Daily Times

Today, the 9th November is birthday of Allama Iqbal – a poet, philosopher and a great visionary. He had dreamt of a separate homeland for the Muslims of the sub-continent, and his dream was converted into reality by Quaid-i-Azam who had spearheaded the Pakistan movement. Overtime, Pakistan had made immense strides in industrialization of Pakistan I 960s, but due to lackadaisicalness, ineptness and corruption of some leaders, Pakistan today finds itself in the midst of despair. The people entangled in an unending struggle for survival, as there appear to be no integrating forces, no unified meaning and no vision to lead us out of the blind alley. Today, Pakistan is facing economic challenges, and as stated by the COAs General Qamar Bajwa, there is a threat to internal and external security due to hybrid war against Pakistan.

Our economic crisis is the result of continuous plunder and mismanagement of resources by the unscrupulous pack of leaders whose life’s ambition is to acquire power and wealth at the cost of Pakistan’s sovereignty. Anyhow, we should try to understand Allama Iqbal’s vision, and go through his address to Annual Session of All-India Muslim League on 29the November 1930 when he first time presented Two-Nation Theory. Though, much emphasis is placed on Allama Iqbal’s poetry, a series of his lectures on ‘The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’ are thought-provoking. In his lecture ‘The Principle of Movement in Islam (Ijtihad)’, he inspires the Muslims to understand that the world is not static; life does not standstill and history is constantly on the march, making it necessary to evolve new forms to cope with new developments.

Muslims, indeed, had a glorious past. When the West was in the Middle Ages – a part of it was an era of darkness – Spain at that time was the great Islamic civilization, and acted as a transmitter of knowledge and culture to Europe. Today, Islam is being demonized by the West; Muslims throughout the world are on the receiving end. Kashmir and a part of Palestine are under occupation. The situation in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya had been lamentable. One has to revert to the history to understand the causes of the rise and fall of the nations, and what measures were taken for causing a decadent and moribund society plagued by the curse of corruption, immorality, inertia and factionalism like ours to change into a progressive, vibrant and dynamic organism brimming with vitality, ideas and creativity?

But where should we look for a model? Allama Iqbal in his lecture ‘Knowledge and Religious Experience’ writes: “Muslims had not only translated the Greek writers and scientists but had also improved on their work. The Western intellectuals had borrowed ideas from Islamic culture because Islamic culture draws its spirit from facts and realities of life. According to Allama Iqbal, “The Qur’an sees signs of the Ultimate Reality in the sun, moon, the lengthening out the shadows, the alternation of day and night, the variety of human colours and tongues, in fact in the whole nature as revealed to the sense-perception of man. And Muslim’s duty is to reflect on these signs and not pass by them as if dead or blind, for he who does not see the signs in this life will remain blind to the reality of the life to come”.

There is no denying that all religions had revolutionary appeal but with the passage of time religious shysters misinterpreted the message to strengthen the status quo forces. Islam, however, is a complete code of life and Allama Iqbal has tried to explain the true spirit of Islam. Freedom means liberation of mankind from forces of exploitation, oppression, suppression and manipulation. It also means freedom from gods other than God, from idols of traditions and customs, from political and bureaucratic strongholds, from the sorceries of clerics, obscurantist and religious shysters, from ignorance and poverty. Only when a man is freed from all these thoughts, can he think progressively and feel the existence of one God. Since Prophet Mohammad was the last Prophet, Islam therefore is the deen for all the times to come.

And which is why periodic reinterpretation of Islamic teachings in the light of inventions, discoveries and new sciences is imperative so that it can offer inspiration to all the people at all times. The principle of such movement is called Ijtihad, which could provide new perceptions to the world vision. According to Allama Iqbal, “The only effective power that counteracts the forces of decay in a people is the rearing of self-concentrated individuals. Such individuals alone reveal the depth of life. They disclose new standards in the light of which we begin to see that our environment is not wholly inviolable and requires revision”.