Like always, on November 9 this year Allama Iqbal was paid glowing tributes on his 133^rd birth anniversary. Mainstream media in unison reminded us the Islamic vision Allama Iqbal had about Pakistan. Officials also churned out clichéd tributes composed by their bored secretaries or PROs. And not to forget the ‘change of guards’ ceremony at his mausoleum! The footage was shown by almost every electronic media outlet.

Deferentially called Allama (Sage), Dr. Muhammad Iqbal is indisputably one of the most important 20^th century Urdu poets and writers. However, there is perhaps hardly any other important literary giant in Indian sub-continent whose legacy is as intensely contested as Iqbal’s. The Jamaat Islami proudly flaunts correspondence between Allama Iqbal and Jamaat’s founding father Maulana Moudodi. Also, in the post-revolution Iran, Iqbal was understandably adopted by Ayotollahs. It was, however, Ali Shriati who ‘rediscovered’ Iqbal.

On the other hand, Indian sub-continent’s leading progressives like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Sibt-e-Hassan, Mumtaz Hussain and Ali Sardar Jafri, in particular, glorified Iqbal. But certain leftists fervently dismissed Iqbal.

An equally interesting paradox is that he is credited with the vision to establish Pakistan as a homeland for Muslims. He has been officially designated as country’s ‘national poet’ even if he in fact died nearly ten years before the creation of Pakistan and the division of Indian sub-continent in 1947. He is therefore, claimed by India too. India seeks pride in the fact that Iqbal’s masterpiece ’Tarana e Hindi’ (Indian anthem) is her national song.

Sialkot to Lahore:

Born in Sialkot, his date of birth remains controversial.

After his schooling and Intermediate at Scotch Mission School (upgraded to college meantime), he moved to Lahore. From Government College Lahore, he did his graduation (1897) and later Master degree in Philosophy (1899). He began to teach at Government College Lahore while drawing large audience for his poetry. It was his Tarana-e-Hindi, written in 1904, that brought him fame across British India.

In 1905, he went to Europe: At Cambridge, he did his degree in law while did his PhD in philosophy at Munich University.

On his return, he settled in Lahore and struggled, unsuccessfully, all his life to establish his practice as a lawyer. As a poet, however, he was a big success.

The publication of his first Persian-language collection, Israr-e-Khudi, in 1914 brought both fame and controversy. Iqbal’s teacher at Cambridge, Dr Reynold Nicholson, translated it to English thus introducing Iqbal to the West. In India, however, the book generated a lot of controversy. In his attempt to explain his concept of Khudi (Ego according to Faiz, selfhood according to Sibt-e-Hassan), he criticized Sufis, in particular Persian poet Hafiz. Since Hafiz is held in esteem by Muslims, hence many Muslim intellectuals strongly criticized Iqbal for desecrating a holy man. The reaction of so strong that Iqbal, in the second edition, withdrew verses about Hafiz.

Support to Ibn-e-Saud:

The controversy about Hafiz was just a beginning as controversies would follow him all his life. Next big controversy was his knighthood on January 1, 1923. In a year’s time, he was embroiled in yet another controversy as he lent support to Shaikh Saud of Arabia. A mullah in Lahore issued a fatwa declaring Iqbal an apostate.

His knighthood and support to Ibn-e-Saud had annoyed sections of Indian Muslims since they were campaigning, in alliance with Gandhi, for the restoration of Ottoman Caliphate. Ibn-e-Saud’s declaration of independence was a nail in the Ottoman empire. The Muslim demand was not to dismember Ottoman empire since Caliph was seen as spiritual head by Indian (Sunni) Muslims. Ibn-e-Saud’s attempt to establish Saudi Arabia was seen as British-backed treachery. Iqbal, who refused to associate with this Caliphate movement and lent support to Ibn-e-Saud, had his image as Muslim leader tarnished by accepting knighthood.

However, his poetic posture enhanced even further with the publication of Piam-e-Mashriq (1923) and Bang-e-Dra (1924).

Bang e Dra was his first collection of Urdu poems while Piam-e-Mashriq in Iqbal’s words was his reply to Goethe’s Divan-e-Maghreb.

Meeting with Mussolini:

In 1926, he contested election for Punjab Legislative Assembly and was elected. But as parliamentarian and politician, he remained obscure. He would express himself best in literary and philosophical fields. He also devoted most of his energies on philosophical questions. Hence, away from politics, he delivered his famous six lectures in 1928, later published as ’The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’ that is considered a bold attempt to interpret Islam in line with modern age.

In 1931, he travelled to London to represent Indian Muslims at Round Table Congress called by British colonial masters to solve the Indian question. On his return, he stayed in Rome and called on Mussolini. His poem praising Mussolini yet again triggered a controversy. By the way, Iqbal was not the only leader who went to see the Duce. Our dear prophet of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi also (incidentally also returning from Round Table Conference) called on Mussolini. One does not what impression he left on the Duce but the violent fascist definitely impressed our prophet of peace.

In 1932, he came out with yet another literary masterpiece, Javed Nama which he declared Asian ’Divine Comedy’.

In 1935, his second poetry collection in Urdu, Bal-e-Jibrail while two poetry collections in Persian won him laurels. By now, his health was failing and he died in Lahore on April 4, 1938.

Considered a Pan Islamist and Muslim intellectual, Iqbal has left a mix legacy. Highly critical of capitalism, he paid glowing tributes to Karl Marx and Lenin. Yet he never associated with Bolshevism which ’’in my view is equivalent of forsaking Islam’’. While declaring Quran as panacea for all ills, he declared:’’No doubt, capitalism gone berserk is a curse to this world. This, however, does not mean that to save this world from capitalist destruction, one should revoke capitalism as Bolshevism suggests’’.

He thought Islam was a socialist religion and Bolshevism plus Touheed (oneness of God) is Islam.

The divided progressives:

The Progressive Writers Movement in Pakistan was divided over Iqbal’s legacy. While a big majority of Progressives disowned Iqbal, stalwarts like Faiz Ahmed Faiz defended Iqbal as a Muslim intellectual who ’’sought to cleanse the House of God of all false idols, of scribes and Pharisees, the obscurantist Mullah, the withdrawn mystic, the charlatan and the demagogue’’.

In his essay, “Iqbal’s Concept of Man” (in The Battle of Ideas in Pakistan), Sibt-e-Hassan declares that “the utopia of Iqbal very much resembles the vision of a socialist society.” He urges his progressive friends to understand the “conspiracy to project Iqbal as a revivalist.” He warns that, as well as this being “a disservice to the poet,” the progressives “would be depriving themselves of an effective weapon against their opponents and allowing the vested interests to use Iqbal for their own anti-people interests.”

Iqbal’s most enthusiastic progressive promoter is the late Ali Sardar Jafri. He and a host of progressives hold that Iqbal was a link between progressive writers and Ghalib. They say that, by radically digressing from set patterns of poetic forms and subjects, Iqbal inspired critics to delve into the subject of whether any poet in the past experimented as daringly as him.

They tend to judge Iqbal by the “paradox” in his poetry, which they find tilting in favour of Mussolini instead of Karl Marx, whom Iqbal described in a Persian couplet as someone who is “not a prophet, yet he has a Book.” This troubling aspect in Iqbal’s poetry was acknowledged by Sibte Hassan in an article (“The concept of ‘Shaheen’ “) he wrote for Naya Adab in 1939.

In this essay, Sibte Hassan criticises Iqbal for being “an advocate of individualism” and considers the concept of khudi as “tempting the individualistic qualities of Man by dissolving the established social links necessary for a society.”

What irritates some progressives is definitely not merely the metaphysical thought promoted by Iqbal but also the status assigned to him in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Even an analysis of this status, let alone someone’s disputing or questioning it, is considered a breach of patriotism. Hence, historian Dr Mubarik Ali was lambasted for the unorthodox view on Iqbal he presented in his Ilm-e-Tareekh. Ali Abbas Jalalpuri, in his Iqbal ka Ilm-ul-Kalam, questioned Iqbal’s status as a philosopher. Therefore, one almost never finds this book in any library or public colleges and universities.

Farooq Sulehria