Iqbal, Muhammad

(1877–1938), Poet-philosopher of Islam and Pakistan. Muhammad Iqbal, known as the poet-philosopher of Islam and Pakistan, was born on 9 November 1877, at Sialkot, India, and died at the peak of his fame on 21 April 1938, at Lahore. In Sialkot, Iqbal finished high school and then joined the Scotch Mission College, subsequently named Murray College. At this college, Iqbal completed two years of his education and then joined the Government College in Lahore, fifty miles from Sialkot. By this time, Iqbal had acquired a good education in Urdu, Arabic, and Farsi under the guidance of Sayyid Mir Hassan (1844–1929), who had been profoundly influenced by the Aligarh movement of Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan (1817–1898). Under Sayyid Mir Hassan's care, Iqbal's poetic genius blossomed early.

In May 1899, a few months after Iqbal's graduation with a master's degree in philosophy, he was appointed the Macleod-Punjab reader of Arabic at the University Oriental College of Lahore. From January 1901 to March 1904, when he resigned from the position, Iqbal taught intermittently as assistant professor of English at Islamia College and at the Government College of Lahore. In 1905, Iqbal went to Europe, where he studied in England and Germany. In London, he studied at Lincoln's Inn to qualify at the bar, and, at Trinity College of Cambridge University, he enrolled as a student of philosophy while he prepared to submit a dissertation in philosophy to Munich University. Munich University exempted him from a mandatory stay of two terms on the campus before submitting his dissertation, "The Development of Metaphysics in Persia." After his successful defense of his dissertation, Iqbal was awarded a Ph.D. degree on 4 November 1907.

Iqbal was never at home in politics, but he was invariably drawn into it. In May 1908, he joined the British Committee of the All-India Muslim League. With the exception of one brief interruption, Iqbal maintained his relationships with the All-India Muslim League all his life.

When Iqbal came back from Europe in 1908 after earning three degrees in England and Germany, he started his professional career as an attorney, professor, poet, and philosopher all at once. At length, however, the poet and philosopher won out at the expense of the attorney and professor while he continued to be partially active as a political leader. Iqbal was elected a member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly from 1926 to 1930 and soon emerged as a political thinker. In 1930, the All-India Muslim League invited him to deliver a presidential address, which became a landmark in the Muslim national movement for the creation of Pakistan.

Iqbal's philosophical and political prose works are actually few in number, most notably The Development of Metaphysics in Iran (1908) and The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930). The latter work was actually a collection of his seven lectures that he had delivered in December 1928 in Madras. The lectures are reflective of his mature philosophical and rational approach to Islam, emphasizing a responsible ijtihad, the right of interpreting the Qur'an and the Sunna. A third work is Iqbal's Presidential Address to the Annual Meeting of the All-India Muslim League (1930). This address is an extensive review of the interaction among the British, the All-India National Congress, and the All-India Muslim League from the perspective of a Muslim thinker. In it, Iqbal expounded the concept of two nations in India. This address came to be known as the origin of the idea for an independent state of Pakistan.

Iqbal composed his poetry in Persian and Urdu. His six Persian works are Asrar-I Khudi wa Ramuz-I Bekhudi (1915), Payam Mashriq (1923), Zabur-I Ajam (1927), Javid-Namah (1932), Pas Chas Bayad Kard Ay Aqwam-I Sharq (1926), and Armaghan-I Hijiz (1938). His Urdu works, which are primarily responsible for his popularity in Pakistan as well as in India, are Bang-I Dara (1924), Bal-I Jibril (1935), and Darb-I-Kalim (1936). Poetry, like visual art, is susceptible to varied interpretations; consequently, his admirers, relying primarily upon his poetry, have attempted to prove him a nationalist, a Muslim nationalist, a Muslim socialist, and even a secularist.

Iqbal remained a steady supporter of the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948). During 1936–1937, Iqbal wrote eight letters to Jinnah, advocating the partition of India into two nations. His presidential address of 1930 formulated the two-nation theory, which Jinnah finally accepted when he presided over the All-India Muslim League's annual meeting in Lahore in 1940 and demanded that Pakistan be created by partitioning India.

"Iqbal, Sir Muhammad (1876–1938)." (1949) Dictionary of National Biography 1931–1940. London: Oxford University Press.

Malik, Hafeez. (1970) "Iqbal's Conception of Ego." The Muslim World 60 (April): 2.

——, ed. (1971) Iqbal: Poet-Philosopher of Pakistan. New York: Columbia University Press.

Sadiq, Muhammad. (1964) A History of Urdu Literature. London: Oxford University Press.

Schimmel, Annemarie. (1963) Gabriel's Wing. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill.

This is the complete article, containing 798 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).