IQBAL'S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

The distinction between an event and history is a priord. It is abundantly perceptible. We distinguish between the death of Prophet Muhammad (Sm) and the history of Arabia, between the invention of steam engine and the history of Industrial Revolution, between the date of the publication of 'Javed Nama' and the history of the evolution of Iqbal's thought. It is true that we 'stumble' on events in the context of history, we 'understand' events in terms of history, we 'isolate' events within a history, we 'abstract' events from history and we 'locate' events in a history, but it is, after all, true that events and history are different from though not stranger to, each other.

What then is history? Like all familiar terms, it is very difficult to define history too. We can not invite risk by saying that history is nothing but a bundle of events, which make it up. The risk is abvious because events evaporate, they stand annihilated by the passage of time. What at best we can assert is that 'events' and 'history' are correlated terms. To explain the relation between 'events' and 'a history', we can borrow a metaphor. The metaphor is known as PATTERN. The idea which the 'Pattern-hypothesis' intends to convey is very well illustrated in a familiar newspaper drawing, containing scattered numbers which the reader is invited to connect by means of lines. The reader-, at the out set, does not find any 'pattern' in the drawing, rather he is embarrassed to look at it. But as soon as he proceeds to fill in the lines from number to number, he begins to see the 'pattern'. The 'pattern' was there for all time. On the basis of this analogy we can amplify our point in question as below:

This 'pattern-hypothesis' may be treated as rudimentary and not final. For some historians it is a plausible hypothesis, as it helps us in coining terminologies to suit our purpose of understanding history.

So "the claim that there is patternedness, we could call it historical rationalism. The claim that there is no patternedness, we could call historical nihilism. The claim that we do not know whether there is a pattern, we could call historical scepticism".

We are not concerned with the variaties of history as mentioned above. What I am labouring at to bring in lime-light is the evident distinction which exists between an 'event' and 'a history'. Iqbal was fully aware of this distinction. He raises the question in the following verse:

The reply of his question is a big 'No'. A story, a fiction and a narration is an event in its context. Iqbal is reluctant to give any one of them the status of 'a history'. The reason is obvious, we have to trace out the inner connections, which binds together one story with another story and one narration with another narration. Then we have to 'grasp' the 'relatedness' of different stories and narrations as a whole.

To Iqbal history a medium which helps one in understanding himself. It makes a man active and self-conscious of the duties to be performed by him. It is a rich glamour for one's soul. History, metaphoricallyspeaking, is the nervous-system for the body of a millat. Iqbal exhorts human being in general and muslim in particular to see their 'yesterday' in the mirror of 'to-day' of their history. He contends that the 'lamp of history' is the guiding-star for a nation. A nation should take lessons from her history.

The true spirit of Iqbal's Philosophy of history teaches us that history is the expression of the "collective-mind" of a nation. It is a continued creative force with the help of which we evoluate and criticise life, laws and values. Such a "force", for Iqbal, is not monotonous. There are changes in it. These changes, sometimes create unity and uniformity in our system of life and sometime they create diversity and chaos. If we at all want to know anything about a nation, we should, then, study the history of that nation, because it is history which preserves and maintains record of the activities of the same.

If history plays such a vital role, and it is decidedly so, then what is that 'method' which we can apply in understanding the same ? It has become a fashion of the day to apply the method of natural Sciences in the domain of history. The stubborn pride of Industrial Revolution, the shallow boast of the advancement in technology, the ever increasing last for colonialization and the evergrowing indignation for religion in Europe and other western countries have all contributed to help create an atmosphere in the laboratories of our Universities and Colleges, where man is compared with ants, bees and horses. The result of the application of the method of Physics, Biology and other natural sciences is that man has been reduced to a mechine. It is on the-basis of the result of Natural Sciences that man is said to be governed by his ‘instincts'. He is said to have been under the strict control of his 'blind-impulses'. This sophistry of our age is pregnant with dangers.

Those who have an 'insight' equal to that of a "peasant and nomad, who have discovered the art of governing the vegetable and the Animal kingdom", may share with them in their sardonic smile "at the boastful industrialist who glories in his facile conquest of the material universe and has not paused to remind himself" that "the proper study of MANKIND is MAN". "The industrialist has concentrated all his effort and attention upon the relation of Man with the Physical Nature to the neglect of the relation between Man and Man; and he has thus hightened the effect — for good or for evil — of every human action by putting at its disposal a terrific deriving-power, without having take thought to improve the wisdom or the virtue.. . . Virtue of the human beings whom he has been endowing so recklessly with these improved technical facilities".

The proposition of the application of the method of Natural Sciences in the field and sphere of history is totally untenable. "Why should we think that a scientific method of thought, a method which has been devised for thinking about in animate nature, should be applicable to historical thought, which is the study of living creatures and indeed of human beings".

Iqbal's poetical works, his lectures and other writings, which explicitly speak of his grasp of both the Western and the Eastern civilizations, both the Western and the Eastern Philosophies and religion, do not casts vote in favour the application of the method of Natural Sciences in history. He all along toiled hard to study 'Man-kind' with the help of ‘Man'. He exhorts men to "learn the true status of Man". The relevant verses, surcharged with strong moral precepts, are worthy of consideration:

Iqbal in the above-quoted verses raises the question: What is humanity? And his reply is simple: It is the respect for man. Iqbal thinks it to be a sin to utter a single harsh word to one's fellow-being, as all are equally created by God, who is equally gracious to the believer and the non-believer. He asks to betide the heart, if it runs away from the heart of one's fellow-being. Iqbal in his last verse unveils the deep-seated secret and truth. He says that the human heart undoubtedly, is shut within the prison house of clay, but one would do well to keep it in his memory that the entire Universe is the empire of his heart.

There have had been thinkers and philosphers whom we find too much proned and inclined to the study of 'macrocosm' and not 'microcosm'. This tendency to study 'microcosm' is a result of the overemphasis laid on the Method of Induction. The method is not bad in itself. Iqbal is not averse to the use of the method of Induction. Iqbal, having been inspired by the teaching of the Islam and Quran, admits the value and importance of the Method of Induction. But with what he dissents is the misuse of this method, through which 'Man' is reduced to the awful status of a machine — a passive, lifeless and an invert machine. He, as a leading pioneer of the Science of Human Nature, is openly opposed to any such move of the present-day civilization.

His interpretation of the status and station of man in the universe is thrilling, thought-provoking and a self-radiating truth. He says:

"Build thy clay into a Man" and "Build thy man into world" is the massage of Iqbal. He pursues Man to "arise and create a new world". He commands, "wrap thyself in flame, be an Abraham". Iqbal speaks of those warriors with whom this world does not comply in their 'taste' nd 'ehumour'. Iqbal suggests them to wage war against heaven, as it is the raply of the cruelties of this world. Iqbal had total confidence in 'power' and 'potentialities' of 'Man'. He is optimist of the future of 'Man'.

To repeat once again: "the proper study of mankind is Man" — a 'Man' who is "superior to both the world". Then whyi the modern Western thinkers have shirked to study "Man" ? The reply is very clear. The Western mind has lost itself in the 'quest' of nature. It has not attempted to 'conquer' it. The Western mind holds that 'Man' is nothing but a part of 'Nature'. It holds Nature to be superior to Man and not Man Superior to Nature. In this regard the study of the Natural Sciences had led them to the confirmation of their belief and stand about Man. But they have not yet been able to see the hollowness of their belief; they have not yet realized that the whole process of the study of Natural Sciences is devoid of the higher Values of life. The Western mind has not been able to get a true epistemology; they have not been able to find out the point of equilibrium in 'rationalism' and 'empericism'. Though the services of the Western mind are immense in different walks of life, yet Iqbal is the last man to give them a blank-cheque in the appreciation of their services.

Knowledge does not come from 'Accumulation of Facts', 'Definition' 'Classification' and 'Explanation' as a host of Western Scientist and thinkers would suggest, it rather springs from 'Heart' too. Again two verses from Iqbal:

It is the analytic attitude of a Western mind which has created hurdles in his way of getting 'unity' in his thought. But as the Western mind is the creation of its own civilization and as the civilization is "بے نور", the Western man is not getting any way out to withdraw himself from the vicious alley.

Iqbal does not deny the sensory faculties of man or the knowledge gained through them. He does not minimise the faculties of reasoning in man. What he contends are the limitations of both. To remove such limitations and to compensate them, other than 'Revelation', Iqbal adds his own theory of 'love'. The 'love' in the teaching of Iqbal is the key to the understanding of that 'Man-within-man', who escaped the eyes of such Western-minds, whose laboratories are packed up with tools, instruments and animals of lower species.

The inner self of the Western-mind is dark, nay of the whole Western civilization is without light, as it has failed to give man the true status of Man. Howsoever proud they may be of their advancement in the field of Industry and technology, they should not forget that they are creating 'events' and not 'history'. There is no such thing as the 'Age of Machine' "for all that we know, the older techniques, from fintchipping to iron-smelting inclusive, may each have been invented a number of times over by different societies in different times and places

An invention does not make 'a clear cut' between two epochs of world History. It rather sets in motion a wave of mimesis; and this psychic wave behaves like other waves in media. It travels outward in different direction from its points of origin; it takes time to travel and it takes a different length of time in different sectors according to the size and disposition of the local obstacles which it encounters, and the degree of local resistance which it has to overcome." The two verses, quoted below, are sufficient to prove his stand regarding the issue:

Granted the legitimacy and importance of the Method of History, let us now proceed to the consideration of the problem of 'Motif'. The search for 'Motif' is no doubt the starting point of our subject, but the very process of history speaks that it has had been the stumbling-block. Many a spiritualist and materialists stumbled and they stumbled repeatedly, even then they could not find out the real and true nature of 'Motif'. For one "heros" are the real 'Motif' of history, for other ‘territorial nationalism', for yet others "Environment, Race and 'Colour' are the Motif of history. But we can be sure that they have mistaken, that they have mistaken. They have stumbled upon their cherished ideals, which carry little importance for a Universal-historian like Confucious, Buddha, Prophet Muhammad (sm), Ibn-e-Khaldum and Iqbal. For Iqbal the 'Motif' of history lies in the struggle of two forces — the force of "Good" and the force of "Evil". This 'Motif' which governs human history is not only comprehensive but eternal too. It will be better to quote Iqbal in original:

The broader idea of the struggle between two antogonistic forces is neither new nor novel. If we turn over the pages of history that an encounter between two super human personalities is the central theme of some of the greatest stories and dramas of the world, which human mind could ever produce. An encounter between Yahweh and the Serpent in the book of Genesis, an encounter between the Lord and Satan in the Book of Job and an encounter between the Lord and Mephistophles in the Faust of Goethe are the crystal instances which support the proposition. We are revitted with wonder when we find almost similar encounter in the sphere of Science being expressed in new terminologies e.g., the two operative factors in Darwin — (l) Variation and (2) Natural Selection. Our wonder knows no limit when we find an astronomer explaining the problem of creation with the help of the principle of two encountering stars.

The apparent similarity between Iqbal and a poet, a philosopher and a scientist is no doubt interesting, but the differences are fundamental. Iqbal's conception of the 'Motif' of history is (1) ideological (2) impersonal and (3) non-mechanical. Whereas some other conceptions are either non-ideological, personal or mechanical. Iqbal undoubtedly, has used the names of two personalities-Mustafa (sm) and Abu Lahab, but the wordsچراغ and شرار should not be detached from their context. In this connection, a comparative survey of Iqbal with Goethe will reveal the fact that the latter is a determinist in belief as Goethe says "the external factor is to supply the inner creative factor, a perpetual stimulus of the kind which suits best to evoke the potent creative variation", whereas Iqbal treats the individual 'ego' to be a free creative force. To him life is a ceaseless endeavour.

From the study of 'Motif' in history I now switch over to the description of the different philosophies of history, propounded by some great thinkers of the world. Not many persons hold a philosophy of history. The reason is obvious. Either they do not find any "patternedness" in history or they have such a vast treasure of history at the disposal — of their memory that they become scriptical about any single theme; yet their number who could safely see a 'pattern' in human history is many. I propose to deal with Augustine, Ibne-Khaldun, Kant, Hegel Marx, Spengler and Iqbal.

This Bishop of Hippo lived in an age when man's soul was tried for no fault of its own, when the barbarian tribes were invading the Roman Empire and when the West Goths, under Alaric, in 410 A.D., had captured and sacked the city of Rome. A few years latter the Vandals, under Generic, had moved in the Roman territory in North Africa. These events and others compelled Augustine to think about the fate of Rome.

Augustine started his enquiry into the realm of history from the origin of Man. The Celestial King, the winged musicians and messengers, the creation of Adam and the first woman "from his rib" are all the subject matter of the pope. The Pope proceeds onward and asserts that a time came when "the herbs and roots lost their original potency", due to which the man turned his face "to the flesh of other animals". This resulted in the fact that "death gained upon life", and man sank deeper in wickedness. Hence arose two spirits, two parties or as Augustine would prefer to call "two Cities" — the city of 'Satan' and the city of 'God'. Our history is nothing but a conflict between two cities; between two moralities, one natural and the other super-natural; between two philosophies, one rational and the other revealed; between two institutions, one the world, the other the Church.

In the opinion of Augustine, "man is still in his childhood, for he can not respect his ideal which is not imposed on him against his will, nor can he find satisfaction in a good created by his own action. Man is always afraid of a universe that leaves him alone." Freedom appeals him". Man is a sinister by birth. One can not expect that he would be competent to safeguard all that is given to him by God. Lest the works of His hands wholly perish, God promised to redeem some of "Adam's children and restore them to a natural life. Augustine, then does not hesitate to disclose that the eternal city is not Rome," but congregation of all who will be saved through the death of Christ and shall pass their eternity in Paradise.

Unlike Kant and Hegel, who were born in the brilliant centuries of human civilization, Ibn-e-Khaldun was born in a 'dark age'. Umayyad and Abbasid dynesties had broken down. In North-West African and the Iberian penensula "the last Vegtiges of the old order had been swept away by a conflux of barbarians from the three continents: Europian Austrian, Frank from Pyreness and African Nomads from Sahara". The destruction was brought home to Ibn-e-Khaldun by his family history as well as by his personal experience.

Ibn-e-Khaldun was ever occupied in thinking over the causes of the changing interregnum. He was too much involved in court life as such he could not find time before A.D. 1375 to write all about the subject which pressed his mind. It was somewhere in the year 1375 A. D. that Ibn-e-Khaldun got time to get himself settled at Qilad-bin-Salamah. It was at this place that he composed his immortal work, on Universal History in four years. He gives a first-hand account as quoted here: "I installed myself in a large and solid suite of room that had been build there (at Qilad-bin-Salamah) by Abu Bakar-bin'Arif'. "It was in this retreat that I composed the Muqaddemat, a work which was entirely original in its plan and which I made out of the cream of enormous research".

The vitality and life of Ibn-e-Khaldun's philosophy of History is found in his 'Motif' of Asabiyah ( عصبیة ) — the esprit de corps. It expresses itself in effective social action. It is a rare phenomenon and is found in Nomad hordes. "In the metal picture which Ibn-eKhaldun constructs out of his historical evidence, the lack of Asabiyah or deficiency in social vitality is taken to be the normal ethos of sedentory population in all times and places". Some more observations of Ibn-e-Khaldun are noted below:

1. "Asabiyah is not the only kind of Social protoplasm; an alternative and superior-kind exist in the shape of religion".

2. (2) It is impossible to find a dominion or dynesty without possessing the support of a people animated by the esprit de corps".

3. Early Muslims succeded because they had both the dynamic force of religion and asabiyah".

4. The decline of Umayyad, Abbasid and Banu Hilal were due to the atrophy of the socially unconstructive ethos. "When an empire has acquired its natural form through the establishment of autocracy and the introduction of luxury, it tends to decay".

5. "In empires the habit of the nomadic life are gradually replaced by those of the sedamtry life." "The faculty of living in the deserts is confined to communities that are animated by a strong esprit de corps".

Hume, Voltaire, Condorcet, Rousseau and many others had repudiated the views of Augustine. A clear shift from an "Age of faith" — to an "Age of Reason" was then visible. Kant, in such a period of transition, was faced with the question: What philosophy of history could a man propose that would command the belief and support of the peoples of Europe ?

Kant, who said, "I have . . . found it necessary to deny knowledge of God, freedom and immortality, in order to find out a place for faith", had also admitted the superiority of 'Practical will.' The man who had "indeed neither life nor history in the proper sense of the word" wrote the idea of a Universal history in 1784. In his work on history Kant proceeds with the belief that man is predisposed by nature to develop tendencies. It involves the use of reason. Such development does not occur in any single individual rather it takes place in the species as a whole. Nature has created man in such a way that the human tendencies develop through antagonism, conflicts and give and take of life in society. The highest problem nature has set before man is the creation of society which will not stand destroyed by conflicts. It requires, for its final solution, the establishment of a world-state. Thus a world-state is the ultimate goal of man.

Having emphasized the development of tendencies in human species as a whole, Kant makes haste to observe that "man should transcend the mere constitution of his animal existence and that he should be susceptible to no other happiness or perfection than what he has created for himself through his own reason". In controlling his "animal existence" and attaining "perfection" Kant emphasises the role of reason and attaches little importance to "instinct" According to him the forethought of man needs no help of instinct. Even for his security and superstructure of delight man requires no aid of instincts. But how to bring instincts under the control of reason was the question with which Kant was faced. In this connection Kant adds that no doubt man has "gregarious instinct" in him; but he is equally bestowed with antigregarious instinct. It is the antigregarious instinct which forces every thing into compliance with the humour of man. "It derives him to master his propensity to indolence and in the shape of ambition or avarice, impels him to procure distinction for himself amongst his fellows". It was through this process of mastery over the gregarious instinct that man marched onward from the savage stage to the stage of culture. And such a stage of culture is the stage of the social worth of man.

The stage of culture was not achieved by man in a single attempt. Man had to struggle hard and he had to struggle against himself. It was all a problem of the right understanding and the realisation of the meaning of "freedom". "The history of the human species as a whole may be regarded as the unraveling of a hidden plan of nature for accomplishing a perfect state of civil constitution for society". The urge for freedom in man is innate. Nature herself has put this urge in him. To attain freedom man required an equilibrium both in the control of his instincts and the application of his reason.

A nation after hard test and turmoil may attain freedom. But it will not be itself exempted from danger, because other nations would always look at it with covetous eyes. Should we, then, give up our hopes regarding the future of man? Kant's reply is an emphatic 'No'. On the contrary he suggests the cure in these words: "a philosophical attempt to compose a universal history tending to unfold the purpose of nature in a perfect civil union of the human species is to be regarded as possible." It is possible through the establishment of a world-state. The duty of such an institution will be to put a curb on the freedom of a nation (as a nation will impose curb on the freedom of man) and to compel it into submission to a Universal will, which "may" secure the possibility of "Universal freedom".

The Renaissance, the Reformation, the Great Revolutions of the modern age, the rise of science, the 'growth of industrialism and the spread of teritorial nationalism have had been moulding and re-moulding history. Thanks to the effort of last four or five centuries that man has unmistakably learnt the worth and value of 'Freedom', though he could not attain even to that degree which was the proud possession of the early Arabs. No doubt the century of Hegel was a century of the demand for 'freedom' but this demand gradually degenerated in the demand of 'License.' This demand for 'licence' brought the 'iron-handed' regime of Napolean, whom Hegel termed as "the world-spirit on the horse-back". In such circumstances, saturated with conflict and contrast, Hegel was out with a three point-mission noted below:

1. To save the concept of 'freedom' by establishing distinction between law' and Licence.

3. To justify the attempt of the 'Reaction' to save Europe from Licence and tyranny in the name of "rational freedom" or 'freedom under law'.

Hegel delivered his lecture on "Philosophy of History" in the University of Berlin. The lectures were posthumously published in

1837. These lectures are very widely read, much more widely read than the work of Kant. As a true idealist Hegel starts with the observation that "the world history belongs to the realm of spirit, not to the realm of matter. The term world, indeed, includes both physical and psychical. But our concern is not with nature at large. On the stage of history, spirit displays itself in its most concrete reality". The development of spirit is our central theme. With the help of an analogy Hegel makes the point more clear. He says, "As the essence of matter is gravity, so the essence of spirit is freedom". The freedom, in turn, is the "capacity to act".

‘Freedom' can be had in two ways. The means suggested by Hegel are: (1) the realization of freedom and (2) the study and analysis of human passion. In the words of Hegel himself, "one is the warp, the other the woof, of the vast arras web of world history". Hegel exhorts that the spirit, which is manifest and present in man, must come out to gain freedom, it must achieve capacity to act. In realizing the true connotation of freedom man shall have to decide the 'aim', the 'Principle' and the 'destiny', first, in the second phase of the attainment of 'freedom' a man shall have to control his own passions. The decision of the 'aim' of spirit is not an easy task as it is something ‘latent', 'profoundly hidden' or something which resembles an 'unconscious instinct'. Its knowledge cannot be had in a day or two. "The whole process of history is directed to rendering this unconscious impulse a conscious one". This much about the 'warp'.

The 'woof' or the passion is "the concentrated energy". It is a sort of "private interest". Passion has been condemned by many a philosophers and psychologists. Hegel is opposed to such condemnations. He wants "to silence such pallid moralizing", because, "nothing great has ever been accomplished without passion ...... self‑seeking to the exclusion of all things else".

One should not think that Hegel gave a rosy picture of human history. He says that the price of 'freedom' is not only 'eternal vigilence' it is eternal 'strife' and Violence too. The history, as such, "appears to be the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of the people, the wisdom of states and virtue of individuals have been victimized". The explanation of strife and violence is dialectical. In the arena of history an encounter between a 'thesis' and an 'antithesis' is always going on. The antithesis, according to Hegel, is nothing but an off-spring of the thesis and the former inherits some qualities of the latter. The caravan is thus marching on.

According to the study of the ideal-Hegel — every period of human history is a unity, it is a total whole in itself. It is out of such 'uniformity' that 'diversity' springs. To be more explicit, Hegel contends that an antithesis appears at the declining stage of every period of human history. Such antithesis brings new ideals, values, trends and thoughts in its train, and thus a conflicts takes place between the new and old ideas, new and old values, so forth so on. The struggle ends in a compromise between the rival thesis and antithesis. It ends in a synthesis, which very large-heartedly embraces certain dominant factors of the out-going phase of civilization. Thus the human history is necessarily moving onward. It does not move in a circle. Its course is also not like that of a horizontal line. It is, to be some after Hegel, is like a straight line.

The onward march of history is controlled and governed by the ‘Absolute Spirit', which makes use of the great personalities of the world to unveil and unfold its reality. General masses are no more better than puppets in the hands of the Absolute and the world of matter is no more better than a mile-stone, which reckons the journey. As a true idea list Hegel believes that the encounter is held in the world of ideas and not in the world of matter, because the latter is the semblance and shadow of the former. The world is nothing but the 'exhibition ground' of the Absolute.

Hegel, at this juncture of his enquiry, comes to rescue what he calls "rational freedom" or "freedom under law". 'Freedom' is neither ‘primitive nor natural'. Every man, of extraordinary will power, has to seek it. He has to win it. But the victory of man over 'freedom' supposes "an incalculable discipline of intellectual and moral powers". All that is given by Nature is not welcomed by Hegel. According to him nature has given man injustice, violence, untemed impulse and inhuman feelings etc. "Limits are certainly imposed by social organizations; but they are limits imposed on emotions and instincts. In more advanced stages, they are limits imposed on self-will, caprice, passion. Limitation of this kind is, impart, the means where by rational freedom, contrasted with unbridled licence, can be obtained". To make this hard-won 'freedom' secure and lasting Hegel suggests in unambiguous terms that individuals and states should get themselves related with other states.

The ideal of the relation of one state with the other has till now proved to be a wild-goose chase. Different peoples have been at daggers drawn. History is repleat with the instances of bloody wars. Wars, for Hegel, has an ethical element. "It must not be regarded as an absolute ill" "Eternal peace is often demanded as an ideal toward which mankind should move. But nations issue forth invigorated from their wars." Thus the profounder of the 'Dialectic' remains true to his 'method' upto the last.

Marx was an intellectual disciple of Hegel but very different from the disciples of the 'East', who would not even think of criticizing their 'Gru' or Ustadh. The dialectic method of Hegel appealed the mind of Marx but the latter found it hard to accept the same without criticism. He made the reality stand on its feet and not on its head as it was the case in the dialectic of Hegel. One may very well choose to differ with Marx, but one can not dare deny the depth of his knowledge, the sharpness of his insight and the boldness of his stand. He is termed as "one of the makers of the modern mind". His "Manifesto" and "Capital" have shed enormous influence on modern trend of thoughts. Iqbal did not hesitate to call him "پیغمبر بے کتاب" or 'a prophet without scripture.'

The force with which Hegel had asserted the reality of the "world of ideas" could not subdue Marx. He did not like to fly on "the wings of ideas". He attempted to unearth the root of the social evil. Being born in an age in which the smoke of gigantic chimneys had affected the lungs of the working class and the sore of capitalism had run deep into the body of every proletariat, Marx could hardly think of a fairy-land of the 'Absolute of Hegel'. He was himself an earthly man, as such he kept his feet undaunted on the earth. He ventured to give an economic interpretation of history, in which the theory of 'Production' works like a magic key. Marx claims "The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of man which determines their being, but on the contrary their social being that determines their consciousness."

With this magic key — the theory of 'production' — Marx unlocks the doors of human history. And he found that history is a "slaughter bench" — "Free men and slaves, Patricians and Plebians, Lord and Serf, Guild-master and Journeymen, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fights, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large or in the common ruin of the contending classes". In the fight of the oppressor and the oppressed the 'dialectic' played its destined role. What was once a synthesis became a thesis e.g. there was a struggle between the serfs and chartered burghers, As a result of that conflict the "first elements of the bourgeoisie" developed. It was then the synthesis. Now it has itself became a thesis and is encountered by its antithesis — the communism.

Communism is the only cure of capitalism. It will do for the capitalists what they did for their masters of the feudal order. "But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapens that bring death to itself, it has also called into existence the men who are to weild those weapons — the modern working class the proletarians". These proletarians will bring a revolution which will involve the whole society; though "it will gather momentum in national movements", it will gradually "spread into an international movement". This class distinction of the 'haves' and 'have-nots' will obliterate. It will cease in the long run. And "in place of the old bourgeoisie society, with its classes and class antagonism, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains".

The writer of the Decline of the West was opposed to the scheme of history termed as "ancient-medieval-modern". He proposes his "copernican" view and it is the distinction between "Kultur" and "Civilisation". Each epoch, for Spengler, begins with a "Kultur" and ends with a "Civilisation". They are very intimately related; one is inseparable from the other. "Kultur" is the starting point and "Civilisation" is the destination. It will be better to reproduce Spengler in original: "Every culture has its own civilisation. In this book these two words are used in a periodic sense, to express an organic succession. The civilisation is the destiny of the culture. In this principle we obtain the view-point from which the problems of historical morphology becomes capable of solution. Civilisation are the most artificial and external states of which a species of developed humanity is capable. Civilization are a conclusion, death following upon life,rigidity following expansion. To the culture belong„ gymnastics, the joust, the tournaments. To the civilisation belongs sports".

The growth of culture is analogous to the growth of an organic body. As a body passes through the stages of 'birth' infancy, childhood, youth and oldage so also a culture passes through the above-mentioned stages lying in between life time and death. "Each culture has its own new possibilities of self-expression, which arise, ripen, decay and never return." And each culture "grows with the same superb aimlessness as the flowers of the field". Spengler was very bold in asserting the aimless growth of a culture. He had no mind, no sign of any treaty of peace on this point. He re-affirms his views in these words: "I see world history as a picture of endless formation and transformations".

If a culture "never returns" then does it mean that it dies for ever. For Spengler the culture of a particular epoch dies, but certain 'events' may re-appear in another culture. The re-appearance of certain events or traits of a culture does not mean the re appearance of the culture as a whole. At this point Spengler passed to develop the thought that a history of many different epochs will inevitably develop analogies between one epoch and another. The use of the method of analogy in the past was a curse, "for they had enabled historians to follow their own tastes, "yet it might be a blessing to historical thought. The historian despite risk, should be prepared to make large use of analogies. "He will be interested in noting what things in epoch A are contemporary with things in epoch B." And the word 'contemporary' in Spengler's use means happening in one epoch at relatively the same point as in an other epoch.

With these general ideas in mind Spengler focussed his attention to the main subject of his famous book — the Decline of the West. He contended that the peoples of the West "live at the end of an epoch", they are living in a civilization and not in a culture. His massive book is an inductive survey of the evidence for his claim.

There was an age when human history was highly saturated with religious legends. Education was then not democratized. It was the monopoly of a few. Popes and Bishops had final say in every matter. Augustine was blessed with the same status and position in his age. His theory of 'universal history' is a fine piece of legends. The most striking weakness of his theory lies in the antagonism of ‘revelation' and 'reason' and the 'church' and 'world'. The second point of weakness is found in the fact that Augustine called man a ‘sinister' by birth and he found him "in his childhood; for he can not respect an ideal which is not imposed on him against his will nor can he find satisfaction in a good created by his own action". One can very well see that the Bishop of Hippo had totally ignored the achievements of the civilizations of China, India and Egypt etc. He had ignored the achievements of the Greek civilization which was destined to play an important role in the formation and transformation of the civilization of Europe, before and after his own century. Augustine is an unsuccessful advocate of 'Determinism'. It sealed the fate of man. His theory drastically curbed the power and potentialities of man. Augustine may the Christianity as such, is guilty of this unhoby 'interpretation' of the status of man.

Islam, almost after two centuries, unveiled the truth. It gave man the status he deserves in the cosmos. Ibn-e-Khaldun picked up the thread of discussion from the literature of his muslim predecessor He had little charm for Christian legends. Ibn-e-Khaldun starte with the principle of Asabiyah. It is the elan vital of history. Bt how the two entirely different historic transactions of the Early Muslim Arabs and Banu Hilal are to be explained? He solved this conundrum by stating that Asabiyah is not the only kind of social protoplasm, a alternative exists in the shape of religion, this Asabiyah is a trait c Nomadic life. It has a smell of 'nationalism'. Ibn-e-Khaldun, de! pite his effort to moderate his esprit decorps by an over coating of religion, could not make the Quinine tablet tasteful. It is too narrow a principle to bear the burden or to justify the range of his masterly journalization. The second point of criticism which surges in our mind when we come to the equation of Asabiyah with Nomadic hordex as why it should be so and not otherwise ? Had the Chinese, th Indians, the Egyptians, the Greeks and the North Europeans bees deprived of Asabiyah in their respective ages of glories? The corollary, the principle of la-Asabiyah with the sedentary life seems to much sweeping. In offering these criticism we should not fee proud of our intellectual superiority. These criticism have been possible due to the fact that we have a wider field of historial evidences to work upon which Ibn-e-Khaldun did not possess. He deserves credit for his study of the human nature, for his introduction of the method o Induction in history and for the 'universal history', which he left for progenities to come. The main contribution of Ibn-e-Khaldun lies in the fact that he cleared up the mess of legends and fictions, createc by the dogmatic Christian thinkers from the grand edifice of history.

Kant "never travelled more than forty miles from his birth place or took a voyage upon the water of the Baltic on whose shores he lived; and the daily round of his activities was so monotonously regular that the towns people learnt to set their watches by his punctual passage past their windows on his daily 'constitutional' walk". His life was a mystry. And his works both on metaphysics and history are more mysterious than his life.

Kant had, no doubt, taken pains to study human nature. But in it he could not see no more than a fair reflection of his own life. The antigregarian instinct was very strong in him. He gave it the strongest role in the formation of the nature of man. The reason was very strong in his thought and it enjoyed the same status in moulding the destiny of the human species as such. In short, Kant could not rise above his own introvert personality in his writing. Kants' interpretation of history in terms of 'Universal Freedom' is highly Utopian. His scheme of a world — state, without any solid support of a comprehensive code of life, appears to be a tall-talk. His contention that human history, as nature would have wished it, is necessarily marching onward is not above criticism. His statement that "Nature does nothing superfluously and in the use of means to her ends does not play the prodigal" gives human being a licence to go to Wars. Kants agnosticism in the sphere of nuemena-soul & God etc. is the cause of his concentrated attention on nature. He could realize little that man is born to conquer nature and is not born to be enslaved by her.

Hegal's 'Philosophy of history' is no less romantic than that of Kant. The difference between the two Germanthinkers lies in the fact that the former is understandable to his readers, the latter is just the reverse. Though history is "the unreveling of the plan of nature" to Kant he failed to show as why man would be a slave of nature. Hegel shifts the burden to God. He says that history is "the march of God on earth". The how and why of this contention of Hegel has not been explained by him. As such the claim becomes a fiction, a chimera and an episode. According to Hegel history is a theatre Hall, where man plays the role of a puppet devoid of intention, power and knowledge. Man is a tool in the hands of the Absolute, which creates conflicting ideas in him. These ideas undergo a fight, then a stage comes when the Absolute itself dictates the terms of compromise between the conflicting ideas.

Hegel's Dialectic process has an iota of truth in it. He is correct in his reading when he says that a conflict (in history) is going on between rival ideas and that the 'synthesis', got at the ends of every conflict, formed a part of human culture. But he did not go deep into the process. He could not find out the real nature of thesis and antithesis. He could not explain as why a synthesis in course of time becomes a thesis. His speculative genius failed to earn an unconditional support from his readers.

C. There have had been rise and fall in human cultures and civilization. History is not a one-way traffic. There are ups and downs in it.

Marx as stated earlier is an intellectual disciple of Hegel. He converted the Dialectic of his master into 'Dialectic materialism'. The conclusions which can be drawn from the thought of Marx are now examined critically.

1. The civilization of every period is a unit-whole. The arts, Science, philosophy, religion and values are all the manifestation of their age. With the change in the system of production and distribution there is change in all walks of life.

2. When a civilization is ripened an antithesis is born out of the womb of the outgoing civilization. The latter is comparatively better than the former.

These deduction from the teaching of Marx do not stand the test of history. Marx, who applied the Heraclitian principle of change in his interpretation of history, is ever faced with a Zeno. Science, Philosophy, religion, values and art do not change with the change in the system of 'production'. It is a change in idealogy of a nation which leads to the changes in different departments of human life. The economic conditions of Rome and Perisa were almost the same, yet before the advent of Islam they possessed different religions, different values and different philosophies of life. With the spread of Islam we find a new change introduced in the social body of Persia etc. People, in general, changed their religion, their values and philosophies of life in favour of Islam. Then, does this change in the social body of Persia etc. mean that their economic conditions were similar to the economic conditions of Arabia — an abode of a revolutionary code of life ?

Marx is also incorrect in his statement that the emerging civilization is necessarily better than the preceding one. Is our modern Western civilization better than any of the idealogical civilization of the past ? The development in Science and technology should not make our eyes shut to see the truth. We have to see whether man has got the true status of man in this civilization. The reply is a clear ‘No'. Man might have learnt to fly like birds and to swim like fishes but he has to relearn that he is a man. In past kings and emperors exploited their subjects, in medeaval ages popes and Bishops looted the general masses, in modern history capitalists and the 'Capitalist of the capitalists' have been performing the same drama of inhuman cruelties, oppression, and tyrannies. So where lies the difference ? The difference lies in the technique of oppression and not in its nature. In old days 'have not' were killed by swords but to day they are killed by devastating bombs.

Last of all, the contention of Marx that the distinction of the ‘haves' and 'have not' will cease by the establishment of the 'dictatorship of the proletariats' is not simply a hoax but also a bad example of self-contradiction. Marx could not realize the dilemma: If class distinction ceases, the process of history also comes to a stop, as according to Marx class-struggle is the only 'Motif' which makes and unmakes history; if the class-distinction does not cease then there can not be a universal 'dictatorship of the proletariat', which further means that capitalists will continue to exist. He could not rebut this 'major premise' of the dilemma which flows from his teaching.

The distinction between 'Kultur' and 'Civilisation' in spengler is shallow and sweeping. Had he studied the civilization of Greece or India etc. coolly, circumspectively and thoroughly, he would have changed his views. The notion of 'Kultur' profounded by Spengler is a posteriori and emperical. By the term 'Kultur' he understood the manifestation of the forces of morality, economics, policies and international Law of a nation. This view of culture is superficial. Culture is not a bundle of sensory emblems of a nation. It has its deep roots in the mind of the people. It has a deep-seated connection with the thoughts, idealogies and values of a nation. And it is the 'root' which can be termed as 'civilization'. It can be characterized as that mode of thinking (of a nation) which results in the preparation of a unique, type of collective character. In other words we can say that it is a specific ethico-rational make up of a nation. This real difference between 'Kultur' and 'Civilisation' was not picked up by Spengler. He failed to perceive it. Spengler committed another mistake. He thought of 'Kultur' on the analogy of an individuals' organisms. He plainly believed that as an individual's organism passes through the stage of childhood, youth and old-age, the 'Kultur' also "arise, ripen, decay and never returns". History does not testify this view. We find that a culture and aposteriori manifestation of a nation — have been dying from age to age but the civilization and a priori ethicorational make-up of a nation never dies. A further analysis of the view of Spengler confronts us with a simple question. Can we determine the spans of childhood youth and old-age of a nation? The reply is a definite 'NO'.

Iqbal, like Kant, Hegel and others has written no separate treatise on philosophy of history. But it does not mean that he has no philosophy of history. His game of wisdom are scattered here and there (both in his prose and poetry) like the twinkling stars studed in the blue sky hanging over our heads. Other than the verses quoted earlier, Iqbal in his preface to the Rumuz-e-Bekhudi gives a thought-provoking description of history. He says: as an individual's will to act, aspirations for higher values and realization of an end lie in the gradual unfolding, extention and stability of his ego, similarly the secret of the life of a nation of a millat lies in the realization and preservation of her 'history'. In individuals the continued realization of 'ego' is based on his 'memory'. It is his 'memory' which gives him a continued existence and saves him from the anarchy of discrete ideas. Likewise, it is 'history' which helps a nation in maintaining and preserving her records. The 'continuity' 'relatedness' and 'pattern' in human life are due to history. The 'patternedness in 'nationalego' is based on history. As an individual, through his affection and conation, reaches to the depth of his ego, a millat determines her ultimate objective with the help of history. It is history which tears the darkness created b3 the abstraction of 'events'. Our social existence gets its meaning from history. It is history which interprets human actions. If any nation forgets her history, then history also forgets her.

We human being are proned to divide time into past, present and future. The division is a posteriori. "If we regard past, present and future as essential to time, then we picture time as a straight line, part of which we have travelled and left behind, and part lies yet untravelled before us. This is taking time not as a living creative movement but as a static absolute". A deeper insight into human conscious experience leads Iqbal to believe that beneath a posteriori duration there is a true apriori duration. History is related with the apriori duration, a duration which transcends all limits of human experience. Iqbal and Spenglar accidently coincided on this point. Like Iqbal, Spengler is also opposed to the understanding of history kn terms of 'ancient medieval and modern'...But to both of them the causes of such arbitrary division of time are different. For Spengler the division is due to the fact that each nation treats itself a "steady pole" and "great histories of millenial duration and mighty far away cultures" are made to revolve round it. For Iqbal the division is due to the misconceptions of the philosophy of TIME. Time regarded as the fourth dimension of the space-time continuum is relative, but time regarded as destiny is real. "It is not a mere repetition of homogenous movements which makes conscious experience a delusion". To Spengler the solutions of the division of history lies in his copernican theory of ‘Kultur' and Civilisation', that is the solution lies in an organic study of history. To Iqbal the solution of this problem lies in the attainment of 'Khudi', which will master time and will not allow itself to be mastered by it.

'Khudi'is the "Warp" and 'Bai-Khudi' is the "Woof" of Iqbal's philosophy of history. The ‘Khudi' is the "rationally directed creative will". It is spiritual. But there are degrees of spirits. The ultimate reality is the ultimate Ego, from which finite egos proceed. In his Lectures, Iqbal speaks "the creative energy of the ultimate Ego, in whom deed and thought are identical, function as ego-unities. Every atom of Divine energy, howsoever low in the scale of existence, is an ego. But there are degrees in the expression of egohood. Throughout the entire gamot of beings runs the gradually rising note of egohood, until it reaches its perfection in man...".Iqbal did not believe in a universal life. To him all life is highly in dividual in character. God himself is an Individual. Man is also an individual and the highest form of life in man is 'Khudi' or Ego. In his state of ‘Khudi. man becauses a "self-contained exclusive centre".Human personality is a "state of tension. It is" ... a kind of tension caused by the Ego invading the environment and the environment invading the Ego". This makes human life dynamic and restless. The key to the success of human life in his ceaseless pursuit of fresh scope for self-manifestation, self-expression and self-realisation[1] If man ceases to 'Act', he is then no better than a piece of stone.[2] The creative activity in man which helps him to rise from one state to another.

This pursuit of 'becoming' — a pursuit to find out new scopes for self-expression — is not aimless. The ultimate end of human 'ego' is ‘freedom'.[3] The term freedom in the philosophy of Iqbal has a wider denotation. It includes:

(b) Freedom from the so-called tradition and convention, which stem out from belief in mythologies and hearsay.

(d) Freedom from the bondage of extraneous and blind forces of nature. Life is, thus, a perpetual endeavour to be free. And the 'Ego' "reaches fuller freedom by appropriating the individual who is most free — God". Such a freedom does not mean either 'anarchy' or 'Licence'. It has its own limits. These limits come from God who is most free. God has created this world not with a sportive spirit. He has a clear design behind his creation. To have this design realized, God has given man a complete code of life. The code of life is known as 'Islam'.

"Islam", says Iqbal, "is not a departmental affair, it is neither mere thought, nor mere feeling nor mere action; it is an expression of the whole man". Without Islam, 'Khudi' cannot be developed. If the development of 'Khudi' is checked, the attainment of freedom also becomes an impossibility. In the light of the teachings of 'Islam', Iqbal enumerates three stages of the development of 'Ego' — (l) obedience to law (2) self-control and (3) divine Vicegerency. It has already been said that the final end of 'Ego' is 'freedom' and 'freedom' to Iqbal does neither mean 'anarchy' nor licence. To check the degeneration of freedom into licence, obedience to law, self-control and divine vicegerency are all equally indispensable.

A recollection of the preceding discussions of Kant and Hegel would show that both of them advocated the cause of human 'freedom'. They had duly emphasized it too. But they failed to give a proper solution of the time old problem of the degeneration of 'freedom' into licence. They might have realized that 'freedom' is an inner urge. But they did not realize that an extraneous check on 'freedom', to save it from degeneration, have had failed. Human history has proved it beyond doubt that the man-made-laws, the states and the so-called League of Nations have all failed to put an effective check to the degeneration of 'freedom' into 'licence'. Iqbal gave the best of his thought to this problem; he suggested that the inner urge of freedom must be controlled and guided by the inner forces of man.[4] The forces which control the inner urge of freedom are to be found in Islam, which is a comprehensive code of life and as such does not simply fortify faith but also inspires its adherent to see the faith wedded with action. Consequently the verdict on freedom, as what it is and what it is not, must come from God, the most free Ego. Total submission to God means full freedom. The acid taste of a total submission to God is found in the establishment of a state based on the principle of the vicegerency of man and the sovereignty of god.

The establishment of such an idealogical state implies the problem of the relation of one finite ego with another finite ego. In other words the question can be put like this: What is the relation between society and individuals? This is indeed one of the stock questions. These are two stock answers to it. One answer is that the society is an aggregate of atomic and autonomous individuals. The other stock answer is just the opposite. According to it society is a perfect and intelligible whole, which the individual is simply a part of the whole. The classic view of a segregated atomic and autonomous individuals is very well described by Homer in painting the character of cyclops poly phemus. This view of Homer is quoted by Plato in his diologue-laws. The verses run as below:

This view of individualism was a favourite theme of the protagonists in the past. It was a creed with Locke and Spencer in modern age. But this Cyclopic conception of man is a myth and a fiction. The second view that society is a sort of entity, existing independent of individuals and in a real sense of superior worth, was a tune on which many thinkers of the past played well. In modern period Fichte and Hegel did their best to prove the superiority of society over individual. To them the social order is a concrete embodiment of the 'Weltgeist'.

In its extreme shape, doubtless, neither of these statements of society is acceptable. "Society in the individual," the ‘individual in the society" seems to be a more plausible view.[5] It is a matter of importance and emphasis and not a question of fundamental difference between individual and society. Iqbal studied the problem from this angle of vision. His philosophy of 'bekhudi' is an antidote of the philosophy of 'Khudi'. 'Bekhudi' means the losing of self (or Khudi) in the community life to serve a common end. By 'Bekhudi' I do not understand self-negation as it is found in pantheism in general and in morbid Sufism or Yogism of the East, in particular. Bekhudi does not even mean self-extinction or self-annhilation. To borrow a phrase from Toynbee to express my idea, I understood by 'Khudi and Bekhudi' a constant and continued process of "withdrawal-and-return" of an individual in society. An individual will at times, 'withdraw' himself from the society but he will again 'return' back to it with his findings and finally he will develop his Khudi to such an extent that he will not hesitate to submit himself to the ‘millat'. Neither the 'withdrawal' of an individual will cut him as under from the society nor the 'return' will make him merged in it. In the whole process of repeated "withdrawal-and-return" the Khudi will remain animated with an intense love for action and freedom. Only such individuals will prove to be a source of strength to the ‘millat', consequently the millat will exalt the position of such individuals.

Man is a social being. He does not live in a vacuum, in the allegorical cave of Plato. He lives in a society of his fellow-beings. The individual and the millat reflect each other. The individual is exalted through 'millat' and the 'millat' is organised through individuals. A cyclopic-fashion man, according to Iqbal, is supposed to be ignorant of his ideals and capabilities. It is the 'Millat' which inspires him with adequate knowledge of his function in life and forces him to attain freedom under the 'rule of law'. It is the craving for association that the individual forms the basic unit of the millat. It is an inner urge in man. It is not dictated by the extraneous forces of nature. As soon as an individual loses his 'self' in the millat, he finds his personality an embodiment of past traditions. Future also reflects in his personality. And thus the emperical barriers of time are transcended by him.

Iqbal's stock answer to the stock question, related with the individual and society, may appear to be an utopia. But one will feel obliged to correct himself, if one has at all any knowledge of Islam and the Prophet of Islam (Sm). In its revolutionary 'Kalma', Islam presents only two fundamental points of its teachings. One is لا الہ الااللہ — there is no 'Rah' but Allah, the other isمحمد الرسول اللہ — Muhammad (Sm) is the messenger of Allah. Iqbal deals with both the cardinal Points of the 'Kalma'. His handling of the subject is not metaphysical. He does not hanker after an 'abstract', logical and a contentless reality. On the Contrary Iqbal's philosophy of 'Tawhid' spring up from his Philosophy of Khudi, as the Philosophy of 'Khudi' itself springs up from his philosophy of 'Tawhid'. Iqbal had realized that the world is highly mysterious. One can not 'discover' all that is embedded in it. There is every likelihood, that a man, unaware of his 'Khudi, may lose himself in the 'Talisman' of the universe. If man is to save himself from such a loss, he must know his 'Khudi'. This knowledge of 'Khudi' is the knowledge of 'Khuda',3 as both are inter-related. The statement of Caliph Ali (peace be on him) that "he who had recognised himself, has recognised God", conveys the same message.

Iqbal continues his contention and observes that: unless a man unveils the secrets of 'La ileha', he can not break the idols of different types of polytheism to pieces. In one or the other sphere of life man shall have to bow down his head to the perceptable or imperceptable gods, created by him or his society in which he lives. It is the denial of petty gods which lead to the consequential affirmation of God — the ultimate 'Ego' — which impowers man to control the universe. This belief alone is the key to the secrets of nature.

'Tawhid' is the highest virtue in the scheme of virtues. It is analogous to the position of heart in a human body. 'Tawhid' makes an individual 'Lahooti' and a millat 'Jabroti'l. It gives 'Jalal' to the individual and 'Jamal' to the millat. In other words all true theistic cultures and civilizations spring from it. The best yard-stick, to measure the progress of culture and civilization is 'Tawhid'.

‘Allah' has his own attributes. In surah-e-Nas, the Quran speaks of three such attribute: (1) Rabbin-Nas, (2) Malek-in-Nas and (3) Ilah-in-Nas. Allah is the sustainer, the, sovereign and the object of worship. No individual can even dream of sharing his attributes. Each attribute has its own impact on the character and conduct of an individual and a society at large, provided both of them have come to realize His existence from a practical point of view. Thus "Islam as a polity is only a practical means of making the principle (Tawhid) a living factor in the intellectual and emotional life of mankind. It demands loyalty to God, not to thrones. And since God is the ultimate spiritual basis of all life, loyalty to God virtually amounts to man's loyalty to his own ideals".

To make man free from the loyalties of thrones and to give an incentive to man's loyalty to his own ideals, Allah sent His prophets. The message of the Prophets was one and the same. It did not differ in fundamentals. Islam's view of human civilization is different from all those views which have been propounded on the basis o f natural sciences. Modern Sciences believe that 'man' is an evolved species of lower animals. He had to traverse a long-way of prehistoric era. He got the light of civilization and culture at a pretty later stage of history. These were the forces of nature which unfolded his potentialities. Islam, against the 'findings' of anthropology says that the first man-Adam-had got the light of culture and civilization direct from God. He did not allow Adam to grope in darkness. Adam was the first man, as well as, the first messenger of God. According to Iqbal the life of Adam on Earth started when he realized his 'ego'.

Adam's life in heaven symbolises the stage when he had got no consciousness of his 'ego'. He had not learnt to adjust himself with nature. His knowledge and power were of little use to him. It was the pre-evolutionary stage of the life of Adam. God gave the consciousness of ego to Adam as a gift. The gift has been inherited by the posterity of Adam.

The mission of the prophets was to revive the awareness of human ego on the basis of the code of life revealed to them. Muhammad (sm) is the last of all prophets. Like all prophets he had to undergo the process of withdrawal and return. And this process of withdrawal and return of a prophet is different from that of a mystic and all other individuals of the world. "The mystic does not wish to return from the repose of 'unitary experience' even when he does not return, as he must, his return does not mean much for mankind at large. The prophets return is creative. He returns to insert himself into the sweep with a view to control the forces of history and thereby to Create fresh world of ideals. The mystics or other individual egos do not create fresh ideals. Prophets did create fresh ideals. Prophet Muhammad being the last Prophet gave the last ideal of the series. This Ideal-Islam-is perfected by God, but it was translated into action by the Prophet. As we have to surrender to God, we have to obey the Prophet. Obedience to the Prophet is obedience to Allah. He must be an 'Uswa-e-Hasna' for a believer, as his acts are the aots of God and his deeds are the deeds of God.

Mankind, both as an individual and a society, gets all that is needed through and from the Prophet (sm).

Islam is the last code of life. Prophet Muhammad (Sm) is the last prophet. And the muslims are the best people to give a lead to the rest of human folk. The finality of prophet leads to the finality of 'Ummat-e-Muslimah'. The most crucial task of controlling the forces of history can not be performed by a single individual. This power is vested in the 'Ummat' by God. The Quran says:

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had organised a nucleus of his companions to further the forces of history. To keep the equilibrium of the hard-earned freedom intact, he emphasized the subjugation of one's animal existence along with its instincts passions and emotions — to the forces of love — a love for the Prophet and God. The Prophet himself had submitted totally to the Will of God.

Prophet Muhammad (sm) gave meaning and content to the body social of the Muslims. The Arabs were grossly engaged in tribal Asabiyah. Strifes, discords and struggles were the order of the day. The tribal Asabiyah of the pre-Islamic Arabia, has manifested itself in territorial nationalism, linguisticism and racialism of the world of today. The cure does not lie in the so-called scientific analysis of man. It lies in total submission of man to God. Man must behave as an 'Abd (عبد) all through his life. He must feel every moment that he is not the 'Lord, of the universe, rather a 'slave', a 'servant' and a 'Vicegerent' of God on this earth. But this will not mean that a man has attained the goal. The goal lies yet ahead. It lies in the attainment of the status of 'Abduhu' (عبدہ). The 'Abd is he who is in search of God, the 'Abduhu' is he when God searches. The 'Abd is the' lover' and the 'Abduhu' is the 'beloved' of God.

The Prophet was an Abd', as in every walk of life he obeyed the dictates of God. In his obedience to Allah he did never attach any weight to a worldly loss, he expressed little apprehension to the tyrannies and oppression of the forces of opposition, he could not be bribed by 'wealth, woman and wine. History is a witness that Muhammad (Sm) proved to be a solid rock unmoved by the tidal-bores of the forces of 'Darkness' of Arabia. He emerged victorious from the troubled water. It was not the victory of an individual. It was the victory of an ideology, which roused the Khudi of the Arabs from their dogmatic slumber and made them a force in the world. This awakening of Arabia, in particular and of mankind in general, is not welcomed by Toyenbee. He observes, " in the first stage of his career he — Muhammad (Sm) withdraws as a merchant and returns as a prophet, in the second stage he withdraws as a prophet and returns, as a conqueror. In other words the second stage of Muhammad's career which is conspicuously successful stage, is apparently the exact in-verse of the career of Lyola; and if Lyola's career is a striking example of spirituals transfiguration Muhammad's by the same token is an equally striking example of spiritual bathos". Had Toyenbee studied the career of Muhammad (peace be upon him) in the light of the idealogy of Islam, he would have refrained from passing such silly and absurd remarks on it. Muhammad was no doubt a merchant, a prophet, a conqueror a commander in chief a judge and a reformer but in all phases of his life he was an Abd' . The ideology be preached, the plan he suggested the programmes he made, the reforms he introduced were all revealed to him by God. Muhammad's (peace be upon him) comparision with Loyla is fallacious. Loyla was a mystic. Muhammad (peace be upon him) was a prophet. Loyla, in the world of Iqbal could not return from "the world of unitary experience" to create "fresh ideals". Muhammad (peace be upon him) did return from the same world and he created an immortal world of fresh ideals. He has created a new 'millat', which is destined to survive upto the day of Resurrection. He established a polity, which shall ever remain an 'objective' and an 'end' for the millat.

Thus we see that religion, which was entrusted with a secondary role in moulding the forces of history in Ibn-e-Khaldun, has re-appeared as a basal force in the philosophy of Iqbal. Iqbal's philosophy of history is constructed on the corner stores of (1) Ultimate Ego (2) Prophethood (3) Individual Ego (4) Ego of the nation and (5) Stability of the individual Ego. The idea of 'Ego' is a system in Iqbal. It is co-extensive with Islam. Islam helps creating 'Ego' and 'Ego' is stabilized by Islam. Without 'Ego' Islam can hardly be known; and without Islam 'Ego' can hardly be realized. Whole history is the history of the realization of 'Ego'. The ups and downs of history are related with the corresponding stability and instability of the 'Ego'.

In Asrar-e-Khudi. Iqbal presents his reading of the history of muslims. In his opinion the cause of the downfall of this millat — lies in the fact that it lost its 'Khudi' which was a proud possession of its ancestors. The 'millat' allowed itself to be deceived by the "flock of sheep" that is the 'Ajmi nations'. The 'Ajmi nations had realized in full that they could not then, rise to the standard_ of the muslim millat, as such they conspired to pull down the millat to their own status in life. To achieve this end the 'Ajmis preached the 'gospel' of non-violence and the philosophy of the negation of self. Like the sheep of jungle, the Ajmis precepted the muslims — the lions — to surrender their 'Ego' to humility, modesty and lowliness of mind. The sheep further advised the lions to give up the habit of taking flesh, because one who cultivates such habit is loved by God. This sheepiness was adopted by the fatigued lions which ultimately resulted in atrophy of action. The muslim millat likewise was pursuaded by the 'Ajmis to sheepiness, and as a result of that philosophy of easy-going-life the muslims had to lose the spirit of Jehad. The loss of the spirit of Jehad consequently led to a loss of will-power, determination and action. The muslims got entangled in splitting hairs in the name of academic discussion and stood mesmerised by the creed of 'Ruhbaniyan'. All these factors combined together led to the downfall of the muslims.

The muslims earned name and fame in art, science, music, literature philosophy, logic and mysticism, but all at the cost of Jehad-fi-Sablilah.

The muslims to-day have not yet got themselves liberated from the mental slavery of the 'Ajmis'. In old days the 'Ajmis preached the gospel of Ruhbaniyah, in our age the 'Ajmis are advocating the gospel of materialism. The muslim all over the globe, after two great world-wars, have been successful in earning freedom from respective foreign yokes, but they have not been able to get themselves liberated from the hold of the western ideology. The class which is at the helm of affairs in different muslim countries is bent on aping westernism. Though they do not feel shy of exploiting the name of Islam, yet they have a scheme of their own to fit Islam in the frame of westernism and not westernism in the mould of Islam.

Iqbal is fully alive to the dangers of westernism. He knew it well that the edifice of western civilization is built on the foundation stones of secularism, nationalism and democracy. He has condemned each one of them. His criticism on the western civilization, as a whole, is noted below:

He compares the two civilization of the East and the West. The latter possess the forces of life but does not possess any lofty ideal, its efforts and strivings are aimless; the former lacks in the forces of life, though it knows its destination and goal:

:The reconstruction of a healthy civilization and culture lies in the assimilation and synthesis of the codes of the East and West. The true equilibrium and balance, between spiritualsim, and materialism, between 'revelation' and 'reason' and between 'church' and 'state', is furnished by Islam. Islam alone guarantees the stability of human civilization and culture. This gigantic task starts with the realization of the individual 'ego'. The realization of 'ego' is nothing but a step toward moral rearmament of a nation.

It is a moral rearmament in the sense that the realization of ‘ego' is the realization of the code of life (دین)

The present day muslim generations are very much fond of sheepiness of the west. They wrongly believe that they can climb upto the peak of culture and civilization by adopting the 'hedonism' of the west. They further believe that a competition in dance and music will help them to attain the goal. Iqbal unambiguously corrects this notion of the present generation:

The 'Khudi' can not be realized through musical instruments it requires the weapons of knowledge and sword. The philosophy of Tawoos-o-rabab has always appeared at the decaying stage of a civilization, opposed to it, the philosophy of shamsheer-o-sana appeared at the beginning of every civilization. The symbols of shamsheer and sana stand for the creativity of thought and 'Jehad'. Creativity of thought for Iqbal is a matter of faith. If one possesses ‘creativity of thought' one is a 'momin', in case otherwise be is no better than a 'Kafir' or ‘Zandiq’:

Similarly 'Jehad' is also an article of faith to Iqbal. It does not mean war for the sake of war. It is not a synonymous of colonization. ‘Jehad, etimologically means to make effort. It is of different types. It includes (1) Jehad bin Nafs (2) Jehad bil Muashara and (3) Jehad-bil-Hukumat. If any of the three entities stand in the way of realizing 'Khudi' according to the ideals of Islam, one shall have to wage 'war' (Jehad) against it.

It is a message of the dignity of labour, hard-work and ceaseless activity, without which life becomes meaningless.

The message of Iqbal has no doubt earned appreciation but has not yet been put to action. The muslim youths, starting from Indonesia upto Morrocco, still complain of the hardness of Islam.

The complain is due to the fact that the Muslim youths are generally ignorant of the ideology of Islam. They are not to be blamed for their apathy and ignorance because in educational institutions, set up under the regimes of the foreign 'masters', all except Islam has had been taught to our youths. In the first instance Islam has been kept out of syllabi of such institutions. In the second instance Islam has been very skilfully distorted by the foreigners. With the movements of liberations from the foreign yokes a new conscience dawned upon the Muslim world. And as a result of it the conspiracy of our 'masters' has been detected. All that is now required is the forceful method of revitalization of our faith in Islam.

The first step in this direction, suggested by Iqbal, is to realize the 'Khudi'. It is due to the loss of Khudi that the Muslim youths are blindly aping the "culture" of the West. The revival and realization of Khudi presupposes the knowledge of self and the knowledge of the ideology which governs the self, the society, the Government and the State. It is the knowledge of the self which dispells the darkness of ignorance and the shadows of skepticism. The knowledge of Khudi is a prelude to 'Yaqeen-e-Muhkam' or the 'firmness of faith'. If the Muslims possess the firmness of faith in Islam they are destined to rise, to progress and to prosper. But if they lack in this fundamental virtue they are, by the same token, fore-ordained to see their downfall continued. The reason is very simple. If the Muslims profess Islam in words and pay lip service to it but they refrain to translate it into action in their individual and collective life, hypocracy will set in. And it is hypocracy which eats up the vitality of life. Yaqeen-e-Muhkam and hypocracy are contradictory to each other.

It is Yaqeen-e-Muhkam' which leads to actions. Action or the will to act is the berometer of Yaqeen e 'Muhkam'. They are inseparably related. One proceeds, the other follows. One is the antecedent, the other is the consequent. But what is the nature of action? Action is the effort of an individual ego to become something. Every action takes its start from 'becoming' and aims at 'being'. The goal of 'being' is unattained and remains unattainable, as such the action is ceaseless and perpetual. It has no terminous. Action begins with the beginning and ends with the ending.

It is not 'Amal alone but 'Amal-e-Paiham'. It is not action alone which is required for the reconstruction of culture and civilization, rather it is continued action with counts much.

Yaqeen-e-Muhkam and ‘Amal-e-Paiham are followed by Love that is a conquering force. To Iqbal 'love' has a very wide denotation. It includes the love for knowledge, love for God and His Prophet, love for the ideology of Islam and Love for the humanity at large. This love transcends geographical barriers, racial discriminations, linguistic differences and the feeling of parochial nationalism. This message of love, as profounded by Iqbal is, totally opposed to the concept of the survival of the fittest and the idea of the conflict between thesis and antithesis, as they breed hatred. The concept of the survival of the fittest and conflict between thesis and antithesis are the successful allies of nationalism. But the concept of love in Iqbal can only be an ally of Internationalism — an Internationalism which is not a "Law of Jungle".

The 3 point programme of Iqbal, to conquer the world is laid down in the verse quoted below:

Iqbal was fully convinced that the world trend is fastly moving toward a war of idealogies, in which the atomic weapons will stand obsolete. As such he devoted himself to the reconstruction of religious thought in Islam.

A writer on Political Science advocated that "eternal vigilence is the price of liberty". But where from this, eternal vigilence, is to come? Will it come from the atomic weapons? Can it be had from the coterie of rulers deeply engrossed in wealth, woman and wine? The reply is a manifest No. 'Eternal vigilence' is an act of mind and a trait of character of an individual and a society. It must come from all those values which educate the individual and the society. In other words it can be had from an idealogy. Iqbal recommends the values of Islam to cultivate 'eternal vigilence' to safeguard liberty. Yaqeene-Muhkam 'Amal-e-Paiham and Muhabbat-Fatah-e-Alam are the values stated by him. These values will solidify the Khudi of an individual and a society. The Khudi will invigilate liberty and will effectively check it from deterioration and degeneration.

Contrary to these values of Islam, the powerful nations were ever deluded by the lust and luxuries of their so-called cultures built on the corner stones of wealth, woman and wine. They thought that their hedonistic culture will safeguard their liberty. But they proved to be a failure. Instances can be multiplied both from the history of the East and the West. History bears witness to the fact that only those people rose to power who, comparatively speaking, have had (1) better characters (2) strong feeling of continued action and (3) an undiluded love for simple living. History also supports the fact that people with such traits were successful over people who were deeply plunged in wealth, woman and wine. There has been a coterie of rulers which thought of defending its liberty by the help of its soldiers and the deadly weapons, which their scientists invented for them at a heavy cost. But history has proved it beyond doubt that such coteries, were killed by their own weapons.

The problem of the vigilence and equilibrium of liberty is highly complex. It can not be over-simplified. From the study of different civilizations and cultures one can easily come to the conclusion that the seed of decay and downfall is inherent in every culture and the march of civilization is not a march on the straight line. It is full of incombatable ups and downs. The moral rearmament ever led a naylon to its zeneth and the moral degeneration of a nation pulled her down to the lowest ebb. The only understandable code is that the goddess of liberty does not yearn for the damsel of beauties, goblets of wine, pompous dresses etc. All it desires is the unadulterated worship of those principles which make an individual a man of character and a man of action. Thus we come to the conclusion that in reconstructing our culture, the first and the last arm is morality. Likewise in creating an atmosphere of 'eternal vigilence' to safeguard one's hard earned freedom all amount of so-called material prosperity, all sort of totalitarianism, all kind of deadly weapons are ordained to fail. The rule of wealth, woman and wine has had ever collapsed. The man-made rule of Law has had proved ineffective, sterile and barren. Great monarchs and dictators did great disservice by usurping powers. All that the lofty end demands is the rule of Ideology — the rule of Islam — which gives man what is due to him and which takes from man what is due on him.

It is the schism in soul which has posed a very threatening challenge to the Man of to-day. "The physical force generated by splitting an atom" can be used for the services of man. It is no threat in itself. Iqbal has exhorted the Muslims to get control over the forces of Nature because Man is to conquer it and he is not supposed to be conquered by it. The same view is upheld by Toynbee, a well-known historian of our age. He has very aptly remarked: "The devastating agency that Western Man has thus let loose to his own mortal peril was not the physical force generated by splitting an atom; it was the spiritual force generated by a schism in the soul…………………He must reorient his spiritual out-look by once more taking for his QIBLAH his father's ABRAHAM'S MECCA in place of his prospector bentham's New Jerusalem." Greater the number of challenges thrown to man by man, society, his Government and the forces of nature, the more active is the Man in giving response. This flow of Challenge-andResponse is a blessing in disguise. It has convinced Man that he must surrender to God alone, because the Oneness of God means the Oneness of man and the Oneness of state. Iqbal expressed his hopes in the future of Man. He says:

[1]پیکر ہستی ز آثار خودی است

ہرچہ م ی بنینی ز اسرار خودی است

خویشتن را چوں خود، بیدار کرد

آشکارا عالم پندار ... کرد

خودی کیا ہے راز درون حیات

خود کیا ہے بیداری کائنات

[2] وہی جہاں ہے تراج س کو تو کرے پیدا

یہ سنگ و خشت نہیں جو تری نگاہ میں ہے

[3] خودی کے نگہباں کو ہے زہر ناب

وہ ناں جس سے جاتی رہے اس کی تاب

وہی ناں ہے اس کے لئے ارجمند

رہے حس سے دنیا میں گردن بلند

[4] گر تو می خواہی مسلمان زیستن

نیست ممکن جز بقرآں زیستن

از یک آئینی مسلمان زندہ است

پیکر ملت ز قرآں زندہ است

ہست دینی مصطفی دین حیات

شرع او تفسیر آئین حیات

[5] در جماعت فرد را بینیم ما

از چمن اورا چوگل چنییم ما

فطرتش وارفتۂ یکتائی است

حفظ او از انجمن آرائی است

فرد و قوم آئینۂ یک دیگراند

سلک و گوہر کہکشان وا ختراند