Mohammad Iqbal

I consider it a great privilege and honour to be associated with this function organized to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of the late Sir Mohammad Iqbal. He was one of the great poets, philosophers and seers of our time. Like all great and creative poets and thinkers, Iqbal has a perennial appeal which transcends all barriers of time and geography. His message of firmness in faith, ceaseless striving and his all-embracing universal love belong to the heirloom of mankind. His faith in the dignity of the common man was unshakeable and constitutes the cornerstone of his life and work.

He laid much stress on love as a factor in the development of the human personality. This is what he said and I quote:

"The luminous point we term human individuality is the life spark beneath our dust
By love it becomes more lasting, more living
More burning, more radiant."

I believe that the original concept of khudi, the self, in Iqbal's poetry and his efforts to reconstruct the religious thought of Islam to bring about a happy synthesis of science and spiritual insight, have special significance and relevance to the new nations which have just become free and which are struggling to catch up on years of lost opportunities. Iqbal believed in the unity and brotherhood of man which is above race, nationality, colour or language. He had a clear perception of the difference in approach between the West and the East. He sets the comparison beautifully well in the following words:

"In the West, intellect is the source of life.
In the East, love is the basis of life.
Through love, intellect grows acquainted with reality
And intellect gives stability to the work of love.
Arise and lay the foundation of a new world
By wedding intellect to love."

Iqbal's philosophy formulated in his Persian Asrar-i-Khudi and subsequently developed in Ramoof-i-Bekhudi is based on the teachings of Islam and other sages of the East. Ethically the word khudi has lots of meanings. It can mean self-respect, self-confidence, self-preservation even self assertion in the futherance of life and the power to adhere to the cause of truth, justice and duty. Such behaviour is normal as it helps in the integration of the conflicting pulls of the ego thus hardening it against the forces of disintegration and dissolution. Once again, let Iqbal himself say it:

"Exalt thy ego so high that God Himself will consult
Thee before determining thy destiny." 

The development of the inner resources of his individuality enables man to transcend his limitations and rise to greater heights and then he becomes the architect of his own destiny. Viewed thus, Iqbal's philosophy becomes a real and significant entity which is the centre and the basis of the entire organisation of human life. The movement toward the achievement of profounder individuality opens up before us possibilities of unlimited growth and freedom.

Again listen to the poet-philosopher himself:

"The force of individuality makes the mustard seed into a mountain.
Its weakening reduces the mountain into a mustard seed."

Iqbal's stay and studies in Europe had a profound impact on his sensitive and brilliant mind. He admired the vitality and the confident restlessness of the European way of life. He understood the unlimited possibilities opened up by science. But he was in no way blind to the debit side of Western political culture. Its rapacious capitalism, aggressive nationalism, blind racialism made him sound a vibrant note of warning:

"O dwellers of the cities of the West
This habitation of God is not a trading house.
And that which you regard as true coin
Will prove to be only a counterfeit."

Iqbal was equally concerned about the colonization of the minds of the young in the East. They had been content with uncritical admiration and cheap and blind imitation of European culture. He gently denounced the situation in the following words:

"The East imitating the West is deprived of its true self."

In his Discovery of India, Jawaharlal Nehru has recorded an intimate and moving interview with Iqbal when the latter was on his deathbed. They had so much in common and they were both motivated by a kind of spiritual force. Although Nehru was an agnostic and Iqbal a staunch believer, their minds seem to meet in a highly idealistic conceptualisation of the kind of society which they wanted to fashion out on the basis of a synthesis of Eastern and Western values. This is what Nehru wrote in the Discovery of India:

"During his last years Iqbal turned more and more towards socialism. The great progress that Soviet Russia had made attracted him. Even his poetry took a different turn. A few months before his death, as he lay on his sickbed, he sent for me and I gladly obeyed the summons. As I talked to him about many things I felt that, in spite of differences, how much we had in common and how easy it would be to get on with him. He was in reminiscent mood and he wandered from one subject to another, and I listened to him, talking little myself. I admired him and his poetry and it pleased me greatly to feel that he liked me and had a good opinion of me."

I am of those who believe that the estrangement between Hindus and Muslims in India is nothing but an artificial wall which has been raised by imperialists and, what is worse, this estrangement has been, almost inevitably implanted in Mauritian society. And what is not often recognised is that for years local as well as foreign imperialists have ensured that Hindus and Muslims continue to hate each other. Iqbal himself had felt the need for a fresh look at the problem and he urged:

"Come, let us yet once more lift the veil of estrangement,
Unite those who have separated."

Believing as I do that Iqbal's message has a special relevance to the Mauritian situation, I wish that this evening's function will kindle greater interest in the life and work of Mohammad Iqbal. Although he belonged to Islam his message had a universal appeal and I for one cannot remain unmoved by this compelling injunction of his:

"The flame of life cannot be borrowed from others.
It must be kindled in the temple of one's soul

I commend this idea to you with all the sincerity at my command.

Speech at a Memorial Meeting at the Theatre of Port-Louis, 19th January, 1977.

Copyright Succession Keharsingh Jagatsingh