In the age of turmoil and technological advancement, Allama Iqbal’s educational philosophy and ideas of Khudi and Mard-i-Momin serve as a crucial guide for Muslims to reclaim their identity and strive for progress.
Allama Iqbal was a poet, philosopher, and thinker whose works span a variety of subjects and disciplines. While he is predominantly known for his poetry, his intellectual contributions extend far beyond that, covering a wide range of themes, issues, and ideas. One of the key aspects of his work is his educational philosophy.
Iqbal’s philosophy, which calls for a reconstruction of our religious and intellectual orientation, emphasizes the need to incorporate specific values and principles into our ways of thinking, both individually and collectively. He believes that only when these values become an integral part of our personal lives and collective struggles will we begin to see a tangible change. It is through this transformation that we can truly appreciate the profound impact of his genius.
Iqbal holds in contempt the man who does not exert himself in the way of his being-able-to-be. Such a man makes no demands on himself. He condemns himself to being what he is: destitute of creative faith, whose existence in the world makes no difference to the worldliness of the world. He takes the ‘given’ world as sufficient unto itself, as finished in its possibilities of ideal and moral reconstruction. Furthermore, he happens to be in the world as it is — the given world — and leaves it just the way he found it.
Iqbal loved us dearly. He exerted his poetic and philosophical genius in describing our lives, ideally hoping to make us aware of our identity and inheritance without opposing life in its onward rush and movement. In his worldview, a human, in his sojourn towards the yet-to-be, is always ahead of himself.
Iqbal wishes to release our own sense of originality into the world as creative faith and co-creative intentionality. As a transcending self, man is always beyond any place of permanent abode. In its onward rush, life is like that: always and forever different, overflowing its own bounds, constantly moving towards new beginnings. Iqbal’s philosophy is an original statement of this onward movement of life. It is a cultural vision, and he derives it from the principle of movement in the structure of Islam.
In view of Islamic transcendentalism, a human is a journeying self; for him, the journey by itself is sufficient. It is the journey that unfolds new possibilities of his being-able-to-be and new facets of worldliness. As a journeying self, a Muslim does not seek to arrive; he only strives to establish the beginning — for that is all he can hope for. Iqbal never looked beyond that hope. He emphasizes an indeterminate movement from the good to the better, then to the best, and beyond.
From Bal-e-Jibril, “Tu Abhi Reh Guzar Mein Hai, Qaid-e-Maqam Se Guzar,” Iqbal carries no magic wand of reason. There are times when he hesitates to speak the truth for fear of unsettling our sense of certainty. But when he does, he stealthily dismembers our entire sense of logic. There are dangers in depth, and one should be well advised against wanting to descend deep into one’s own self. And yet, without this ownness, how can a man belong to himself? Iqbal urges us to belong to ourselves and, in doing so, discover in the depths of our hearts our desire to become what we are capable of becoming.
The philosophy of Allama Iqbal is relevant to the Muslim world in general and the Kashmiri people in particular. The concept of Khudi and the symbol of the Shaheen not only decolonize the Muslim mind but also help them regain confidence. Throughout his poetry and philosophical reflections, Iqbal refers to the glories of Muslim history to tell his Muslim brethren that they are not history-less and to remind them that they are here to make history at every point in time. Action and constant struggle can restore what they once lost. When we see the present situation of turmoil and agony engulfing the Muslim world, we feel the need for Iqbal’s Mard-i-Momin, who would stand and lead Muslims out of the dark tunnel they are caught in.
The Mard-i-Momin of Iqbal is nowhere to be seen, despite the fact that Muslims have sacrificed everything for their cause. The educational backwardness of Muslims must still be hurting the soul of Allama Iqbal. What is the role of Muslims in the present age of science and technology? The number of scientists and universities in the Muslim world is very pathetic, to say the least. There is no Mard-i-Momin of Iqbal to guide the politically orphaned Muslim Ummah this time. Allama would be truly mourning this sad state of affairs. Muslims are neither thinking nor acting in the direction of the Holy Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet (SAW). The problems the Muslim world is facing today have been pointed out by Iqbal in his poetry, yet, unfortunately, Muslims do not pay heed to them.
The way Allama Iqbal decolonized the Muslim mind in his poetry and wrote back to the West should have opened the Muslim eye and not allowed them to be dragged like animals by the neo-colonizers. Let the Muslim world wake up and play its role. Iqbal has this message for them.
The writer is pursuing an MA in Urdu at the Central University of Kashmir, Ganderbal
By Syed Shaziya
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