The religion of God stands in worse disgrace than infidelity; the mullah makes new heathens. While we see a drop of dew expand to oceans, his constrictive sight reduces seas to trickles. I have seen The Holy Ghost bewail the sad misdeeds of this strange pedlar of the book. He reads the mother of the books, but a tale. He slanders, and his rant divides a nation into hostile camps. Din-e mollā fi sabil Allāh fasād!
The above are extracts from Pilgrimage of Eternity (English version of Javed Nama by Shaikh Mahmud Ahmad), the magnum opus of Allama Sir Mohammad Iqbal, the national poet and ideological founding father of Pakistan, reflecting some of his views. According to Iqbal, much of the maladies of the present-day Muslim world are due to the ravings of the mullah, who is ignorant of the message of the sublime Holy Quran. An advocate of Ijtihad, Iqbal considers it the principle of movement in the structure of Islam, the absence of which has made Muslim societies stagnant.
In his address to the 1930 Allahabad Session of the All India Muslim League, regarded as the foundation stone of Pakistan, Iqbal lays fundamental rules of respect for other religions, interfaith dialogues, and peaceful coexistence in the state of Pakistan: a community inspired by feelings of ill-will towards other communities is ‘low and ignoble’, and that according to the teachings of the Quran, it is the responsibility of Muslims’ to defend worship places of minorities, if need be.
Although a strong believer in the universality of Islam, Iqbal shows the same amount of respect to the Gayatri Book as to the reading of Islamic scriptures. He praises Vishwamitra and Goethe with the same intensity as Rumi and Abdul Qadir Bedal. Interestingly, it was Wordsworth who, according to Iqbal, saved him from atheism at a young age, which implies that ethical ideals transcend religious boundaries.
Himself a beneficiary of Western education, Iqbal believes that the West's strength lies not in its wild drunken parties but in its scientific progress. He implores the Muslim youth to benefit from Western knowledge, science, and technology. A heretic (kafir o zindiq) lacks creativity. Drinking from taverns of knowledge of the West is no sin.
Not a mystic, apparently, Iqbal fiercely attacked empty rituals. He laments that prayers, fasting, sacrifices, and Haj lack the inner meanings and the spirit and bewails that the Adhan is empty of Bilal's pathos.
Namaz o roza o qorbani o Haj
eh sab baqi hai too baqi nahin hai
Reh gayi rasme adhan roohe Bilali na rahi
Iqbal’s alluring voice echoes across the globe. He is celebrated on all continents. In Pakistan, on his birthday, no attempt has been made to convey the true sense of his message, except in some songs and seminars. Some 147 years after his birth and 94 years after his Allahabad address, the state Allama had envisioned suffers from numerous problems, ranging from ideological and cultural divisions to political and economic problems. While the rest of the world is steering on course to progress and prosperity, Pakistan is veering away. No consensus exists on the nature of the political system. On the failure of the democratic model in Pakistan, Iqbal’s couplets are misquoted to justify wrong actions. While Bollywood steers India’s ingress into the world market, we are stuck in polemics if music is halal or haram.
Iqbal foresaw a Muslim state in the North as a bulwark for the security of India, today Pakistan has been ranked the third-worst among 142 countries in terms of law and order, after Mali and Nigeria, as per the latest World Justice Project Rule of Law Index
An advocate of pluralism, Iqbal’s struggle for the religious, cultural, and political rights of Indian Muslims can’t be looked at in isolation from his commitment to democratic ideals. A staunch proponent of freedom of expression and a fierce critic of censorship, Iqbal was at the forefront of raising his voice against the British government’s action to gag the press.
Ye Dastoor-e-Zuban Bandi Hai Kaisa Teri Mehfil Mein
Yahan To Baat Karne Ko Tarasti Hai Zuban Meri.
Regrettably, today we don’t find any place for difference of opinion in our political and religious discourses.
While Iqbal foresaw a Muslim state in the North as a bulwark for the security of India, today Pakistan has been ranked the third-worst among 142 countries in terms of law and order, after Mali and Nigeria, as per the latest World Justice Project Rule of Law Index. According to Iqbal, an infidel is one who lacks creativity, while in the Global Innovation Index, Pakistan stands 91st among 133 economies, by virtue of which we qualify to be called infidels.
Corruption and all forms of parasitism, according to Iqbal, weaken the Self (Khudi), the boundless potential of man, which in partnership with God shapes the destiny of the universe. In the Corruption Perception Index, Pakistan stands 133 out of 180 in the comity of nations. An optimist to the core Iqbal advised the youth to stay away from grief, but the new generation of Pakistanis are disillusioned. They want to leave Pakistan.
In the words of Iqbal, we need to ask ourselves, ‘Art thou in the stage of ‘life’, ‘death’, or ‘death-in-life’? No time is more relevant than the present to translate Iqbal’s message into action, which is the message of peaceful coexistence. His message needs to be understood in its true perspective. A journey from intolerance to forbearance and respect for differences of opinion, from selfishness to selflessness and dogmatism to innovation and creativity, is the only course that can take Pakistan on the road to progress.
Shelley’s famous saying that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, Pakistan's current gloomy political milieu requires legislators of far better vision, if not of Iqbal’s, who himself was also an acknowledged legislator of the Punjab Assembly.
The fire Iqbal’s melody had kindled in Ajam has long been extinguished. The new vigour imparted through his poetry from Lahore to Samarkand as per Allama’s claim has also faded. Iqbal's passionate songs have to be re-sung with intense fervour, especially in his native Pakistan.