The Differences between Freud & Iqbal (Mohd Abbas Abdul Razak, 2013, pp. 340-342)

1. Differences between Freud and Iqbal
(Mohd Abbas, 2013, pp. 340-342)
Freud Iqbal
1. Their Personalities
-Born as a Jew, later became an avowed atheist.
During his professional life, he became a positivist
interested in empirical studies.
- A devout Muslim whose struggle in life was to see the
revival of true Islamic spirit mentioned in the Qur’an.
2. Concept on Human Nature
- Painted a distorted and ugly image of man.
- Man as an intellectual beast who under goes
neurosis.
- Shackled to his psychosexual development.
- Presented man as a dignified creation of God
(Khalīfatullah fil-ard).Through his philosophy, gave hope
that man can actualize many of his hidden potentials
embedded in his psyche.
3. Women
- Wrote disparagingly on women.
-Women’s status is lower than men.
-Women are doomed to suffer from many
psychological problems, like ‘penis envy’,
hysteria, etc. Unable to sublimate the id
impulses into creative works of art.
-Contributed less compared to men to the
human civilization.
-Wrote and spoke in honour of women and motherhood.
Iqbal’s ideas were parallel to the message found in the
Qur’an and Sunnah.
-Wrote beautiful lines of poems praising women of the
household of the Prophet (P.B.U.H.), women among the
followers of the Prophet, and Iqbal’s own mother.
-The ideal society should honour motherhood in order to
produce dynamic personalities.

2. 4. Theory of Personality
- Presented a controversial theory, which
centered on the human sexual drive.
- Theory full of vulgarity and profanity.
- Personality develops over five stages known
as psychosexual development.
-Divided the human psyche into three
contending rivals (id, ego and superego)
fighting for supremacy of the human psyche.
-Theory reflects ideas taken from Plato,
Darwin, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and others.
-Distorted data gathered from his clients who
came for psychotherapy.
-Kept on revising his theory to suit his
conviction.
- In line with the Qur’anic principles. Called his theory as
the philosophy of the Self (Khudi).
-Did not change or revise his theory when criticized by
some from the Sufi movement.
-Kept on giving explanation that is more detailed on his
fundamental views on the human psyche.
-Used intuition, contemplation and speculative methods in
conceptualizing his ideas. In formulating his theory used
ideas taken from Rumi and other early Muslim scholars
and made a marriage with the positive elements spoken of
by Western philosophers.
-Divided the human psyche into ‘efficient ego’ and
‘appreciative ego’. The two are not at loggerhead to one
another. The latter reminds the former during prayer of its
link with God.
5. Personality
-The psychic life begins when a child is born.
It starts with the id, and then followed by the
development of the ego and superego. As a
positivist, he did not explain what happens to
the human psyche upon death of an
individual.
- Personality is the outcome of a tense situation
that occurs in the human psyche. Out of the
havoc created by the warring components of the
psyche, the personality of an individual
manifests through his behaviour.
- The life of the ego has its beginning in God. It has
hidden potentials that an individual needs to actualize.
The ego has to face challenges in the external world. It
has to live in the midst of other egos in the society. It also
has a final journey to make upon death of an individual.
- Personality as well as behaviour is born in the human
psyche.
-Personality is the manifestation of the inner Self in the
form of mental states of an individual, which is eventually
displayed in the form of behaviour.
-Strong personality manifests in an individual when he
assimilates many of God’s attributes into his own
personality.