The legend of Sir Mohammad Iqbal

By R.K. Kaushik

IQBAL died on April 21, 1938. The Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims of Lahore in thousands went to the residence of Sir Sikander Hayat, the then premier of Punjab and requested Iqbal be buried in Shahi Qila (Lahore Fort). The Premier, on a visit to Calcutta, rejected permission, but Sir Henry Duffield Craik, the Governor of Punjab, consented. Iqbal was to be buried inside Lahore Fort in the presence of thousands of his admirers. 

Sir Mohammad Iqbal’s great grandfather was a Hindu Kashmiri Brahmin, named Mohan Lal Sapru, who had converted to Islam and taken the Muslim name of Sheikh Jamaluddin. Iqbal was born on November 9, 1877 in Sialkot (Pakistan). His father, Noor Mohammad, was a poor artisan and a very religious man. Iqbal passed his MA from Government College, Lahore, in philosophy and later studied in Trinity College, Cambridge. He wrote dissertations on ‘Development of Metaphysics in Persia’ and got Ph.D from Germany. The dissertations were published by the Ludwig Maximilan University Munich (Germany). He also qualified as a barrister from London. He taught for sometime in Government College, Lahore, and later was a frugal lawyer in Lahore chief’s court, later called Lahore High Court. 

Iqbal’s first poem in Persian was Asrar-e-khudi (secrets of the self), which was published in 1915. The book found readers in Iran, Afghanistan, and parts of Turkey and Russia. When RA Nicholson, an English scholar, translated it into English in 1920, Iqbal became known in England and America too.

After Asrar-e-Khudi, Iqbal wrote another Persian poem, Rumuz-e-Bekhudi (mysteries of self-denial). A sequel to the former poem, it stressed the development of the human ego or personality and power and courage as the ideals to be followed by man to accomplish his great destiny. 

In 1928, Iqbal delivered six lectures on Islam and philosophy in Madras, Mysore, Hyderabad, and Aligarh. These were published in a collection titled Six lecturers on the “Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”. Iqbal intended to define and bring out the dynamic side of Islam. 

Khudi was Iqbal’s universal message by which he meant self or ego, but not pride. It meant self-awareness and loftiness of character. His concept was partly a reaction to the traditional creeds where self was a mere delusion of mind. He wanted the individual to become perfect so that there is no Achilles’heel in his personality. 

His other books of poetry include Payam-i-Mashriq and Zabur-i-Ajam. Among these, his best known Urdu works are Bang-i-Dara, Bal-i-Jibril, Zarb-i Kalim and a part of Armughan-e-Hijaz. Along with his Urdu and Persian poetry, his Urdu and English lectures and letters have been very influential in cultural, social, religious and political disputes.

In 1922, he was knighted by King George V, granting him the title “Sir” on the recommendations of Sir Edward Douglas Maclagan, the then governor of Punjab. While studying law and philosophy in Trinity College, Cambridge, in England, Iqbal became a member of the London branch of the All-India Muslim League. Later, during the League's December 1930 session, he delivered his most famous presidential speech known as the Allahabad Address in which he said: “I would like to see the Punjab, North West Frontier Province, Sindh and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self government within the British empire or without the British empire, the formation of a consolidated North West Indian Muslim state appears to me the final destiny of 

Muslims, at least of North India.” 

He is credited with creating the idea of Pakistan and supported the two-nation theory. 

While dividing his time between law practice and poetry, Iqbal had remained active in the Muslim League. He did not support Indian involvement in World War-I and remained in close touch with Muslim political leaders such as Mohammad Ali Jouhar and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He was a critic of the Indian National Congress and was disappointed with the League when during the 1920s, it was absorbed in factional divides between the pro-British group led by Sir Muhammad Shafi and the centrist group led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. In November 1926, with the encouragement of friends and supporters, Sir Iqbal contested the election for a seat in the Punjab Legislative Assembly from the Muslim district of Lahore, and defeated his opponent by a margin of 3,177 votes. He supported the constitutional proposals presented by Jinnah with the aim of guaranteeing Muslim political rights and influence in a coalition with the Congress, and worked with the Aga Khan and other Muslim leaders.

Iqbal wrote in 1920 after the First World War: Watan ki fikar kar nadan musibat aane wali hei, Teri barbadiyon ke mashware hein aasmano mei (Be worried about the fate of your country, you fool, I see trouble brewing as the skies are contemplating your destruction).

To a German lady friend he wrote: Main khud bhi nahi apni haqiqat ka shanassa, Gehra hai mere babr-e khyalaat ka paani (I myself am not aware of my own true self, there's a great depth in the ocean of my thoughts).

Addressing students in Lahore, he said: Tundiyye bade mukhaliff se na ghabra Aye okkab, yeh toe chalti hei tujhe ucha uddanne ke liye (O eagle, do not get scared by the strong wind blowing in the opposite direction, this runs so that you may gain height.) 

Ridiculing some Muslim League politicians he wrote in 1931: Jeena woh kiya jo ho nafas-e ghair par madaar, Shohrrat ki zindagi ka bharosa bhi chhod de (It is no life, if one has to live on other's breath: Stop relying on a life of fame.)

About the social life of West he said: Mashriq se ho bazaar na maghrib se bazaar kar, Fitrat ka ishara hei ke har shab ko sehar kar (Neither give up on the East nor turn away from the West, Nature teaches us to turn every night into a dawn.)

Calling people to be disciplined, brilliant and diligent in a public meeting in Lahore in March 1931 after the execution of Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru and Sukhdev, he said: Afrad ke hathon mein hai aqwan ki taqdeer, Har fard hei millat ke muqaddar ka sitara (Fortunes of nations are shaped by the hands of its citizens each one is a star to guide the destiny of the community).

Iqbal told a worker's convention: Jis khet sey dahkaan ko mayassar na ho rozee, Us khet key har khoshah-e-gandum ko jalaa do (The field that does not provide to farmer a livelihood better burn every stalk of wheat in that field). 

He advised students that: Aye taayre-laahootee us rizk se maut achchhee, Jis rizk sey aatee ho parwaaz mein kotaahee (O Divine bird, death is better than that food, which adversely affects flying upward).

He believed that human intellect is natural attempt at self criticism and that it is ideal to seek logical truth in poetry. The ideal of imagination is beauty not truth. According to Iqbal justice is an inestimable treasury, but it must be guarded against the mercy and the powerful man creates environment and the feeble have to adjust themselves to it. He once retorted in a Punjab University convocation that  civilization is a thought of the powerful man and history is a sort of huge gramophone in which the voice of nations are preserved. 

When he died, his last book, an imaginary travelogue to Madinah in Persian verse was still unpublished. It came out later that year by the title he had given “Armugban-i-Hijaz”. 

Iqbal was a legend and his fragrance spreads with understanding of his thoughts and philosophy. 

(The writer is an IAS officer of the Punjab cadre)