Iqbal’s humanism

One of the most interesting points to note in the pre-Partition era of literary discourse are the challenges posed to medieval institutions and authority figures that interacted with various groups of Muslims in South Asia. The dilemmas of a Muslim minority under imperial rule led to economic and political chaos, and new voices were encouraged to question the very concept of what religion and Islam were.
Allama Iqbal preferred an anti-humanist Nietzschean understanding of a Bergsonian ‘unfolding’ and ‘becoming’ of the ego with the ideal will to power which would drive selfhood toward the direction of perfection. Iqbal drew on Marx’s theory of ‘alienation’ and stated that mankind begins estranged from its nature. Thus for him, Islam was never territorial, but rather a community that rose above differences of race or country. Iqbal criticised both the modern liberal west as well as the medieval traditional outlook. In his view both weakened the creative production of possibilities through which man can create his essence. Iqbal’s humanism is of a completely different variety than of any other Muslim thinker of his time or before, and the depth of his intellectual activity spoke to the Muslims who faced difficulties in South Asia in the early 20th century.
Muhammad Yasir Kayani
Kasur