Iqbal wanted nothing short of an Islamic Renaissance

While in his early poetry Iqbal spoke of a united and free India where Hindus and Muslims could co-exist, this syncretism gave way to a somewhat woolly Unitarianism and Individualism.

Urdu Poet Allama Iqbal. The philosophical essence of Iqbal’s writings is distilled in a series of six (somewhat dense) lectures delivered during 1928-29 at the universities in Aligarh, Hyderabad and Madras entitled ‘Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’.

My earliest memories of school are of singing ‘Lab pe aati hai dua ban ke tamanna meri…’ with a bunch of other kids, all equally earnest, all with hands folded and eyes closed. These are reinforced with memories of my grandfather Professor Ale Ahmad Suroor, a poet and Urdu scholar responsible in large part for rehabilitating Iqbaliyaat in post-Independence academia, reciting vast amounts of Iqbal’s poetry. Too young to fully comprehend its philosophical import, too naive to question its often faulty political and ideological underpinnings, it was the sheer musicality of the words that held me in thrall.