious and cultural pluralism and peaceful coexistence.

As for Islamic legislation in Iqbal’s proposed Islamic State, he urges that "Ijtehad" must be adopted as a legislative process in the Parliament. He is in agreement with the modern Muslim liberal’s claim to re-interpret the foundational legal principles of Islam in the light of their own experience and the changed conditions of modern life. He recommends that every generation of Muslims should be permitted to solve their own problems, guided but unhampered by the work of its predecessors.

For Iqbal, the establishment of Pakistan was not an end in itself. He wanted Pakistan to become a model Islamic welfare State which should facilitate the unification of the fragmented Muslim world. He has even discussed the possibility of how, after each of them achieving strength through a uniform democratic political and social system, the Muslim nation-states could be joined with one another through bilateral or multilateral treaties to eventually form a living family of republics. But this ideal of Iqbal can only be realized if Pakistan could itself become a model State as visualized by Iqbal.

Iqbalian idealism is an appropriation example of the fusion of some of the Islamic principles with the new liberal ideas. Clearly he was ahead of his times as the Muslims are not yet ready to accept all his views. Iqbal’s western critics may find his concept of modern Islamic State as anchored in some form of secular humanism or liberal Unitarian humanism. To Iqbal, the spirit of Islam is capable to assimilating all the new ideas of other civilizations, giving them its own synthesized direction.

Modern Islam in South Asia produced a series of guides for the Muslim community in the form of outstanding personalities like Sah Waliullah, Syed Ahmad Khan, Jamalud Din Afghani, Iqbal and finally Jinnah. But it is unfortunate that after Jinnah no outstanding leader has emerged to lead the Muslims politically or intellectually. In these circumstances it is necessary to establish an independent national forum (Dabistan) comprising of intellectuals and scholars of Iqbaliat who should collectively work on political and social ideas of Iqbal and their future development in light of the new experiences of the Muslim community.
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