Allama Iqbal: The Great Visionary

Dr. Anwar Ul Haque

Allah had gifted three great leaders without whom, Pakistan would simply not exist today. These were Muhammad Ali Johar, Allama Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. There was great friendship between Muhmmad Ali Jinnah and Allama Iqbal. All three were free of inferiority complexes and possessed unblemished characters. Of course a lot of rubbish had been thrown on them by evil forces without any substance and proofs. They stood in their own style against the English colonists and forced the foreign occupiers to leave the subcontinent and at the same time made sure that Muslims of the subcontinent do not succumb to the Brahmin imperialism. .

Vision is the supreme virtue of human intellect. Great visionary leaders can see in the future and guide their nations through different turmoil and hardships to ultimate success. On the other hand leaders without vision or tunnel vision can plunge their nations into disasters. Iqbal had great vision which can see centuries ahead.

Every human being has many aspects of his or life. One may excel in one or two of them. Iqbal not only had multidimensional personality but he excelled in all of them. He was a par excellence poet, a magnificent philosopher, outstanding scholar, a great historian, an outstanding writer, a political analyst, a superb leader and a wonderful human being.  Leaders like Iqbal are born in centuries. Iqbal is not merely a Pakistani Philosopher, poet and visionary; he is in the hearts of Afghans and Iranians. The people of these two countries love his poetry as part of Iqbal’s poetry is in Persian language so they can smell the fragrance of his words and hear the music of his poetry directly. On the other hand his poetry and philosophical writings are well known by the Europeans and Arabs through translations of his writings. In this capacity and position Iqbal is second to none and many consider him the best writer and poet of all time based on verifiable parameters e.g. translation of writings in various languages and chairs at different Universities of the world etc.  

There would be very few students in the world on whom their teachers has written books, Iqbal is one of them. His British teacher had written a book on him and German intellects fell in his love. Professor Anne Marie Schimme,  1995, who  was chosen as the ‘Author of the Year’ at the International Book Fair at Frankfurt (Germany) spent hours explaining  Iqbal poetry . Egyptian singer Um-e-Kulsum sang translation of his Shikwah and Jawab-e-Shikwah in Arabic.

His poetry is superbly designed and crafted gold studded with real glittering, spontaneous and balanced beautiful words of diamond. He invented many new combinations of the words and gave different meanings to the old words. His selection of the words is simply superb; the words and verses are very meaningful and motivating. There is no cheapness and no vulgarity.

Unlike most great poets and philosophers, he was very practical man who participated in hectic political activities and society reforming movements. He earned his own bread and was quite content person. He went to the skies as he detached himself from the earthly greed and materialism. He would simple not accept any case as an advocate no matter how much you offer him once his budget of the month acquired. The rest of the time he devoted to the humanity. Same was true with Quaid-e-Azam. Had both of these great men engulfed in money Making, there would be simply no Pakistan and the world would have been deprived of the great work of Allama Iqbal and Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Iqbal is very balanced persona and on the straight path and didn’t bend to any side and didn’t go astray. On one hand he condemned the Western Civilization and on the other hand he condemned the Mullaism. He did both in such a beautiful and powerful way that both got stunned and speechless. The English rulers could not send him behind the bars and the theologians could not condemn him; and when they tried in hurry and haste, they became silent after an indirect response from Iqbal which exposed the folly of these narrow minded people as happened in case of Shikwah and Jawab-e-Shikwah.

Iqbal's balance emerged from two main factors; his parents utmost care in his raising. His both parents were Hafiz-e-Quran. It was narrated that his mother did not feed him her milk as she became little skeptical about the money earned by her husband in one episode. She fed Iqbal on goat milk which her father had given to her. Iqbal as a child used to learn Quran where a great scholar picked him and said that he would himself teach and groom this extra ordinary brilliant child. Iqbal learned English from a missionary school. His brief stay in Europe made him see the positives and negatives of so called Western Civilization Iqbal in his life underwent many turmoils, some of which were quite hard. At one juncture he was to give up his poetry all together when his ex teacher Sir Arnold motivated him to not to do so and consoled him.

Iqbal's love with Quran is eveident from the fact that he used to recite Quran day and night and used to cry and weep so that the copy of Quran used to get wet, which was then taken by his servant to the roof to dry it in the sun. Iqbal's powerful, elegant, superb and artistic command on language along with his wittiness, eloquence is directly derived from Quran-e-Majeed. When great Italian leader Mussolini asked him from where he gets his wisdom, he simply pointed to Quran-e-Kareem.  

Iqbal is not hopeless from his nation. He said that this earth is very fertile if it is little wet. Iqbal has motivated youth to get detached from petty materialistic goals and objectives. He shows that their destination is beyond stars. At times he complains that the wisdom and religion were snatched from religious scholars by some smart and stylist. He severely criticized Madrassahs saying that these strangulated the students so from where the Kalima will come which challenges all false gods.

Iqbal promotes education and research and consider materialism and greed a poison for these. He asks who has stolen the sharp sword of research and hard work as you are now left with the cover of the sword only. He prays to Allah Ta’lah to grant us the same wine (Quran) and the same vessel (Sunnah of the Prophet, PBUH) so that we can get our lost destination. He says that if the chest is bright then the concerns and talks of a person is a true life but if it is a dark then all talks and concerns are eternal death. He asks Allah Ta’lah that please do not deprive my night from beautiful moonlight as you have full moon in your treasures.

Iqbal wants his youth to make your hair more shining i.e. sharpen your skills and training and grasp and seize the intellect wisdom, consciousness, vision and heart. Iqbal says that there is no “Shokian in the Husn (beauty) and no heat in love” referring to apathy of the Muslim Ummah and loss of true objectives.

Iqbal is fully aware of idiocy and folly of Western democracy and the satanic scripts played  behind the curtains as evident from his famous poem “Iblees’ Mahlees-e-Shoora” where the grand Satan says that every thing will be like before but from behind the curtain and through giving false sense of participation to the people. As Iqbal criticized Western civilization, Communism and safeguarded the status and finality of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), he attracted baseless allegations from various quarters. His elder son late Aftab Iqbal had answered and correctly refuted all those allegations.

It is indeed a great shame that the Governments have done very little for Iqbal. When we visited Iqbal’s home in Sialkot we were shocked to see very Narrow Street with hardly any place to park. His home had none of his cards, poetry books and writings for the visitors to take with them. I suggest that his residence should be made a walking museum and beautiful cards with his great poetry should be available to all at nominal cost. Both federal and Punjab Government must take appropriate actions to bring our youth to Iqbal as this will produce enormous enthusiasm and movement in our youth. The youth will then make its own position in the world of hard work and create its own night and days.

Dr. Anwar Ul Haque

116. St. 49 F 11/3 Islamabad , Phone 03335129849, 2294099