Gabriel's wings.pdf

GABRIEL’S WING
A STUDYINTO THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF
SIR MUHAMMAD 1QBAL
BY
ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL
Dr. phil.Dr. sc.rel.
Profcssorat thc Univcrsity of Bonn

CONTENTS
pagc
FOREWORD....................................................................................................... Vil
Abbreviations............................................................................................ X
I. Muhammed Iqbal......................................................................... 1
a. The Historical Background................................ .... 1
b. His Lifc.............................................................................................35
c. The Acsthctic Side of His Work............................................61
d. His Religious Motives.....................................................................72
II. His Interpretaron of the five Pillare of Faith . 86
a. Therc is no God but God.............................................................. 86
b. "Muhammad is theMcssengcr ofGod"................................148
c. Prayer . ...........................................................................................171
d. Fasting, zak.it,Pilgrimage and jihád.............................. 191
III. His Interpretaron of the EssenralsofFaith. . 202
a. I believe in God.. . and in His Angels..............................202
b. ... and in His Books..................................................................220
c. ... and in His Mcssengcrs......................................................251
d. ... and in theLast Day..............................................................273
e. ... and in the Predestinaron, that Good and Evil botli
come from God.............................................................................. 306
IV. Soste Gumpses on Western and Eastern Influence
ON 1QBAI.S THOUGHT, AND ON HlS RELATIONS TO
Mystics and Mysticjsm.................................................................. 316
V. To SUM UP...........................................................................................377
Bibuography.................................................................................................388
a. Works of Iqbal and on Iqbal................................................389
b. General Works.............................................................................. 404
Index of Proper Ñames........................................................................ 415

FOREWORD
During thc 25 ycars which havc passed since the death oí Muham-
mad Iqbal, hundrcds oí books and pamphlcts, of anides and poems
in lionour of thc poctphilosopher of Muslim India havc been pub-
lished, most of thcm in Pakistán, the country which is proud of calling
hint its spiritual fathcr. In the West, too, his famc has sprcad pcrhaps
more tlian that of any other modern Muslim thinker and poct.
Unfortunatcly, thc gteat output of studies into Iqbal's work is no<
on the same linc with thc scholarly contcnts of tliese artilles and books
which, for a great part, dwcll again and again upon the same main
fcatures of Iqbal’s thought. Wholc books on his conncction or dis-
conncction with Islamic mysticism have been written without invcsti-
gating thc problem of Hallaj’s influence on the formation of his
thought; lcarncd vicws have been expressed as lo his aesthetics, and
nearly nobody has madc, until now, a simple carcful analytical índex
of the motifs and symbols Iqbal uses in his poctry, or of thc meters
he prefers, in short, of his jxielical technique. The first uscful at-
tempts in this direction, thc studies of Dr. Sayid Abdullah, are writ
ten in Urdu and therefore not available to a larger Europcan audienec.
In Europc, only Alessandro Bausani who lias introduced Iqbal in his
italian motherland, has madc somc fine critical remarks on his poct-
ical—but also his philosoplncal—technique.
Thc aim of the present book is not to add some more theories to
those already existing. It will siinply show Iqbal's view of thc essen-
tials of Islam, i.e. the five Pillars of Faith, and thc Creed which is
taught to cvcry Muslim child. K. Cragg was tlie first to arrange the
chapters of a book—Cali oj the M/naret—according to thc sentones
of tlie cali to prayer, and when thc plan of thc present book was al
ready made, 1 saw with plcasurc that Coastance Padwick in her work
on Muslim Deeotiom had followed the course of the Muslim prayer-
rite for making understandable thc spirit of Muslim worship. It sccms
that this form offers the greatest advantages to a writer wliose main
interest is concentratcd on thc religious side of his subject. For, start-
ing from the simple propositions of the faith one can show—or at

VIII FOREWORD
least liint at—how the Muslim thinker lias followed thc traditional
pattcrn of thought. and in how far he has neglected sevcral parís, or
interpreted them in quite a new and unexpccted manncr.
It seemcd, however, necessary to give a sketchy introduction to
thc religious situation of India at “lqbal's time, a survcy of his lifc,
and of his artistic and theological ideáis. Further, thc influences that
Eastern and Western thought llave exerted upon him positively or
ncgatively—could not be left aside, though it is not the purpose of
our study to enter into details concerning his debt to European philos-
ophy, or the way he changcd Western ideas according to his conccpt
of Islam, lilis side of lqbal's thought wc lcave to the philosophcrs
who are more competen! than the present writer. The same principie
has becn applied to lqbal's política! and social ideas wliich are treated
only in so far as they form an integrating pan of his religious thought.
To judge their practical implications, and their possiblc implcmen-
tation into thc present Republic of Pakistán, is far beyond our limit.
Although it would be easy to quote to a larger extent from earlier
publications 1 have tried to avoid that, making rather Iqba! himself
speak than his commcntators. Sincc only part of his work is available
in translation, full quotations wcrc considered useful.
I simply want to give a picture of lqbal's way of thinking, arguing,
suffering, and again finding mental peace in the security of his reli
gión—siispending judgment as far as possible though the book will
lie, in any case, an account of my personal experience with lqbal's
work.
I apologizc for the English style of the present book. Every British-
er or Ameritan knows how small is the number of foreigners who
have a real command over English. But for the hope that lilis study
on Iqbal should be available to a larger audicnce in Pakistán and
nciglibouring countries 1 would surcly not have attempted to writc
in a language not my motliertongue. 1 am afraid that in spite of thc
help of somc friends who did their best to brusli up the style somc
clumsy phrases or awkward expressions llave not yet ticen removed.
As to thc transcription I have, mostly, acccptcd the form of ñames
as they are in use in thc Subcontinent, f.i. Maudoodi instead of thc
corred Maudúdi, avoiding diacrítica! marks in most of them.
1 gladly acknowlolge my indcbtcdness to a large number óf friends
and colleagues:

FORHWORD IX
I am deeply grateful to Prof. Dr. C. J. Bleeker who was kind
cnough to accept the book as a supplcment to NUMEN.
Prof, Dr. A. J. Arberry, Cambridge, kindly allowcd me to quote
¡n full from his poetical translations of scvcral of Iqbal's works.
Prof. Dr. M. Hamidullah, París, took pains in reading carefully
tlie whole manuscript and provided me with precious informations,
esp. about Indian Islam.
It is impossiblc to enumérate all those friends in Pakistán who cn-
couraged me in tliis work during the last years. There is scarccly any
“Iqbalist” who did not give me some information. 1 dcsire to record
my gratitude cspccially to Dr. Javid Iqbal. Labore our discussions
provided me with a deeper insight into the character of his father.
1 am very indebted to the German-Pakistan Forum, Karachi, under
the able leadership of Mr. Mumtaz Hasan, and to the Germán Em-
bassy, Karachi, who had invited me to my first lccture-tour in Paki
stán in February 1958. To the Iqbal Academy, Karachi, 1 owe help
in some crucial bibliographical matters.
Spccial thanks are due to Mr. S. A. Vahid, Karachi. in whose hospi-
tablc house we often discussed problcms connected with Iqbal; he
read the first chapters of the present book, and introduced me to most
of Iqbal's friends both in Karachi and in Labore.
And 1 thank Mrs. Anny Boymann for typing the manuscript so
carefully.
Bonn, August 28, 1962.
Anncmarie Schimmel
Numen. Suppt vi i

ABBREVIATIONS
(E) = Englilh, (P) ¿ Persim. (U) = Urdu.
MP: Tl»e Dcvelopment oí Metaphysics in Persia, London 1908. (E).
SR Stray Rcflections (1910), ed. Javid Iqbal (1961) (Numbers oí Chapters
quoted) (E).
AK : Asrar-i Khúdi (English Translation according to R. A. Nicholson’s Secrets
oí the Seif, Unes are quoted), 1915. (P).
R RumGz-i békhüdl (pages are quoted). 1918. (P)
P.M ■ PayAm-i Masliriq (pages are quoted), 1923. (P).
BD. Báng-i DarA (pagos are quoted), 1924. Verse-translations oí Shikwáh and
Jawib-i Shikwáb given after A. J. Arberry's translation. (U).
ZA : Zabür-: cAjam (numbers oí poems are quoted), 1927. Verse-lranslations after
A. J. Arberry, Persian PsaJms. (P).
GR : Gul$han-i rñz-i jadid at the end oí the ZabGr-i cAjam.
L Six Lectura on the Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930),
used in the edition of 1958. (E).
) : JávidnAmc (numbers of Unes are quoted), ¡932. (P),
BJ : B5l-i Jibrll (pages are quoted), 1936. (U).
ZK : Zarb-i Kalim (pages are quoted), 1937. (U).
AH : Armaghñnd Hijáz (pages are quoted). 1938. (P and U).
SS : Spewhes and Statcmcnts. (E).
M : Mafaübit (Letters: IqbálnAmc), two volumes. (U).
*

CHAPTER ONE
MUHAMMEDIQBAL
a) The Historical Background
That is my homeland,
whcncc the cool breeze carne to (he Lord of Araba
singa Muhammad Iqbal proudly in his "National Song for Indian
Childrcn" (BD 87), alluding to a tradition according to which the
Prophct Muhammad had said once: "I feel the cool and refreshing
breezc coming from India".
The relation bctween the Subhimalayan continent and Arabia during
the approximatdy 1300 years which sepárate the Indo-Muslim poet-
philosophcr from the Prophct of Islam, have becn more intense than
one would cxpcct. Long beforc Islam, maritime transporta had
established cióse commercial relations bctween Arabia and India,
"persons from Hind and Sind" >) used to come to some of the annual
fairs in Ornan.
Only a short while after Muhammad's death in 632, under the
sccond caliph Umar, Muslim armies had occupied parts of Sind and
Giijrat, as we are informed by Baládhuri and Ibn Qudima whoaffirms
that the pressure on this frontier was rclentlessly continued under all
the succeeding caliphs. In 711—the year when in Spain the Battle
of Xerxes de la Frontera took place, and in the North-East the Muslims
had already entered Chínese territory—a lad of 17 years, Muhammad
>) Ibn Habib, Muhabbar, p. 265; about pre-lslamic commercial retalióos of
Arabia with India, cf. Syed Sulayman Nadwi’s anieles in IC.
Therr exist legends in Muslim India according to which the Rija of Malabar had
wrtnessed the mirade of the splitting of the moon and travdled to Arabia to em
brace Islam: they also mention tombs of tw-o companions ol the Prophct at Covelong
and Porto Novo (Mahmood Bandar ocar Madras). Cf. Zainuddin al-Mafari, lu/ifar
ulmu-ihdla fi ía’J MU’ al-PuntgalrjIn. ed. Lisbon (Information kindly supplied
by M. Haniidutlah).
The historical faets are found in alBaládhorí. í. fulgí la-buldáu. p 455 fí About
tire early history of the Indus-valley cf. Chñrbnánir. transí, together wilh other
importan! acurres in Eliot and Dowson, Hiilorúm of Sred. 1955 a; Por the whole
problem vd. M Hamidullah, Cultural and Imelltrlluil Hislory of ludían litan.
WI, NF III 5-4. I H Qureshi. Iba Muilrm Cmmunil} of iht Iodo-Pul Sub
romintuí. 1962.

2 MUHAMMAD IQBAL
ihn al-Qásim conquered thc fortress of Daibul near the moutli of the
Indus, and followcd thc river upwards to Multan. From this time
onsvard, Sind has been part of the Islamic Empire; Buddhism—then
still prevalent—-disappeared from this provincc, and Hinduism. cut
off from the main stream of Indian Brahmanism, dcvcloped in a less
rigid and orthodox way tlian clsewhcrc. Thc Indus-vallcy became a
centre of Islamic culture and learning whencc a numbcr of well-known
scholars hailed.
Yct. a largor impact of Islamic civilizaron on the continental North
of India is visible only approximatcly 5 centuries later: with Mahmüd
of Ghazna, the Turkish Sultán of Afghanistan and Transoxiana the
long list of rulers starts who entered the fertile lands of the Panjab
through the Khaibar-Pass, and slowly extended the provinces belonging
to Muslim princcs. Mahmüd has become notorious in Indian histoty
as the destróyer of the famous Hindú-temple in Somnath in Kathiawar,
the most soutlnvard point his armics rcachcd—and his ñame has there-
forc been used as a symbol of idol-dcstroying powcr of Islam in Mus
lim poctry. With him carne al-Birüni, !) one of the greatest scholars
tliat Medieval Islam has produced, and whosc book on India, based
on a sound knowlcdge of Sanscrit, is still of grcat use for our know-
ledge of Indian customs and religions.
Mahmüd laid thc foundations for the Indo-Turkish dynasties whicli
werc to follow him during thc centuries to come. Undcr his heirs, the
city of Labore became a grcat cultural centre—"a second Ghazna"—
and still thc tomb of the great mystic Hujwiri, commonly known as
Data Ganj Bakhsh. is venerated by thc population; Hujwiri was one
of the first authors in Persian language of a systematic treatise on
Sufism, Islamic mysticism, and has exerted wide influcnce in the
Panjab through his personal saintlincss. ’) This is a phenomenon
typical of Indian Islam: though the kings haJ military and political
authority, the islamization of the country is due almost completely to
the Sufi saints who wandered throughout tile country, and who, far
away from the methods of hairsplitting scholastic thcologians, tried
to teach pcoplc the simple practical faith of Islam and the ardent love
’> a/B/rávis W», ed. Jnd transí. by E Sachau; el. H. Hit». Al-BMuTi Über-
Ifliuiix Jes Yogíinm Jei PultHiali, Oriens IX 2, 1956.
*) Hujwiri s important treatise on rnystirism was translatcd by R A. Nicholson,

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 3
of a personal Gal. Just as Hujwiri and his followcrs were nuclci for
the sprcad of Islam in the Northern Panjab, so Khwája Mu'inaddin
Chishti— who visited Lahore in 1190—settled for similar purposes in
Ajmcr (Rajputana) which just liad been added to the Empire of the
so-called Slavekings (Turkish Mamluks) who had shifted the capital
to Dclhi where still the magnificent Qutub Minar—named after the
saint Qutbaddin—rests as a symbol of their vigorous religious fervour
In Ajmcr, amidst the Rajput warrior clans, a similarly large mosque
was crcctcd; but today the attraction of the town lies in the sanctuarv
of Mu'inaddin Chishti <d. 1236), whosc Sufi order, the Chishtiya, is
still thriving. and has influenced Indian culture widely. 4) The pupils
of the Saint and his followers sprcad over the country, north and
south, and whilst Gisü Daráz (He with the long curls) prcached
mystically tinged Islam in the Deccan, where at that time Muslim king-
doms like that of the Bahmanids were founded, Nizümuddin Auliyá
(1253-1325) went to Dclhi and outlived diere seven kings, and in-
spired innumerable pcoplc; his mausolcum which contains also the
tomb of the most versatile poct and musirían of his age, Amir Khus-
rau, is still in the hands of his family. Already somewhat earlier, Baba
Farid Shakarganj (d. 1265) had attracted the masses in the environ-
ment of Pakpathan in the Panjab, where his anniversary is still cele-
brated. These Chishti Sainls who united love of God with love of
humanity, are mainly responsible for the impregnation with Islamic
ideas of grear parts of the lower classes in India, and it seems that the
love mysticism they preached and practiccd. which was based on a
personal god, has had somc influence on the development of the
Indian éíairfmysticism that started growing in that very time. s)
Popular singers who used the folk languages as a médium of exprés-
sion and raised them to literary rank, popularized these ideas among
both Hindú and Muslim circles:
When Mohammedanism, with its strong grasp of the reality oí the
■•) cí. K. A. Nizami. tePrikh-t maahá^ikht Chisht, Dclhi, 1953; the same author.
Somc Aspect, of Khánkáh Ufe ¡n Medietal India. (Stud Isl VIH 1957) and
many artides by his pen in 1C after 1950. The best introduction is still: Sir Tbomas
Arnold. The Preacbing of Islam. Cf. also Arnolds Aiticlc, Sainls, Mnbammadan,
India, in the ERE
B) Y. Husain, Linde Mystique au Mojen Age; the same, Gltmpses of Medieval
Indian Culture-, J Estlin Carpentcr, Thetim in Medieval India. London, 1921.

4 MUHAMMAD IQBAL
Divine existence and, as flowing from this, of the absolutely fixcd and
objcetive charactcr of truth, carne into conflict with the haziness of
panlhcistic thought and the subjectivity of its belief, it neccssarily fol-
lowed, not only that it triumphcd in the struggle. but also that it carne
as a veritablc tone to the life and thought of Upper India, quickening
into a fresh and more vigorous life many minds which ngver acccpted
for themselves its intellectual sway (Bishop Defroy).6)
Besides the Chishtiya, other Sufi orders from lite Western Islanuc
world entered Indian territory in about the same period: in Multan
the Sulirawardiya ccntrcd around the attractive personality of Bahá’ud-
din Zakariya (d. 1266) a pupil of Omar Suhrawardi—under
whose influence the mystical poet Fakhraddin ‘Iráqi remained for a
long time; it was probably through this médium that the ideas and
works of both Fariduddin ‘Attar, the mystical poet, and of Ibn 'Arabi,
the pantheistic theosophist, were introduced to Indian Islam. The
oldest Islamic order, the Qádiñya ("Abdulqádir Giláni died in 1166)
succeeded somewhat later in winning more and more adherents in
India, It started from Uch, the oíd centre of Suhrawardiya. and until
now the largest parí of the Qádiriya is rccrutcd from the subcontinent
where they have a rcmarkablc influence on mystical literature. The
relations bctwccn the different orders were very friendly, and jealousy
and rivalry bctwccn thcm beiong only to a later period. ")
The Turks have always been defenders of sunnitic Islam, and so
were, in a modérate degree, the mystical orders. But the propagation
of Shi'a ideas in India is also a factor which cannot be overiooked.
Isma'iliya propaganda is recorded in Sind and Multan as early as lOth
century, and in the 14th century a most active dáSi, Sháh Sadr, won
many Hindus in Sind for the Isma'iliya; the propaganda also reached
the South, where the rulcrs of Golconda were Shi'a. s) Tlie Shi'a
Community of the Bohoras—who had segratAi from the Isma'iliya
after 1094. Nizár's dcath—bccame established in India at the same
time, o)
n> Arnold, o.r., p. 259 (from; Mankind and the Church, London. 1907)
~) Cf. siso Abdut Rashid, The Treatmeui of Hiitor) hj Alailim Hitlariani i'i
Sufi Weiliafl. in C. H Phiiipa, Hiilorúmi of ludia, Pakiitan aud Ceflou, p. 128 fí.
“I Cí G. Allana in: Atehrau 9. Karachi, !9<i0. p 148 f Cf. Hollúter, The Shi'a
of ludia,
®> Sh. T. Lokhanda-alla, The fíohrai, a Mallín eommunili of Gutural. Stud
bl. II.

THE HISTORICA!. BACKC.ROUNO 5
Carried on by the leadcrs of diese different movements. Islam
slowly and steadily spread in the country, whereas the ñames of the
dynastics changed rather quickly. The Rings of the Slave Dynasty of
Delhi -who had to resist the Mongol invasión (—Chingiz-Khan in-
vaded the country in 1221, persecuting the last Chwarizmshah to
Attock, and his descendants sackcd Lahore in 1286)—were replaced
by the Turkish dynasty of Khiljis, who not only defended the Panjab
against the continued raids of the Mongols but cven conquered Gujerat
and parís of Central India; 'Al-Vaddin Khiljl is praised as the great
administrator of the growing empire; they were followed by the house
of Tughluq in 1320 which lasted nominally till 1413, under the threat
of renewed Mongol invasions: Timur had looted the unhappy town of
Delhi in 1389. In the middle of the 15th century a rather largo num-
ber of smaller Muslim dynastics were seattered all over India: from
Kashmir which had fallen under Muslim rule in 1334, to Golconda
in the South; Bengal saw the rule of several independent Muslim
kings; and the sultanato of Delhi was eventually in the hands of the
Lfidi-dynasty under whom administration as well as culture flourished.
The médium of instruction and court language in the Muslim areas
was Persian which was adopted also by thosc Hindus who entered
govcrnmcnt scrvice; the regional languages lived in the people and
produced a—mostly mystical—literatura of tlieir own.
The beginning of the 16th century is one of the landmarks in the
history of East and West—in Europe it means the beginning of a new
era, inaugurated by the discovery of the sea-way to India and the dis
covery of América on tile one hand, the emergence of Protestantism
on the other hand. A new Wcltgefühl gave the impulso for shaking
off the medieval ways of life and thought and for a dcvelopment in
quite an unexpectcd dircction. In the Islamic countrics, too, a situation
crystallized which was to give to the East its look for centuries to
come: the Ottoman Empire had reachcd the zenith of its powcr, and
snatched Egypt and Syria in 1516/17 from the Turco-Circassian Mam-
luks; henee it became the rulcr of the holy lands of Mocea and
Madina; in Irán, the young and ambitious Ismail, the Safavid, des-
cendant of Shi'a leaders in Ardabil, had risen to powcr and mtroduced
the Ithní 'Ashariya Shi'a doctrines in 1501 as official religión in
Persia, thus digging a Shi'a ditch between the Sunni blocks: the Tures
in the West and those in the East where, since 1400, the sons of

6 MUHAMMAD IQBAL
Timur had ruled in Afghanistan and Transoxiana and had dcvcloped
a splcndid civilization, but were driven out of thcir respective capitals
by thc Uzbelc invasión of 1506 which wiped out the highly sophist-
icaled but already decadent culture of the latcr Timurids.
But out of this disastre of thc Timurid powcr in Afghanistan, the
new Indian Moghul Empire emerged. The intrepid Prince Bábur—
who has written a most charming Turkish autobiography crossed,
coming from Kabul, thc Khaibar Pass and succeeded aftcr a short
encounter in winning the battle of Panipat (1526) against Ibrahim
Lodi of Dclhi—Panipat, north Dclhi, was to become two more times
thc place of decisive battles in latcr Indian history. Bábur died, still
young, in 1530, after having consolidated his reign in thc north-west
of India, and was succecdcd by his son Humáyún who had as usual
to defend his thronc against his numerous talcnted brothers. The at-
tacks of Shcr Sháh, a governor of Afghan origin, forced him to
scek shcltcr in Irán; he could, however, rcturn and regain his father’s
country after difficult campaigns and negociations. He brought with
him Persian artists and poets, and thc prcvalcnt vigorous Turkish
taste in Islamic India was now refined by Persian elegance. Bcfore
that time, a chiliastic movement of large extent disturbed the Western
provinccs: Sayyid Muhammad of Jaunpur had declared himself—as
so many have done before him and also after him—the Malidi, and
won a considerable number of adherents in Gujerat and Sind; but he
and his disciplcs were persecuted by the orthodoxy, and he died,
loncly, in Afghanistan (1505).
Whcn Humáyún died in 1556, his son Akbar who had been boro
during his father’s flight in Umarkot'Sind, succeeded him at the age
of fourteen. He has bccomc famous in the history of religions as the
inventor of an eclectic religión which combined elements of Islam,
Hinduism. Parsism, and Christianity. DiscussinjJ with religious leaders
of all these communities. very indined towards the Chishtiya order,
always keen on bridging the gulfs bctwccn the different sccts and
religions, he tried in the political sphere also combinations of thc
representativos of the two main religions of his daily expanding
ID) Thc first English translation of Babur’s memoirs had been madc by J. Lcydcn
and W. Erskine, Edinburgh 1826; thc receñí Turkish translation by Rcjid Rahmeti
Arat with introducción by Hikmct Bayur. Türk Tanh Kurumu II 5. Ankara 1943 f. is
very rcliablc. Cf. Sehimmei, ñihur ai a poel, IC 1960.

THE HISTORICA!. BACKGROUND 7
Empirc. In 1599 he had anncxed Sind where Turkish pctty kings had
settled. in the Deccan he reached as far as the northem borders of
Golconda, East Bengal was complctely in Muslim hand since the poor
population of indigo- and jutc-plantcrs accepted Islam very wilifully:
thrc-e centurics later, the Provincc of Bengal alone contained one third
of thc Muslim population of India.
Howcver. the religious policy of Akbar and his intimates—of whom
to mc-ntion only tile historian Abü’l-Eazl and his brother, the poet
I’aiíí—was sharply criticized by the orthodox, starting with the histo
rian Badaónl. The orthodox elements ads-ocated a dcar distinction
betwcen Muslims and Hindus because they were afraid lest too many
conccssions in favour of the Hindus should weaken the Islamic indivi-
duality. Up to our days, Muslim orthodoxy has accused Akbar
to have sowcd the seed of heresy (R 112),
and to have preferred non-Muslims to his faithful subjccts.
Tire orthodox protest was personified in the person of Ahmad Sir
hindi who enterad the religio-political scene at the end of Akbar’s
reign, and persued his struggle under his son Jihángir (1605-
1627), 11) Ahmad Sirhindi was called, by his admirers. thc majad-
did-i alf-i thini, thc Rcformcr of thc second Millenium, because he
appcarcd at thc bcginning of the 1 lth century of the hijra. He utilized
for his tcaching thc order of the Naqshbandiya which had come from
Central Asia and had been popular with the firsl Moghul Empcrors
as well as with their Uzbek adversarios, and propagated his ideas
through this rapidly spreading order.
,and his ceaseless efforts, oven from inside thc prison, succccdcd in
a remarkablc degrcc, wcaning thc Emperor Jahangir from the hercsics.
His Persian maktibat (letters) is an invaluable monument and a mine
of information for the intellectual struggle and spiritual greatness of
the renovator... 18)
11) About thc developmcnt m general and Ahmad Sirhindi in special cf A shorl
Hiilory of Hind-PaHiuo, Karachi. 1055, A Hillory of Frtedom Aloirmcer, Vol. I
1707-1831—B A. Faruqi, Tbí Afo/uMáfr Conirpñon of God.
12) Harnidullah, o.r, p. 155. About the general mystical trend which was rom-
mon in Muslims and Hindus. a modero Muslim apologist (UbeidulUh Sindhl)
writes: “TRis Islamic philosophy (of uohdal tluujU) is in fact thc same Hindú
philosophy, which thc Muslim mystm of India have brought to a magnificenl
completion".

8 MUHAMMAD IQBAL
The mujaddid draw a clear distinction bctween Islam and infidelity,
and urged the government to revest again to the long forgotten Islamic
customs; his fervour for the purity of faith made him even work
against the very influential group o( Shi'a like the Emprcss Nür Jahán
and her father who were practically ruling the country, Notwith-
standing these política! cfforts, Ahmad Sirhindi’s most important
contribution to Indian Islam is the strict refusal of the doctrine of
monistic pantheism (wahdal ,il-uu/üd) which had bcen laid down in
Ibn ‘ArabFs theories submerging almost al! the other mystic move-
ments in the Islamic world from the 13th century onwards. and which.
in India, could easily minglc with kindred Vcdantic speculations. Es-
sentially, this monistic theory is nothing but a result of the over-
emphasis laid on Gods unity, leading to the conclusión "There is
nothing but God, nothing in existencc other than He; there is not
even a There, where the essence of all things is one".13) Against this
doctrine which had changed the personal and active Allah of the
Qur’ánic revelation Who is the Crcator out of nothing, into a Being
which contains the world in itsclf, and. as such, leaves no room for
the personal rclation bctween man and God—against this doctrine was
directed Ahmad Sirhindi’s main energy; and it is small wonder that
almost all reformers in later days have gone back to his work. He ad-
vocated the doctrine of uahdal osh-ibuhñd, “testimonarian monism";
essential monism expressing. according to him. only a subjective ex
pedente, not a metaphysical truth. His influence has. through the
Naqshbandiya, reached even Turkish Muslims and impressed them
deeply. Iqbal, too, was a great admirer of the Imam Rabbáni—another
popular epithet of Ahmad Sirhindi—and has quoted him several times
in his poetry (BJ 211, J 1377), and in his Lectures he characterizes
him as %
great religious genius... whose fearless analytical criticism of con-
temporary Sufism rcsultcd in the dcvelopmenl of a new technique
(L 193).
lile reign of Sháh Jahán, Akbar's grandson and builder of the Taj
Mahal, is, seen from outside, perhaps the most splendid period in the
history of the Moghul Empire. Eine arts, music, poetry, miniature
painting reached their culmination, the silks manufactured in Dacca,
,a) Husain, Glimpses, p. 58.

Thatta and Multan were unsurpassable in the world, and in architec-
turc puré white marble was uscd in preferente to the warm coloured
red sandstone. Almost no exterior cncmics lurked at thc frontiers of
the wcll consolidated Empire. But it was also tire time when the heir
appearent, the splendid young prince Dirá Sliikóh, carne under thc
influence of Sufism, añil Iried to continué the work of reconciliation
betwccn Muslims and Hindus on lines similar to thosc of Akbar. Dará
Shikóh was, like his father, a grcat admirer of Mián Mir (d. 1655)
who liad hailed from Sind and formed a centre of the Qádiri order
in Lahore, and was succeeded by Molla Sháh (d. 1659)- The young
prince cven left thc Chishti tradition of his family (which was, how-
ever, maintained by his eider sister, thc gifted poctcss and mystic
Jahánárá); and became initiated into the Qádiriya. His letters and
numerous books prove how deep he had drunk from the wine of pan-
theistic mysticism. Thanks to him, and partly by himself, the Upani-
shads were translated into Persian (this translation is the basis for thc
Latín versión of Anquetil Duperron, 1801, which influenccd sodeeply
Germán philosophy of the 19th century) and thc reports recording his
discussions with a Hindú sage show, as wcll as his booklet majmif al-
bahrain, how intcnscly he cravcd for a "meeting of the two oceans”
of Islamic and Hindú thought. n)
It is quite natural that the other princes of thc housc of Sháh Jahán
did not agrec with the unorthodox views of their eldest brother who
was on very intimate terms cven with thc converted Jew Sarmad, onc
of the most daring writers of mystic quatrains (executcd 1660), and
with Hindú poets. Their father was still being alive, when struggles
among the brothers aróse; Dará Shikóh was evcntually defeated and
reached the Afghan frontiers wliere he lost his wife Nádira who had
been his faithful companion throughout his life, sharing with him thc
veneration of Mián Mir; he sent his soldiers with her corpsc to Lahore
for burying her next to the mystic's tomb. The next day he was handed
over by his treachcrous host to his brother, ‘Alamgir Aurangzéb who
scntenced him to dcath, together with his son (1659).
The reign of 'Alamgir brought for nearly half a century (he died
in 1707) a period of Muslim supremacy in India. The country which
M) Cí. Qanungo. Dura Sbikob. J B Hasrat. Dara Sbibub, Uft aaJ Fk¡i, Cal-
cuna, Visvabharati, 1953; Mir cAli Shir Qím=, ntfHH aib-iblñtri. cd H Raihdc,
Karachi. 1956.

10 MUHAMMAD IQBAL
had been split into petty kingdoms and small principalities since time
¡inmemorial, was united under 'Alamgir for a lime to almost the same
extent as later on inside the British Empire. This was the largest
extensión which the Kingdom of, Delhi has reachcd in the subcon-
tinent. 'Alamgir Aurangzéb has been accused by most pf the Hin
dú and Europcan writers of his fanatic zeal for Islam. He was a
puritan whose puritanism grew during his lifctime; a man who triol
to govern according Islamic law. who f.i. levied again the jizya (the
capitation tax which luid been abolisiicd by his predecessors) from
the Hindus because the injunctions of Islam made it obligatory to
him. ,!) Thcse practices made him highly unpopular in Hindú circles
and lost him the active loyalty of his Hindú subjeets. His puritanism
also led him against the Shi'a sultanatos in the Deccan, and he took
mensures to limit the influencc of the Shi'a officials in the govem-
ment. Music and fine arts were no longer cultivatcd; albeit even this
ítem and austero ruler had a certain prcdilection for somc modérate
Sufi saints. »•) Iqbal has praised him in his poctry as
ilie moth around the fíame of Divine Unity —
He sat, like Abraham. inside the idol-tcmplc (R 113)
(the prophet Abraham is the truc monotheist who had broken the
idols of his father, cf. III C). Already in 1910, Iqbal was aware of
the importante of Aurangzéb for the history of Muslim India—as con-
trasted to the all-embracing mystical sway of his unfortunate brother
Dará Shikñh:
The political genius of Aurangzéb was extremely coniprehensive. His
one aim of life was. as it were, to subsume the various communitics
of this counttv under the notion of one universal empire. But in
securing this imperial unity he erroneously listened to the dictares of
his indomitable courage which had no suffhicnt background of po
litical expedente behind it. Ignoring the factor of time in the political
evolution of his contcmplatcd empire he started an endless struggle
in the hopo that he would be able to unify the discordant political
units of India in his own lifctime. He failed to islamise (not in the
religious sensc) India just as Alexander had failed to hcllcnise Asia.
The Englishman, however, carne fully cquipped with the political ex-
pcrience of the nations of antiquity-and his paticnce and tortoisc-
15> Sri Ram Sharma, Xbr Religión! folity of tbf Moghul Emperon, p. 168.
>•) Cf Aurangzéb
*
s predilection for 'Abdul La(if BurhlnpSri and his Sufi fnends
in M R, Burhánpúri, Bnrbánpñr ir Sindtó AuliyA, Karachi. 1957,

like perseverante succeeded where the hasty genius oí Aurangzeb had
failed. Conquest docs not necessarily mean unity. Moreover, the history
of the preceding Muslim dynastics had taught Aurangzeb that the
strength of Islam tn India did not depend, as his grcat anteslor Akbar
ha«I thought, so much on the good will of the people of his land as
on the strength of the rultng race. Aurangzeb's political pcrccption,
though truc, was too late Yet considering the significante of this
pcrccption he must be looked upon as the founder of Musulmán na-
tionality in India... (SR 31).1"
This judgment is now acccpted by almost all Muslim historiographs
of Pakistán.
During the long—and partly glorious—period of Aurangzeb's reign
the Hindú Mahratta tribes attackcd the country from inside and quick-
ly succccdcd, inspired by the nearly legendary person of their leader
Shivaji, in winning large parts of central and southern India, and
formed a constant danger for the Empire for about one century. In
the Panjab, the Sikli movement grew stronger, which had been in its
beginning a kind of link bctwccn Hindú and Muslims, and based its
teaching on the adoration of the One God. >8) But after the cxccu-
tion of their leader Gura Tcg Bahádur by Aurangzeb in 1675 the
Sikhs had become strongly militan! and constituted due lo the simpli-
city of their faith and their religious fervour a serious danger for the
Muslims in the Panjab which fell nearly completcly into the hands of
the Sikhs in the decades after Aurangzeb's death. Last not least Euro-
pean powers had entered Indian territory: the British East India Com-
pany which had been founded on December 31, 1600, sent its agents
to several parts of the country. and its faetones were seen in many of
the important ports; the Portuguese had already annexed Goa and
sacked the oíd capital of Sind, Thatta, as early as in 1555; the Dutch
tried to get hold of some harbours at the Carnatic. and the French, in
competition with the British, had got some smaller colonies on the
Carnatic Coast.
In the period of dissolution which followed the death of Aurang-
zéb (1707), once more a religious reformer tried to uplift spiritually
the Muslims: it was Sháh Waliulláh of Delhi who was born in 1703,
four years beforc Aurangzeb's death, in a family of devout scholars
K) Cf. also his speech: ZlZa», « « soe/af mí polilitul líral. in which he under-
lines the importante of Aurangacb oven more. (Aligarh, 1910).
■") E Trumpp, The Aíbi Ceenlh-, E. Mataulíffe. The Religión ol ihe Siihe.

12 MUHAMMAD IQBAL
and mystics of the Naqshbandi-order;1S) his father was onc of the
compilérs of the faláuá^álamgm, the codc of Hanafi law which was
prepared under the auspices of the emperor. Sháh Waliulláh set out
for Merca at the age of 29, and studied there for two years; after his
return he proved a prolific writér on exegesis, traditions, history,
jurisprudence, mystics, etc.
The great work which made his ñame immortal among Indian Mus-
lims was his translation of the Qur’án into Persian, which he under-
took bccause he was of tlie opinión that true Islamic life would be
impossible without a thorough knowledge of the contenta of the Holy
Book. so) Since its Arabic text could be understood only by an cx-
tremely small group of scholars in the subcontinent, most people were
more or Icss unaware of its real injunctions and instructions, and the
Qur’án had become. for the rank and file, a merely magica] thing
which was kissed with veneration, wrapped into lovely covers, and
used as a kind of talismán. Sháh Waliullih's translation—though not
the first onc in Persian ñor in other languages made by Muslims—is
acceptcd up to this very day as a masterpiece, and has been styled as
icjázi. an unsurpassable wonder. His commcntary has been translated
in extenso and in part into several Indian vernaeulars. Persian being
only the court language, and vehicle of higher education, Sháh Wali-
ulláh's two sons, Sháh Rafi'uddin and Sháh ‘Abdulqádir translated
aftenvards the Qur’án also into Urdu, the wide-spread popular
language; his tliird son continued his teaching profession in Delhi on
the lines of his father.
In Arabia, Sháh Walhilláh had come under the influence of the
newly growing Wahhabi movement which preached a strict return to
the manners and prácticos of Islam of the prophetical times, and was
especially directed against the cxcccding veneration of saints, living
>") Sháh VdliUáh tá SajJ.Í 1MU1, Aligarte 1950; D Rahbar. SMA Valí-
MA 4.J l¡nháj. MW 45/1955; Maúlan. Ubaidulláh Sindhi. Sháh WMlllih •ir
unitl tháfi tabiik, Cf. Hhtory of Freedom Movrmenl. I 492 ff.
S") "He wanted to malee the QuPin intelligible to the ordinary intellect since
this was necrwary «he surces
* of his religious as wcll as political programme"
(Freedom Morement. p 513 note 1) the ñame of the translation is jalh ur-rahmin-,
he further published a fi taf¡ir-i Qnf:in-i majid and al-faNX al-labtr fi
nfül aí-Uf/ir, both on excgesis of the Qur’án. About the influence his translation
has exerted f i. on módem Sindhi QuPán interpreUtion cf Schimmel. Shtdhi irania-
üoni and commcntancf of ¡he QnPán For the problem of translations cf. M.
Hamidullah. al-QaPátt fi iull liiáa—Qur’án in many languages

THE HISTORICA!. BACKGROl.’ND 13
or dead, which was condemncd as utterly superstitioua and opposed
to the tencts of Islam. Although the Indian scholar agreed with the
Arabian rcformers in their attempt to base Islamic life on the puré
teachings of the Qur’án, he could not sharc their views about mysti-
cism in which thcy followed the lines laid down by the great medieval
Hanbali scholars like Ibn Taimiya and Ibn al-Jauzi. He tricd to reform
Sufism and to bring into cxistence a type of piety with mystic flavour
which does not over-emphasize the subtle differences bctween the Sufi
orders, and he attemptcd to find a middle way between the pantlieistic
trend and the adherents of u ahdat ash-shuhiid, by proving that "God
transcends and indwells in diffcrcnt aspccts, His transccndencc and
immancnce being united through their different functions in God's
total being". 21) That shows that he reached a very comprehensive
understanding of the polarity of religious phenomena.
In his great work hujjatulláh al-báligha as well as in other books
and pamphlcts Sháh Waliulláh has tricd to convince his contempora-
ríes that religión is not only a matter of worship and dogmatics but
must even become part and parcel of daily life, transforming it com-
pletely into a permanent witness to God. Iqbal is no doubt right in
calling him
pcrhaps Che first Muslim who felt the urge of new spirit in Islam
(L97),
and he has fully approved of his explanation of the prophetical
method of teaching which is
to train one particular pcople, and to use them as a nudeus for the
building up of a universal Shari'at (L 171 f.).
Sháh Waliulláh did not conten! himself with teaching and writing
but took active part in the political strugglc of his days. The remnants
of the Moghul Empire which was ai its zenith still half a century ago,
were finally crushed by the Mahrattas and tlic- Sikhs. Only a powcrful
Muslim ruler could rid the Muslims from tírese cncmics, and this
ruler was found in Ahmad Sháh Durránl Abdáli of Afghanistan. Not
that the Muslims of North Western India were very fond of their
mountaineer neighbours—in the lifctime of Sháh Waliulláh tire Per-
sian king Nádir Sháh had invaded the country and looted Dclhi in
2
*
) Husain, Glimptes, p. 62

14 MUHAMMAD IQBAL
1739 shortly before he was murdered, and Mir Dard has written his
famous thrcnody on the ruins of the capital; but the new Afghan ruler
was the only corrcligionist who might be able to avert the excessive
dangers. Indeed he gained, after «cvcral raids and invasions, a com
plete victory over the Mahrattas in thc third battle of Panipat 1761,
and could also threaten the Sikhs who were holding Labore, but tlien
rcturned to his own rcalm without fully utilizing his victory, and
North Western India rcmained in as miserable a condition or per-
haps cvcn more pitiable—than before.
Thc situation in Berigal, too, had grown worse for thc Muslim
rulers. Clive, thc representative of the British East India Company,
had beaten thc Nawwab of Bcngal in tile Battle of Plasscy 1757,
thanks to the treachery of Mir Ja'far who was, then, madc Nawwab,
and sold to the British the zam'mdar rights of 1150 qkm, the first
importan! land-aequisition the East India Company madc. Mir Ja'far
has been depicted by Iqbal in thc /Mdnámt in thc darkest possiblc
colours; cvcn Hcll does not want to pollute its firc with this traitor,
ñor with Sádiq of Deccan, thc betrayer of Tipu Sultán.
In the Deccan, the housc of the Nizams of Hydcrabad had been
established in 1724, and succeeded in surviving thc different wars
until the country was annexed by India in 1948. British and French
tried to sccurc large parts of Southern India for themselves; France
could rctain but Pondicherry after thrcc Carnatic wars; eventually thc
Muslim ruler of Seringapatam, Tipu Sultán, who sided with tliem,
was killed in 1799. '-■) Although this ruler- and his father Haidar
'Ali—belong to the fcw Indo-Musíim kings under whom forced con-
versions to Islam took place, he has bccomc in modern Muslim histo-
riography onc of thc last héroes of Muslim resistcncc against the sur-
rounding peril of Hindú and Europcan enemi^. and Iqbal has placed
thc "martyr Sultán" in his /arídname into thc Highcst Paradise; be-
cause his death meant, for him, thc turning point in the history of
Indian Islam:
Thc ycar 1799 is cxtrcmcly important in the history of the world
22> Tipu Sultán is oí spccial ínteres! because oí his calendar reform Cf. Muhibbul
Husain Khan, History of Ttpu Sulla», 1951; Frftdom MoicKfnt 1; Hidayct Hoscin,
The hbrary of Tipu Sultán, IC 1940/159; TAc Drrjwr of Tipu Sultán, ed Mahmud
Husain; Arnold, l.e.

THE H1STOR1CAL BACKGROUND 15
of Islam. In this year fell Tippu, and his fall meant thc cxtinguish-
mcnt of Muslim hopes for political prestige in India. In the same year
was fought the battlc of Navarino which saw the destruction of the
Turkish fleet. Prophctic were thc words of the author of thc chrono-
gram of Tippu's fall which visito» of Serangapatam find engraved
on thc wall of Tippu's mausoleum:
Gonc is the glory of Ind as well as of Rum.
Thus in the year 1799 thc political decay of Islam in India reachcd
its climax. But just as out of the humiliation of Germany on the day
of Jena aróse the modero Germán nation, it may be said with cqu.il
truth that out of the political humiliation of Islam in thc year 1799
aróse modern Islam and her problema (SS 124 f.),
At thc same time, the reformist movement inaugurated by Sháh
Waliulláh was carried on not only in thc Northwestern Frontier and
in the Panjab, but also in Patna and Bcngal, by his sons, his grandson
and their pupils and friends among whom the rcmarkablc figure of
Syed Ahmad of Barcilly is svorth mentioning. =3) He was a simple
man who combincd military and mystical tendencies, without being
interested in the theoretical subtlctics of the faitli. 35 years oíd he per-
formed tile pilgrimage (1821) and returned to his native country
after threc years during which he had deeply imbibed the tcachings
of thc Wahhabi reformers who had been droven out of the lioly cities
by Turkish troops, bccausc their puritan ardour had Ied tliem even to
a desecration of the Prophct’s tomb and other places vcncrated since
centuries. Ahmad Brelwi, too, started, with the spiritual help of Wall-
ulláh’s followers, a fight against corrupt practices and innovations,
without, hosvever, leaving mysticism aside. He himself was mystically
inciined, and the movement which he founded and called tdr'iqa mu-
hammaJiya, may be compared, to some extent, to thc similar move-
ments in North Africa, likc thc lariqu muhammadiya of Sayyid Idris
or thc Tijániya. Sayyid Ahmad—whom the historians cali ¡habid,
martyr, likc Sultán Tipu—maintained a kind of panentheism: every-
tliing is in God, but is not God, and he has well distinguished between
thc mystical type of religious life—hubb'ishqi, thc Loving Love (love
for thc sake of love)—and the prophetieal type in which the hubb
23) l'ierdom Motemen!, I 556 ff.; W. W. Hunter, Our Inditn mumlnam, 1871;
Nfehr. Zajyii AbmaJ Sbahld, 2 vis, Lahore One of his famous pupils is Isiná0!!
Shahid, thc author of the ¡aqmyal (1781-1851) who is still held in high
rcspect; and whose anniversary was cclcbnited in Lahore first in 1941 (1C 1941/390)
Cf also Handwórtcrbuch s v. FarPidija. K/trámat cAli.
Numen, Suppl, VI 2

16 MUHAMMAD 1QBAL
¡maní, thc Faith-love (lovc on account of the faith) is the axis. With-
out refusing traditional Sufism as it was. he admonished his followers
explicitly "not to follow the authority of any spiritual leader against
the authority of Qur’án and tradition", an order which shows in suf-
ficient cleamess how far the inflticnce of the mystical leaders had
gone and was going.
In thc Northwcstem Frontier and the Panjab, the Sikli had scttled
and partly suppressed Muslim practices in their villages and towns;
thc aggravating situation entailcd the qucstion whcther or not the
Holy Wat should be declared against them; and thc youngest son of
Sháh Waliulláh who was a kind of legal adviser of Ahmad Brelwi,
dccidcd in the affirmative. The troups marched through Gujcrat and
Sind to the Afghan border, getting volunteers from all over thc coun-
try. Yct, thc movement being connccted with thc Wahhabis whose very
ñame was detested by the average orthodox Muslims, it was declared
unlawful by somc religious leaders, and thc complicated política! and
social circumstances in the tribal areas of thc Khaibar Pass and Swat
Valley as wcll as the rcbcllions of somc tribal chiefs whose pride
Sayyid Ahmad had hurt by interfering with their customs, were thc
main rcasons of his defeat in May 1831.
But even after his death the movement which he had inaugurated
was carried on. W. W. Huntcr has described thc "chronic conspiracy
within our territory" which continued in botli Swat Valley and Bengal
for nearly 4o more years. But he has done justicc also to the mis-
sionaries of the Wahhabi movement:
Indefatigable as missionaries, carcless of thcmsclvcs, blameless in their
lives. supremely devoted to the overthrow of thc English Infidels,
admirably skilful in organizing a permanent system for supplying
money and recraits. the Patna Caliphs stand forth as the types and
excmplars of thc sect, Much of their teaching was faultlcss, and it has
bcen given to them lo stir up thousands of their countrymen to a
purer life, and a traer conception of thc Almighty. «<)
And he comes to the conclusión * which holds true also for later parts
of Indian history, and for thc History of Islam,—that
it is one of the misfortunes attendant on the British Rule in India,
21) Hunter, O.Í., p. 68.

THE H1STORICAL BACKGROUND 17
that this Rcformation should be inscparably linked with hatred against
the Infidel Conquerors. 2S)
On the other hand, the same movement was carried on also on a
more theoretieal basis, cspecially by the efforts of Sháh Waliulláh’s
grandson who, however, left the country for Mecca after the British
gained victory after victory—Holy War or hijrat, emigration, that
was the altemative preachcd by the Wahhabis, and the invitation to
emigration has created even in our century the tragedy of 1922 when
tenthousands of simple faithful left India for Afghanistan without
being able to settle títere.
The Wahhabi movement had tafeen firm roots in Bengal. A young
and ardent pilgrim, Hájji Shari'atullah, went so far as to declare the
subcontinent dar ul-harb, bclligcnt territory, since it was under British
occupation rcspcctivcly in the hands of Hindus, where according to
a narrow interprefation of the Law valid Friday and 'Id prayers could
not be offered. He attractcd the small peasants, and his movement was
made popular by his son Düdhü Mían. The result was a growing ten
sión betsveen the indigo- and jute-planters and the big landlords and
European farmers, so that, as often in Islam, religious movement and
socio-political revolution went together. Another follower of Sayyid
Ahmad Brelwl, Titu MIr, started at the same time a reformation
movement in Bengal, and cven succecdcd in forming a govemment in
1831, bul was- in the same year as his master—killed in a fight
against British troops.
In spitc of these hopeless attempts of strengthening Islam against
the infidel invaders, in all parts of life British influcncc grew stronger
with cvery day. lite educational service of the British, which had
started with the excellent group of orientalists in Fort William in
Calcutta. was completed by other schools and colleges, like Delhi Col-
lege in 1827, In 1835 the govcrnment adopted Macauley’s sdieme of
modern education with English as médium of instruction. Mis-
sionary schools were opened in all parts of the country, and their net
became doser after Sind had been annected in 1843, the Panjab even-
tually in 1849.
For the Hindus, the new situation offered many advantages; after
“) id p. 75.

18
MUHAMMAD IQBAL
having lived so many centunes-in certain regions for more than a
millenium—under Muslim rule, the)- welcomed the change which
rave them more opportunities for coming in touch with módem
Europcan civilization. The interest which Europcan scholars displayed
in the study of dassical Indian philosophy and Sanscrit, helpcd the
Hindus to devclop their self-consciousness even more, whercas the
Muslim minority in the country. once the ruling class, could not adjust
themsclves lo the changed way of life; they recalled the memoria of
past glory, without partaking in the British educacional system wlnd>
did not suit their religious requirements. The abolition of Persian, the
oíd language of higher instruction,«) opc-ned the way for the
developmcnt of Indian regional languages which started—from the
scientific point of view—at Fort William, and which entailed not
only a larger literary output in the different local languages but
brought into cxistence little by littlc the art of translation which pro-
duccd adaptations of European literature and technical works.
The Hindus who had only changed one ruler for the other, took
more joyfully the opportunity of organizing new ways of life, and the
ñame of Ram Molían Roy in Bcngal, the first powcrful writer in
Bengali prose, is connected with the bcginning of social reform insu'.e
Hinduism which he advocated with fervour in his pamphlcts. The
Brahmo-Samaj movement that he inaugurated preved very importan!
for the preparation of the Hindú population for the changing con-
ditions of life.
In 1857, universities were founded in Bombay, Calcutta, and
Madras, and in the same year the great Scpoy revolt broke out which
has bcen named by lile British historiaos the Mutiny, a resuit of accu-
mulated disconlent which sc-aled the fatc of the country for nearly a
century: the Crown took over the rule from^the hands of the East
India Company. Sincc the responsibility for this revolt was attributed
to a largo extent to the Muslims, this community remained in the
following years delibcratcly and almost complete!)- exeluded from
important public posts. and when W. W. Hunter in 1871 rose his
=,'> Pcrsian had bcen the depository oí the cultural and intellcctua! heritage of
Indian Islam and had produced a Urge literature; local languages possessed more or
kss only religious or folk-poetry. About the endeavours oí tl>c Muslims <o resist the
growing British influences cf. M. Hamidullah, Déjeme de la Culture hlamique
pendan/ M domtnation /tnglaiir de l'lnde, p. 87 í.

famous cjuestion "Our Indian Musulmans—are they bound in con-
scicnce to rebel against the Quién?" he did not fail to draw the atten-
tion of the government on the deplorable situation of the Muslim in
British-Indian service, the 'Wrongs of Musulmans under British Rule’.
The Sepoy revolt of 1857 has been called “a dress rehearsal for the
future strugglc for freedom". Indeed, this very period is in India
as well as in other parts of the Islamic world a time of preparation
for a new consolidation of Islamic ideáis. In Egypt, the contact with
the French who had invaded the country under Bonaparte, and who
held there important positions throughout the following century, had
opened the eyes to some liberal minded Muslims to start—albeit with
insufficient methods -to incorpórate modern Western civilisation into
the Islamic system of thought. In Turkey, the first stops towards a
westemization had been made in the 1820ies and formally with the
khatt-i sharif of Gülhane which introduced some modern juridical and
administrative changes into Turkish government; for the first time,
poets and prose-writers becamc interested in Western literary and
political ideáis.
But it was not until the 70ies that these movements took, cach
starting from a different intellectual basis, a new and more rcvolu-
tionary form. It should not be overlooked, and is perhaps even sig
nifican! of the dcvclopmcnt to unfold, that the awakening of the
Muslims took place in contrast to both Christian missionary forces and
to the works of European oricntalists which were regarded as mere
tools of an anti-lslamic propaganda; their studies on the origins of
Islam or the Life of Muhammad were - and still are to some
extent—looked upon as outbursts of the tendeney to minimize the
importance of Islam, whereas the reviva! of Hinduism and Buddhism
which can be dated from approximately the same period, is largely
due to the sympathy of European scholars, and even converts, for these
religions which were considered in tlic West models of mystical com-
prchensiveness and tolerance, and contrasted with the prophctic
rigidity of Islam.
The leading figure in the awakening of Islam is the prcachcr Jamál-
addin Afghání who has, througb his most adventurous life, travelled
from one Islamic country to the other, teaching now in Egypt, now
in Russia, then in India, then in Turkey—where he cvcntually died
in 1897, under somewhat mystcrious circumstances, and probably not

20 MUHAMMAD IQBAL
without the assistance of Sultán Abdulhamid who had utilized for a
time AfghánI's ideáis of Pan-Islamism for his own política! goals.
W C Smith has- no doubt right—pointed out that Jamaladdin Af-
gháni "scems to have been the first Muslim revivalist to use the con
cepta of Islam and the West as connoting correlative—and of course
antagonista—-historical phenomena". 2?) This antagonism is repeated,
half a century later, in Iqbal’s writings when he shows, in his Javid-
nime, Afgháni as the prototype of Islamic reforms and makes him,
together with thc Turkish reformer Sa'id Hallm Pasha, cxplain ideas
about East and West as opposite forces.
The writings of Afgháni had rcached India in thc 80ies, and the
two great centres of traditional Islam—the Theological School of
Dcoband which had been founded in 1870 by followers of Sháli Wali-
ulláh, but on a stricter "Wahhabi" line, a school which has tramed
every year hundreds of 'Hlcrn? not only from India but also from
Turkcstan and other countrics, and thc Nadwat ai-cUlamá’ in Luck-
now—both of them were in contact with Afgháni and his widespread
paper <rf-‘írnrf/ rdiinthqa, lliey cherished his ideas which culminated,
after thc First World War, in the Khiláfat movement. *
») Afgháni
deplorcd the wcakncss of thc Muslim countrics which were lacking
contad with each other, and
he regarded it as the religious duty of Muslims to reconquer any ter-
ritory taken away from them by others, and if this was not possiblc,
then to mígrate from what had besóme as a result of alien conquest
d¡r al-harb. to some other land in the dar allllám.. The 'ulamá of
Islam should build up their regional centres in various lands, and guide
lile commoners by ijlibád based on the Qur’án and the Hadith; these
regional centres should be affiliated to a universal centre based at one
of thc holy places, where representativos of the various centres could
meet in an cffort towards a unified ijlihid In order to revitalize the
•■un and prepare it to meet externa! chaüenges. a»)
Tile ideas of Jamaladdin Afgháni were carricd on in F.gypt by Mu
hammad 'Abdfih and then by Muhammad Rasliid Rida whosc quar-
«7) W, C. Smnli, Iiíjw '• AtoJer» Hinor). -19 In Europe, Afgháni has gained
fame by his reíutatron of E Rrnan's lecture on "Islam and Scienre", 1883. Cf.
Handwlírrrrbarb, 107 ff.
») Aziz Atetad, Saydd Aburad Kbát, ¡arnil J-Dbt Algbáni and Mtuliat ¡adir.
Stud 1
*
1. XIII, 1960 55-78
29) id. p 70.

terly Manar has become the symbol for the struggle for freeing Islam
from the fetters of centuriesold traditions which were living like a
deadening crust around its dynamic spirit that was visible in the deeds
of the Prophet and the first caliphs.
Iqbal dccply admircd the great rcformer who
ncver claimed to be a prophet or a renewer; yet no other man in our
time has stirrcd the soul of Islam more deeply than he! (SS 132),
and was of the opinión that
if somcbody descrees to be called renewer aftcr 'Abdulwihháb—the
founder of the Wahhabi movemcnt—it is Jamáladdin Aíghini (M II
231).
He characterizes him in his Lectures (97) as
the man who fully realized the importante and immensity of the
task, and whose deep insight into the inner meaning of the history of
Muslim thought and life. combined with a broad visión engcndcrcd
by his widc experience of men and manncrs, would havc made him a
living link betwcen the past and the futuro. If his indefatigable but
divided energy could have dcvotcd itself entirely to Islam as a system
of human belief and conduct, the world of Islam, intellectually speak-
ing, would have been on a much more solid ground today.
Jamáladdin Afgháni was outspokcnly anti-Wcstern in general, and
anti-British in particular. However the man who undertook the risk
of bringing Indian Muslims into contad with the modern European
way of life, had to be as pro-British as any Indian could be. It was
Sir Sayid Ahmad Khan (1817-1898)—knighted in 1879—who had
got his early education under one of Sháh Waliulláh’s dcsccndants,
but had, aftcr the unforgcttablc shock of the 'Mutiny' of which he
did not approvc at all, proved a most loyal subjcct of Her Majesty's
Government. 30) He tried to demónstrate that it was absolutely neces-
sary for the Indian Muslims to appropriate the good sides of Western
civilización, technique, and thought, to come into social contact with
a®) G. F. J. Graham, lafe and IFerí of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, 1885, 19012;
Altai Husain Hali. hayál-i fñrld, 1901 <1
*
51 biography of Sir Syed); W. C. Smith,
Modern Irlam in India, 1947; J M S. Baljon ir,, The Refarmr and Religión Idear
of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Labore, 19582. B A Dar, The Religión Thoaghl of
Sayyid Ahmad Khan. Lahore. 1957; Dr. Syed Abdullah, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan,
Lahore, 1960.

22 MUHAMMAD 1QBAL
the Europeans, and to retoñóle science with religión, This last problem
has also becn strcssed by Afgháni who says:
With a thousands regrets I say that lite Muslims of India have car-
ricd their orthodoxy, nay, their»fanaticism to such an evil extreme
that they ron away with d.stastc and disgust from setenas and arts
and industries. All that is associated with the enemtes of Islam, be
it knowledge or science, they regard as inauspictous and unwholcsome,
whereas the love of their religión should have made it bindmg on
them to consider themselves as having the right lo acrjuire erudition
and perfcction, knowledge and science. wherever they found than...
Alas, this misuse of religious orthodoxy wiil end in such weakness
and disaster that, I am afraid, thc Muslims of India wtll some day
find themselves annihilated. 3>)
Sir Sayid Ahmad Khan endeavoured by means of his popular Urdu-
iournal tahzib al-Mliq to bring pcople back to thc original simple
meaning of the Qur’án which was, accordmg to htm, perfcctly compa
tible with the cxigencies of modem times. Thcre is no contradiction
bctween the Divine word and modem science, provided that people
understand the Qur’án in the right way and not through the com-
mentarles and super-commentarics—
The commands of God which that innoeent, simplc-minded, truthful
and sweetnaturcd Prophet had communicated to the ignorant and il-
literatc dwellers of the desert in such a simple, dear and sincere man-
ner have bcen so much distorted by such unwarrantcd imponations
into them of empty distmetions and subtlcties, metaphysica! propo-
sitions, and argumente of logic, that their original simplicity has ct-ased
to make its appeal. with the result that the Moslems have been obligcd
to neglect thc real commands contained in the Qur’án and thc authen-
tic sayings, and to follow those invented by X, Y, Z. «
*
)
That was the rcason for Sir Sayid's writing a commentary of the
Qur’án after he had published, in 1861, a coftimentary on thc Bible,
with the purposc of promoting a deeper understanding bctween Chris-
tians and Muslims. His commentary was, howcver, criticizcd by both
Jamáladdin Afgháni and the orthodox wing of Indian theologians who
accused him of being a materialist, a nichari. Indeed, Sayid Ahmad
Khan tried "to denaturalize the contenta of thc Qur’án”, and his
rationalistic views have becn often attacked, though it seems not fair
31) Axix Ahmad. oc.. 59.
32) H A R. Gibb, W'hilher hlam, p. 199.

to characterize the cndeavour to harmonize Revela!ion and Science as
"an attempt that strikcs the Western mind as almost tragic and may
move it to pity rather than to admiration”. 33) The perseverante of
Sir Sayid Ahmad Khan — who has been styled not as a simple ratio-
nalist but a modei of “rational supernaturalism" by J. M. S. Bal-
jon 34)—in his struggle for the progress of Indian Muslims, and for
the realization of his ideáis of Muslim education on the linos of
modem training systcms. is admirable, and the Oriental Collegc which
he founded in 1875 in Aligarh against the furious resistance of the
orthodoxy, became the homc of those young Indian Muslims who in
the second and third generation were to become leaders of India’s
struggle against England. For Sayid Ahmad Khan, it was still neces-
sary to advócate the British rule which gave at least some consolidation
to the complicated situation of the subcontinent, and granted the
Indian people the time required for attaining political and religious
maturity.
S3) Liehtenstsdter, tilín mJ 'br MoJn* Age, London. s.d., p 25.
’<) Baljon, o.e.. p. IB.
S6) S. A. Vahid. Iqbal, Hit Arl aaJ Tboagkl, London, 1939a.
Tlie model of Aligarh Collegc—which was converted into a Uni-
versity in 1920—became quite popular in India, in spite of the resis
tance of the orthodoxy; in Dacca and Delhi similar Muslim colleges
with modern cducational system were established; colleges in I.ahore,
Peshawar and other places followed. Iqbal himself was dosely related
to the Aligarh movement and the /ám?a miltiya, the National Muslim
University in Delhi, and a lifelong friendship existed between him
and Sir Ross Masood, grandson of Sir Sayid (cf. M I 253). It is little
known that Iqbal is also the author of the chronogram on Sayid Ah-
mad's death which is inscribcd on his tomb. ’3) He has characterized
him
as probably the first modern Muslim to citch a glimpse of the positivo
character of the age which was coming. The remede for the ¡lis of
Islam proposed by him. as by Mufti Alatli Jan in Russia, was modern
education. But the real greatness of the man consista in the fact that
he was the first Indian .Muslim who felt the need of a fresh ocien-
talion of Islam and worked for it. We may differ from his religious
vieses, but there can be no denying the fact that his sensitive soul
was the first to react to the modern age (SS 131).*
6

24 ML'HAMMAD 1QBAL
and therc is no doubt that the rcformer's greatncss lies in thc fact
that he, in spite of thc extreme conservatism in thc country succeeded
for tile first time "in restoring thc Muslim to faith in himself". 36)
In 1885, the Indian National Gyigress was founded as a means of
expressing the Indian wishes to the British Governmcnt; this body
was built upon the ideáis of British libcralism. and was not at all
intended as a specific fonim of the Hindú majority; it has had al-
through its existence prominent Muslim members. like Abul Kalain
Aíad”) and Badraddin Tayyibji; however, thc fact that Sir Sayid
Ahmad did not approve of the formation of this Indian national or-
gan which seemed not to guarantcc the rights of thc—then still back
*
ward—Muslim minority, made thc Muslims quite rcluctant in joining
this party.
When Sir Sayid died in 1898, the Aligarh movement was steadily
attracting more and more Muslims, inspiring poets likc Hill with
ncw ideas, but slowly changing its emphasis, for it must be admitted
that for a transitory period a remarkablc anglophily had over-
shadowed many of the Muslim students who carne here first in con
tad with the progressive West; and not without reason has Akbar
Alláhábádl, onc of Iqbals oldcst friends, in his satirical poems ridicul-
izcd this new "western" outlook of a certain group of Indian Muslim
intelligentsia.
Sir Sayid's reforming activity had not remained unrivalled in India.
In 1891, Syed Amccr Ali published the book T/m Idfe and Teachings
of Muhammad which was later called The Spirit of Islam (1922). It
has been said that Sir Sayid Ahmad wanted to show that Islam is
compatible with any kind of human progress. while Syed Ameer Ali—
himself a Shi'a—tried to prove that Islam is in itsclf dynamic and
progressive. 3S) This new view according to w^iich Islam bears in it-
sclf all powcrs of progress, and contains in its essence whatever is
required for mccting the problcms of cvcry age, leads, consequently,
to a new evaluation of Islamic past, and the fresh interest of Muslim
scholars in exploring thc long forgotten sources of their glorious
history rcsultcd in a large output of partly research work. partly po-
a®) Baljon, o.r., p 121.
s,> Cf. Maulara Abuil.Kalam Arad. India uins Freedom, cf I. M. S. Baljon,
A modero Urdo Tafsir. W I (NS) II 1952.
3*
) W C Smith, Alo</rr« Islam in India, p. 50.

THE HISTORICA). BACKGROUND 25
lemical anieles which were directcd against the Europeans who had
scemingly overlooked that their culture would not exist but for the
Arabic influences during the Middlc Ages. This apologetic literature
should not be belittlcd but taken as a first sign of the awaking of new
forces inside Islam which had. howcver, not yet found the right ap-
proach to the problems of both their own and Europe’s civilizarion.
In India, Urdu literature which had blossomed until that time es-
pecially ai the courts of Lucknow and Delhi, and was on the whole
mcrely an imitation of classical Persian poetry with its superfino and
hyperclcgant forms, its melting languishment, its endlcss dcscriptions
of the bcloved's unsurpassable charm—this Urdu poetry now changed
its character according to the new ideáis of life. Already in Ghálib
(1787-1869) a ccrtain philosophical tune can be met with now and
then; 3&) but it is in Háli's work that the new style develops in full.
Ethical ideas and the cali for new heroic deeds are now expressed
instead of outworn love-motivcs, and in his famous mutadj/is (sextains.
six iined stanzas) this poet (and biographer of Sir Sayid Ahmad)
complains in touching words of the deplorable state of Muslim coun-
tries, confronting their misery with the splendour of the Western
world. í0)
On the other hand, the great scholar Mauláná Shibli Nu'máni (d.
1914) deserves special mention among the Urdu writing Muslims be-
cause he has left a largo number of important standard works. like
his 'History of Persian Poetry', biography of Umar, and the Life of
the Prophet'. written in beautiful Urdu which became gradually more
and more a perfect means of expression, and which was made médium
of instruction in the Osmania University of HyderabadjDeccan, a
second centre of Islamic revival in India (founded as College in 1856,
and given University status in 1919). “)
The most crucial problcm which was to be faced by the modemists
was a new interpretaron of the r¿<rrr<», the Islamic Law, and here the
ñame of the Calcutta scholar and politician Khudá Baklish is note-
worthy.42)
») A Bausani, Tbt Poution of GMib in /be Hium) of Urjo nnd Indo-Pmian
Poelry, Islam, Sepe 1959-
•0) The famous muuddas oí Al|if Husain Hall was published first in 1886 Cf.
Tbe Qi/aJroiiti of Hnli, Oxford Univ. Presa, 1952.
«) Cf. Hamidullah, Wl, NS III 5-4
>S) Cf. Schacht. S.W. til.. XII 105

26 MVHAMMAD IQBAL
Among the movements in favour of a revaluation and rcorientation
of Islam that of Mirzá Ghulám Ahmad of Qadian was destined to play
an important role in the first decades of the 2Oth century; Mirzá
Ghulám Ahmad had declared himself the bearer of a ncw inspiration,
and laid claim in some ambiguous térros to prophcthoocj—which is
incompatible with the orthodox view according to which Muhammad
is the last prophct and receiver of the final revelation. Tire follow-
crs of Mirzá Ghulám Ahmad were divided (in 1914) into two sects;
the group of Lahore tended more and more towards orthodoxy, and
unfoldcd a large missionary activity abroad. whereas the proper
Qadian group persevered in the views of its founder, objecting, as
him, the Holy War with wcapons, and denying the fact of Christ's
being taken up to Heaven instead of being nailed to the Cross (cf.
Sura 4'157); they hold that he had after a short crucifix emigrated
to Kashmir and died there. This attitude of the Ahmadiyya has not
only reaped hostility among the Muslims but has—to quote a pro-
minent Christian writer—‘-sharpcncd the gulf betwecn Christians and
Muslims to the degree that it displaces or modifies that veneration for
Jesús in Islam which derives from traditional exspectations centered
m Him '. 43) Iqbal, on the other hand, judged the Ahmadiyya move-
ment as an aberration from orthodox thcology, csp. in its founder's
claim to prophethood. and as a fruit of dccadcncc. He writes—in an
open letter to Pandit Nehru—:
I daré say that the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement did hear a
voicc, but whether this voice carne from the God of Life and Powcr
or aróse out of the spiritual impovcrishmcnt of the people must depend
Kthe nature of tire movement which it has created and the kind
ought and emotion which it has given to those who have listened
on it... The lifc history of nations shows that when the tide of life
in a people begins to ebb. decadente itself b&omes a source of inspi
ration, inspiring their poets, philosophers, saints, statesmen, and tuming
them into a class of apostlcs whosc solé ministery is to glorify, by the
forcé of a deductivo art of logic, all that is ignoble and ugly in the
life of their people. Thcse apostlcs unconsciously clothe despair in the
glittering garment of hope, undermine the traditional valúes of con
duce and thus destroy the spiritual virility of those who happcn to be
13) Hontiwóneihueh, s.v. Ahmailirya; cf S. E. Brush, Abnijdifyel i» Pohinan.
MW 45/1955; K. Cragg, The Cali of ihe Minarel. p. 249; cf. Repon of íhe Coon
of Ernioi’f. - 1954 tMunir-Report)

their victims. Onc can only imagine the rottcn statc of a pcople’s will
who are, on the basis of Divine authority, made to acccpt their political
cnvironment as final. Thus all the actors who partidpatcd in the dra
ma of Ahmadism were, I think, only innocent instrumenta in the
h-inds of decadence... (SS 128).
Just as Iqbal remained deeply intcrestcd in tisis movement inside
his own country, in the hope that Islam would emerge stronger and
more purified from tile difficult situation crcatcd by the tolcrancc of
European powers towards the Ahmadiyya mission, so he carefully
watchcd the reform movcmcnts in the neiglibouring countrics and es-
pccially in Turkey betwcen which country and the Indian Muslims a
certain sympathy existed sincc long. The Indian Medical Mission in
the Balkan-War had created perhaps a stronger fecling of fricndship
betwcen tliose two nations than betwcen others. In the first decade
of the 2Ost ccntury a man like Ziya Gdk Alp—trained in the French
sociological school of Diirckheim, and endowed with an ardent love
of his country and his religión—tried to promulgo in the decaying
Ottoman Empire his ideal of a new society, which should be Turkish-
Islamic-Westernized, 4
*
*
44) and Mchmed Akif, perhaps the most power-
ful poet of that time, advocated an Islamic reviva! and a reinterpreta-
tion of misunderstood and misused Islamic valúes in Turkey—his
poems sometimes show a cióse similarity to those of the Indian refor-
mist poets of whose activities he was well aware. 4S)
4I) Cf. Uricl Hcyd, Poandolioni of Turkiíh NalioMliim, A Fisdier, Ahi der
religióim RefvrmLeuegoug in der Tiiriei, Leipzig, 1922 (this book was Iqbat's
source for hit ideas on Turkey}.
ia) Mrhmet Akif Ersoy was che editor of the orthodox teformist magazinc sebil-
.ir.re/jdi, in which Said Halim Pasha’s anide 1iiawlatbmak was publishcd in 1918.
bis poems Safaba! are of grcat powcr and partly show a wondcrful mastering of Tur-
kish language On .Match 12. 1921. his poen» .. was accepted as Turkish
National antbem by the Grcat Nacional Asscmbly; the poet had. however, to icave
the country since be disliked the nationalíst coune of politics which emerged shortly
aftcr the Indcpendcncc-War.
In India, the situation had deteriorated by the social hardships that
peasants and small workers had to undergo; the fact that the Britisn
bought Indian cotton, and, aftcr spinning it in Lancashire, exported
again the manufactured ware to India, created social catastrophes, and
the members of both communities, Hindus and Muslims, were suf-
fering under the economic pressure. Thercforc the problcm of Hindú
and Muslim communalism was, till the beginning of this ccntury, not

28
MUHAMMAD IQBAL
of paramount importante. The communal tensión» grew only after the
nartition of Bengal in 1905, an act which made Lord Curzon. then
Viceroy, widely impopular. One year later, the Muslim Lcague was
founded in Dacca under the leadership of the Agha Khan, and sent a
deputation to the Viceroy. The aim of this body was "tojrotect and
advance the political rights and interests of the Musulmans of India
without being directed against the British Government as such.
It was the time when, on Hindú side, Rabindranath Tagore s fame
sprcad not only in his homeland Bengal but beyond the borders oí
India, and the deeprooted sympathy of Western Europe, especially
Germany, securcd his life- and loveful poetry wide popularity in the
West, and he was regarded as a kind of living symbol for the religious
powers of -Mother India ', though in his first book Nrt/Wyzr he had
also forctold the disaster which awaited the chauvinistic West, and
complaincd of the twofold thraldom of his unfortunatc motherland—
■ to the boastful foreigner on the one hand and to the unreason and
listlessness of her sons of the other".«) It was the time that Gandhi
started his politico-social work among the Indian workers in South-
Africa which provided him with the training for his later activities
in his homeland. A remarkable revival of Hindú religious life, which
had already started in the 19th century, was visible: there was the
Ramakrishna Mission for which Sri Ramakrishna s pupil Vivckananda
untiringly travelled all over the world in order to propagare his
mastcr's religious ideas as a remedy against the Westerner's lack of
and tlieir sheer materialism. Ramakrishna, too—whose
ñame has been popularizcd in Europe by Romain Rolland "opened
the eyes of Indians who liad for a time been almost blinded by the
glare of Western civilization to the splcndour of the firmament of the
Spirit". ”) There was Madamc Blavatzky and her Thcosophical So-
contact with Hindu-thought as she understood it, and there was, a
few years later, the fascinating personality of Sri Aurobindo Ghose
who, after his studies in Cambridge and a sbort career ais politician
retired, in 1909, for political reasons on French territory: in the Ash-
ram in Pondicherry he elaborated ideas of human and cosmic devd-
opment which can be compared, kceping in mind the different rcli-
4rt) Coaltmporary IndiM Lilttalurr, p. 22.
•’) Id. p. 59.

gious basis, lo somc of lqbal's main ideas, though Sri Aurobindo ad
vócales, as a truc Hindú and mystic, the libcration from thc Ego. and
puré receptivity without autonomy, and also highlights thc parapsy-
chological achievemcnts of the future Supcrman. Indian Buddhism,
though existing only ¡n a few places, also saw a revival undcr the
influence of the contcmporary Social Gospel which was becoming
popular in Christianity and outside; the Buddha became interpreted
not only as a social rcformer but as the initiator of a religión higher
than tho.se of theistic typc which were considered by Buddhist revival-
ists as connected with tyrannic impcrialistic rule.
Tlie Indian Muslims did not fail to recognize the achievemcnts of
their Hindú countrymcn. and also witncsscd the predilection of the
West for Hindú and Buddhist thought as opposcd to Islamic religión.
Yet, in the First World War a cooperation of both elementa of the
Indian population was unavoidable, and thc notcworthy I-ucknow-
pact which was signed in 1916 secured sepárate Muslim electorates
and a proportional number of seats in the respective provincial bodies.
Thc Muslim-Hindu unity seemed to become a living rcality in thc
dark days after the war, when, due to the movement of Civil Obcdien-
ce of Indian population the British killed 379 Indians in Amritsar,
among them members of both communitics. Both agreed on Gandhis
principie of non-cooperation, and sincc the Muslims had, during thc
war, been forced to raisc their wcapons against their Muslim brethren.
the Ottoman Turlcs, Gandhi and his coworkers tried to recompense
them by partaking activcly in thc é/uü/u/-movement which now filled
almost all Indian Muslims with enthusiasm.
Tile khilájat idea had been launched actually by Jamáladdin Af
gháni who was in search of a political centre for the Muslims of the
world. Tlic thcorctical basis for the role of a caliph was essentially not
given; after thc fotir so-called khulafd’i rásbidiin, the Rightcous first
succcssors of Muhammad, thc caliphate had been takcn over by the
Omayyades (661-750), then. in 750, by the dcstroycrs of their rule,
the Abbasids; yet, already in thc first half of thc lOth Ccntury both
the Spanish Omayyad prince 'Abdurrahmán III and thc leader of thc
North-African Fatimids laid claims to thc tille caliph for themselves.
With the destruction of Bagdad in 125« the last members of the Ab-
basid caliph-dynasty were slaughtered, and it is more than doubtful
whether thc person who sought shelter at the Egyptian Mamluk court

30 MUHAMMAD IQBAL
under the pretcnsión of belonging to the Abbastd-house, was not a
mere impostor. Anyhow, he and his desccndants were kcpt by the
Mamluk Sultans as a kind of spiritual patrons of Mamluk rule, and
when the Ottoman Sultán Selim II conquered Cairo in 1517, he took
with him the last mcmber of this’cuestionable family who is satd to
hace confcrred thc rank of Caliph upon him. Through thc next cen
turies, thc Ottoman Caliph-then thc ruler over the holy cities of
Meca and Medina, and most potent sovereign in the Islamic world
was commonly acknowledgcd as Caliph of the Muslims, and this title
was interprctcd for the first time in a purely religious sense in the
treaty of Kuchuk Kayraudja of 1774 when the Turkish ruler as
•Caliph of all Muhammadans' was granted thc right of looking after
the affairs of tiróse Muslims who had becomc subjeets of the Russian
govcrnment. 48)
Indian Muslims had always—already in the Middie Ages—"been
paying at Icast lip service to thc appeal of a universal caliphate, with
a touch of political romanticism”. Tire ñame of Sultán Abdul'aziz.
was rcad in the Friday sermons in Indian mosques, but thc daims of
Sultán Abdulhamid to thc caliphate as a means of his pan-Islamic
interests were thought rather suspicious, and Sir Sayid Ahmad had
cxpressedly rcjcctcd any spiritual jurisdiction of the Turkish caliph on
Indian Muslims. But after the First World War, when the political
views of thc Aligarh group had somewhat deviated from those of its
founder, and when Deoband had become a dynamic centre of Muslim
frccdom movement, then theologians and politicians likc Abul Kalam
Azad, Maulana Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali approached thc
problem from another standpoint, tlius thc khiláfdt movement became
the first revolucionan- mass movement of Muslim India. Abul Kalam
---------------- »
>8) R Hartmann. bljm aad Politii. p 76ff.; H Umut. Lr íalifal dani la
dorlunr dr Rallad Rida, Bcyroutli, 1958; M Barakatullah, Tbr Kbilajar, tondon.
1924. A. Sanhoury, le talifai, París. 1926.
"As to India's relation with the caliphate. Muhammad Tughluq mude ftanlic effort»
to finil out the new caliph—to pay him honuge—after the massacre of the last
Abbosid caliph at Baghdad. Yet Shah Jaban laid daims to caliphate which dignity
was then claimed by the Ottoman rulers. As Ptoí. Massignon has brought into relief,
tire British promised the Ottoman Sultán to cause hts ñame ptonounced in Indisn
mosques on Fridavs ií he allowed ftee pauage to British reinforccmcnts through
¡igypt in 1857—this gain oí several weeks proved fatal to tire Indian revolt against
the British1' (informaron supplicd by M. Hamidullah).
*•) Aria Ahmad. o.r.. 75.

Atad, who had crcatcd his wellknown religious papcr Hilál under the
influence of Jamiladdin Afghini's al-^urwai al-unth(/á, dcscribed in
thcse critical days of post-war India, his tenets in the prcsidcntial ad-
dress at the annual confcrcnce of the jamSat uFulamá-i Hind (18.11.-
1921) and summcd up his Islamic ideáis, contrasting them with the
"scrvile imitation" of Europe in thc pcriod of the westernizing mo-
dernism. His basic vicws laid down in this address are:
1) that in the Muslim ¡barra diere is no distinction between this
world and the next; 2) that the Muslims can deserve the tille of Bese
Community (kbayr al-umm) only if thcy follow the Qur’án and thc
Sunna: 3) that the Islamic ¡harpa is the last and most perfecr of all
revealed laws; 4) that the decline of Islam has been due to the decline
and suspensión of ijlihid, and prcoccupation not with the essentials
but with the externáis and minutiae of religión. ■'»)
Azad accepted the claim of a monarchic caliphate as the spiritual
centre of Islam and intended to give this Caliph some viceroys in
different countries; political loyalty was duc to the Ottoman caliph
who was however a temporal, not a spiritual leader.
After its climax in 1921 and the successful cooperation with the
Congress Party the khiláfat movement suddenly broke down in 1924
when Mustafa Kemal and the Turkish National Assembly abolished
thc caliphate on March, 3 and the whole stniggle in its present form
proved outdatcd and useless. This shock led, to a grcat part, to frustra
ron and difficultics in thc camp of Indian Muslims from 1924 to the
dawn of thc Sccond World War. And after the cemcnting factor
which had united thc two communities in India had disappeared sud
denly, the tcnsions between them, hidden for a few years, became
gradually more visible. Iqbal wrote in 1923:
It is a pity that in thc Panjab thc jcalousy, no, rather enmity of Hindus
and Muslims is growing. If it rcmains likc that. then lifc will bccomc
difficult for both thc communities during thc next 30 years (M II
204).
Iqbal's fears proved right.
Different movements which aimed at consolidating the Muslim
community and giving it ncw ideáis, grew throughout the country:
after thc disaster of thc hijra, thc migration of tenthousands of Indian
“) Id, p. 74.
NvMtN, Suppl VI 3

32 MCHAMMAD IQBAL
Muslims to Afghanistan in 1920, the revolution of the Muslim Mop-
lahs on Malabar coast constituted a new and dangcrous feature of
Indian Islam. 61) At the North-Western frontier, Khan Abdul Ghaf-
far Khan founded in 1930 the pationalist and socially progressive
group of the khudai khizmatgan, the Divine Servante, jnd tried to
unitc the divergent Pathan tribes, advocating complete indcpendence
for India, and coopcrating, after 1931, to the detriment of the Mus
lim Lcaguc with the Congress Party. In 1930 the Group of Ahrar—
the Free Ones -was formed who proved a progressive party. both in-
terested in Indian nationalism and the propagation of Muslim ideáis,
and strongly anti-British, a movement which was to play a very conspi-
cious role in the Panjab riots of 1953. In the same year, 1931, the
organizaron of the Kháksár was inaugurated by Muhammad Inayetul-
lah Khan, known as al-Mashriqi (bom 1888), a man who had recei-
ved Western education and had been Principie of Islamia College in
Pcshawar. and who proposed a total revaluation of Muslim thought
and ethics, holding that "Islam is action". He wanted to raise soldiers
for God and Islam and so carne to found this movement the members
of which showed, in their brown uniform. carrying a spade on the
shoulders, fatal similarity with synchroncous movements in Germany.
Mashriqi has not hesitated to interpret Islam in the light of 10 prin
cipies built by himself relegating to the background of the dassical
five Pillare, i.e. attestation of God's Unity and Muhammad's Apostle-
ship, ritual prayer, alms, fasting in Ramadan, and pilgrimage to Mecca.
Yet his movement gave a ccrtain mental satisfaction to many young
Muslims who were longing for a more practical outlook in life. ss)
Besides these organized groups, one has to mention the ñames of
single personalities: there is the "firebrand agitator" Ubaidullah Sin-
dhi, a convert from Sikhism. whose pertin.icipus attacks on imperial-
ism and his unfailing influence on the Muslim villagcrs in Sind and
North-Western frontier had made him dangcrous enough for the
British to send him to exile. He was—oíd pupil of Dcoband—de
fender of a new social order, whidi he derived from the writings of
Q1) Cf. W. C. Smith. Modern blam m Indm, p, 265; he gives the numhers of
refugecs with 500 000-2 Mili-, whereas Indian colleagucs oí mine did not admit more
tlun 10 000 os higbest rate.
52) Cf. Ba'jon, o.c., about ai-Mashriqis way of interpreting tl»c Qur3ln; the nme.
J Modern Mudim Drcalogur, WI, NS !II 189

Sháh Waliulláh of Delhi, and which has deeply influenced módem
Sindhi cxcgesis of ihe Qurtn. 63)
There is also Abul'Ala Maudoodi (born 1903) whorn W. C. Smith
has branded as "the most ominous representative of the trend back to
religious conservatism", 84) who has, through his fervent cali to go
back to the religious principies of Islam without caring for the criti-
cism of the West won a rather large l'lock of followers, lately con-
gregated under the ñame of jamá’at-i hlámi, a countcrpart of the
Muslim Brctliren of Egyptian origin, and has plaved an important
role in discussions of the foundations of the Islamic constitution of
Pakistán, and also in the Panjab riots.
Not to forget G. M. Parvea whosc tuli¡zal-hlám movement with
its strict renunciation of every source of wisdom, or meaos of com-
munication bctween man and God except the Qur’án is rather in-
fluential among parís of Pakistán intelligentsia.
These movements were the countermove of the activation of Hindu-
organizations which did their best to bring back the Hindus to the
sources of their culture, and among which the Sanscrit reviva! under
the spiritual guidance of the Arya Samaj, and the Shuddi movement,
cmerging from there with the aim of Icading former Muslim convcrts
again into Hinduism, are worth mentioning. It was under these cii-
cumstance of growing communalistic tendencies on both sides that
Iqbal, in his Presidential Address to the Muslim League Meeting of
1930, made the famous statcment:
I would like to see the Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind
and Bcluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self-govcmmcnt
“) W. C. Smith, o.r, 252; M. Ashfaq Sháhjahánpürl, Mait/asa Ubaidullab Sindhi
and bit pohrital tbougbtl and actieider. Ubaidullah Sindhi, who had bien i.a. in
cióse contare with the Russian-Turkish reformer Músa Járullfih during his slay in
Mocea tricd to revaluate the phdosophy of Sh.«h Waliulláh and to build a systcm
of Muslim-Hindu unity based on the essential monism (uaódal al ue/ñd)', cf. Schtm-
mcl, Sindbi irandadont... of tbe Quinan.
51) Sycd Abul eAla Maudoodi, blamie Lau1 and Conniiulion, Karachi, 1955.—
1932 he issued a monthly larjumán al-Qm^án (Towards understanding Qi>r3án),
1940 he had publishcd Touardi iniderilanding bien. which was essential for lite
Muslim thcology coursc of tbe Matriculalion studcnls of Ihe Osmania Univcrsily.
Hydcrabad; W. G Smith, ex.. p. 177 and index; cf. F K. Abbol, Maulñná Maudüdi
on Quimil InlerpreUlion, W 48/1958; the same. Tic /a«tj«a/.r hUnel of PabhUn;
M. J. Faruqi, ¡mutñe-i blami, Patinan, Lahore, 1957; J. Windiow Swcttman, Vine
Poir.u m Patinan. MW 47/1957. esp. III f : Alunó Repon, and A» Analflii of iba
Muñir Repon, transí. and editad by Khurshid Ahmad, Karachi, 1957

34
MUHAMMAD IQBAL
within the British Empire or without the British Empire, the forma-
,ion of a consolidated North-Wcst Indian State appears to me to be
tire final dcstiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India...
SS 12).
This "higher communahsm" as he called it, scemed to be the best
solution of the difficulties in a vast country like India (though, m
this sdiemc, the prcponderantly numerous Muslim popularon of East
Bengal is not mentioned). That Iqbal did not judge from a hasty
timebound point of view, is clear from a letter written in 1909 to
a fricnd:
I have niyself been of the view that religious differences should dis-
appear from this country. and even now act on this principie m my
private life. Bul now 1 think that the preservation of their sepárate
national entilies is desnable for both the Hindus and the Muslims.
The visión of a common nationhood for India is a beautiful ideal
and has a poetic appcal. but looking to the presen! conditions and
the unionscious trends of the two communities. appears incapable of
fulfilmcnt (SR p. XXI).
In the following years, the communal difficultics, kindled i.a. through
the British policy of patronizing sometimes this, sometimes that party,
grew worse, but it still look sevcral years until M. A Jinnali—a mem-
ber of the Shi'a community and in the beginning active member of
the Congress party—, deeply struck by the fact that the votes for the
Muslim Lcague in the communal elections of 1936 had not resultcd
in more than 4,4 %, activated the Lcague, and prevented double mem-
bership of Muslims in both bodies, Muslim Leaguc and Congress
Party. Iqbal willingly lent Mr. Jinnali ( later on given the epitheton
Quaid-i Azam -) his help in the consolidation of the Muslim Party.
On March 23, 1940—two years after Iqbal’s death -the creation of
of an independant state of Pakistán was accepted officially as goal of
the Muslim Lcague. Seven years later, on 14.8.1947, India won her
frccdom—and rvas divided into Bharat and Pakistán.
This is, in very broad linos, the background on which carne into
existence the poctry, philosophy, and theology of Muhammad Iqbal
who has, from 1915 onwards. helped to form through his poctical
word the dcstiny of more than 90 millions of Muslims in the Indian
subcontinent.

HIS UFE 35
b) His Life
Shaikh Muhammad Iqbal was bom in Sialkot in the North-Western
Panjab; therc are, however, somc differenccs as to thc cxact date of
his birth. The gcnerally accepted view is 22 Fcbruary 1873; but, in
his thesis, thc poct himself gises the date of 2 Dhü’l-Qa'da 1294.11876.
Yet since thc hijra-’
jeai 1294 begins only in January 1877, thc 9th No-
vember 1877 would correspond to this Ajra-date and this date would
match also better with the different phases of lqbal's life in College
and Univcrsity than 1873. 88)
lqbal's family carne from Kashmir; henee he often alludes to the
fact that lie is "a son of Kashmiri-Brahmans, but acquainted with thc
wisdom of Rum and Tabriz". 8») His deeproted love for thc ances
tral country and his vivid interest in thc Kashmir-problcm are reflected
both in his poctry — somc of his finest lyrical poems being devoted
to thc dcscription of Kashmir's spting, and complaining of her sad
fate- and in his political life. 87)
His father, a small business-man, was probably illiterate, but a mus
lim of great devotion and mystically tinged piety, who urged his son
to regular recitation of the Qur’án, thus influencing his attitude
throughout his life. As lo the devout motlicr, lqbal's love for her is
reflected in the beautiful elegy he wrotc on her dcath in 1914:
Who would wait for me anxiously in my native place?
Who would display restlessncss if my letter fails to arrive?
I will visit thy grave with this complaint:
Who will now think of me in midnighl prayers?
All thy life thy love served me with devotion—
When I bccamc fit to serve thee, thou hast departed (BD 252 ff)
Among his teachers in Sialkot, Shamsul ’Ulamá’ Mir Hasan proved
very helpful for the progress of the young student who attracted tile
interest of literary and religious circles very carly. After having mar-
ried, Iqbal went to Labore in 1895 for finishing his higlier studies:
M) Jan Marek. Thc Den of Al. IqtinTi Birth. Ardí. Or. 26'1958; bul cf. lilintl
U/nmnf aer /?«/, p 187 The tille Shaikh is given in India lo penora whose
ancestots have been converted from Hinduism.
a
*
) Kashmir-Rum-Persia, f.i. ZA 9; AK I. 175, P<M 201, 214.
6T¡ Cf. Vahid, f$M, Hit An and Thonght. p 265: SS XV11IXX1. He was for
a while Presiden! of the All India Kashmir Commillee, and in 1909 he worked in
the Aniuman-i Kashmir-i.Musulmán; cf. PM 155: .1 Paradise: the seene with cAli
llamndúni and Táhir Ghani.

MUHAMMAD IQBAL
36
to the town which had been onc of thc spiritual and cultural centres
of thc country since the days of the Ghaznawtds in the 1 lth and 12th
ccnturies, and espccially in the later Moghul pcriod. In the Collcge,
the young scholar had the good lude to meet the famous English
orientalist Sir Tilomas Arnold who’ soon rccognized his ability: the
nále-yi firátj, Complaint of Separation (BD 74), which Iqbal pub-
lihed in 1904, shows the deep affection he felt for his teacher who
went, then, back to Europe. »»)
At that time, Iqbal was aircady wellknown through his Urdu poetry,
and had displaycd interest in world literature. »») Poems likc the
nále-yi yal'im, Complaint of the Orphan, whidi he had recited in the
annual mccting of the Aujuman-i himáyel-i hlám in 1899, and the
Addressing of an Orphan the Ncw Moon of thc Fastbreaking, that
was rcad one year latcr at the same occasion, were well reccivcd in
Lahore. From 1901 onward lie contributed to thc journal MMzan,
which Shaikh—later Sir—Abdul Qadir, onc of thc important figures
in Indian Frccdom Movement, started issuing. The poet was, then. not
unawarc of his poetical talcnt and merits and complained of a critic
who
had wounded my innocent poems with the sword of his pen—may God
give him his recompense! (M I 11, 1904).
Latcr on, however, poetry bccamc merely an appropriate means of
expression for his religious ideas, and he often mentions that he
did not seek any artistic valué in it—
the goal of poetry is, to me. not to get fame and honour but merely
to show religious convictions (M II 40, 1914).
Henee he did not cvcn wish that poems pertaining to this prepara-
tory stage of his lifc should be counted as his tren work (M II 254,
1926).
In 1901, Iqbal published his first prosc-book in Urdu, cilm-i iqlisád,
Economics, a subject which seems to be wide of his later spheres of
"•> Xfaulana Shibll wrote al the same occasion a quatrain:
Amold who carne to tisis city and this land and went away,
Was a beloved who look us in his bosom, carne and went away.
He carne to the College jusl titee thc morning-brcczc to thc rosegarden, -
And went so that one should say: Spring carne and went away.
611) M. I 5, 1899 be wanted pliotographs of poeis for a collection.

Gabriel's wings.pdf

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Gabriel's wings.pdf

Similar to Gabriel's wings.pdf (20)

More from ccccccccdddddd

More from ccccccccdddddd (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Gabriel's wings.pdf