Allamah Iqbal and “Islamic Re-Awakening”

By Prof. M. S. Tajar
Al-Mustafa International College

Dr. Mohammad Iqbal of Pakistan (1875-1938) was truly a man of “Enlightenment”

and a genius, very similar to many other great intellectuals, activists, philosophers, poets and
writers of the world. But, his very unique role in the “Worldwide Islamic Re-awakening” was
probably the most interesting aspect of his character, and personality.
Just to cite an example, it is enough to note here that his theory of the “Islamic
Nationalism and Internationalism” was the main reason behind the birth of the first and the most
populous Islamic nation in history, i.e., “The Islamic Republic of Pakistan, in 1947.”

Dr. Iqbal, and the Islamic Nostalgia

Dr. Mohammad Iqbal was born during the British colonial rule, in the Indian sub-
continent ---comprising what is today India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, combined.
When he opened his eyes, and he got enough awareness, he saw his native Indian people,
Muslims as well as the Hindus, the Sikhs and others, were under the subjugation of a foreign
colonial power, called “Great Britain” (which today is only “Britain” with no adjectives!) To the
young Iqbal, as a Muslim, that subjugation (or as he himself used to call it “Ghulami” or
slavery) was even more painful, for several reasons:

Firstly, because Iqbal knew very well about his own Islamic heritage, and the glorious
Muslim Empire called “Moghuls”, that once ruled India with all its magnanimity and fairness
towards all the citizens, regardless of their race or religion. But now, he could see how his
beloved motherland has been turned into a colony, ruled by a treacherous and scheming
European white-racist supremacist-exceptionalist/ almost “chosen people” vs. the colonized
Indians, who were enslaved in their own land/ not very different from the Israel-Palestine
Catastrophe or “Nakbah” of today.
Also, considering the fact that the “British Colonial Empire” was started with the
“Euphemism of the East India Trading Company” and it ended in a brutal occupation and
subjugation of a land that was 10 times bigger than England in territory, and many times bigger,
in population, it was both ironic and also very hard for him to fathom.
Another painful part of this so-called “company” was the fact that it was engaged in the
biggest “drug pushing mafia business” that the world had ever seen, using the opium from its
Indian and Burmese (now Myanmar) colonies, to sell it to the drug addicted nation of China,
using gun-boat diplomacy, too! (Ref. “International New York Times” June 6/ 2015/ P.10) Also
the “Empire of Cotton” by Sven Beckart New York/ 2015)

Second, as a young Muslim student of history, Iqbal was also very familiar with the lost
glories of the Moorish Caliphate in Spain (711-1492 A.D.) ---- the “Glory that was Spain” and
the “Granada!... Granada!” of the bygone era. He knew about that Islamic Renaissance in the
European soil, during the Muslim Caliphate of the 8th Century Spain, long before there was any
so-called “European Renaissance” that began in Florence, Italy, during the 14th Century A.D.,
some 600 years later! Iqbal even visited Spain, to see for himself those magnificent Islamic
Heritage sites of the “Alhamra Palaces”, the Cordoba Mosque (now the Cordoba Church), the
“Madinat Zahra”, once the youngest and the most beautiful capital in the entire Europe, now
in ruins! (See the Alhambra Decree of 1492/Expulsion of the Muslims and the Jews, from the
Catholic Spain, as well as the “La Reconquista” of the Moriscos/ Moors/The International New
York Times/April 2/2014 P.10)
Third, Iqbal was also an eye-witness to the collapse of the “Muslim Ottoman Empire”
(1288-1924) due to the British and the French conspiracies, and the infamous British spy, the
“Lawrence of Arabia” and his “Saudi tribal co-horts”, who treacherously put an end to the
longest ruling dynasty in the world- i.e. the “Ottoman Caliphate”, in Turkey.
The Ottoman Muslim Empire was thus divided among the British and the French
colonizers (see the Sykes-Picot agreement of the 1918) and it was torn into some 20 small
countries, one of which was the land of Palestine – gifted, illegally, to the European Jews, to
colonize, and to re-name it “Israel” in 1948.
All those tragic events and the catastrophes befallen the once glorious Muslim
civilization, starting from the 7th century, up to the 20th century, depressed Mohammad Iqbal’s
young mind, very severely; This, in turn resulted in an emotional revolution inside our young
hero, which like a volcano erupted, and it was expressed in the form of his many lectures, books
and especially in his poetry, both in the Urdu language, as well as in Persian. But more so in
Persian language, because he considered the Persian language as the second language of Islam,
after the Arabic – from the Central Asia up to China, and from Iran up to India.
 That’s why almost 60% of the poems by this Indian revolutionary poet and intellectual
leader, is composed in Persian, and not in his own native language of Urdu/ Hindi.
One more reason why he used the Persian Language more than his own mother tongue,
was his belief, and the belief of many of his own contemporary poets in India at the time, that
Persian was the most expressive language of Poetry in the Muslim world, both in quality as well
as in quantity. (Ref. “An Introduction to the Persian Poetry” by Prof. M.S. Tajar/
www.academia.edu.ph/ www.scribd.ph.m.s.tajar).
Just to give an example, here we would like to quote one of those poems, by Dr. Iqbal,
himself.
“Even though Hindi language is
As sweet as the sugar
Yet, the Persian language
Is even sweeter!”

And he also once said that those Persian poems he had composed were the most fruitful
part of his entire creative life. Then, he added: “I get those inspirations only in Persian. In fact,
my heart is Persian!” (See “The Persian Letters”/ Tehran, Iran, January 2003, p.133)

One of his own predecessors, who is the greatest Indian poet of the Urdu language of all
time, Mr. Ghalib of Delhi, had also expressed similar views, as Dr. Iqbal, but some 100 years
ahead of him.
Mirza Asadul Lah Ghalib of Delhi (1797-1869 A.D.) once said:
“Look at those Persian verses
To see all those glorious lines!
Forget the Urdu,
Which is a colourless
Collection of mine!
And then, as if that were not enough praise for the Persian art of Poetry, this time Mirza
Ghalib went even further, by saying:
“Ghalib was, indeed
A sweet nightingale
Of the Persian rose gardens (Firdaus/ Paradise/ Pardis)
I, foolishly, called him
A little parakeet of the India-land!”

And he also, just like the great Iqbal, believed that he could express his own “Immortal
Artistic views” much better in Persian, than in any other language.

Islamic Revivalism of the 19th and the 20th Centuries

So, while Iqbal was comparing those earlier glories of the Islamic Civilization viz-a-viz
the downfalls, 1, 2 and 3 (i.e. The Moorish Caliphate of Spain, the Moghuls of India, and the
Ottoman Caliphate in Turkey, one after another) he was deeply touched and saddened by
seeing the miseries that had befallen the Muslim Ummah; And being an intellectual that he was,
he could not keep silent about it. Therefore, he shouted on top of his voice for an “Islamic Re-
Awakening” among the Muslim peoples, and he found that “voice” in poetry, and to him no
other poetry was more expressive than the Persian. In fact, one of his classic works, which is
titled as: “What then must we do, O’ people of the East?” was composed in Persian, together
with five other volumes. And his reasons for doing so were, as follows:
1. The great tradition of the Persian Poetry and literature, that goes back some 5,000
years, most notably in the “Gatha Hymns of the Persian Prophet Zoroaster” (551-
628 B.C.) which are the biggest part of his holy book – the Avesta. (Ref.
“Amordad”, the Zoroastrian Magazine/ Tehran, Iran, Nov. 20, 2015, P. 8)
2. The revolutionary history of the Persian Poetry, in resisting the foreign invaders, from
Alexander of Macedonia 320 B.C., to the Arab invasion in the 7th century, as well
as the Mongols in the 13th Century A.D. The best example of those “Poems of
rebellion and resistance” could still be found in the Persian epic “The Shah Namah”
of Ferdausi (935-1020 A.D.). Shah Namah, which means the “The Book of the
Kings” or the “King of the Books”, is three times the length of the Homer’s Iliad
and the Odyssey combined, and twice as long as the Indian epic, the
“Mahabarata”.
3. This, plus the fact that the Persian was also the official language of the Muslim
Empire in India, as well as its poetry and literature, for almost 700 years; which
made the Persian poetry very essential in expressing Dr. Iqbal’s message of Islamic
Re-Awakening, both among the Indian Muslims, as well as overseas.
While, the Mongols invaded Persia in the 13th Century A.D., they were also influenced greatly
by the Persian civilization, and its sophisticated culture. (Just like the Arabs and the
Macedonians, before).
By the 16th century, when the great grandchildren of Gengiz Khan (1162- 1227 A.D.) crossed
over from Persia/ Central Asia/ into India, they were not anymore those same Mongolian
Animists, with the same murderous mentality and the barbaric behavior, but instead, they had
changed into some sophisticated rulers, lovers of the arts and literature and even the Persian
poetry. Those Mongolians of the yester years had now turned into Muslim Kings, adopting
Persian names like “Babar”, “Homayun” or “Homa-bon”, “Aurang Zaib”, “Jahan Gir”,
“Akbar”, etc. and the Persian tastes for good food, fashionable clothings, first class courts, and
even Persian Queens e.g., Queen Nur Jahan of the world renowned and “Mumtaz Mahal”
“Taj Mahal” – the most celebrated Queen in history (Very similar to the Persian Queen
“Roxana” of Alexander of Macedonia, and several other Persian Queens of the Arab Caliphs)
If it were a zoology subject, we could even say that the Mongols were just like those
bumblebees that invaded the Persian Rose Gardens and they also, just like those bees, carried
with them, the seeds of the Persian – Islamic Civilization, and they unwittingly impregnated
India’s Hindu Civilization, with it.
That’s why today almost all aspects of life in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh contain some
traces of the Persian culture and civilization, plus Islam and a little bit of the Mongolian, too.
(e.g. the word “Urdu” is Turkic for “Army”)

One can clearly see those Persian – Islamicp influences in India’s Taj Mahal, and the
Red Fort/ Nehru cap and Shirwani Tunics/ Shalwar Qamis/ Indian Biryani and Naan/
Tandoori/ Jinnah Cap/ Indian Poetry and songs/ movies and love stories/ Mosques and
Mausoleums/ sixty per cent of the Urdu language being Persian or Arabic of the Persian colour/
the Persian Alphabet and its grammar used in Urdu, which is the 3rd most spoken language in
the world today, after the Chinese and English.

One of the well-known Indian scholars, professor, Mahmood Shirani believes that:
“Urdu is actually the beautiful daughter of the Persian language.” (Ref. “The Persian Letters”/
Tehran, Iran, Sum. 2002/ p. 199).
No wonder, even the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaher La’l Nehru (1889-1964)
whose own first name is also Persian (i.e., Jawaher La’l, meaning “Ruby”) once said:
“Taj Mahal is the soul of Persia, in the body of India.” But, that was not originally from
Nehru, because it had already been mentioned earlier by the French artist, J.B. Geuze (1725-
1805) who also did very well appreciate the extreme beauty of the Persian- Islamic
Architecture in the Taj Mahal, one of the 7 wonders of the world.

Iqbal’s Influencial Teachers

Aside from the above mentioned influences of the Islamic Persia on Iqbal, which could
be considered as passive, there were some active and direct influences on the personality of Dr.
Iqbal, which led him, just like many other Indian poets, both Mulims as well as the Hindus, to
become “Persico-Philes”, too!
In addition to having some great Persian scholars as his own teachers, Iqbal had also a
good British mentor, who was himself another “Persico-Phile”. His name was Sir Thomas
Arnold (1864-1930), who being Iqbal’s philosophy teacher, led him into writing his Doctoral
dissertation at the Cambridge University (not about the Indian Philosophy, but rather) on “The
Development of Metaphysics in Persia”, in 1908, and then also defending it, of all places, in
Munich/ Germany (Aryanism?).
The first sentence on the first page of that dissertation, says a lot about Iqbal’s own
“Persico-Phile” tendencies, as well. He said, and we quote:
“The most remarkable characteristic of the Persian people”, wrote young Dr. Iqbal “is
their love of metaphysical speculations” (p. ix)
This unique combination by Dr. Iqbal of Philosophy-Poetry-Activism was the reason
why a Pakistani analyst once said:
“Iqbal’s poetry made philosophy sing!” (Ref. “Iqbal Academy in Pakistan” 2015)
Iqbal’s Geatest Teacher
However, the greatest teacher, who captivated Iqbal’s mind, both as a “Persico-Phile” as
well as in his “Islamic Internationalism/ Islamic Re-awakening” was a grand master that Iqbal
never met in person. He was rather a “controversial” Muslim scholar-reformer, by the name of
Jamal Ad-din Al-Afghani, or more correctly, “Asad Abadi” (1838-1897).
The “controversial” Muslim scholar-reformer, was respected, even revered and also
feared and reviled, by the Kings of Persia, as well as the Shah in Afghanistan and even the
Caliph of the Ottoman Empire.
Just to know better about this “Great Reformer-Spiritual Leader”, we should mention the
fact that, he was the first person in recent history, who revived the Islamic spirit among the
Muslims (i.e. the Islamic Re-awakening) especially among the Arab people, from North Africa
up to the Persian Gulf. (Which resulted later in the creation of the “Ikhwan Al-Muslimin
Movement” of Hassan Al-Banna in Egypt, the Sheikh Abduh, Sayyid Qutb, and others, as well
as the “The Jama-at Islami Party” in India/ Pakistan by Sheikh Maududi, etc.)
We must also consider the fact that even the name, the nationality and the birth place of that
revolutionary teacher; remain a “mystery” until now. And today, some 120 years after his death,
nobody knows for sure what his real name was, where was he really born, etc. although we all
know about his tragic death, by poison, in the hands of the agents of the last Ottoman Emperor
“The Caliph, Abdul Hamid” (1842-1918).

Sayyid Jamal Ad-din Asad Abadi, or “Al-Afghani”

The average Muslim knows that great reformer-spiritual leader, as a man from
Afghanistan, who belonged to the “Sunni” branch of Islam, and who travelled from the courts of
Afghanistan, to the palaces of Persia (not yet Iran), and up to the “Baab Aali” palaces of the
Ottoman Turks, as well as the European Capitals of Vienna and Paris, etc.
But in reality, that mysterious teacher was neither an “Afghan” nor a Sunni, but rather an
Iranian Shi’ah Scholar, from the small town of “Asad Abad”, near the historic City of Hamedan
(one of the earliest capitals of the Medes and the Persians).
The reason why he was introducing himself as “Al-Afghani” was this:
1. By showing his “Afghan ID” (because he had lived there, too) he was trying to avoid all
those negative impressions of the “Sunni Muslims” ( the Arabs, the Turks, etc.) and the anti-
Shi’ah, as well as the anti-Persian feelings, that were(and still are) prevalent among the majority
of the Muslims, toward the Shi’ah minority. He wanted also to “unite” all the Muslims,
regardless of their sectarian orientations, racial connections and tribal affiliations.
And that way, he planned, (and to a certain degree he also did succeed) to re-awaken the
Islamic spirit among the Muslim Ummah, from the Arabs and Berbers of the North Africa, to
the Muslims of the Balkans, and the Turks and Tatars of the Central Asia, to the Afghans, the
Persians and the Indians, the Malays, and the Indonesians of the South East Asia, as well as
the Uighur Muslims in China.
He concentrated his activities in Turkey, as well as in Egypt, the two power
centers, one that of the “Islamic Empire” and the other, the heart of the Arab world, while he,
himself being a Persian, travelled to India and Europe, in order to reach out to the rest of the
Muslim populations there, too. That’s why “The International Herald Tribune” of America, in
one of its articles described him, as the “First person, in modern history who brought the
message of return to Islam and to the Qur’an, into the Arab world.” (Ref. “The International
Herald Tribune”- June 12/2005/P.8))
But when it was revealed later that he was not an Afghani “Taliban”, but rather a
Persian Shi’ah Scholar-Activist, the Ottoman Sunni Caliph poisoned him to death, and an
Egyptian Wahhabi Scholar, by the name of “Rashid Rida” (1865-1935) called him, after his
tragic death, as “Another dog, from among the Persian dogs!” (not the Persian Cats?).

Message of Martyred Teacher of Iqbal

The main message of Jamal Ad-Din Asad Abadi to all the Muslims, throughout the world was
that, they should “Turn-to-Islam for the answer” in order to recover their lost glory. (Ref. “Jamal
Ad-din Asad Abadi” by Mohit Tabatabai/ Tehran/ Iran/ 1998.)
This message was the greatest and the most powerful of all, to get into the head and the
heart of the young Iqbal, and his entire adult life was spent on that message alone, which is very
visible in all his lectures, books and almost in every poem that he created, both in his favourite
language of poetry i.e., Persian, as well as in his own mother tongue of Urdu; That message,
which is called the “Islamic Re-Awakening” is still reverberating in the hearts and the minds of
the followers and fans of Dr. Mohammad Iqbal, all over the world, today, and it will continue,
forever, In Shaa Allah!
And now, we would like to end this, with one of Dr. Iqbal’s own classic Persian Poems, which
like a mirror, clearly shows his entire message, the vision and the mission of Dr. Mohammad
Iqbal, in a nutshell – his “Islamic Internationalism”, his call to Re-awakening, his love for the
Persian Poetry and culture, and the religious, as well as the intellectual influences on him, by his
Persian Muslim teachers, etc. Just the title of that poem tells it all! It’s titled: “O’ Youth of
Persia”, and here are some of the highlights of that Poem:

“O’ Youth of Persia”

I shall burn like a candle
Your issues to handle
O’ Youth of Persia
My life is yours!
***
 I have been deeply in thought
Just trying to understand
The mystic of your wise men (Magis?)
With all my heart
***
I have touched the stars
I have reached the planets
And I have found the ‘Temple’
In your Holy Home
***

There shall come a ‘man’

From your tribe, I could see
To liberate us all
From the slavery that we are in!
(A. Khomeini/1979?)
***
Surround me, embrace me!
O’ nation of good wills
For I have a ‘Fire’ in me
From your forefathers!

To complete the picture, we may even add this short poem from Dr. Iqbal, this time in
Urdu, as well:

“If Tehran would become

The Geneva of the East
It may also be possible
To change the destiny of the world!

That’s the Islamic Re-Awakening, according to Mohammad Iqbal, “who made the Philosophy
sing!”

References:
1. “Divan of Iqbal”, compilation of Dr. Iqbal’s poems in Persian, Tehran, Iran/ 2002-
2. “Introduction to Persian Poetry” by Prof. M.S. Tajar, www.academia.edu.ph./
www.scribd.ph.M.S.Tajar
3. “The International Herald Tribune” June2005
4. “Islam: A message of peaceful co-existence” by Prof. M.S. Tajar/
www.academis.edu.ph. /www.scribd.ph.M.S.Tajar
5. “Sayyid Jamal Ad-din Asad Abadi” by Mohit Tabatabai/ Tehran, Iran 1998.
6. “Amordad” the “Zoroastrian” magazine/ Tehran, Iran, Nov. 2015
7. “The Persian Letters” Iran quarterly/2002
8. “The Glorious Qur’an”, English Translation, by A. Yusof Ali/ Lahore Pakistan/ 1998
9. “Empire of Cotton” by Sven Beckert Alfred A. Knopf / USA /2015
10. www.allamaiqbal.com
11. www.columbia.edu/itc/mealec/pritchett/00urdu/iqbal
12. “The Reconstruction of the Religious Thought in Islam” By Dr. Mohammad Iqbal.
Publisher: Iqbal Academy of Pakistan, 1992
13. Development of Metaphysics in Persia
14. “Iqbal Academy of Pakistan”/Dr. Mohammad Iqbal’s works