Iqbal- the 20th Century Reformer

by Ali Shariati

  In spite of his religious zeal, his slogan of the return to the Quran, his hostility towards the progressive, anti-religious philosophies of Hegel and Nietzsche and the 19th century scientific attitude, in spite of his love for God, Islam, the Prophet, Ali, Fatimah, and Husayn, Iqbal is not captivated by religious fanaticism, dogmatism, or a reliance upon idealism. Such a point of view, tendency and call are not to be construed as alienation from the world and the humanity of our age or from the objective realities governing the relationships between powers, nations, and classes. Nor can such a point of view be regarded as a deviated side-road or the glorification of a reaction or extreme conservatism.

  By means of his exclusive reliance upon the unification of the Muslim world, the revival of Islamic world power, the dissolution of the various nations that believe in Islam into a great religious ummah, into a concentrated political unit, Iqbal had no aim but the formation of a religious empire or, in fact, the reconstruction of the Islamic caliphate, that is, those efforts embarked upon by Sayyid Jamal which proved futile and ended in deadlock.

  After the fell of the Ottoman Empire and the disintegration of the Muslim world, efforts for unification and the establishment of an Islamic caliphate system was first begun in India, developing into an extensive movement and culminating in the establishment of Pakistan. Some may ask Are Iqbal’s aspirations for the establishment of a religious country where the political regime, legal system, economic foundation, educational organization, legislature, the press, and the entire socio-political and spiritual talents are put under the control of one particular religion nothing but a sort of reactionary move towards intellectual dictatorship, religious despotism, a return to the Middle Ages, a new form of the inquisition, the freezing of the intellect, the captivity of science, the death of democracy as well as trampling on all of those rights which mankind had been striving to achieve in the course of centuries?

  By relying upon religion and the particular religion of Islam, at that, Iqbal’s aim is to transform it from being a personal belief, a spiritual motive, an ethical system that merely governs the relationships between individuals and God into an ideology encompassing the entire dimensions of human existence and that of society as well as its material and spiritual aspects. This ideology is to undertake and fulfill the mission for the reconstruction of the very foundation of society and its mobilization, giving direction, determining its methods, ways, and ideals reflected in its history, changing the nature and destiny of the human being and of his responsibility, way of life, class relationships, economic production, distribution and consumption, ethical, educational, and cultural systems and, finally, the basis, philosophy, criteria, and idea for leadership.

  Consequently, it is no longer possible to restrict it to the cozy and idle confines of the temple or to the closed cells of monasteries nor can it be kept totally occupied with prayer beads, girdles (which Christians in the Middle East were obliged to wear to distinguish them from Muslims), invocations, the mentioning and repetition of stories about miracles, inspirations, propagation of laudable qualities, the observance of rights as, so to speak,that are customarily held each year. Under these circumstances, was not the emergence of Islam as an ideology, the call, the mission, the advent, the shift of position from philosophy to life, from the sky to the earth, from the past to the present, from postmortem to ante-mortem, and the return to unity, leadership, justice... as dangerous to British imperialist domination (because its influence and strength depended upon public ignorance, weakness, stupidity, and superstitions and because the then practiced version of Islam was much to its liking) as it was a profound and powerful resistance of influence and growth of the revolution which should simultaneously cut across Dehli and Shanghai according to the forecasts of the astrologers of the scientific philosophy of history?

  Since Islam, as Louis Gardet put it, is both a religion and a community and as its founder held the mission of prophethood as well as the responsibility of leadership, if it recaptures itself, naturally it could defeat imperialism on the material, ideological, and revolutionary levels and, hence, render it baseless.

  Now a question can be raised in this connection. Does Iqbal’s idea of the reconstruction of religious thought, his revival of mystic zeal, emphasis on ethical values, and on piety, extreme spiritualism, revival of the spirit, thoughts and culture of the past, the founding of a pure society in a Utopia illuminated with selfhood and glowing with the fire of love mean that he has digressed from the path history is taking and the evolutionary trend of the human being? Does it mean that it differs from the inevitable course of objective realities when we consider that the mentality of our age is advancing towards scientific logic, human authenticity, the government of the people, freedom of thought and expression, de-emphasis upon religion by political regimes and in social foundations, understanding and unifying of the Third World and the colonized and held-back nations regardless of race or religion vis-a-vis world imperialism? Finally, does it mean going against the intensification of class struggles aimed at the annihilation of the bourgeoisie, capitalism, and the exploitation of man by man? Furthermore, has he not been influenced by his educational environment, particularly in his course of study, by a sophist outlook, and a religious upbringing and, consequently, suffered from futile efforts to build an unattainable Utopia, based upon philosophical idealism, revolutionary romanticism, religious fanaticism, Eastern sophistic tendencies, and, lastly, ethical sentimental-ism? If we think European-like and see things Western-like and speak with a foreign tongue, then the answer to the above questions is positive because Iqbal fits these descriptions.

  Our great tragedy is that, essentially, our modern intellectuals, possessing these very qualities, have arisen from the fabric of our people and then assumed these cultural and literary, and, hence, human and social distinctions. Our intellectual cannot be considered to be the result of a natural and logical evolution, the continuation of our historic transformation and developer of the culture of our society. The cultural father of our people is ‘All or Imam Sadiq whereas the cultural father of these intellectuals is God knows who and their cultural mother is ‘Mirza Malkam Khan, the rogue!

  Our intellectuals do not have a mother-tongue or national language. The sort of Persian they speak is French or English translated into Persian. At the same time, they do not know English or French other than a few exceptions who know them to the extent a tourist guide does.

  They are incapable of understanding anything of our culture, religion, ethics, thoughts, aesthetics, arts, or feelings of our history. In fact, they have been infiltrated by a special kind of comprehension which is difficult to get rid of. Nothing will change unless this kind of comprehension or misplaced intellect is pumped out of them like cancerous blood and, instead, a healthy kind of blood is injected into them. “Surely God does not change the condition of a people until they change their own condition (themselves).” (13:11) Here, changing their condition through changing their own ‘selves’ assumes profound and far-reaching significance.

  In order to understand Iqbal, our sort of European way of thinking must be altered. Let us look at the experience of those people who made the most of every opportunity, taking each night as a Night of Power and who were able to sacrifice the dearest of Ishmaels even while the three satanic forces remained put.

  Also, let us look at the experience of hajjis who, after having stoned the last idol on the hajj, take off the sacred garment and return to their daily lives with the pleasant thought that they are now hajjis. Then, suddenly, they realize that their Mina (land of faith, love, hope, sacrifice, stoning idols) has turned into a bazaar. Upon opening their fists, the head-shaved hajjis see, much to their surprise, that the pebbles in their hands have turned to gold coins by means of magic and satanic temptations.

  It is surprising how the followers of Abraham get into friendly conversation with Nimrod and take nothing with them but coins from the cave of the Companions of the Cave. After returning fro
m the hajj, they are even more malevolent and deceitful—those poor simple, charming rites. Worse than that, they are swindled, then robbed of whatever they had earned by means of the sweat of their brow and toil of their hands and are then thrown into dark dungeons.

  These are not merely experiences of history but the throbbing pain felt by the present generations of the Third World. These are experiences of unsuccessful attempts to produce, change, or bring about changes that lead in the wrong direction. There is no liberal-minded intellectual who has not comprehended the futile efforts, failures, and deviations of the humanity of our age.

  With the passing of time, catastrophes become so shameless and clear that even those who are infatuated, those who are disciples or imitators and even the idolaters come to their senses, cured by their stupefaction and they feel the bitter pain with its full intensity. But they have no t been able, as yet, to put their finger on the exact spot of their pain and find the root cause of catastrophe. Like a physician who is incapable of diagnosing an illness or a politician who lacks the faculty of discernment or a superficial sociologist, they try to find a scapegoat and then through surmise, guesswork, analogy, even insult and accusation, they try to disentangle themselves from the task of research and the responsibility of finding causes and orientating themselves to the right direction, thus, consoling themselves and continuing to deceive others, as well as themselves.

  We have been witnessing a great deal of futile commotion and ineffective arguments as well as endless factionalism and excommunication. It reminds us of the verbal, religious, and jurisprudential strife of the Middle Ages that resulted in so much bloodshed, in the perpetual displacement of innocent people, and in the wasting of the time of so many generations and, then, everything eventually subsiding like the subsiding of the brawls of truant children. The only conclusion that all of the opposing factions and hostile groups reached was to make the man of our age reluctant to indulge in anything that smacks of religious disputes, factional fighting, or verbal wrangling....

  All these arguments amount to tackling the effect rather than the cause, or according to our philosophers, stopping at close-at-hand causes while ignoring the most important cause which is some distance away.

  Concerning those intellectuals who are prejudiced towards a highly scientific philosophy of history and who believe in continuity or who believe in following the dictates on religious matters (taqlid) even in the area of principles and beliefs, which is forbidden in Islam, whether the person being followed is dead or alive, they declare in their Manifesto: It is not man’s consciousness of self which determines his existence, but, rather, his consciousness of self is shaped and determined by his social position.

  It should be said that in spite of the great emphasis upon the human being, people, worker, and so forth, in their political literature, their philosophical thoughts and scientific analyses rely solely on tools of labor and methods of production and they regard the human being, people, and the worker as the tetter’s product just like any other commodity.

  Consequently, ideology, human values, a social revolution, or any movement, ideal, responsibility, action, or crusade is considered to be dependent on the developmental level of the tools of labor and the advancement of science to the point that the destiny of a nation is dependent upon and determined by economic production and the fate of an individual or human society is determined by the powerful hands of an external environment. As Marx and Engels put it: The human conscience is the inevitable, natural product of man’s social situation. It does not require great intelligence, but, a bit of common sense, to understand the fact that the affirmation of this principle would amount to the negation of human authenticity.

  Islam never seeks to undermine the scientific laws and social factors in history. On the contrary, it relies on them by calling the human being to recognize and pursue these laws. For the determination of destiny and for changing the social system, Islam directly addresses the aware and liberated person who is capable of effective action and has the ability to choose, that is, the responsible human being. Thereby, it considers a change in destiny to result from a conscious transformation of way of thinking and type of constructive action not in automatic changes in production methods.

  The emphasis upon faith and virtuous deeds which are repeatedly referred to in an inseparable connection in the language of Islam, clearly shows that Islam considers the change in a social situation to result from a change in the human situation and in order to change the latter, it stresses forms, mannerisms, eternal relationships, and superficial displacements that are called revolution today. It emphasizes that the real content or condition of a society will not necessarily change unless people transform themselves in the sense of their real content and the quality by which they are considered to be human. “Surely God does not change the condition of a people until they change their own condition (themselves).” (13:11)

  From here the authenticity, importance, and the weight of the human being’s responsibility becomes immediately apparent in face of the changes in one’s social situation, institutions, bases of life, as well as one’s historic destiny. They become immediately apparent because the men whose destinies are molded by social events are not ‘responsible’, but, rather, simple ‘effects’.

  Thus, Islam lays the heavy burden of shaping the destiny of a nation upon the shoulder’s of the human being—that is, the conscious, free will of the human being. An intellectual who is not merely an effect and a creature developed through a suprastructure, nor one who has been molded by the exigencies of the economic system or by the infrastructure of production, but one who is the cause and the creator, who must fulfill the mission of change, construction, and leadership in history. He is, therefore, committed and responsible. Therefore, he must accept the guilt for the confusion, poverty, decline, and captivity of his society.

  It is, then, just as justifiable to praise him in the role of Moses and Abraham as to reprimand him in the role of a Pharaoh or a Nimrod because he is the main factor in the movement of history and in the formation of his society. Not only does such an attitude towards people in history and towards an intellectual’s obligations to society teach us how to analyze social problems, political movements, and historic transformations but it guides us in how to take action, how to discharge responsibilities and how to take sides, as well.

  This is why not only as a great thinker and an intelligent Islamologist but also as an anti-colonial fighter, a responsible intellectual, a mujahid, and a man who acts in his own age for the benefit of his people, Iqbal chooses as his main ground the psychological-intellectual transformation of the conscience of his people. Those who do not regard social acts to be exclusively physical acts or political acts, can thoroughly understand that this task constitutes the most fundamental responsibility of an intellectual.

  Chapter Four: World View

  At the initial stage, Iqbal presents a special and novel world view which is equally difficult as it is vital for a modern intellectual in Islamic societies to understand if his mental framework and terms of reference have been borrowed from Western culture and ideology.

  This world view, although new, is deeply rooted in our culture and beliefs. It originates from our oldest spiritual sources. In this world view, which is the essence of Eastern illumination—the depths, subtleties and unifying view of gnosis—an oriented, positive-thinking and clear-sighted, a creative responsibility, and a creative realism as well as the realistic aspects of Islam in a mind that is fully developed because of a familiarity with the contemporary world civilization and because of his elevation to the highest altitudes of Western philosophy, he puts his world view forward in such a way that both its logical connections and its natural composition is maintained. It is not merely a philosophical or a theoretical point of view but one which is presented after taking account of human needs and the movement and direction of history as well as the agonies of the people towards whom a heavy and urgent responsibility is
deeply felt.

  These characteristics essentially distinguish a genuine religious view from a philosophical-religious one. We can clearly and objectively see this distinction when we compare the Prophets Abraham, Moses, and Muhammad with the philosophers (Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, and Ibn Sina) as well as when we study the impact of either category on the movement of the masses and their change of destinies.

  One of the most fundamental characteristics of Iqbal’s world view is his anti-philosophical aggressiveness. This intellectual orientation rests on a solid foundation in the history of Islamic culture. The introduction of Greek philosophy into Islam was marked with great victory over Islamic thought and culture, particularly from the close of the 10th century, not only influencing such geniuses as Ibn Sina, Razes, and Averroes but also in producing strong, intellectual currents, so much so that it penetrated deep into our religious thinking. At the same time, and for the very same reason, it met strong opposition from other currents of thought.

  Although Greek philosophy, in particular, Aristotelian thought, greatly shaped the development of rationalism, reinforcing the analytic and logical faculties and the conscious justification of religious edicts, nevertheless, it changed the world view particular to the Quran which was a decisive factor in deviating Islamic beliefs and its current of thoughts.