Iqbal: a mirror of Indian Muslim psyche
Today is 132nd Birth Anniversary :
Multidimensional are Iqbal’s thoughts as are his intellectual forays
and philosophical shifts at various times in his four-decade long active
career as a poet and philosopher. Yet all said and done, it was given to
the renowned Professor Hamilton A.R. Gibb to provide a perspective on
how to look at him. This Gibb did in his Chicago lectures (1946) on
“Modern trends in Islam” which have since been published under the same
title.
Diverse
In this he perceptively observes, “Perhaps the right way to look at
Iqbal is to see in him one who reflected and put into vivid words the
diverse currents of ideas that were agitating the minds of Indian
Muslims. His sensitive poetic temperament mirrored all that impinged
upon it - the backward looking romanticism of the liberals, the
socialist leanings of the younger intellectuals, the longing of the
militant Muslim League for a strong leader to restore the political
power of Islam. Every Indian Muslim, dissatisfied with the state of
things - religious, social, or political - could and did find in Iqbal a
sympathizer with his troubles and his aspirations and an adviser who
bade him seek the way out by self-expression.”
This means that despite being a creative thinker, Iqbal was
addressing the situation at hand.
Sir Dr. Muhammad Iqbal. Wikipedia.org |
The ideas he enunciated, though intrinsically creative in themselves,
and abiding in appeal beyond a particular time and place, were yet
primarily meant to salvage the bleak Muslim situation in India and the
world at large. This makes Iqbal, in a sense, oriented towards the
Indian Muslim psyche and situation.
This framework makes his periodic forays into discussing and
suggesting solutions to the problems of the Muslim world at large and
his consuming concern with the “Reconstruction of Religious Thought in
Islam” (1930) - a logical extension of his role as a modern Muslim
ideologue, attempting to analyze and see Muslim India’s problems and
predicament on a wider canvas and in a total context. After all, Iqbal
regarded India, if only because of the Muslim numerical strength, as
“the greatest Muslim country in the world”, to quote his own words.
These tasks, both critical and onerous as they were, he fulfilled
squarely.
Predicament
His emotion-leaden and soul-lifting poetry was the medium Iqbal chose
to bring his people a new awareness of the depths of degradation to
which they had fallen, to diagnose their ailments, their predicament and
the prime cause of their decline, and to warn them of the dire
consequences if they failed to mend themselves in good time. A more
effective medium he could not have possibly chosen.
For one thing, poetry is the most powerful medium for touching the
deepest emotions of a people and for driving a message into their
subconscious.
For another, the Indian Muslims had been among the most
poetry-oriented people in the world, with a long tradition of readily
taking to heart what was written in verse.
Political orations may stir an audience into action, but their impact
is bound to be restricted to a particular audience, and dissipate with
time and events.
In contrast, a poetic message seeps through the ethos of a nation,
working on its psyche all the while.
Hence Iqbal achieved through his poems what a thousand speeches could
not. But for the silent mental preparation that had gone on for long
decades, the people would not have responded to the call of political
leaders - in this case, especially of Jinnah during the 1937-47 epochal
decade.
No wonder, the pandals of the League sessions from Lucknow (1937)
onwards were plastered with Iqbal’s couplets, calling on Muslims to rise
and take their destiny in their own. Iqbal was quoted oft and on to
rouse Muslims to a new awareness of their destiny. All this had an
electrifying effect on the audience since Iqbal, though generally
complex and couched in an appropriate idiom, was, straightforward and
yielded clear guidelines.
Intellectual
Besides being a poet of extraordinary merit, Iqbal was a thinker of a
high order.
Thus, while Syed Ahmed Khan, Maulana Mohammad Ali and Jinnah provided
political leadership to Muslims, Iqbal took upon himself the task of
setting the intellectual tone for Muslim thought and action.
(previously, this was done by Sir Syed’s, writings and the Aligarh
school).
In addressing himself to this task, Iqbal brought a revolution in
Muslim thinking at various levels; he also made a significant
contribution to keeping them stolidly anchored to their pristine
ideology and historical legacy. His role in awakening the Muslims to a
new consciousness began in 1899 when he recited a poem at the annual
session of the Anjuman-i-Islam, Lahore. His moving “Nala-i-Yatim” was
symbolic of the echoing cry of the faceless masses of the Indian
Muslims, who had long felt themselves sidelined neglected.
Like Syed Ahmad Khan and Jinnah, Iqbal had started out as an Indian
nationalist, but ended up at the threshold of Muslim nationalism.
While the former two came at this threshold directly, Iqbal did it
via the pan-Islamism route. With Muhammad Ali, he shared the passion for
pan-Islamism.
In terms of ideological orientation, these three trends at various
stages in Iqbal’s poetic and public life represent his point of
convergence with the three most important political leaders Muslim India
had produced during the ninety years of British imperial rule
(1858-1947).
When Iqbal sailed for Europe in 1908 for higher studies, he had gone
there as an Indian nationalist, but he returned in 1911 as a
pan-Islamist.
His European sojourn had acted as a catalyst, enabling him to look at
events and developments in a wider perspective.
Thus, he came to be disillusioned with the very concept of
nationalism, which had spawned inequality and discrimination (even as
the European credo of laissez-faire had between man and man) and bred
racial discrimination.
Aggression
What pained him most was the impact of nationalism on various Muslim
countries, eroding the pan-Islamic concept, enfeebling the Muslim world
and laying it open to European aggression, and exploitation.
To the ailments the Muslim world was afflicted with, Iqbal found the
solution in Islam and its message. In order to reach the innermost
recesses of their consciousness, he invoked the past glory of Islam,
telling Muslims of the accomplishments of their ancestors. In so doing,
he tried to fight off the prevalent slough of despondency, raising
drooping spirit of Muslims and replacing it with a sense of soaring
confidence.
Next, he grave them a message of hope. He told them that they could
still redeem themselves if they could only recapture their soul and
regain their pristine moral and spiritual values. He emphasized the
imperative need to develop human qualities and the right type of
character.
He attributed their degeneration to their taking to a life of
passivity and resignation for several generations.
That debilitating trend could be reversed by opting for initiative
and endeavour which, he believed, Islam stood for. To him, an active,
struggling non-believer was preferable to a sleeping Muslim. |