As the 20th century draws to a close, a painful truth is dawning
upon the Muslim Ummah. Some of the greatest challenges
confronting them, which engaged the finest Muslim thinkers at the
beginning of the century, remain unresolved ---- the nature of
Islamic renewal and the direction Islamic reform should take, the
relationship of the Ummah to the West and to the rest of humanity,
the character and content of an Islamic polity.
Muhammad Iqbal addressed every one of these challenges in both
prose and poetry, and he did so with courage and creativity,
leaving a lasting impact upon Muslims everywhere. So bold were
the reforms he advocated that the distinguished Muslim scholar
Fazlur Rahman once described him as "the most daring intellectual
modernist the Muslim world has produced."
Iqbal's bold ideas covered the entire spectrum of Islamic
philosophy, ranging from issues such as the religion's conception
of what is eternal and what is ephemeral to matters such as law
and rituals. He lamented the rigid and dogmatic interpretations
of certain aspects of Islamic theology that had led to a
fossilized attitude towards the religion. The Muslim masses, he
felt, were in a stupor; they had to be awakened to rediscover
the vigour and dynamism of pristine Islam. This demanded the
re-examination and reconstruction of Muslim attitudes.
While this endeavor occupied a lot of Iqbal's intellectual
energies, he was also very concerned about the relationship
between the East and the West. He admitted that a "good deal of
the science and technology of the West was valuable and the East
was to learn it and adopt it to eliminate poverty, squalor and
disease, but the East must not repeat the mistake of worshipping
material power as an end in itself." At the same time, Iqbal
realized that "as the lopsided material progress of the West was
unethical and unspiritual, so the religiosity of the East was a
hollow and life-thwarting force. The realm of the spirit had to
be rediscovered by the East as well as by the West."
There is no need to emphasise that in his incisive analysis of
the illnesses that plague East and West, as in his clarion call
for Islamic renewal and reform, Iqbal strikes a chord with the
contemporary mind. This is what makes him so relevant to the
present. Indeed, even in his reflections on the real purpose of
an Islamic polity, which is to realise the ultimate unity of
humankind through human dignity and social justice, Iqbal
appeals to the thinking Muslim of today.
But Iqbal's appeal went beyond the brilliance of his intellect.
More than anything else, it was his poetry that tugged at the
heartstring of the Muslim masses. Whether it was metaphysics or
mysticism, his beautiful poetry in Urdu and Persian was a
powerful medium for conveying the deepest joys and sorrows of his
soul.
Poet, philosopher, social reformer and political activist, Iqbal
was a multi-faceted genius in the tradition of Al-Razi, Ibn Sina
and Al-Ghazali. Iqbal has also made a major contribution to the
awakening of Asia after decades of colonial rule.
