After delivering the Allahbad Address the idea of a Muslim State always remained alive in his mind. He was sure that the Muslims of sub-continent were going to achieve for themselves an independent homeland. On 21st March, 1932, in the Presidential address at the annual session of the All-India Muslim Conference at Lahore, Allama Iqbal stressed his view regarding nationalism in India and commented on the plight of the Muslims under the circumstances prevailing in the sub-continent. Having attended the Second Round Table Conference in September, 1931 in London, he was keenly aware of the deep-seated Hindu and Sikh prejudice and unaccommodating attitude. He had observed the mind of the British Government. Hence he reiterated his apprehensions and suggested safeguards in respect of the Indian Muslims:
“In the present address I propose, among other things, to help you, in the first place, in arriving at a correct view of the situation as it emerged from a rather hesitating behavior of our delegation the final stages of the Round-Table Conference. In the second place, I shall try, according to my lights to show how far it is desirable to construct a fresh policy now that the Premier's announcement at the last London Conference has again necessitated a careful survey of the whole situation.”

On June 21, 1937, only ten months before his death, Iqbal wrote in a letter to the Quaid-i-Azam:

A separate federation of Muslim Provinces…is the only course by which we can secure a peaceful India and save Muslims from the domination of Non-Muslims. Why should not the Muslims of North-West India and Bengal be considered as nations to self-determination just as other nations in India and outside India are?”

During the Third Round-Table Conference, Iqbal was invited by the London National League. Addressing huge audience including foreign diplomats, members of the House of Commons, Members of the House of Lords and Muslim members of the R.T.C. delegation, he dilated upon the situation of the Indian Muslims. He explained why he wanted the communal settlement first and then the constitutional reforms. He again stressed the need for provincial autonomy because autonomy gave the Muslim majority provinces some power to safeguard their rights, cultural traditions and religion. Under the central Government the Muslims were bound to lose their cultural and religious entity at the hands of the overwhelming Hindu majority. He referred to what he had said at Allahabad in 1930 and reiterated his belief that before long people were bound to come round to his viewpoint based on cogent reason.

In his dialogue with Dr. Ambedkar, the leader of the Harijans, Allama Iqbal expressed his desire to see Indian provinces as autonomous units under the direct control of the British Government and with no central Indian Government. He envisaged autonomous Muslim Provinces in India. Under one Indian union he feared Muslims would suffer in many respects especially with regard to their separate entity as Muslims. On the issue of fourteen points, Gandhi offered to accept all the Muslim demands laid therein provided their representatives including Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Iqbal opposed the demands of the Depressed Classes for separate electorates. “But it stands to the credit of the great Muslim community that they refused to betray the Depressed Classes and go back upon their signature” as remarked by M. Mondal.

Allama Iqbal's statement explaining the attitude of Muslim delegates to the Round-Table Conference issued in December, 1933 was a retort to Jawaharlal Nehru who had said that the attitude of the Muslim delegation was based on "reactionarism." Iqbal summed up his statement in these words:

“In conclusion I must put a straight question to Pundit Jawaharlal, how is India's problem to be solved if the majority community will neither concede the minimum safeguards necessary for the protection of a minority of 80 million people, nor accept the award of a third party; but continue to talk of a kind of nationalism which works out only to its own benefit? This position can admit of only two alternatives. Either the Indian majority community will have to accept for itself the permanent position of an agent of British imperialism in the East, or the country will have to be redistributed on a basis of religious, historical and cultural affinities so as to do away with the question of electorates and the communal problem in its present form.”

Allama Iqbal's apprehensions were validated by the Hindu Congress ministries established in Hindu majority province under the Act of 1935. Muslims in those provinces were given baleful and dastardly treatment. In his letters to the Quaid-i Azam written in 1936 and in 1937 he referred to an independent Muslim State comprising North-Western and Eastern Muslim majority zones. Now it was not only the North-Western zones only as alluded to in the Allah bad Address.
It was Allama Iqbal who called upon Quaid-i Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah to lead the Muslims of India to their cherished goal. He preferred the Quaid to other more experienced and well-known Muslim leaders such as Sir Aga Khan, Maulana Hasrat Mohani, Nawab Muhammad Ismail Khan, Maulana Shaukat Ali, Nawab Hamid Ullah Khan of Bhopal, Sir Ali Imam, Maulvi Tameez ud-Din Khan, Allama al-Mashriqi and others. But Allama Iqbal had his own reasons. He had explored all the salient features of true leadership in the personality of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah who was destined to guide the Indian Muslims to their goal of freedom. In a convincing tone Allama Iqbal addressed his “Khizr-i-Rah”:

I know you are a busy man but I do hope you won't mind my writing to you often, as you are the only Muslim in India today to whom the community has right to look up for safe guidance through the storm which is coming to North-West India, and perhaps to the whole of India. Similar sentiments were expressed by him about three months before his death. Sayyid Nazir Niazi in his book Iqbal Ke Huzur, has stated that the future of the Indian Muslims was being discussed and a tenor of pessimism was visible from what his friends said. At this Allama Iqbal observed:

There is only one way out. Muslim should strengthen Jinnah's hands. They should join the Muslim League. Indian question, as is now being solved, can be countered by our united front against both the Hindus and the English. Without it our demands are not going to be accepted. People say our demands smack of communalism. This is sheer propaganda. These demands relate to the defense of our national existence. He continued:

The united front can be formed under the leadership of the Muslim League. And the Muslim League can succeed only on account of Jinnah. Now none but Jinnah is capable of leading the Muslims. His fervent zeal and unbounded enthusiasm of Islam fired the imagination of Muslim youth. With a firm conviction in “Islam is itself destiny and will not suffer destiny”, Allama Iqbal in his letter of March 29, 1937 to the Quaid-i Azam had said:

While we are ready to cooperate with other progressive parties in the country, we must not ignore the fact that the whole future of Islam as a moral and political force in Asia rests very largely on a complete organization of Indian Muslims.

After Allama Iqbal’ death in April, 1938, the Quaid acknowledged his debt to the great philosopher in the following words:

“His views were substantially in consonance with my own and had finally led me to the same conclusions as a result of careful examination and study of the constitutional problems facing India and found expression in due course in the united will of Muslim India as adumbrated in the Lahore Resolution of the All-India Muslim League popularly known as the "Pakistan Resolution" passed on 23rd March, 1940.” Matlub ul-Hasan Sayyid stated that after the Lahore Resolution was passed on March 23, 1940, the Quaid-i Azam said to him:

Iqbal is no more amongst us, but had he been alive he would have been happy to know that we did exactly what he wanted us to do. Iqbal was an ailing man when he assumed the leadership of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League in the mid thirties. He operated from his sick-bed. This again is a proof of his intense feeling for his community and his deep involvement in its affairs. The most notable thing about the last two years of Iqbal's life, 1936-1938, as brought out and emphasized by an eminent historian of the period. Dr. Ashiq Hussein Batalvi, is how Iqbal fought against the domination of the feudal landlords in the Provincial Muslim League. He represented the rising middle-class and in fact the mass of the Muslim community. He was acutely conscious of their problems. The Great Depression of the 1930's had its terrible impact on the people of the sub-continent. It is, therefore, not surprising to observe that Iqbal was perhaps the first Muslim leader to draw attention to the economic problem of Muslims as a community. In his letter to Jinnah, Iqbal highlighted his concern for the problem on more than one occasion. In his letter of May 28, 1937, he says. "The problem of bread is becoming more and more acute.” The question, therefore, is how is it possible to solve the problem of Muslim poverty? And the whole future of the league depends on the League's ability to solve this question. If the League can give no such promises I am sure the Muslim masses will remain indifferent to it as before." Having posed the question in such candid terms Iqbal goes on to observe: "After a long and careful study of Islamic Law, I have come to the conclusion that if this system of Law is properly understood and applied, at least the right to subsistence is secured to everybody. But the enforcement and development of the Shariat of Islam is impossible in this country without a free Muslim state of states. This has been my honest conviction for many years and I still believe this to be the only way to solve the problem of bread for Muslims as well as secure a peaceful India".

Iqbal issued numerous statements pertaining to the burning topics of the day relating to various aspects of social, religious, cultural and political problems of India, Europe and the world of Islam. He remained thoughtful about the Muslim Ummah as a whole. He was so eager and anxious for amelioration and liberation of the downtrodden people of Kashmir. It is poignant to observe that an ailing Iqbal, barely six months before his death, was prepared to go to jail on an issue which he thought was a menace both to his religion and his country, and was distressed over the Palestine question:
"The Palestine question is very much agitating the minds of the Muslims. We have a very fine opportunity for mass contact for the purposes of the League. I have no doubt that the league will pass a strong resolution on this question and also by holding a private conference of the leaders decide on some sort of a positive action in which masses may share in large numbers. This will at once popularize the League and may help the Palestine Arabs. Personally I would not mind going to jail on an issue which affects both Islam and India. The formation of a Western base on the very gates of the East is a menace to both".

In short, Iqbal was the man behind the idea of Pakistan. His contributions to the Muslim world as one of the greatest thinkers of Islam also stand unparalleled. In his writings, he exhorted people, particularly the youth, to stand up and face the various challenges bravely like an eagle. The central theme and main source of his message was the Qur'an that is a source of foundational principles upon which the infrastructure of an organization must be built as a coherent system of life. According to Iqbal, the only system of life that could be implemented as a living and cultural force is ISLAM because it is based on permanent and absolute values given in the Qur'an. Jinnah, for whom Iqbal evinced a great deal of respect and admiration, was so eloquent in his praise of the great Muslim poet. “He will live”, said Jinnah, “as long as Islam will live. His noble poetry interprets the true aspirations of the Muslims of India. It will remain an inspiration for us and for generations after us.”