Iqbal:
The Life of a Poet,
Philosopher and Politician
Zafar Anjum
Vintage Books
Random House India,
Gurgaon – 122 002 (India)
Year 2014
274pp.
INR400, Hard Cover
Reviewed by ASIF ANWAR ALIG
India still postulates that the 20th century poet-philosopher Sir Muhammad Allama Iqbal instigated Muslim collectivism. His idea translated into the creation of Pakistan– and of Bangladesh later on. It is assumed that his fading nationalistic credence turned him ascetic. In situational irony though, India reflects in Iqbal Muslim philosopher but Pakistan qualms for his nationalistic philosophy.
Iqbal’s identity of an oriental philosopher was beyond boundaries in his lifetime itself. Sarojini Naidu denoted him ‘first Indian patriotic poet of Asian poet laureate stature’. Unfortunately he is considered a hostile figure in India due to becoming Pakistan’s ‘spiritual father’ and soul support of the Iranian Revolution. The book under review Iqbal: The Life of a Poet, Philosopher and Politician by Zafar Anjum uncovers the region’s political history. It delegates the poet’s birth on 9 November, 1877 in Sialkot to parents Noor Muhammad and Imam Bibi to glimpses of his Kashmiri Brahmin lineage.
Early education in Sialkot or higher studies in Lahore and European universities turned Iqbal into a thinker, academician, lawyer, philosopher, politician and poet. A lucid personality sketch, this book raises questions on many paradoxes. What turns him into an overbearing personality in South Asian history even after death on 21 April 1938 in Lahore, some eight decades ago? Why his genesis is misunderstood and what propelled him to support the idea of a separate Muslim state?
Both India and Pakistan misinterpret Iqbal’s personality. He foresaw Muslim sufferings by perceiving Hindutva fanatical ideologues in the colonial period. Ironically, his idea failed – “If creating a state on religious grounds or idea of Pakistan as land for Indian Muslims was good then why Bangladesh was created,” the biographer has questioned in the aforementioned book.
In analysing Iqbal’s poetry in the global context, Anjum sees causal relation between Russian turmoil shaking Ottoman to Persia Empires in 1911 revolts to the Muslim community reaching a crossroads. Austria dismembered Ottoman Empire, Bosnia & Herzegovina seizing and chaos in Turkey were bound to leave lasting impact on the British India. Thinker Iqbal assessed those scenes to alert his countrymen through the medium of philosophic poetry.
Iqbal’s mentor Daagh Dehelvi praised his extraordinary poetic skills and stressed that there was nothing to improve in his mesmeric compositions. As a student of English, Philosophy and Arabic in Lahore to studying philosophy in Europe, he simultaneously honed his poetic abilities.
Iqbal wrote an Urdu book on economics, Ilmul Iqtisad in 1904 and taught Arabic and English in the Oriental and Government Colleges in Lahore from 1899 to 1901. This biography accounts his 1905 European voyage and observations on West’s achievements to racist ultra-competitive culture. They annoyed him in Trinity College and Munich University during London and Heidelberg stays.
This biographer also glances into Iqbal’s emotional relationships with friends Atiya Begum and Emma Wegenast. His belief in Nietzsche’s Superman, Self-creation and Self-assertion and Bergson’s Elan Vital as pious philosophy urged for his Khudi (Self) concept under the Qur’ānic and Prophetic influences besides Nietzsche and Bergson stimuli.
Iqbal’s Persian and Urdu poetry had similar impacts of Geoffrey Chaucer, Aleister Crowley, Edward Fitzgerald and PB Shelley retained in the English literature. Themed on the nationalist movement, his early poems portrayed Indian subcontinent’s multiculturalism. Hamara Desh (Our Homeland) represented definitive patriotism which equally enthralled nationalistic spirits:
Sare Jahan Se Achcha Hindustan Hamara (Our India is better than the entire world).
Only Iqbal could present Hindu deity Ram as Imam-e-Hind (India’s spiritual leader) or ‘India a land of Chishti and Nanak.’ Naya Shawala (The New Temple) insisted Hindu-Muslim unity.
Khak-e-Watan ka Mujh Ko har Zarra Devta Hai (Each dust particle of my motherland is God to me).
Iqbal’s critical tone and arrogance in Shikwa (Complaint) dared Islamic rationalism but Jawab–e–Shikwa (Response to Complaint) was its logical rejoinder. Khizr-e-Rah (The Guided Path) and Tulu-e-Islam (The Rise of Islam) questioned World War I perils. He began composing Persian poetry after Shama–o–Shayer (The Candle and the Poet) in 1912. Studying Hegel, Goethe, Mirza Ghalib, William Wordsworth, Emerson, William Cooper and Henry Longfellow honed his skills but Hali, Shibli and Azad espoused his patriotic spirits.
First Persian poem Asrar-e-Khudi (Secrets of the Self) popularised Iqbal in Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and even Russia to inspire those societies that understood his rational philosophy. Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979 is credited to have Iqbal’s influence by creating an intellectual base for new generation thinkers. R.A. Nicholson translated it into English in 1920 for the Western world. Sooner German and Italian translations also arrived.
Iqbal’s Rumuz-e-Bekhudi (Mysteries of Self Denial) had strong message for mankind’s ego. Odes Payam-e-Mashriq (Message of the East) replied Goethe’s Westostlicher Divan while his Zabur-e-Ajam (Psalms of the East) and Javed Nama (The Book of Eternity) as poetic collage countered Dante’s Divine Comedy. Bal-e-Jibril (The Wings of Gabriel) and Zarb-e-Kaleem (The Stroke of the Rod of Moses) portrayed thorough mysticism.
British Empire knighted Iqbal on 1 January, 1923 but it equally brought praises and brickbats for him. He was condemned for accepting an honour that Rabindranath Tagore relinquished in 1919 to protest Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Revealing politician Iqbal, this biography reprints his six lectures on Islam delivered in Madras (now Chennai), Mysore, Hyderabad and Aligarh in 1928. Presenting Islamic philosophy, they offer solutions to combat unwarranted Western ethnic callousness with emphasis on the Islamic revivalism, critical thinking and Muslim nationalism. He delivered 7th lecture in 1932 in London.
This biography chronologically defines Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini’s eagerness to meet the oriental philosopher poet Iqbal. Their meeting in Rome on 27 November, 1931 represented his political farsightedness. The book also questions poet’s hallucinations.
Pakistan became an independent nation decades after Iqbal’s death. Partition in 1947 held when his political thoughts had almost vanished. His vision translated into reality but philosophy waned from political discourse. The two-nation theory was a politically motivated idea instead of Iqbal’s vocal advocacy to create Northwestern Muslim Province – today’s Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
Modern Pakistan declared Iqbal its national poet but India literally forgot his patriotic philosophy or vision and therefore he shrunk into Urdu and Persian academic circles. This biography emphasises to “understand Iqbal’s personality in three stages – “Indian, Muslim and humanist”.
This book brilliantly projects Iqbal’s vision of Western world from London witnessing the growing population of Irish Catholics; Germans; Czechs and Italians; Poles and Ukrainians and Russians fleeing oppressions. Russian émigrés flocked to escape Tsarist repression. Vladimir Lenin arrived here, so did Leon Trotsky escape from Siberia in 1902. Most importantly Gandhi, Jinnah and Iqbal came London in 1888, 1892 and 1905 respectively for their historic rendezvous.
Zafar Anjum laments how a towering orientalist poet became an outcaste in a country he once considered best from all. Though ceremonial appearances in academic circles are common but are such nonchalant tributes sufficient? Iqbal deserved more as an orientalist poet-philosopher.
[The reviewer is assistant professor and media relations specialist at the Saudi Ministry of Education. He worked earlier as an executive producer in ETV Networks; editorial coordinator at Management Development Institute and media specialist at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University. [email protected]]