Shabeer Ahmad Lone
“Science, philosophy, religion all have limits; only art is limitless.”
“Philosophy makes one old; poetry brings back youth.” -Iqbal in a letter to Attiyah Faizi.
“Iqbal was also a sincere witness of his era; he was more than just Hamlet and Christ, resembling Khizr in his ability to guide. In our age of skepticism, a person finds himself inheriting the anxiety of Hamlet and the compassion of Christ, and views Khizr’s foresight and guidance with skepticism. This is why Iqbal’s modern reader finds himself bound in an unbreakable relationship with Iqbal, a continuous struggle, attachment, affection, devotion, and detachment. In such a situation, the most we can do is not be unsympathetic spectators.” -Gopi Chand Narang, Iqbal’s Art.
Ya murdeh hai ya nazh key halat mai girfatar
Jo falsafeh likha ne gaya ho khooni jigr sai
Sir aamd roozgar ein faqeeray
Digr daanai raaz aayed ke nayad
Ahli zamen ko nuskhai zindagi dawaam hai
Khooni jigar se tarbiyat paati hai jo sukhanwari
Raazi hayaat pooch le Khizr khajasta gaam se
Zindagi har ek cheez hai koshish na tamam se
Khird nai mujhe ko aata ke nazar hakeemaneh Sikhai,
Ishq nai mujh ko hadithi rindaneh
Khurdmandon se kya poochhun ke meri ibtida kya hai
Khudi ko kar buland itna ke har taqdeer se pehle
Khuda bande se khud poochhe, bata teri raza kya hai
Naqsh hai natamam khooni jigar ke bagair…
Nagmahai sodai kham khooni jigr k bagair
Hawas nai kar diya hai tukday tukday nau-e-insaan ko
Ukhowat ka bayan ho ja, muhabbat ke zubaan ho ja
Mashriq se ho bayzar na maghrib se hazr kar
Fitrat ka ishara hai ke har shab ko sehr kar
Chhod Europe ke liye raqs badan ke kham o pech
Rooh ke raqs mein hai zarb-e-Kaleem Ullah hi
Sila is raqs ka hai tishnagi kaam o dahan
Sila is raqs ka darweshi o shehanshahi
Piewateh reh shajr se umaidi bahaar rakh
Har lehzah naya taur, naye barq tajalli
Allah kare marhalie shauq na ho ti
Sitaroun sai aagay jahaan aur bhi hain
Kammali zindagi deedari zaat ast
Tareeqash rastn azbandi jahaat ast
Az shaoore ast ein ke goyee nazd wadoor
Cheest-e-meraaj? Inqilaab andar shaoore
Iqbal wrote in the preface of The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam that “the modern interpretation of religious thought presented in these lectures is not the final word. Nothing in philosophy holds definitive status; as knowledge advances, new forms of ideas emerge. Therefore, it is our responsibility to keep pace with the evolution of human thought and never abandon a critical perspective.”
To encounter the true visionary spirit of Muhammad Iqbal is to engage with a mind and heart that sought nothing less than the reanimation of the human spirit in an age of profound civilizational crisis. It is to engage with a consciousness that bridges epochs, cultures, and spiritual horizons. Born at a historical juncture when Muslim societies were negotiating the dislocations of colonial modernity, the collapse of political sovereignty, and the moral anxieties of a rapidly globalizing world, Iqbal emerges as neither a nostalgic custodian of tradition nor an uncritical disciple of Western thought. He inhabits the space between philosophy and poetry, contemplation and action, individuality and community, crafting a vision of human possibility that is simultaneously ethical, aesthetic, and metaphysical. His Persian and Urdu verses, essays, and lectures reveal a mind attuned to the subtle dynamics of human will, divine creativity, and social responsibility: a thinker who perceives spiritual stagnation and materialist pressures alike, and yet refuses despair. Iqbal’s engagement with Nietzsche, Bergson, Goethe, and Rumi exemplifies his dialectical method-appropriating, transforming, and synthesizing diverse intellectual currents to articulate a theocentric creativity, a moral and spiritual awakening, and a renewed vision of human agency. Far from abstraction, this is philosophy and mysticism in service of lived reality: a summons to cultivate Khudi, an ethical and spiritual selfhood capable of responding to the pressing demands of history while aspiring toward the eternal. In this light, Iqbal’s thought is not a frozen monument of literary or philosophical achievement; it is a dynamic, provocative encounter, urging the reader to wrestle with questions of meaning, agency, and moral responsibility in every age.
This is why scholars from Annemarie Schimmel to Javed Majeed insist that Iqbal’s significance lies in the way he carved a path through seemingly irreconcilable tensions: he appropriated Nietzsche’s heroic will without succumbing to nihilism, invoked Bergson’s creative evolution without dissolving into mere process philosophy, and drew from Rumi’s spiritual dynamism while rejecting Sufism’s quietist tendencies. What distinguishes Iqbal from his contemporaries is precisely this restless dialectical energy: his refusal to allow any tradition, whether Western rationalism or Islamic mysticism, to remain inert, and his audacity to rework them into a vision of human creativity that was at once God-centered and historically engaged. In his hands, the mystical concept of fana (annihilation) became a paradoxical call to intensified existence, while the prophetic ideal was transfigured into a living pedagogy of moral responsibility.
Philosophically, Khudi is the hinge of Iqbal’s system: not an atomistic individualism but an existential ethics of will and responsibility. Influences from Nietzsche, Bergson, and Goethe are unmistakable, yet Iqbal does not mimic; he appropriates-Nietzsche’s stress on strength is reoriented into a theocentric creativity, Bergson’s durée is read through a Qur’anic teleology of becoming, and Goethe’s humanism is remade within a prophetic horizon. This selective appropriation produces productive frictions-some critics note conceptual strain where modern notions of will and evolution meet Qur’anic theocentrism-and that friction is instructive rather than merely problematic: it exposes the epistemic labor Iqbal performs to reconcile differing accounts of time, agency, and freedom. M. M. Sharif and Syed Abdul Vahid rightly point out that Khudi must be evaluated as an ethical programme aimed at moral formation rather than as a metaphysical doctrine divorced from practice.
Iqbal’s poetic vision, while conversant with the likes of T. S. Eliot, William Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Dante, etc., displays a distinctive synthesis of mysticism, philosophy, and socio-political consciousness that sets him apart from these Western exemplars. Unlike Wordsworth, whose poetry often celebrates nature as a moral and aesthetic refuge, or Blake, whose symbolic critique is largely prophetic but socially abstract, Iqbal fuses mystical insight with an urgent call for ethical action, bridging spiritual awakening with historical responsibility. Dante’s allegorical journeys resonate with Iqbal’s Javid Nama, yet Iqbal transforms allegory into a philosophical and spiritual discourse rooted in Qur’anic metaphysics, emphasizing the creative self (Khudi) as both the individual and collective agent of renewal. Shelley’s idealism and Eliot’s modernist exploration of alienation informed his imagination, but Iqbal reorients these motifs toward Islamic ethical, mystical, and civilizational paradigms, creating a poetic consciousness that is simultaneously universal and deeply rooted in his spiritual-cultural heritage. Rarely acknowledged, Iqbal also dialogues with Persian and Urdu poetic traditions, blending Rumi’s ecstatic vision, Hafiz’s lyrical subtlety, and Sa‘di’s ethical elegance with modern philosophical inquiry, resulting in a unique poetic cosmology where prophecy, philosophy, and aesthetics converge-a synthesis scarcely paralleled in global poetic history.
Iqbal’s reading of Sufism is decisive and contentious. He venerates Rumi’s dynamism yet rejects what he sees as later Sufism’s retreat from historical responsibility; where classical Sufis emphasise annihilation in God, Iqbal insists on a resurrection of the self as creative servant. Shabbir Akhtar and Javed Majeed show how this reframing turns union with the Divine into an engine of social transformation: spiritual intensity becomes a motive force for ethical action. Critics push back, arguing that Iqbal’s activist reorientation flattens the contemplative plurality of Sufi experience and risks instrumentalising mystical practice for political ends. That critique matters: it reminds us that in reducing contemplative depths to mobilizing metaphors one may lose valuable modes of inward attentiveness that resist co-option by worldly projects. Scholars like Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Annemarie Schimmel highlight that Sufism’s capacity to harmonize intellect, emotion, and action allows it to remain a dynamic force, inspiring creative, ethical, and spiritual renewal in Muslim societies facing the pressures of globalization, secularism, and ideological polarization.
Iqbal reflects on the spiritual and intellectual aridity he encountered in certain traditional centers of learning (madrasas and khānqahs). “Utha mai madrasoun khankaah sai gumnak, neh zindagi, neh mohabbat, na marifat, na nigah” conveys a sense of disillusionment with ritualistic formalism, where life, love, mystical realization (marifat), and perceptive vision (nigah) were absent or stifled. By juxtaposing the emptiness of these institutions with the potential of the human spirit, Iqbal underscores his conviction that true education and spiritual training must awaken creativity, ethical insight, and experiential understanding of the Divine, rather than merely enforcing rote learning or mechanical devotion. The verse is a critique, but also a call to reconstruct learning and spirituality, aligning intellectual rigor with heartfelt engagement, and external discipline with inward awakening-a hallmark of Iqbal’s broader vision of revival for both self and society.
Politically, Iqbal’s legacy is equally ambivalent. His rhetorical genius and moral pedagogy furnished imaginal resources that fed movements for Muslim self-assertion across South Asia, yet his prescriptions are more visionary than programmatic. Ayesha Jalal and Javed Majeed read Iqbal as a civilizational critic who sought moral and cultural revival rather than a detailed architect of institutions; the result is a thinker of immense normative force but modest administrative specificity. This suggests both an advantage and a limitation: his diagnosis of malaise remains piercing, but translating his ethical revival into institutional structures-law, economy, bureaucracy-requires further theorisation that he only partially supplies. Scholars have debated whether that lacuna led later political actors to construe Iqbal in ways he might not have endorsed.
Critical scholars also point to issues that complicate his reception: an elitist tendency in the moral psychology of Khudi (which presumes disciplined, reflective agents), gendered archetypes (the Mard-e-Momin reads uneasily in contemporary gender critique), and the possibility that his stress on heroic individuality could be misread to justify authoritarian politics. Moreover, his Persian idiom, while philosophically felicitous, narrows accessibility: the highest registers of his thought remain mediated by linguistic mastery that many readers lack, raising questions about popular reach and democratic pedagogies. These are not fatal flaws but necessary critical caveats that temper hagiography and demand nuanced appropriation.
Methodologically, studying Iqbal fruitfully requires polyvalent practice: read his Persian and Urdu side by side; situate poems within their essayistic cousins (for instance, juxtaposing Asrar with essaysfrom The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam; engage the colonial political context while not reducing his metaphysics to mere reaction; and test interpretive moves against the range of secondary literature-from Schimmel and Arberry’s philological sensitivity to Jalal’s historically grounded critiques and Nasr’s metaphysical readings. Contemporary work that places Iqbal in postcolonial, interreligious, and philosophical dialogues (for example, readings that compare his thought with modern existentialists or with South Asian devotional currents) proves particularly illuminating.
For Iqbal, humanity is not a passive existence but a living, creative force. He believed that every person carries within them a spark of the divine, a potential that can be awakened through self-discipline, struggle, and love.
True humanity arises when individuals not only realize their own potential (Khudi) but also act ethically, compassionately, and responsibly toward others, contributing to the renewal of society. Drawing on the Qur’an, Persian mysticism, and modern thought, Iqbal envisioned humans as both architects of their own destiny and partners in the moral and spiritual uplift of the world, showing that personal growth and social responsibility are inseparably linked.
In Iqbal’s thought, time (zaman) and space (makaan) are living, dynamic realities, not mere containers or abstractions. Time is the arena of creative struggle, ethical action, and spiritual growth, where each moment carries the potential for self-realization (Khudi).
Space is the field in which the self-unfolds, interacts, and asserts its moral and spiritual agency. Together, they form the medium through which human beings participate in the divine drama, making existence a continuous process of transformation, awakening, and the actualization of destiny.
In Iqbal’s vein, art and literature are not mere decoration but instruments of the soul’s awakening, channels through which the human spirit encounters both its own potential and the Divine. True poetry and prose, he believed, should awaken moral courage, sharpen intellect, and illuminate spiritual insight, guiding individuals toward self-realization (Khudi) and ethical action. Iqbal’s own poetry in Persian and Urdu exemplifies this ideal, blending aesthetic beauty with philosophical rigor, mystical depth, and prophetic urgency.
Rarely noted, he also viewed literature as a medium of cultural rejuvenation, capable of bridging Eastern spiritual sensibilities with Western philosophical consciousness, creating a discourse where imagination and reason reinforce one another. Scholars like Annemarie Schimmel and Shabbir Akhtar emphasize that for Iqbal, the transformative power of art lies not only in individual awakening but in the ethical and civilizational renewal of society, making creativity a sacred, morally charged, and socially dynamic endeavor rather than mere entertainment.
For Iqbal, ijtihad is a creative, ethical, and spiritual exercise that enables Islam to respond dynamically to modern challenges. It links self-realization (Khudi) with societal renewal, demanding a rare blend of philosophical insight, ethical intuition, and practical wisdom. Unlike conventional juristic interpretations, Iqbal’s ijtihad transforms reasoned judgment into a living force for moral, intellectual, and cultural regeneration.
Iqbal’s enduring legacy rests less in the specific institutional or political formulations often projected onto him, and more in the transformative horizon of human becoming that his thought continues to open. He remains a poet of possibility rather than prescription, a philosopher who sought to ignite rather than codify.
For contemporary readers-whether in the Muslim world wrestling with questions of identity, or in the broader human community facing crises of meaning and dehumanization-Iqbal’s work offers both warning and promise: warning against spiritual inertia and intellectual mimicry, and promise of a selfhood capacious enough to participate in Divine creativity without lapsing into either egotism or passivity.
Iqbal’s enduring significance lies precisely in the productive tensions he inhabits: between heroic individuality and ethical responsibility, between mystical union and social engagement, between metaphysical contemplation and historical action. His critics rightly highlight the risks of elitism in the celebration of Khudi, the possible instrumentalization of mystical experience, and the abstraction of his philosophical formulations when confronted with political realities. Yet these very tensions are the generative core of his vision.
To read Iqbal today is not merely to admire a historical figure but to accept a perennial challenge: to cultivate a self that is neither self-indulgent nor self-effacing, a consciousness luminous with responsibility, creativity, and openness to the Infinite. His poetry and prose fuse philosophical rigor, spiritual insight, and ethical urgency into a discourse that awakens the intellect, stirs the heart, and inspires action.
Iqbal’s legacy is a timeless invitation to reconcile spirit with structure, freedom with submission, and inward longing with outward responsibility. It is a call to live as conscious participants in the divine drama of history, to shape personal destiny while contributing to collective moral and spiritual uplift, and to recognize that human creativity-when guided by ethical awareness and attuned to the Infinite-remains the most potent force for renewal. In this, Iqbal is not merely a poet or philosopher; he is a transformative voice whose vision continues to resonate, inspire, and challenge, offering both a mirror for self-examination and a horizon for collective hope.
Author can be mailed at shabirahmed.lone003@gmail.com
Comments are closed.