Iqbal and the Reconstruction of Islamic Thought

by Dr. Israr Ahmad

Rendered into English by Dr. Ahmed Afzaal

We have defined Islamic Revolutionary thought as the imperative to remove the dichotomy between Divine Revelation and state authority, or between the religious and the secular domains of human existence, and to establish the unconditional and unqualified ascendancy of the Qur´an and the Sunnah over all spheres of life, so that the Islamic System of Social Justice can be established in its totality and, as a consequence, all forms of political repression, economic exploitation, and social discrimination can be eliminated from human society. The achievement of this goal in 7th century Arabia was the greatest accomplishment of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), and it is this triumph of the Prophet which is acknowledged by historian Dr. Michael Hart in these words: “he [Prophet Muhammad] was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels.”

The Islamic System of Social Justice, as established by Prophet Muhammad (SAW), continued in its ideal form for at least 30 years after his death, and then it started to decline. Gradually, however, the ideal unity between the religious and the secular gave way, and a dichotomy appeared in the Muslim society between the political rulers and the religious leadership, and then the latter themselves got divided into the scholars of the law (ulama) and the mystics who concerned themselves mainly with the purification of the soul (sufia); in this way, the “unity” gradually degenerated into a “trinity.” The political and moral decay of the Ummah continued to worsen with each passing century. In the meantime, the development of physical sciences and technology in Europe under the influence of Renaissance and Reformation — which were themselves a result of Islamic influences reaching Central Europe through Muslim Spain — led to a power potential which resulted in the conquest of Muslim lands by the forces of Western Imperialism. The evolution of social sciences in Europe also accelerated, and French and Bolshevik revolutions gave fresh dimensions to the human thought, including the ideas of freedom, democracy, human rights, equality, and the need to eliminate all exploitation.

In the Indian subcontinent, efforts to revive the authentic and pristine Islam began with Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi, and gained momentum with Shah Waliyullah Dehlvi and Sayyid Ahmad Shaheed. The stage was thus set, at the beginning of the 20th century, for Allama Muhammad Iqbal to play his momentous role in laying down the intellectual foundations of Islamic Renaissance.

The achievements of Allama Iqbal vis-à-vis the reconstruction of Islamic religious and revolutionary thought can be summarized as follows: In the first place, he proved that the intellectual and scientific progress that was achieved by the European man during the last few centuries was actually a manifestation and unfolding of the Qur´anic spirit. According to Iqbal, the birth of Islam was the birth of inductive intellect; it was the Qur´anic emphasis on observation and experience, as well as its stress on the concrete and the finite, which gave rise to the scientific method of inquiry. The scientific spirit was born as a result of the imperative by the Qur´an to give up all superstitious and fanciful beliefs, to rely on the senses and the faculty of reason for gaining knowledge of the material world, and to contemplate the physical and natural phenomena because these are signs of Almighty Allah (SWT). It was under the influence of such Qur´anic teachings that the inductive method of inquiry blossomed among the Arabs, before being carried through the universities in Muslim Spain into Europe, paving the way for the Renaissance. It was in this sense that Iqbal saw the intellectual side of the European culture as “only a further development of some of the most important phases of the culture of Islam.” Secondly, he proved that the concepts of political and economic rights of man, which seem to have been born and developed in the West, were actually derived and borrowed from the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (SAW). Thus, to say that all human beings are born equal, that every human being has certain inalienable rights (especially the provision of basic necessities of life) concerning which there must not be any discrimination on the basis of gender, race, color, caste, or creed, and that all forms of exploitation — whether political or economic — must not be allowed to continue in a decent and humane society, is to express the basic tenets of an ideal Islamic state as given by Prophet Muhammad (SAW), as well as to describe the most remarkable features of the era of Al-Khilafah Al-Rashidah.

Thirdly, Iqbal brought to the fore the urgent need and the immense significance of developing a new ilm al-kalam, i.e., of reconstructing the Islamic theology in the light of modern knowledge and of rebuilding the edifice of religious belief on the basis of newly available scientific data. Iqbal paved the way for this gigantic task by liberating Islamic theology from the quagmire of Platonic ideas and the labyrinth of Aristotelian logic, and then by establishing Islamic beliefs on the foundation of modern experimental sciences, including mathematics, physics, biology, and psychology.

Two related achievements of Iqbal that we are going to discuss in this chapter are as follows: first, his challenge to the dominant Western thought and civilization, especially his forceful criticism and condemnation of two fundamental socio-political concepts of the West, i.e., secularism and territorial nationalism; secondly, the ingenious manner in which he reconstructed the Islamic revolutionary thought and presented the Islamic System of Social Justice on the highest intellectual level, harmonizing it with the highest ideals of human rights, as well as his presentation of a brief yet comprehensive description of the methodology for bringing about the envisioned Islamic Revolution.

Iqbal´s ideas concerning secularism and territorial nationalism are so well-known and crystal-clear that we need not go into their details. Secularism, according to Iqbal, is the biggest evil in today´s world, and the separation of Divine guidance from state authority is the root cause of all corruption. Human sovereignty is kufr as well as shirk, irrespective of whether it manifests itself in the form of individual sovereignty (autocracy and kingship) or in the form of popular sovereignty (democracy and people´s rule). A number of couplets can be quoted from Iqbal´s poetry to prove this point; however, Iqbal has expressed his abhorrence of human sovereignty, in a most subtle and perspicacious manner, in the following couplet of his masterpiece Iblees ki Majlis-e-Shura:

We ourselves have dressed Kingship in the garb of Democracy,
When man has grown to be a little self-conscious and self-observant.

In other words, Iqbal is saying that the consciousness of human rights, which prospered in Europe under the influence of Renaissance and Reformation, was essentially a positive development in the human social evolution. However, it was Satan and his agents who diverted this consciousness towards popular sovereignty, and in this way the rule of a king was replaced with the rule of the people. Both forms of political systems are equally unacceptable from the Islamic perspective, as absolute sovereignty belongs to no one but the Creator, Owner, and Ruler of the universe, Almighty Allah (SWT). The very concept of human sovereignty is a form of filth, and will remain so whether it belongs to a single Pharaoh and Caesar or whether it is distributed piecemeal to a few million citizens of a country.

As for the modern concept of territorial nationalism — which happens to be an absolutely unavoidable appendage of secular polity — the fact is that two of Iqbal´s poems on this subject are so devastating that, even if Iqbal had composed no other poetry, these two would have been sufficient to establish his place as the greatest iconoclast of Western culture and political theory and the greatest ideologue and rejuvenator of Islamic ideological nationhood. Iqbal has categorically declared, in his Urdu poem entitled Wataniyyat, that territorial nationalism as a political concept is the most pernicious of all the various idols of modern age. Territorial nationalism constitutes a virulent and lethal disease which, by causing discord and animosity among different groups of people and by producing mutual rivalry and antagonism, leads to a type of politics which is devoid of morality and a kind of trade which becomes an instrument of Imperialism. All this results in destruction and devastation of weaker nations at the hands of stronger ones.

As for the famous Persian poem by Iqbal, which he composed as a rejoinder to Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani´s (RA) comment that nowadays nations are established on the basis of homelands, the following points need to be noted. First, as pointed out by Maulana Madani, the word he had actually used was qaum and not millat, and it was a sign of Iqbal´s magnanimity that he promptly admitted this oversight. However, even though his personal integrity and piety as well as his role as a freedom fighter is beyond doubt, the main clarification given by Maulana Madani — that his remark was only a statement of fact rather than an imperative sentence — can only be described as inane. This is because Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani was a religious and political leader, and it is obvious that every statement that comes from such a personage necessarily contains a strong shade of advice and command. Iqbal´s condemnation too was specifically directed towards the essentially Western thought that nations are formed on the basis of homelands. As a matter of fact, the ability to discern and recognize kufr and shirk in all their countless forms and myriad guises constitutes a special gift and favor of Almighty Allah (SWT) which He bestowed on Iqbal.

In short, it was on the basis of a strong negation of secularism and popular sovereignty on the one hand and of territorial nationalism on the other that Iqbal challenged the modern Western civilization, warning the modern Western man that his attitude will cause his culture to commit suicide with its own weapons.

Let us digress a little before going any further. It is indeed ironical that in our country, which came into existence in the name of “Muslim nationhood” and whose entire struggle for independence was fought on the basis of “separate electorate”, we find that numerous politically prominent leaders and parties are nowadays openly talking about a “joint electorate”, where a person´s religion could not be included in his identity card, and where minorities are being given the right of a double vote. The champions of secularism in Pakistan never get tired of quoting the 11th August 1947 statement of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in which he declared religion to be a private affair of the individual. In our opinion, taking this particular statement of the Quaid as representing an interim and temporary tactic would be one thing, but to embrace it as a permanent foundation of Pakistan´s constitutional framework and political system would be a clear and glaring rejection of the very ideology of Pakistan, as well as an open and flagrant revolt against the views put forward by the main ideologue of our country, Allama Iqbal. Such a deviation from the ideological basis of Pakistan would eliminate the very justification of this country as a separate and independent state, and would lead, ultimately, to its total disintegration. On the other hand, strengthening this ideological foundation, and establishing a complete constitutional framework as well as a politico-socio-economic system on its basis, would become the starting point of a new global civilization. In this way, the revival of Islam would then unleash the power that is urgently needed by humanity to replace the prevailing “New World Order” with the “Just World Order” of Islam. It is precisely this “threat” of Islam as a living force which is so repulsive to Satan and his agents as well as to the Jews and the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) that even the slightest progress in this direction disturbs them in a most serious manner.

Iqbal has explained the revolutionary teachings of Islam concerning the social, political, and economic spheres throughout his Urdu and Persian poetry. However, one of his last Urdu poems, entitled Iblees ki Majlis-e-Shura (or “The Devil´s Parliament”), is especially significant in that it represents Iqbal´s final message to the Muslim Ummah on the one hand, and the result of his life-long deliberations and reflections on the other. The central theme of this poem is that the evil forces active in this world — represented by Satan and his advisers — have decided that they have nothing to fear from the rising tides of democracy or socialism; all they are really concerned with is the possibility of the revival of Islam. The so-called democracy of the West is only a veil for imperialism (as it is nothing more than the rule of the capitalists), and socialism cannot heal the wounds of humanity either. It is only Islam that has the potential to pose a real challenge for Satan and his diabolical schemes.

Thus, Satan says:

How could I be frightened by these socialists, straying about the streets?
Wretched and straitened, distracted in mind, incoherent in speech!
The only menace I anticipate may come from that Community:
Which still a spark of ambition hidden in its ashes retains.
Knows he to whom are revealed the inner secrets of time:
Not socialism, but Islam is to be the trouble of the morrow.

In spite of his apprehensions regarding the revival of Islam, Satan feels content when he notes that the Muslims are in no position to become a threat to his rule: They have practically given up the ideals and values of Islam, and their once burning faith has now been attenuated to nothing more than an inherited dogma or a matter of theological controversies. Satan, however, warns his disciples that although the Muslims are not likely to pose any danger, other people may discover the virtues of Islam after trying and discarding various man-made systems of life, one after the other. And it is here, says Satan, that the real danger to his rule lies:

I do know this Community is no longer the bearer of the Qur´an:
The same capitalism is the religion of the believer now.
And I know too, that in the dark night of the East
The sleeve of the holy ones of the Haram is bereft of the white, illuminating hand.
The demands of the present age, however, spell the apprehension:
Lest the Shari´ah of the Prophet should come to light one day.

The four couplets that follow are not only the gist of the entire poem, but the fact is that they represent Iqbal´s understanding of the Islamic System of Social Justice and are the result of his life-long study and deliberation on this subject.

Beware, a hundred times beware, of the law of the Prophet!
´The protector of women´s honor, the tester of men´s capacities, the rearer of worthy men!´
´The message of death to any kind of slavery!´
´No sovereigns and no monarchs, no mendicants begging!´
´It does purify wealth of all pollution:´
´It makes the wealthy trustees of wealth and property.´
What greater revolution in thought and action will there be!
´Not to the crowned heads, but to God alone does this earth belong!´

The first couplet in this series describes the social system of Islam as being established on two fundamental points. The foremost goal of the Islamic social system is to establish a society where the protection and preservation of the honor and dignity of women can be ensured; segregation of the sexes and enforcement of proper dress codes are some of the means to this end. Secondly, as far as the earning of livelihood or the performance of other strenuous duties are concerned, Islam places such responsibilities on the shoulders of men, and not of women; it tests and tries the abilities of men and forces them to be responsible. In the second couplet, Iqbal describes the political system of Islam as being characterized by an equality of the ruler and the ruled, a state of affairs where there is no slavery and no exploitation of any kind. Of course, there is only one possible way to achieve this egalitarianism in real life: The exploitation of the weak by the strong and the enslavement of one class by another can be eliminated only by rejecting human sovereignty and submitting before the sovereignty of the Creator. Thus, Islam demands its followers to establish the sovereignty of Almighty Allah (SWT) on earth, which is the same thing as the vicegerency (or Khilafah) of the Muslims in the socio-political governance.

In the third and fourth couplets, Iqbal describes the economic system of Islam. It is an indication of the rich and versatile personality of Allama Iqbal that, even though his main subject was metaphysics, he still had a deep interest in the comparatively dry and dreary science of economics. Iqbal was fully cognizant of the fact that, in today´s world, economic and financial matters have assumed central importance in the human society, and that man has now been reduced to Homo economicus for all practical purposes. Regarding the issue of “Capital”, Iqbal makes it clear that while Islam takes advantage of the human desire for profit and encourages investment as well as cultivates a healthy competitive environment, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever of the menace of capitalism taking root in a true Islamic society, as the very foundation of capitalism — interest or usury — has been strictly prohibited by the Qur´an. Keeping in view the references to riba in various other couplets of Iqbal, it is our humble opinion that the degree to which Iqbal recognized and expressed the immorality and vice of riba is simply non-existent in the writings of any other scholar or intellectual.

Concerning the domination of “Feudalism”, Iqbal asserts that this is in diametric opposition to the economic teachings of Islam. In his numerous Urdu and Persian poems, Iqbal passionately maintains that land, the source of sustenance for humans and animals, cannot be the private property of kings or landlords. The earth belongs to Almighty Allah (SWT), and its productive capacities are meant by the Creator to be equally available to all those who are in need of it. The practice of absentee landlordism, in which the “owner” of the land takes away the lion´s share from the produce of the land without performing an iota of the labor involved, is not only highly cruel and unjust to the ill-fated farmer, but it is the principal cause of the concentration of politico-economic power in the hands of a few hundred families. The ownership of massive land-holdings provide the landlords with immense amount of money and influence, and the resulting electoral and political power allows them to control the legislative and policy-making process with highly deleterious consequences for the nation.

Let us add here two crucial points regarding the issue of feudalism and absentee landlordims. In the first place, the fact is that all the lands included in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent are, technically speaking, kharaji and not usheri. According to the judgment of the second Caliph, Hadrat Umar Farooq (RAA), which was later unanimously accepted by the entire Muslim Ummah, all those lands which are conquered by the Muslim armies in the course of a war can never become private property of individuals but must remain the collective property of the whole Ummah. This means that the agricultural lands of our country, as well as the income and production thereof, are to be treated as public property and must, therefore, be used for the welfare of the whole populace, both Muslims and non-Muslims. This was the opinion of such eminent scholars as Jalaluddin Thaneseri, Shah Waliyullah Dehlvi, Shah Abdul Aziz, and Qazi Sanaullah Panipati. Secondly, the practice of Mazre´at or absentee landlorism is actually a kind of riba, the only difference is that it involves agricultural land instead of money. Three great scholars of Islamic jurisprudence — Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafa´e, and Imam Malik — have categorically declared this practice as absolutely haram, that is, prohibited by the Shari´ah. Only Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, and two disciples of Imam Abu Hanifa (Imam Muhammad and Imam Abu Yousuf) have allowed this, but they too have prescribed some conditions to reduce its unfairness. However, later generations simply legalized the practice of absentee landlordims by means of various legal excuses; this was done mainly under the influence of kingship and has, therefore, nothing to do with pristine Islam or the egalitarian teachings of the Islamic economic system. The credit for voicing the strongest condemnation of this in our times goes to Iqbal who, with a boldness that was unique to him, proclaimed that a revolution is needed to eradicate the evils of feudalism and absentee landlordism:

Of the hireling´s blood outpoured
Lustrous rubies make the lord;
Tyrant squire to swell his wealth
Desolates the peasant´s tilth.
Revolt, I cry!
Revolt, defy!
Revolt, or die!

In short, Iqbal fully understood — and did his best to educate others regarding it — the three logical corollaries of the doctrine of Tawheed that had a direct bearing on the Islamic System of Social Justice, as given below:

Since all human beings are the creation of a single Creator, there is no inherent or congenital inequality on the basis of race, color, or gender;
Absolute sovereignty belongs only to Almighty Allah (SWT), and human beings are His vicegerents who must not transgress the limits set by the Sovereign; and
The sacred right of absolute ownership belongs to Almighty Allah (SWT) alone, and human beings are only trustees who must not use anything they may find in their possession against the wishes of the rightful Owner.

As a logical upshot of the above understanding of the meaning of Tawheed, Iqbal made a forceful call for a revolution to replace the existing state of repression and exploitation with the Islamic System of Social Justice. In addition to his role in pinpointing the ultimate goal of the struggle for an Islamic state — which is the establishment of Justice — Iqbal also elucidated the methodology, in an extremely comprehensive yet compact manner, for bringing about the envisioned revolution.

According to Iqbal, the first stage in the process of an Islamic Revolution is a purely “educational” one: To inculcate the teachings and the message of the Holy Qur´an in the minds of the audience, so that a profound metamorphosis occurs in the way people think and feel, in their goals and objectives, and in their values and priorities in life. People must change from within before they can change the world. It is this internal and psychological revolution in the personalities of individual human beings that is the absolutely essential pre-requisite for any meaningful and stable change in the politico-socio-economic system. This transformation of the individuals will then cause them to unite as a force, which will become the starting point for a global revolution. It must be noted that in the revolutionary struggle of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), the only instrument that was employed for exhortation, admonition, purification of the soul, and reformation was nothing but the Holy Qur´an.

In addition to this Jihad bil-Qur´an, there are two more components of the initial or preliminary phase of the revolutionary process, and these can be described as “organization” and “passive resistance.” What is meant by “organization” is that all those who have accepted the revolutionary ideology — those who have consciously come to believe in the Qur´an — must be organized in the form of a party. This organization must be highly disciplined, since the task ahead is to replace a deeply entrenched corrupt and satanic system, and, therefore, the achievement of the proverbial army discipline of “listen and obey” is to be the goal of this organization. During the initial stages, when the number of dedicated and committed workers will be rather low, a policy of “passive resistance” is to adopted. What is meant by “passive resistance” is that all persecution, whether verbal or physical, must be endured without any retaliation. There must not be any retreat of any kind; yet there must not be any revenge or counterstrike either, not even in self-defense. This perseverance and passive resistance must continue till the time when there is enough strength available, both in terms of the number of workers and their training, morale, discipline, and their willingness to sacrifice, that a challenge can be thrown to the defenders of the status quo.

In the revolutionary struggle of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and his Companions (RAA), we see that the entire twelve years that were spent in Makkah were characterized by passive resistance. The order of the day was to endure all kinds of ill-treatment and oppression without striking back, to be patient, to persevere, and to go on calling people to the light of Islam. Thus, the following instructions by Almighty Allah (SWT) were typical of the Makkan period:

For the sake of thy Lord, be patient (Al-Muddassir 74:7)
We know very well that that thy bosom is at times oppressed by what they say (Al-Hijr 15:97)
And bear with patience what they utter, and part from them with a fair leave-taking (Al-Muzzammil 73:10)
But wait for thy Lord´s decree, and be not (impatient) like him of the fish (Al-Qalam 68:48)

Indeed, this phase of non-violence is similar to the attitude of the companions of Hadrat Isa (AS), who were instructed to remain passive even in the face of persecution. Their prophet had told them: “Do not resist those who wrong you. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the other also. If anyone wants to sue you and takes your shirt, let him have your cloak as well. If someone in authority presses you into service for one mile, go with him two” (Matthew 5:39-41). Some Muslim scholars have objected to this teaching as being “unnatural”, but what needs to be realized is that this was not a permanent part of the message of Hadrat Isa (AS), but that he had ordered his followers to remain passive and peaceful only till the time when they had enough strength to challenge the ungodly system. In a similar way, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) instructed his Companions (RAA) to remain passive and peaceful during the years in Makkah. This was an interim order and represented a phase of the revolutionary strategy. Thus, as soon as the situation changed, and a powerful base of the believers was established in Madinah after the Hijrah, the policy of passive resistance was immediately replaced by that of active resistance and challenge. Almighty Allah (SWT) then allowed the Muslims to launch their offensive by giving the following instructions:

Sanction is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged (Al-Hajj 22:39)
And fight them until fitnah is no more and Deen is for Allah (Al-Baqarah 2:193)
And fight them until fitnah is no more, and Deen is all for Allah (Al-Anfaal 8:39)

The purpose of this fighting (or Qitaal) for the cause of Allah (SWT) is the elimination of fitnah, or the eradication of the rule of falsehood, and establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.
The two main phases of the Islamic revolutionary process — propagation of the message with a calm fervor and non-violence in the manner of a saint, followed by challenging the status quo in the form of an active and even armed struggle — are clearly and concisely presented by Iqbal in the following Persian couplet:

Like the dervish drunken be;
Quaff the winecup instantly,
And, when thou art bolder grown,
Hurl thyself on Jamshid´s throne!
The second couplet of this ghazal is also very meaningful:
´This our world´, they asked of me,
´Is´t congenial to thee?´
´Nay´, I answered; and they cried,
´Break and strew it far and wide!´

It was with a strong desire to revive the revolutionary teachings of Islam and to pave the way for an actual Islamic Revolution that Iqbal tried to motivate the Muslims, especially their religious elements. And it was with this very objective in mind that Iqbal vehemently opposed the prevalent pantheistic trend in Islamic mysticism, which in his view was responsible for watering down the spirit of action and dynamism among the Muslims and had led to their pathetic state of virtual paralysis. We refer again to Iqbal´s poem, Iblees ki Majlis-e-Shura, in which we find Satan advising his followers on how to keep the Muslims inert:

Our safety lies in that the mo´min remains a slave till Doomsday:
Renouncing this transitory world for others´ sake.
Keep him well absorbed in the thought and contemplation of God in pre-morning hours:
Ye all make him grow stronger in his monastic disposition!

Although Iqbal addressed the sufia as well as the ulama, and tried to wake them up from their deep slumber, it was actually the educated youth of Muslim India that were the real target of his poetry. Iqbal reminded the Muslim youth of the lost glories and grandeur of their Muslim ancestors, and motivated them to action through his predictions about the revival and renaissance of Islam. Iqbal, unlike Altaf Hussain Hali before him, presented a bright picture of the future, and removed the darkness of despair and pessimism that had become a hallmark of the Muslim society in the late 19th century.

Despite all this, the fact remains that Iqbal neither started any revivalist movement himself nor laid down the foundations of any Islamic party, even though — as disclosed recently by the late Dr. Burhan Ahmad Faruqi — he not only deeply felt the need for such a revivalist struggle but came very close to achieving this goal as well.* This is precisely the reason why we compared Allama Iqbal with Shah Waliyullah Dehlvi (RA) in the preface of the present book. Although an eminent writer, scholar, and teacher, Shah Waliyullah Dehlvi spent his life almost in the style of a recluse, and never attempted to start any revivalist movement of any kind. He, however, was a well-informed and politically aware person, and that is why he invited Ahmad Shah Abdali from Afghanistan to save the Muslim rule in India. On the other hand, Shah Waliyullah Delhvi did succeed in establishing an Islamic milieu wherein, in the very next generation, it became possible for Sayyid Ahmad Shaheed Barelvi (RA), and his own grandson Shah Ismael Shaheed (RA), to launch a movement of Jihad on the pattern of the pristine and authentic Islam of the age of Sahaba (RAA). In a very similar manner, Allama Iqbal invited Muhammad Ali Jinnah and requested him to lead the Indian Muslims in their national struggle. On the other hand, it goes to the credit of Iqbal that he, by reviving the Islamic religious and revolutionary thought, produced an intellectual climate in which initially Abul Kalam Azad was able to form his Hizbullah, and later Maulana Maududi established his Jama´at-e-Islami. It must be noted that it was none other than Iqbal himself who had invited Maulana Maududi to migrate to Punjab, a place which had become quite congenial for the launching of an Islamic movement as a result of the impact of Iqbal´s poetry.

* Cf., Faruqi, Dr. Burhan Ahmad., Allama Iqbal aur Musalmanon ka Siyasi Nasbul Ain (Lahore: All Pakistan Islamic Eductaional Congress, 1994)