Written by: Dr. Dushka H. Saiyid and Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed
Posted on: November 08, 2024 | 
| 中文
Iqbal (center) with Chaudhry Rehmat Ali (left), Khawaja Abdul Rahim (right), and a group of activists in England, 1932.
Allama Iqbal was born into a Brahmin family of Kashmir, that had embraced Islam in the 17th century. Sir Mohammed Iqbal was a pan-Islamist and his thrust was on the concept of ijtihad (innovation according to the circumstances), as opposed to a literal interpretation of Islam. What makes his inspirational poetry powerful and potent is in its exhortation to Muslims to rise and take their rightful place in the world, and revive the glory of the Islamic world. His poetry is gripping, touching a chord in the heart of all Muslims.
It was Allama Iqbal who articulated the theory of two nations at Allahabad in 1930 to the All-India Muslim League, on the afternoon of Monday, 29 December 1930, at Allahabad in the United Provinces. He suggested that the areas of the north west of India should be made into a separate homeland for Muslims. In this address, Iqbal outlined a vision of independent states for the great Muslim-majority provinces in northwestern India, thus becoming the first politician to articulate what would become known as the Two Nation theory, that Muslims are a distinct nation and thus deserve political independence from other regions and communities of India, upholding the right of self-determination.
Iqbal in Allahabad, 1930
تندئ بادِ مخالف سے نہ گھبرا اے عقاب
یہ تو چلتی ہے تجھے اونچا اڑانے کے لیے
(Do not shy away from the wind blowing from the opposite direction, for it only blows to make you rise higher!)
His vision was that of an egalitarian society:
جس کھیت سے دہقاں کو میسر نہیں روزی
اس کھیت کے ہر خوشۂ گندم کو جلا دو
(Iqbal declares in his famous and powerful couplet that if the tiller cannot be fed from the farm on which he works, then every ear of that wheat should be destroyed or burnt.)
As an impressionable teenager, that was a slogan used by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who had promised a version of Islamic Socialism.
A photo of Iqbal and Javed Iqbal, taken at Iqbal Manzil.
On Iqbal’s birth anniversary, Pakistanis must reflect whether the society we have created lives up to his vision.
Referring to Iqbal’s two revolutionary poems, “God’s command”, and “The earth belongs to God”, it is argued that all land belongs to God and the peasants who till the land are holding it as a trust from Him.
In these poems Iqbal rails against the exploitative feudal and sardari systems that prevail in different parts of the country. He clashed with Sir Fazl-e-Hussain in the Punjab Legislative Council over the issue of land ownership, with Hussain arguing that all land used to belong to the Mughal rulers, and now it is transferred to the British, the current rulers in India. Iqbal challenged that view, and argued that its ownership lay with Allah.
Allama Mohammad Iqbal
Fateh Muhammad Malik sahib quotes from Iqbal’s poem Gadai or Fakiri, in which the poet contends that the institution of kingship or royalty thrives by exploiting the helpless and poor subjects. Iqbal repeatedly exhorts in this poem that the outmoded traditions and institutions should be abandoned in favor of a more just economic and social system.
The vision of Iqbal and Quaid remains stillborn due to the glaring shortcomings of our democratic governments, and that in turn has led to the interruption of democratic rule by dictatorships. It is imperative that our policy-makers study Iqbal and try to transform Pakistan according to his vision of a truly just society. Iqbal was acutely aware of the economic backwardness of his country and how it affected the moral and spiritual fiber of the people, and even wrote a book on the “Science of Economics”. Pakistan cannot become truly democratic unless and until the economic empowerment of its people has taken place.
A picture of Iqbal's mother, Imam Bibi (L) and a picture of Iqbal's Father, Nur Muhammad (R).
Apart from giving a vision for a separate and independent homeland for the Muslims of South Asia, Allama Iqbal was instrumental in convincing the Quaid to return from his self-imposed exile in London to lead the Muslims in their struggle for freedom.
Given the current context of genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, it is important to recall that Allama Iqbal was a vocal and persistent advocate of the Palestinian cause. Soon after the Balfour Declaration of 1917, under which the British created a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Allama Iqbal organized a big demonstration in Lahore’s Mochi Gate on 30th December 1919, to express solidarity with Palestine. Allama Iqbal personally went to Palestine on December 6, 1931 as guest of the Grand Mufti of Palestine, Sayed Aminul Husseini.
An archival photo of Iqbal (bottom center)'s GC University batch.
Finally, a year before his death, Allama Iqbal wrote to the Quaid on October 7, 1937, urging the All-India Muslim League (which was to hold an important in meeting in Lucknow on 15 October, 1937) to pass a strong resolution on Palestine saying, “the Palestine question is very much agitating the minds of the Muslims”. He added, “personally, I will not mind going to jail on an issue which affects both Islam and India”, such was his commitment to Palestine!
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