Introduction
This is the last article of the series, summarizing exploration of “Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”, a compilation of lectures by Dr. Muhammad Iqbal. This work gives some insight to the philosophic thought of Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, the great poet, philosopher and thinker. He proposed an innovative solution to the challenges faced by Muslims of present era through sophisticated philosophical medium using his prose writing. He critically analyzed the causes of decline of Muslim Ummah and indicated possible ways of renaissance of Muslims. The book is a compilation of lectures delivered by him on Islamic philosophy; published in 1930. In his own words Iqbal described the aim:
“In these lectures I propose to undertake a philosophical discussion of some of the basic of ideas of Islam, in the hope that this may, at least, be helpful towards a proper understanding of the meaning of Islam as a message to humanity. Also with a view to give a kind of ground-outline for further discussion”.
Iqbal was aware that the new generation of Muslims could not remain aloof from the values of modern Western culture. It was therefore necessary for them to remain Muslim and at the same time to become modern. Iqbal has called for a re-examination of the intellectual foundations of Islamic philosophy. The book is a major work of modern Islamic thought. This innovative work will be of great interest to most modern day educated Muslims who are fed up with the extremist, dogmatic outlook of their religion. In brief the four main messages of the book comprising seven lectures are:
1. This universe is dynamic and so is God. He is the Creator and is constantly busy in creation.
2. God has given man complete freedom of choice and man is not restricted by his destiny.
3. Muslims have made a big mistake by discontinuing the evolution of Islamic law and by confining themselves to four major schools of law. Since the world is constantly changing, we need constant evolution of Islamic law to keep pace with the world (without touching the fundamentals). Modern democracy can go a long way in achieving this goal and the concept of ‘caliphate’ can be replaced by the concept of ‘republic’. [not to the liking of Daesh, ISIS, Taliban and their supporters and sympathizers]
4. Mystic religious experience is not only possible but is the only way to find the Ultimate Reality.
5. While this is not the last word on the subject it agitates the minds to start thinking from a different angle for change.
These “Lectures” are a mirror of our national perceptions. Dr. Muhammad Iqbal viewed the Islamic and Western knowledge with due regard to the growth and development of human thought in his own age, we should also keep a careful eye on the growth and development of human thought of our own times, and should organize the perceptions of today in the light of Allama Iqbal’s scientific intellectual conclusions. These lectures offer food for thought and courageously challenge the status quo. The present turmoil and extremism which has devastated the foundations of unity of Muslim Ummah could have been avoided if due importance was given to the thoughts of Iqbal. Instead of meeting the challenges of modern era as pointed out by Iqbal 86 years ago Muslims are still looking for a counter narrative against this menace.
Special thanks are due to Dr. Tahir Hameed Tanoli (Iqbal Academy Pakistan) [4] who has graciously permitted to reproduce lectures by to promote and disseminate the study and understanding of the works and teachings of Allama Iqbal [1]. Mr. Muhammad Iqbal Malik has been kind to permit use his “Excerpts” for easy comprehension by common reader [2] and ‘Renaissance’. [4.]
Summary of Lectures
Let’s recapitulate all the seven lectures that have been published in previous issues of DJ: [4]
Lecture-1: Knowledge and Religious Experience
In the first lecture “Knowledge and Religious Experience”, Iqbal gives a brief description of the basic structure of the universe and the way we are related to it. Iqbal argues that the traditional method used to interpret religion which he describes as “reading the Qur’an in the light of Greek thought” is not the best way to understand religion properly. Although, he recognizes the fact that in the domain of religious knowledge complete independence of thought is not possible still he emphasizes on the use of rationalism. According to him “the spirit of the Qur’an was essentially anti-classical”. Another method described by the scholar as he calls it is the “mystic experience”. “Mystic experience for the purpose of knowledge is as real as any other region of human experience and cannot be ignored merely because it cannot be traced back to sense-perception. Nor is it possible to undo the spiritual value of the mystic state by specifying the organic conditions which appear to determine it”. Thus, the philosopher finalizes his argument by concluding that religious experience is a state of feeling which cannot be explained. It is just a feeling of cognition, the content of which cannot be communicated.
The salient points can be tabulated as:
1. Religion is not a departmental affair; it is neither mere thought, nor mere feeling, nor mere action; it is an expression of the whole man.
2. In its deeper movement, however, thought is capable of reaching an immanent Infinite in whose self-unfolding movement the various finite concepts are merely moments. In its essential nature, then, thought is not static; it is dynamic and unfolds its internal infinitude in time like the seed which, from the very beginning, carries within itself the organic unity of the tree as a present fact.
3. Thought which is, in its essential nature, incapable of limitation and cannot remain imprisoned in the narrow circuit of its own individuality. In the wide world beyond itself nothing is alien to it.
4. It is in its progressive participation in the life of apparently alien that thought demolishes the walls of its finitude and enjoys its potential infinitude… it is a mistake to regard thought as inconclusive, for it too, in its own way, is a greeting of the finite with the infinite.
5. During the last five hundred years religious thought in Islam has been practically stationary.
6. The main purpose of the Quran is to awaken in man the higher consciousness of his manifold relations with God and the universe.
7. When attracted by the forces around him, man has the power to shape and direct them; when thwarted by them, he has the capacity to build a much vaster world in the depths of his own inner being, wherein he discovers sources of infinite joy and inspiration.
8. Hard his (man’s) lot and frail his being, like a rose-leaf, yet no form of reality is so powerful, so inspiring, and so beautiful as the spirit of man! Thus in his inmost being man, as conceived by the Quran, is a creative activity, an ascending spirit who, in his onward march, rises from one state of being to another.
9. It is the lot of man to share in the deeper aspirations of the universe around him and to shape his own destiny as well as that of the universe, now by adjusting himself to its forces, now by putting the whole of his energy to mould its forces to his own ends and purposes. And in this process of progressive change God becomes a helper, provided man takes the initiative. It is our reflective contact with the temporal flux of things which trains us for an intellectual vision of the non-temporal.
10. The naturalism of Quran is only recognition of the fact that man is related to nature, and this relation, in view of its possibility as a means of controlling her forces, must be exploited not in the interest of unrighteous desire for domination, but in the nobler interest of a free upward movement of spiritual life. In the interests of securing a complete vision of Reality.
11. The Heart is a kind of inner intuition or insight which, in the beautiful words of Rumi, feeds on the rays of the sun and brings us into contact with aspects of Reality other than those open to sense-perception.
12. The revealed and mystic literature of mankind bears ample testimony to the fact that religious experience has been too enduring and dominant in the history of mankind to be rejected as mere illusion.
13. Religion is not physics or chemistry seeking an explanation of Nature in terms of causation; it really aims at interpreting a totally different region of human experience – religions experience – the data of which cannot be reduced to the data of any other science.
Lecture-2: The Philosophical Test of the Revelations of Religious Experience
In the second lecture, at the beginning Iqbal quoted three arguments for existence of God; the Cosmological, the Teleological, and the Ontological, and has highlighted the flaws in these arguments. He states that the Cosmological argument tries to reach the infinite by negating the finite, which according to the author is a “wrong infinite”, since it excludes the finite. The Teleological argument serves to give us a contriver but fails to give us a creator. Finally, the third argument, Ontological argument, assumes that the idea of an ultimate ego in our mind is enough to prove the existence of the infinite (God).
From here, the philosopher talks about experience. Experience, he says, has three levels namely matter, life and the level of mind and consciousness. While talking about matter, he tries to imply that the things we see and hear, for example, sound waves, colours, gravity and other physical phenomenon in nature are not actual happenings but mere illusions. Time, he says, is not a real movement. Events happening in the future are not new but are already located in an unknown space. Hence the fourth dimension is actually a set of events happening in a definite order. By this Iqbal states a setback in Einstein’s theory of relativity. Iqbal sees life as planned for purposes that lay deep down the intellect of a living being. The conscious experience is the level of experience, in which we are in direct contact with reality, since our perception of our own selves as quoted in Iqbal’s words is “‘internal, intimate and profound”. Thus the element of purpose and desire moulds the present state of consciousness as well as the future. The conclusion that we are brought to at the end of this lecture is that the Ultimate reality is a “rationally directed creative life”.
The salient points are tabulated as follows:-
1. Physics, as an empirical science, deals with the facts of experience, i.e. sense-experience… [2] colours, sounds, etc., are subjective states only, and form no part of Nature. What enters the eye and the ear is not colour or sound, but invisible ether waves and inaudible air waves. Nature is not what we know her to be; our perceptions are illusions and cannot be regarded as genuine disclosures of Nature… Thus physics, finding it necessary to criticize its own foundations, has eventually found reason to break its own idol, and the empirical attitude which appeared to necessitate scientific materialism has finally ended in a revolt against matter.
2. The object observed is variable; it is relative to the observer; it’s mass, shape, and size change as the observer’s position and speed change. Movement and rest, too, are relative to the observer. There is, therefore, no such thing as a self-subsistent materiality of classical physics.
3. Personally, I believe that the ultimate character of Reality is spiritual Natural sciences are like so many vultures falling on the dead body of Nature, and each running away with a piece of its flesh… thus religion, which demands the whole of Reality and for this reason must occupy a central place in any synthesis of all the data of human experience, has no reason to be afraid of any sectional views of Reality.
4. Now my perception of things that confront me is superficial and external; but my perception of my own self is internal, intimate, and profound. It follows, therefore, that conscious experience is that privileged case of existence in which we are in absolute contact with Reality, and an analysis of this privileged case is likely to throw a flood of light on the ultimate meaning of existence.
5. Pure time, then, as revealed by a deeper analysis of our conscious experience, is not a string of separate, reversible instants; it is an organic whole in which the past is not left behind, but is moving along with, and operating in, the present. And the future is given to it not as lying before, yet to be traversed; it is given only in the sense that it is present in its nature as an open possibility. It is time regarded as an organic whole that the Quran describes as Taqdir or the destiny – a word which has been so much misunderstood both in and outside world of Islam. Destiny is time regarded as prior to the disclosure of its possibilities.
6. The destiny of a thing then is not an unrelenting fate working from without like a task master; it is the inward reach of a thing, its realizable possibilities which lie within the depths of its nature, and serially actualize themselves without any feeling of external compulsion.
7. Our acts of perception are determined by our immediate interests and purposes… The past, no doubt, abides and operates in the present; but this operation of the past in the present is not the whole consciousness. The element of purpose discloses a kind of forward look in consciousness. Purposes not only colour our present state of consciousness, but also reveal its future direction. In fact, they constitute the forward push of our life, and thus in a way anticipate and influence the states that are yet to be. To be determined by an end is to be determined by what ought to be A state of attentive consciousness involves both memory and imagination as operating factors. On the analogy of our conscious experience, therefore, Reality is not a blind vital impulse wholly unilluminated by idea. Its nature is through and through teleological. [Related to the doctrine that phenomena are guided not only by mechanical forces but that they also move toward certain goals of self-realization; the belief that purpose and design are a part of or are apparent in nature.]
8. Mental life is teleological in the sense that, while there is no far-off distant goal towards which we are moving, there is a progressive formation of fresh ends, purposes, and ideal scales of value as the process of life grows and expands. We become by ceasing to be what we are. Life is a passage through a series of deaths. But there is a system in the continuity of this passage. Its various stages, in spite of the apparently abrupt changes in our evaluation of things, are organically related to one another. The life-history of the individual is, on the whole, a unity and not a mere series of mutually ill-adapted events.
9. To my mind nothing is more alien to the Quranic outlook than the idea that the universe is the temporal working out of a preconceived plan… it is a growing universe and not an already completed product… a notion of the Ultimate Reality as pure duration in which thought, life, and purpose interpenetrate to form an organic unity.
10. The knowledge of Nature is the knowledge of God’s behaviour. In our observation of Nature we are virtually seeking a kind of intimacy with the Absolute Ego; and this is only another form of worship. The Absolute Ego… is the whole of Reality. He is not so situated as to take a perspective view of an alien universe.
11. Philosophy is an intellectual view of things… It sees Reality from a distance as it were. Religion seeks a closer contact with Reality. The one is theory; the other is living experience, association, intimacy. In order to achieve this intimacy thought must rise higher than itself, and find its fulfilment in an attitude of mind which religion describes as prayer.
Lecture-3: The Conception of God and the Meaning of Prayer
The philosopher explains various aspects of God, these include Creativeness, Knowledge, Eternity and Omnipotence. Eternity is described by Iqbal using the Ash‘arite theory of Atomism in Islam and the doctrine of accidents. The knowledge of the ultimate ego makes God aware of the entire history as it constitutes quantized events occurring in a definite sequence, and hence divine knowledge is acquired in eternal present. Therefore divine knowledge includes everything in the past, present and the future. Omnipotence is the blind power without any limits. This power is exercised by God while holding all goodness in his hand. Iqbal then raises the question “How is it then possible to reconcile the goodness and Omnipotence of God with all the evil in his creation?” Here he is talking about man as the creation of God. Iqbal then comes to a conclusion that man possesses this quality of improvement, and is destined to overcome evil. Coming to prayer the author describes the meaning of prayer. The meaning of prayer, he says, is an “expression of man’s inner yearning for a response in the awful silence of the universe”. Prayer is a way for that searching ego to discover its own worth as a dynamic factor in this universe.
In his third lecture “The Conception of God and the Meaning of Prayer” Dr. Muhammad Iqbal highlighted points which are summarized below:
1. The creative energy of the Ultimate Ego, in whom deed and thought are identical, functions as ego-unities. The world, in all its details, from the mechanical movement of what we call the atom of matter to the free movement of thought in the human ego, is the self-revelation of the “Great I am”. Every atom of Divine energy, however low in the scale of existence, is an ego. But there are degrees in the expression of egohood. Throughout the entire gamut of being runs the gradually rising note of egohood until it reaches its perfection in man. That is why the Quran declares the Ultimate Ego to be nearer to man than his own neck-vein.
2. Only that is, strictly speaking, real which is directly conscious of its own reality.
3. Man’s first act of disobedience was also his first act of free choice; and that is why, according to the Quranic narration, Adam’s first transgression was forgiven. Now goodness is not a matter of compulsion; it is the self’s free surrender to the moral ideal.
4. A being whose movements are wholly determined like a machine cannot produce goodness. Freedom is thus a condition of goodness.
5. … for the freedom to choose good involves also the freedom to choose what is the opposite of good. That God has taken this risk shows His immense faith in man; it is for man now to justify this faith.
6. … The life of a finite ego in an obstructing environment depends on the perpetual expansion of knowledge based on actual experience. And the experience of a finite ego to whom several possibilities are open expands only by method of trial and error. Therefore, error which may be described as a kind of intellectual evil is an indispensable factor in the building up of experience.
7. … religious ambition soars higher than the ambition of philosophy. Religion is not satisfied with mere conceptions; it seeks a more intimate knowledge of and association with the object of its pursuit. The agency through which this association is achieved is the act of worship or prayer ending in spiritual illumination.
8. In thought the mind observes and follows the working of Reality; in the act of prayer it gives up its career as a seeker of slow-footed universality and rises higher than thought to capture Reality itself with a view to become a conscious participator in its life. Prayer as a means of spiritual illumination is a normal vital act by which the little island of our personality suddenly discovers its situation in a larger whole of life.
9. Prayer must be regarded as a necessary complement to the intellectual activity of the observer of Nature… the truth is that all search for knowledge is essentially a form of prayer.
10. Vision without power does bring moral elevation but cannot give a lasting culture. Power without vision tends to become destructive and inhuman. Both must combine for the spiritual expansion of humanity.
11. The real object of prayer, however, is better achieved when the act of prayer becomes congregational. The spirit of all true prayer is social… A congregation is an association of men who, animated by the same aspiration, concentrate themselves on a single object and open up their inner selves to the working of a single impulse. It is a psychological truth that association multiplies the normal man’s power of perception, deepens his emotion, and dynamizes his will to a degree unknown to him in the privacy of his individuality.
12. Prayer… is an expression of man’s inner yearning for a response in the awful silence of the universe. It is a unique process of discovery whereby the searching ego affirms itself in the very moment of self-negation, and thus discovers its own worth and justification as a dynamic factor in the life of the universe.
13. The posture of the body is a real factor in determining the attitude of mind. The choice of one particular direction in Islamic worship is meant to secure the unity of feeling in the congregation, and its form in general creates and fosters the sense of social equality inasmuch as it tends to destroy the feeling of rank or race superiority in the worshippers. What a tremendous spiritual revolution will take place, practically in no time, if the proud aristocratic Brahmin of South India is daily made to stand shoulder to shoulder with the untouchable!
14. From the unity of the all-inclusive Ego who creates and sustains all egos follows the essential unity of all mankind… The Islamic form of association in prayer, therefore besides its cognitive value, is further indicative of the aspiration to realize this essential unity of mankind as a fact in life by demolishing all barriers which stand between man and man.[2]
Lecture-4: The Human Ego-His Freedom and Immortality
In this lecture, Iqbal starts by stating that the Qur’an emphasizes the individuality and uniqueness of man, and has a definite view of his destiny. Then he proceeds to describe the human ego, which, according to him, is the unity of mental states which exist as a whole, called mind. Every ego is unique and is imperfect as a unity of life. The body, he says, is connected to the soul as the body is the medium of action of the soul and is in-detachable from it. The purpose of the soul is depicted by the action of the body. Since acts are connected to the ego by the mode of incentives, therefore, an individual can only be interpreted and understood by his or her judgments and aims. The immortality of the ego is later described by the author. Ego did not exist since eternity, and has a beginning like everything. According to the Qur’an there will be a day of judgment and there will be a life after death. Ego will then be accountable for its actions.
The salient aspects highlighted by Dr. Iqbal in his 4th lecture are:
1. The only course open to us is to approach modern knowledge with a respectful but independent attitude and to appreciate the teachings of Islam in the light of that knowledge, even though we may be led to differ from those who have gone before us.
2. My experience is only a series of acts, mutually referring to one another, and held together by the unity of a directive purpose. My whole reality lies in my directive attitude.
3. The timing of the daily prayer which, according to Quran, restores “self-possession” to the ego by bringing it into closer touch with the ultimate source of life and freedom, is intended to save the ego from the mechanizing effects of sleep and business. Prayer in Islam is the ego’s escape from mechanism to freedom.
4. Barzakh is a state of consciousness characterized by a change in the ego’s attitude towards time and space. There is nothing improbable in it… it is a state in which the ego catches a glimpse of fresh aspects of Reality, and prepares himself for adjustment to these aspects.
5. Heaven and Hell are states, not localities. Their descriptions in the Quran are visual representations of an inner fact, i.e., character. Hell, in the words of the Quran, is “God’s kindled fire which mounts above the hearts” – the painful realization of one’s failure as a man. Heaven is the joy of triumph over the forces of disintegration. There is no such thing as eternal damnation in Islam. The word “eternity” used in certain verses, relating to Hell, is explained by the Quran itself to mean only a period of time.
6. Time cannot be wholly irrelevant to the development of personality. Character tends to become permanent; its reshaping must require time. Hell, therefore, as conceived by the Quran, is not a pit of everlasting torture inflicted by a revengeful God; it is a corrective experience which may make a hardened ego once more sensitive to the living breeze of Divine Grace. Nor is Heaven a holiday. Life is one and continuous. Man marches always onward to receive ever fresh illuminations from an Infinite Reality… And the recipient of Divine illumination is not merely a passive recipient. Every act of a free ego creates a new situation, and thus offers further opportunities of creative unfolding.
Lecture-5: The Spirit of Muslim Culture
In the fifth lecture Dr. Iqbal talks about the psychological difference between the prophetic and mystic type on consciousness. To judge the value of the Prophets’ religious experience is to examine the cultural world that has been created by them. From here Iqbal proceeds to talk about Muslim culture and the interpretation of Islam against Greek philosophy. No doubt that the ancient philosophy has produced great systems of beliefs, yet the need of modern philosophy and science has become essential in modern times. If an individual believes in divine revelations and prophethood, the divine revelations, according to believers, should come to an end and the traditional system of interpreting Islam should be reconsidered.
It may be remembered that Dr. Iqbal said: “In these lectures I propose to undertake a philosophical discussion of some of the basic of ideas of Islam, in the hope that this may, at least, be helpful towards a proper understanding of the meaning of Islam as a message to humanity. Also with a view to give a kind of ground-outline for further discussion… “It must, however, be remembered that there is no such thing as finality in Philosophical thinkings. As knowledge advances and fresh avenues of thought are opened, other view, and probably sounder views than those set forth in these lectures are possible”. …… “Our duty is carefully to watch the progress of human thought, and to maintain an independent critical attitude towards it”.
The salient aspects highlighted by Dr. Iqbal in his 5th lecture The Spirit of Muslim Culture are:
1. The finality of the institution of prophethood, abolition of priesthood and hereditary kingship in Islam, the constant appeal to reason and experience in the Quran, and the emphasis that it lays on Nature and History as sources of human knowledge, are all different aspects of the same idea of finality.
2. The idea (finality), however, does not mean that mystic experience, which qualitatively does not differ from the experience of the prophet, has now ceased to exist as a vital fact. Indeed the Quran regards both “Anfus” (self) and “Afaq” (world) as sources of knowledge. God reveals His signs in inner as well as outer experience, and it is the duty of man to judge the knowledge-yielding capacity of all aspects of experience.
3. Inner experience is only one source of human knowledge. According to the Quran there are two other sources of knowledge – Nature and History.
4. It is a mistake to suppose that the experimental method is a European discovery… Europe has been rather slow to recognize the Islamic origin of her scientific method. But full recognition of the fact has at last come. Let me quote one or two passages from Briffault’s Making of Humanity:
•“… It was under their successors at the Oxford School that Roger Bacon learned Arabic and Arabic Science. Neither Roger Bacon nor his later namesake has any title to be credited with having introduced the experimental method. Roger Bacon was no more than one of the apostles of Muslim science and method to Christian Europe; and he never wearied of declaring that knowledge of Arabic and Arabic Science was for his contemporaries the only way to true knowledge… The experimental method of the Arabs was by Bacon’s time widespread and eagerly cultivated throughout Europe”
• In the history of Muslim culture… we find that both in the realms of pure intellect, and religious psychology, by which term I mean higher Sufism, the ideal revealed is the possession and enjoyment of the Infinite.
5. Devine life is in touch with the whole universe on the analogy of the soul’s contact with the body. The soul is neither inside nor outside the body… Yet its contact with every atom of the body is real.
6. It is one of the most essential teachings of the Quran that nations are collectively judged, and suffer for their misdeeds here and now.
7. The unity of human origin… As a social movement the aim of Islam was to make the idea a living factor in the Muslim’s daily life, and thus silently and imperceptibly to carry it towards fuller fruition.
Lecture- 6: The Principle of Movement in the Structure of Islam
This is the most important lecture by Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, sixth in the book “Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”. In fact the idea behind the whole work put across in the famous work revolves around it. It is in this lecture that Iqbal urges the need for modernization in Islamic thought. “The principle of movement in the structure of Islam” according to the author is Ijtihad, which means to form independent judgments on legal questions. The set of legal principles received from Qur’an has great capacity of expansion and development according to needs of changing time and environments. Ever since the establishment of four schools of jurisprudence (madhabs), the law of Islam was “reduced to a state of immobility” by the rejection of Ijtihad which had a number of reasons. Firstly there was fear that rationalism would destroy the foundation of Muslim society. Secondly the need of organization felt by the early scholars lead to the exclusions of innovation in the Shari’ah and took away the power of the individual. It is argued by the author that, Qur’an is not only a legal code; but its purpose is to awaken in man the higher consciousness of his relation with God and his creations.
Iqbal had no doubt that a deeper study of the enormous legal literature of Islam would rid the modern critic of the superficial opinion that the Law of Islam is stationary and incapable of development. Unfortunately, the conservative Muslim public of this country is not yet quite ready for a critical discussion of “Fiqh” which, if undertaken, is likely to displease most people, and raise sectarian controversies. The founders of our schools never claimed finality of their reasoning and interpretations. Iqbal points out that we should bear in mind that from the earliest times, practically up to the rise of the Abbasids, there was no written law of Islam apart from the Quran. The closing of the door of Ijtihad is pure fiction suggested partly by the crystallization of legal thought in Islam, and partly by that intellectual laziness which, especially in the period of spiritual decay, turns great thinkers into idols.
Iqbal points out that according to Shah Wali Allah… generally speaking, the law revealed by a Prophet (peace be upon him) takes especial notice of the habits, ways and peculiarities of the people to whom he is specifically sent. The Shari’ah values… are in a sense specific to that people; and, since their observance is not an end in itself, they cannot be strictly enforced in the case of future generations. It was perhaps in view of this that Abu Hanifa, who had a keen insight into the universal character of Islam, made practically no use of these traditions. The fact that he introduced the principle of “Istihsan”, i.e. juristic preference, which necessitates a careful study of actual conditions in legal thinking, throws further light on the motives which determined his attitude towards this source of Islamic law (Shari’ah). Iqbal concludes that we should let the Muslim of today appreciate his position, reconstruct his social life in the light of ultimate principles, and evolve, out of the hitherto partially revealed purpose of Islam, that spiritual democracy which is the ultimate aim of Islam.
The salient point highlighted by Dr. Muhammad Iqbal in the sixth lecture; “Principle of Movement in the Structure of Islam” can be summarized as:
1. As an emotional system of unification, Islam recognizes the worth of the individual as such, and rejects blood-relationship as a basis of human unity… The search for a purely psychological foundation of human unity becomes possible only with the perception that all human life is spiritual in its origin.
2. The new culture finds the foundation of world-unity in the principle of Tawhid (monotheism) And since God is the ultimate spiritual basis of all life, loyalty to God virtually amounts to man’s loyalty to his own ideal nature.
3. The ultimate spiritual basis of all life, as conceived by Islam, is eternal and reveals itself in variety and change. A society based on such a conception of Reality must reconcile, in its life, the categories of permanence and change. It must possess eternal principles to regulate its collective life, for the eternal gives us a foothold in the world of perpetual change. But eternal principles when they are understood to exclude all possibilities of change which, according to the Quran, is one of the greatest “signs” of God, tend to immobilize what is essentially mobile in its nature.
4. The principle of movement in the structure of Islam… is known as Ijtihad.
5. Partly owing to a misunderstanding of the ultimate motives of Rationalism, and partly owing to the unrestrained thought of particular Rationalists, conservative thinkers regarded this movement as a force of disintegration, and considered it a danger to the stability of Islam as a social polity. Their main purpose, therefore, was to preserve the social integrity of Islam, and to realize this the only course open to them was to utilize the binding force of Shari’ah.
6. The destruction of Baghdad – the centre of Muslim intellectual life – in the middle of the thirteenth century… was indeed a great blow… For fear of further disintegration, which is only natural in such a period of political decay, the conservative thinkers of Islam focused all their efforts on the one point of preserving a uniform social life for the people by a jealous exclusion of all innovations in the law of Shari’ah as expounded by the early doctors of Islam. Their leading idea was social order, and there is no doubt that they were partly right, because organization does to a certain extent counteract the forces of decay. But they did not see, and our modern Ulema do not see that the ultimate fate of a people does not depend so much on organization as on the worth and power of individual men. In an over-organized society the individual is altogether crushed out of existence. He gains the whole wealth of social thought around him and loses his own soul.
7. “The verdict of history,” as a modern writer has happily put it, “is that worn-out ideas have never risen to power among a people who have worn them out.”
8. The only effective power, therefore, that counteracts the forces of decay in a people is the rearing of self-concentrated individuals. Such individuals alone reveal the depth of life. They disclose new standards…
9. The tendency to over-organization by a false reverence of the past, as manifested in the legists of Islam in thirteenth century and later, was contrary to the inner impulse of Islam.
10. The unity called man is body when you look at it as acting in regard to what we call the external world; it is mind or soul when you look at it as acting in regard to the ultimate aim and ideal of such acting. The essence of Tawhid as a working idea, is equality, solidarity, and freedom.
11. The spirit finds its opportunities in the natural, the material, the secular. All that is secular is, therefore, sacred in the roots of its being… There is no such thing as a profane world. All this immensity of matter constitutes a scope for the self-realization of spirit. All is holy ground. As the Prophet so beautifully puts it: “The whole of this earth is a mosque.” The State, according to Islam, is only an effort to realize the spiritual in a human organization.
12. The Turkish Nationalists assimilated the idea of the separation of the Church and the State from the history of European political ideas. Primitive Christianity was founded, not as a political or civil unit, but as a monastic order in a profane world, having nothing to do with civil affairs, and obeying the Roman authority practically in all matters. The result of this was that when the State became Christian, State and Church confronted each other as distinct powers with interminable boundary disputes between them. Such a thing could never happen in Islam; for Islam was from the very beginning a civil society, having received from the Quran a set of simple legal principles which, like the twelve tables of the Romans, carried, as experience subsequently proved, great potentialities of expansion and development by interpretation. The Nationalist theory of State, therefore, is misleading inasmuch as it suggests a dualism which does not exist in Islam.
13. The republican form of government is not only thoroughly consistent with the spirit of Islam, but has also become a necessity in view of the new forces that are set free in the world of Islam.
14. Every Muslim nation must sink into her own deeper self, temporarily focus her vision on herself alone, until all are strong and powerful to form a living family of republics… It seems to me that God is slowly bringing home to us the truth that Islam is neither Nationalism nor Imperialism but a League of Nations which recognizes artificial boundaries and racial distinctions for facility of reference only, and not for restricting the social horizon of its members.
15. Turkey alone has shaken off its dogmatic slumber, and attained to self-consciousness… she alone has passed from the ideal to the real – a transition which entails keen intellectual and moral struggle… most Muslim countries today… are mechanically repeating old values, whereas the Turk is on the way to creating new values.
16. The question… which is likely to confront other Muslim countries in the near future is whether the Law of Islam is capable of evolution – a question which will require great intellectual effort, and is sure to be answered in the affirmative; provided the world of Islam approaches it in the spirit of Umar – the first critical and independent mind in Islam who, at the last moments of the Prophet, had the moral courage to utter these remarkable words: “The Book of God is sufficient for us”.
17. Horten, Professor of Semitic Philology at the University of Bonn, raises the same question in connexion with the Philosophy and Theology… points out that the history of Islam may aptly be described as a gradual interaction, harmony, and mutual deepening of two distinct forces, i.e., the element of Aryan culture and knowledge on the one hand, and a Semitic religion on the other. The Muslim has always adjusted his religious outlook to the elements of culture which he assimilated from the people that surrounded him. From 800 to 1100, says Horten, not less than one hundred systems of theology appeared in Islam, a fact which bears ample testimony to the elasticity of Islamic thought as well as to the ceaseless activity of our early thinkers.
18. Thus, in view of the revelations of a deeper study of Muslim literature and thought, this living European Orientalist has been driven to the following conclusions:
19. “The spirit of Islam is so broad that it is practically boundless. With the exception of atheistic ideas alone it has assimilated all the attainable ideas of surrounding peoples, and given them its own peculiar direction of development.”
20. I have no doubt that a deeper study of the enormous legal literature of Islam is sure to rid the modern critic of the superficial opinion that the Law of Islam is stationary and incapable of development. Unfortunately, the conservative Muslim public of this country is not yet quite ready for a critical discussion of “Fiqh” which, if undertaken, is likely to displease most people, and raise sectarian controversies;
21. We should bear in mind that from the earliest times, practically up to the rise of the Abbasids, there was no written law of Islam apart from the Quran.
22. From about the middle of the first century up to the beginning of the fourth not less than nineteen schools of law and legal opinion appeared in Islam. This fact alone is sufficient to show how incessantly our early doctors of law worked in order to meet the necessities of a growing civilization… these early legists had to take a wider view of things, and to study local conditions of life and habits of new peoples that came within the fold of Islam… they gradually passed from the deductive to the inductive attitude in their efforts at interpretation.
23. The Quran considers it necessary to unite religion and State, ethics and politics in a single revelation much in the same way as Plato does in his Republic.
24. No people can afford to reject their past entirely, for it is their past that has made their personal identity.
25. “Next to Romans”, says Von Kremer, “there is no other nation besides the Arabs which could call its own a system of law so carefully worked out”.
26. Did the founders of our schools ever claim finality of their reasoning and interpretations? Never!
27. The claim of the present generation of Muslim liberals to reinterpret the foundational legal principles, in the light of their own experience and altered conditions of modern life is, in my opinion, perfectly justified.
28. According to Shah Wali Allah… generally speaking, the law revealed by a Prophet takes especial notice of the habits, ways and peculiarities of the people to whom he is specifically sent.
29. The Prophet who aims at all-embracing principles, however, can neither reveal different principles for different peoples, nor leave them to work out their own rules of conduct. His method is to train one particular people, and to use them as a nucleus for the building up of a universal Shari’ah. In doing so he accentuates the principles underlying the social life of all mankind, and applies them to concrete cases in the light of the specific habit of the people immediately before him.
30. The Shari’ah values… are in a sense specific to that people; and, since their observance is not an end in itself, they cannot be strictly enforced in the case of future generations. It was perhaps in view of this that Abu Hanifa, who had a keen insight into the universal character of Islam, made practically no use of these traditions. The fact that he introduced the principle of “Istihsan”, i.e. juristic preference, which necessitates a careful study of actual conditions in legal thinking, throws further light on the motives which determined his attitude towards this source of Mohammedan Law.
31. It is, however, impossible to deny the fact that the traditionists, by insisting on the value of the concrete case as against the tendency to abstract thinking in law, have done the greatest service to the Law of Islam. And a further intelligent study of the literature of traditions, if used as indicative of the spirit in which the Prophet (peace be upon him) himself interpreted his Revelation, may still be of great help in understanding the life-value of the legal principles enunciated in the Quran.
32. Ijma…, perhaps the most important legal notion in Islam… while invoking great academic discussions in early Islam, remained practically a mere idea, and rarely assumed the form of a permanent institution in any Mohammedan country… It was, I think, favourable to the interest of the Umayyad and the Abbasid Caliphs to leave the power of Ijtihad to individual Mujtahids rather than encourage the formation of a permanent assembly which might become too powerful for them.
33. The transfer of the power of Ijtihad from individual representatives of schools to a Muslim legislative assembly which, in view of the growth of opposing sects, is the only possible form Ijma can take in modern times, will secure contributions to legal discussion from laymen who happen to possess a keen insight into affairs.
34. The Ulema should form a vital part of a Muslim legislative assembly helping and guiding free discussion on questions relating to law. The only effective remedy for the possibilities of erroneous interpretations is to reform the present system of legal education in Mohammedan countries, to extend its sphere, and to combine it with an intelligent study of modern jurisprudence.
35. The closing of the door of Ijtihad is pure fiction suggested partly by the crystallization of legal thought in Islam, and partly by that intellectual laziness which, especially in the period of spiritual decay, turns great thinkers into idols.
36. Humanity needs three things today – a spiritual interpretation of the universe, spiritual emancipation of the individual, and basic principles of a universal import directing the evolution of human society on a spiritual basis. Modern Europe has, no doubt, built idealistic systems on these lines, but experience shows that truth revealed through pure reason is incapable of bringing that fire of living conviction which personal revelation alone can bring. This is the reason why pure thought has so little influenced men, while religion has always elevated individuals, and transformed whole societies.
37. The idealism of Europe never became a living factor in her life, and the result is a perverted ego seeking itself through mutually intolerant democracies whose sole function is to exploit the poor in the interest of the rich. Believe me, Europe today is the greatest hindrance in the way of man’s ethical advancement.
38. Let the Muslim of today appreciate his position, reconstruct his social life in the light of ultimate principles, and evolve, out of the hitherto partially revealed purpose of Islam, that spiritual democracy which is the ultimate aim of Islam.
Iqbal was aware that the new generation of Muslims could not remain detached from the values of modern Western culture. It was therefore necessary for them to remain Muslim and at the same time to become modern. Iqbal has called for a re-examination of the intellectual foundations of Islamic philosophy.
Lecture-7: Is Religion Possible?”
This seventh lecture was delivered in a meeting of the fifty-fourth session of the Aristotelian Society, London, held on 5 December 1932 with Professor J. Macmurray in the chair, followed by a discussion by Professor Macmurray and Sir Francis Young Husband. The Lecture was published in the said Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, as well as in The Muslim Revival (Lahore), Dec. 1932). It now forms the “Seventh Lecture” of Iqbal’s The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Iqbal Academy Pakistan, Lahore, 1986.
The lecture provides us with the conclusion posted by the author. Iqbal has categorized religious life into three periods, namely faith, thought and discovery. The first period involves acceptance without rationalism. The second period, he says, is when acceptance is followed by rationalism. In the third period, religious life searches for a logical view of the world with God as a part of that view. He goes on, and tries to explain that religion and science involving different methods aim at reaching the same goal i.e. the ultimate reality. He states that even though religion and science use different methods but reach the same final aim. The method of dealing with reality by means of concepts, he says, is not a serious way to deal with it. Religion, as Iqbal describes it, is the only way to deal with reality since religion is more anxious to reach its final aim. The salient point highlighted by Dr. Muhammad Iqbal in the seventh lecture; “Is Religion Possible? are summarized:
1. Religious life may be divided into three periods… Faith, Thought and Discovery. In the first period religious life appears as a form of discipline which the individual or a whole people must accept as an unconditional command without any rational understanding of the ultimate meaning and purpose of that command… Perfect submission to discipline is followed by a rational understanding of the discipline and the ultimate source of its authority. In this period religious life seeks its foundation in a kind of metaphysics – logically consistent view of the world with God as a part of that view. In the third period metaphysics is displaced by psychology and religious life develops the ambition to come into direct contact with the ultimate Reality. It is here that religion becomes a matter of personal assimilation of life and power; and the individual achieves a free personality, not by releasing himself from the fetters of the law, but by discovering the ultimate source of the law within the depths of his own consciousness.
2. Religion in this sense is known by the unfortunate name of Mysticism, which is supposed to be a life-denying, fact-avoiding attitude of mind directly opposed to the radically empirical outlook of our times. Yet higher religion, which is only a search for a larger life, is essentially experience and recognized the necessity of experience as its foundation long before science learnt to do so. It is a genuine effort to clarify human consciousness, and is, as such, as critical of its level of experience as Naturalism is of its own level.
3. The climax of religious life, however, is the discovery of the ego as an individual deeper than his conceptually describable habitual selfhood. It is in contact with the Most Real that the ego discovers its uniqueness, its metaphysical status, and the possibility of improvement in that status. Strictly speaking, the experience which leads to this discovery is not a conceptually manageable intellectual fact; it is a vital fact, an attitude consequent on an inner biological transformation which cannot be captured in the net of logical categories. It can embody itself only in a world-making or world-shaking act; and in this form alone the content of this timeless experience can diffuse itself in the time-movement, and make itself effectively visible to the eye of history.
4. Science can afford to ignore metaphysics altogether, and may even believe it to be a “justified form of poetry”… But the religious expert who seeks to discover his personal status in the constitution of things cannot, in view of the final aim of his struggle, be satisfied with what science may regard as a vital lie, a mere “as if” to regulate thought and conduct. In so far as the ultimate nature of Reality is concerned, nothing is at stake in the venture of science; in the religious venture the whole career of the ego, as an assimilative personal centre of life and experience is at stake. Conduct, which involves a decision of the ultimate fate of the agent cannot be based on illusions. A wrong concept misleads the understanding; a wrong deed degrades the whole man, and may eventually demolish the structure of the human ego.
5. The evidence of religious experts in all ages and countries is that there are potential types of consciousness lying close to our normal consciousness. If these types of consciousness open up possibilities of life-giving and knowledge-yielding experience, the question of the possibility of religion as a form of higher experience is a perfectly legitimate one and demands our serious attention.
6. Wholly overshadowed by the result of his intellectual activity, the modern man has ceased to live soulfully i.e. from within. In the domain of thought he is living in open conflict with himself, and in the domain of economic and political life he is living in open conflict with others. He finds himself unable to control his ruthless egoism and his infinite gold-hunger which is gradually killing all higher striving in him and bringing him nothing but life weariness. Absorbed in the ‘fact’, that is to say, the optically present source of sensation, he is entirely cut off from the unplumbed depths of his own being. In the wake of his systematic materialism has at last come that paralysis of energy which Huxley apprehended and deplored.
7. Both nationalism and atheistic socialism, at least in the present state of human adjustments, must draw upon the psychological forces of hate, suspicion and resentment which tend to impoverish the soul of man and close up his hidden sources of spiritual energy.
8. It is only by rising to a fresh vision of his origin and future, his whence and whither, that man will eventually triumph over a society motivated by an inhuman competition, and a civilization which has lost its spiritual unity by its inner conflict of religious and political values.
9. Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) we are told (by critics) was a psychopath. Well, if a psychopath has the power to give a fresh direction to the course of human history, it is a point of the highest psychological interest to search his original experience which has turned slaves into leaders of men, and has inspired the conduct and shaped the career of whole races of mankind.
10. The ultimate aim of the ego is not to see something, but to be something… The final act is not an intellectual act, but a vital act which deepens the whole being of the ego, and sharpens his will with the creative assurance that the world is not something to be merely seen or known through concepts, but something to be made and re-made by continuous action.
Conclusion
The whole purpose of the book revolves around its 6th chapter “The Principle of Movement in the Structure of Islam”, where Iqbal has stressed upon the use of ijtihad, which is a lost practice due to reasons which I have already mentioned. He points out that the Muslim thought and theology needed reshaping in order for them to understand and practice their religion as defined by the Qur’an. The style adopted by the author is theoretical, as he uses philosophy with a comprehensive combination of Islam and science to explain his point of view. This combination explains all points of view from different angles, hence is popular with all sorts of readers. If you believe that the Holy Prophet is the last apostle and that the divine revelations only were sent to him last time, the end of the supernatural ultimately follows. With the end of the supernatural, the traditional ways to understand and interpret religion should be considered obsolete, and new ways of understanding religion should be considered. The application of science in order to get a grip of reality provides today’s reader with a more adequate method to comprehend religion. Even though Iqbal stresses on this point, he still uses Qur’anic verses and sufic words to explain the reality of this universe and God, its creator. This methodology used by Iqbal provides the reader with rationalism as well as religious conservatism. To get a comprehensive overview on religion, established religious dogmas should be given weight.
Even though the blend of science and philosophy seems to be a comprehensive methodology, excessive use of philosophy for reasons to criticize theories of physics may be viewed differently. For example, Iqbal, in his second lecture challenges the theory of matter and Einstein’s theory of relativity, as quoted in his own words “The empirical attitude which appeared to necessitate scientific materialism has finally ended in a revolt against matter”.
Iqbal has tried to open up the minds but he is not rigid in his approach, as Iqbal himself has said in the “Preface” to the “Lectures” that:
“In these lectures I propose to undertake a philosophical discussion of some of the basic of ideas of Islam, in the hope that this may, at least, be helpful towards a proper understanding of the meaning of Islam as a message to humanity. Also with a view to give a kind of ground-outline for further discussion… “It must, however, be remembered that there is no such thing as finality in Philosophical thinkings. As knowledge advances and fresh avenues of thought are opened, other view, and probably sounder views than those set forth in these lectures are possible”. …… “Our duty is carefully to watch the progress of human thought, and to maintain an independent critical attitude towards it”.
“It must, however, be remembered that there is no such thing as finality in Philosophical thinkings. As knowledge advances and fresh avenues of thought are opened, other view, and probably sounder views than those set forth in these lectures are possible”. “Our duty is carefully to watch the progress of human thought, and to maintain an independent critical attitude towards it”. It is hoped that this effort to introduce, “Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam” the intellectual work of Iqbal would generate interest in the present generation to take a leap forward to achieve higher goals.
These lectures offer food for thought and courageously challenge the status quo. The present turmoil and extremism which has devastated the foundations of unity of Muslim Ummah, could have been avoided if due importance was given to the thoughts of Iqbal. Instead of meeting the challenges of modern era as pointed out by Iqbal 86 years ago. Muslim intellectuals are still looking for a counter narrative against this menace?
References
1 Iqbal Academy Pakistan – http://www.allamaiqbal.com/works/prose/english/reconstruction/03.htm
2 Muhammad Iqbal Malik – http://letsstartthinking.org/Iqbal/knowledge-religious-experience.php
3 http://www.renaissance.com.pk/OctBore2y5.htm
4 Dr. Wahid Ishrat, Tr. Dr. M.A.K. Khalil – www.allamaiqbal.com
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
6 http://freebookpark.blogspot.com
7 http://aftabkhan-net.page.tl
