Alama Iqbal and the re-awakening of Muslims

By: Iftikhar Khokhar

The ultimate message behind alama Iqbal's thought is re-awakening of the True Spirit of Islam in Muslims as it was practised by the Truthful Messenger of Allah(saw).In his book ' The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam' outlines the foundations of his message and the path to self realisation(khudi) in three phases: spirituality, knowledge and understanding of Nature and insight into History all which are taken from the Quran. Spirituality is no better defined in the Muslim kalma tayeba( declartion that there is no God but Allah and Mohammad(saw) is his prophet).The more one dwells and believes in it and believe truthfully,setting aside all manners of doubts the more one as fully immersed in this belief and finally lets nothing deter one from this line of total belief; purifying of the soul is achieved through the Divine Truth that is the Quran.this spirituality makes man understand the desirable behaviour that is required of him in all social norms, the difference between virtue and vice and the ulimate code of conduct in life preparing him to embark on the next step towards fully realising his potential. The Quran says " The believers dwell on the wonders of Allah's creation and say surely our creator has not made all this meaningless" which means true believers think about the formation of the Universe and percieve ideas which give them substainable knowledge into how things work in the Universe lending itself to the various sciences of life such as technical,biological,chemical,physic al etc and how and why these sciences are important to mankind and how they can best be of service to humanity.The first Muslims based in the initial Islamic State Medina adhered to these lines and there was no field of nature which Muslim scholars left untouched, being constantly aware of the changes in their and the world's environment and adopted and developed new ideas regularly by experiments and practise being always aware of Islamic values and rules on virtue and vice.These early Muslims were never satisfied with singular methods but kept on developing newer and more efficient ones like the devlopment in the West today EXCEPT uppermost in the Muslims minds was to serve mankind not to enslave,degrade or destroy it

because Islam condems harrasment and killing of humans for political or personal gains. The third important phase outlined by Alama Iqbal was History.History is experience manifolded and in it one finds guidelines and wisdom,errors of humanity and their solutions and the development of new thoughts in Islam and in the non-Islamic world.An era cannot last for ever or a nation stay in total satisfication if it is not aware of its circumstances and move forward to combat the various difficulties that invariably will come to endanger it.If it fails to keep its present developments in tact with progress in the world and fail to adopt itself to modernity,with due regards to its moral and religious obligations,it will become decadent,backward,stagnant and lose its grasp of reality.Islamic history is rich in eras of greatness,in knowledge,wisdom and prosperity,and Depravity.A serious student of history will take heed of the values which made an era great and ponder on the eras which ended in depravation and enslavement.

Alama Muhammad Iqbal believed that all three phases contribute to

the healthy welfare and continious good future of Muslims; that all three phase are inspired by the unerring and total belief in Allah and the Message of his Prophet(saw) which give greater,realistic and humane scope to humanity.Alama Iqbal believed in the great Islamic truth that Muslims are one unit devoid of colour ,creed,land,race.language or blood ties,that all men are equal in the eyes of Allah and that it is the birthright of all humans to live in freedom and for the Muslims where they can freely,without foreign influence practise their religion and develop and better their social,economic and tradional values.Hence the Pakistan ideology.Pakistan meant the Muslims will safeguard Islam in Asia, awakening to the urgent problems surrounding the Islamic brotherhood in India and by those three well defined phases establish a model Islamic state which will give inspiration to Muslims in the world so that they become independent also and being independent will pave the way to becoming ONE ISLAMIC UNIT in the world and re-establish the great glorious truth that is Islam