Dr Muhammad Iqbal Was a Seeker of Man Not of God
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
9 November
2023
“My ancestors were Brahmins. They spent their
lives in search of god. I am spending my life in search of man.”
― Allama Iqbal
November
9 is the great Urdu-Persian poet Dr Muhammad Iqbal's birth anniversary which is commemorated as World Urdu
Day. While his monumental contributions to enriching Urdu through his prolific
oeuvre cannot be denied, his high-class Persian works have not received much
acclaim in India and Pakistan.
Readers
will be amazed to know that around 7,000 of the 12,000 verses of his poetry are
in the Persian language! So, instead of commemorating it as just Urdu Day, it
should be called Urdu-Persian Day despite the fact that Persian is no longer a
functional language on the subcontinent.
Coming back
to his famous quote at the outset, Iqbal was a poet-philosopher and a
quasi-existentialist who believed in the (hidden) potential and possibilities
of man. Pigeonholing him as a Muslim poet who demanded a separate land for
Muslims is sheer pettiness that smacks of a sectarian mindset.
Influenced
by Nietzsche's Ubermensch (German for a Superman), Iqbal envisaged a future man
san any ideological entrapment. "Jis Pe Qudrat Ko Bhi Hai Naaz Woh
Insaan Hoon Main" (I'm a man even Nature is proud of). While
conversing with Sir Ralph Russell, the greatest western scholar of Urdu, in
London, he told yours truly that owing to political compulsions, Iqbal
subjugated the poet in him and unsuccessfully awakened the politician in his
self which was never there.
Iqbal was a
universalist who went beyond his ancestral (Brahminical) Hinduism and Islam.
Throughout his life, he searched for an ideal man and believed that it's the
lot of man to share in the deeper aspirations of the universe around him and to
share his own destiny as well as that of the universe, now by adjusting himself
to its forces, now by putting the whole of his energy to his own ends and
purposes. Inductive reason, which alone makes man master of his environment, is
an achievement and when once born, it must be reinforced by inhibiting the
growth of other modes of knowledge. In a letter to his professor and mentor at
Cambridge Reynold A Nicholson, who taught him Persian, Iqbal wrote, "
Professor Nicholson, will any religion be of any use to humans? "An ever-sceptical
Nicholson replied, "So long as man remains a slave to his own doubts and
beliefs, religions will be of some help to him but the moment he sets himself
free of all chains, he'll realize his uniqueness. He must find that estranged
uniqueness to be called a free human." In the end, Professor Nicholson
prodded his brilliant student, "Iqbal, why don't you go back to
Upanishadic wisdom to find the right answers? "
It was this
estranged uniqueness in humans that fascinated Iqbal. He believed in the
greatness of man (Azmat-e-Insaan), not of god (Azmat-e-Khuda).
His son Javed Iqbal also wrote that his father was actually a seeker of man not
a seeker of god. In fact, Iqbal urged his son to blossom into just a morally
upright human in the book 'Javednama.' Furthermore, in the book 'Zabur-e-Ajam,'
(Persian Psalms), a philosophical poetry book in Persian published in 1927,
Iqbal wrote, " The idle luxuries (Shauq-e-Beja) of so-called
spirituality and mysticism will vanish the moment man will find his right place
in the universe." It must be noted that according to some experts on
Iqbal, he (Iqbal) started losing interest in mysticism and spirituality towards
the fag-end of his life. He called them delusional (courtesy, Azad on Iqbal by
Jagan Nath Azad).
In these
times, when people are too religious and fanatic, Iqbal's insistence on knowing
oneself and nothing else can be of great help to the deluded humans, neck-deep
in all sorts of lowly pursuits, gods, religions, superstitions and a bagful of
ideologies.
-----
A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul
is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He
has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several
languages including Persian.
URl: https://newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/iqbal-seeker-man-god/d/131074
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