Sir,
I consider Iqbal a great visionary and my spiritual Guru. In my humble opinion, Iqbal, as well as his poetry, evolved with time. In fact, his intellectual development & poetry can be divided into three distinct periods.
In early stages, he was essentially an “Indian” poet. The Tarana e- Hind that you quote was published in 1905. It was written at the time he was a lecturer at the Gov’t College Lahore and his work during this time was limited in scope.
His outlook and views changed /evolved during his stay in Europe (1905 -1908). Here, in addition to the Law, he studied German & became infatuated by Goethe & Nietzsche. He came to realize the extent of exploitation of the East by the Western colonial powers and the effect of European culture on Eastern values. This resulted in the development of ‘Khudi’ and his two Persian books ‘Israr-e-khudi’ & Rumuz-e- bekhudi’.
He had written a Ph.D. Thesis titled “Development of Metaphysics in Persia” for the Munich University during the course of which Iqbal had also fallen under the spell of Maulana Jalaluddin Mohammed Balkhi, also known as Maulana Rum.
During his third period, Iqbal became a fighter against all kinds of oppression and a pan-Islamist. His adversary was the West as a whole and the Anglo-Hindu Alliance, which Iqbal considered had come together to keep the Muslims enslaved. Javid Nama & Zabur-e- Ajam represent this period. He also became an active member of the All India Muslim League and came up with the famous ‘Two Nation Theory’.
Despite the above, Iqbal was first & foremost a poet and used 'Poetic' license to a great degree. My earlier comments were meant to point out that the poetic exclamations need not be taken literally.
