Iqbal: A new beginning, an end to misconceptions

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Iqbal (RA) was a Sufi and at the level of Rind.

 

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For who is he a rind, you?

There are many levels of Sufi in Tasawwuf and he was at Rind.

 

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nor will we accept your secular jinnahs vision

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was supported by Pir Jamaat Ali Shah (RA). If quaid was a secular figure then why did Pir supported him. Quaid wanted to make an Islamic Pakistan with Holy Quran & Sunnah as a constitution, else India is itself a secular state.

Learn about his life and do respect the Quaid please!

 

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Well if that's what rocks your boat good for you, for me who the hell is he, no body i can relate to, each to their own.

Read the book Zinda Rood by his son Justice Javed Iqbal and the part where he mentions the dream of the person who saw Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Iqbal (RA) at the same time in dream.

 

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I respect him and his achievements, but i just don't call him my quaid, our quaids are those gallant and brave from the land of mountains, sher shah suri, khushal khan etc etc, that's not disrespect that's freedom of speech and thought.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a person, had T.B. for almost 10 years but he worked for the betterment of the Muslims of subcontinent.
And your hero Khushhaal Khan Khattak wasn't a brave, he was a murderer, killed a son of a pious person whose shrine is in Nowshera.

 

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i am not free to decide for myself who is my quaid?

He died of TB, bit like how Jesus did for all our sins hay?

I have shown respect, yet you disrespect the great khushal khan.

Yea, you are free to choose the right person.

You are comparing Muhammad Ali Jinnah to Isa (AS) ... are you out of your mind?

Khushal Khan Khattak's daughter was married to Hazrat KakaSahib elder son Hazrat Sheikh Zia-u-Din (Shaheed Baba) and then what he did? Yea, read that story ....

 

[PakShah]

Iqbal: A new beginning, an end to misconceptions

“It is a fact that a non-Muslim cannot be head of the administration in a Muslim State,” said the leader of the Congress, Sris Chandra Chattopadhya, in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on March 12, 1949. Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan replied that this was not so.

True to this promise, non-Muslims remained legible for the office of prime minister in all drafts of the constitution produced by the first constituent assembly right up to its dissolution in 1954. Significantly, these drafts always mentioned that Pakistan was an Islamic state, and not a secular state.

On this ground, the founding parents of Pakistan stand in opposition to Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who promulgated the subsequent constitutions in Pakistan, respectively in 1956, 1962 and 1973. Those constitutions required that the prime minister should be a Muslim. However, the founding fathers of Pakistan had a different concept of an Islamic state.

This is where there is a major difficulty in understanding Allama Iqbal. We tend to presume that when he advocated an Islamic state, it would have meant that non-Muslims could not have equal rights. This leads to three other misconceptions, which need to be dispelled right away.

They are: Iqbal was a secularist in some ways, or a socialist, or that he was opposed to democracy.

MISCONCEPTION ONE: IQBAL SUPPORTED SECULARISM

Due to our misconception of an Islamic state, some of us are led to believe that all references to universal ideals in the poetry and prose of Iqbal amounted to an affirmation of secularism.

The truth is that Iqbal clarified his position on this issue repeatedly, beginning with his groundbreaking paper in 1908:

“…according to the law of Islam there is no distinction between the Church and the State.” (‘Political Thought in Islam’; 1908)

MISCONCEPTION TWO: IQBAL WAS A SOCIALIST

The idea that Iqbal was a socialist was first proposed by a journalist in 1923, and Iqbal refuted it immediately in a public statement. However, since many people believe that socialism and capitalism are the only options available to human mind, they tend to interpret all references to social justice in Iqbal’s writings as a partial approval of socialism. His position on this issue is best represented by his own words:

“Both nationalism [secularism] and atheistic socialism, at least in the present state of human adjustments, must draw upon the psychological forces of hate, suspicion, and resentment which tend to impoverish the soul of man and close up his hidden sources of spiritual energy.” (The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam; 1934).

MISCONCEPTION THREE: IQBAL WAS OPPOSED TO DEMOCRACY

The most widespread and bizarre misconception is that Iqbal was opposed to democracy. A few of his verses are lifted out of context and quoted with complete confidence to support this assertion. Of course, the most infamous is the Urdu couplet which could be translated as: “Democracy is a form of government in which people are counted but not weighed.” Nobody bothers to look up the preceding couplet in the poem, or the footnote, where it is clearly mentioned that Iqbal is quoting a French novelist, Stendhal. Iqbal’s own opinion on the matter was:

“Democracy, then, is the most important aspect of Islam regarded as a political ideal.” (‘Islam as a Moral and Political Ideal’; 1909)

THE PROMISE

It may seem to be a contradiction that Iqbal believed in democracy and denounced theocracy, but was also opposed to secularism and socialism.

If this is a contradiction, it is also reflected in the entire history of the Muslim world since 1954 (except some Arab states). Unlike India, Muslim countries have not had smooth runs of democracy despite being free for so long. At the same time, they are equally unwilling to replicate the kind of monarchy introduced in some Arab states by European powers during the First World War.

So what do we want and how can it be achieved?

This is the enigma which Iqbal promises to solve for us. Perhaps that is why he didn’t die. He is back.

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This is a weekly web feature that will appear on The Express Tribune website.

Khurram Ali Shafique is the author of Iqbal: an Illustrated Biography (2006) and offers online courses in Iqbal Studies for Iqbal Academy Pakistan at Marghdeen Learning Centre.

CHECK IT OUT

Useful resources for Iqbal Studies, including free online versions of the works of Iqbal with English translations, are available on the official website of Iqbal Academy Pakistan.

Iqbal: A new beginning, an end to misconceptions – The Express Tribune

Can mods please edit the thread title and put an "I" in the start. Thanks.

Why do we need to look at Iqbal and Jinnah as to how we should run our country.

Just go back to the Qu'ran and Sunnah as to how we should run our country. Lets make Pakistan an Islamic state.

 

[W.11]

Jinnahs Pakistan and ideology stops at indus because his ideology suits people who share genetic and cultural ties with him, we voted for Islam and not jinnah.

People voted for Islam and not jinnah, heck he didn't have any connection to this land, can he outdo people like ahmad shah abdali or sher shah suri or dost Muhammad?. Answer is never.

I am Pakistani but pukhtoon Pakistani, rehman babas and khushal khan khattacks Pakistani and not jinnahs or iqbal Pakistani, heck anything i have in common with them is just religion.

riiiiiight, then for sake of religion please join afghanistan and iran, we would be glad to

why dont you join afghanistan, also why do you migrate to east of indus for work and shitt, keep your shitt away from east of indus mr west of indus

 

[W.11]

You have your quaid and his visions and ideology, we have ours dating back centuries.

forgeting the secular part, mr west of indus, do you really think that living in stone age like in afghanistan would do you any favour

look mr west of indus its time to come back to reality, times change and people change, you dont really need to stick to your stone age, you can improve your conditions while you do other things like truck driving, eating niswar and digging holes or labour work

get educated, develop yourselves, world will respect you

 

[W.11]

This coming from decendant of an immigrant that moved to Pakistan from India in the name of religion?

Someone who has no connection with these lands but wants to enforce their view.

im more relevant than you because im from east of indus river, while you are from west of indus river

and according to you east of indus river guys have more similarity to indians than west of indus river

 

[W.11]

If we move with Afghanistan or Iran our genetic cousins, am afraid you wontt have country left, so Mr mqm you guys will be just a strip of land.

Regarding education, we don't need your type of education that steals our history and calls it Islamic history.

i dont care, we dont want the desert land of west of indus river anyway

go with it, when are you moving?

 

[W.11]

"Pull out your sword and slay any one, that says Pashtun and Afghan are not one! Arabs know this and so do Romans: Afghans are Pashtuns, Pashtuns are Afghans."

riiiigt, please draw you swords and travel on camel, please lets be in the middle ages

Very true and your kind has no relevance west of the indus, thank the British that you have some identity, before that you know very well.

dude you like an under cover aghani to me, with false flag

anyways, when are you moving to afghanistan?

 

[Porus]

“It is a fact that a non-Muslim cannot be head of the administration in a Muslim State,” said the leader of the Congress, Sris Chandra Chattopadhya, in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on March 12, 1949. Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan replied that this was not so.

Chandra Chattopadhya must be worried about the Objectives Resolution which was passed by the Constituent Assembly on that day. The history has proved that Chandra Chattopadhya was right and Liaquat Ali wrong. After inserting the following clause in the resolution only a fool would have ever thought that a non-Muslim could still become the head of the state.

Sovereignty belongs to Allah alone but He has delegated it to the State of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him as a sacred trust.

 

[PakShah]

Very true and your kind has no relevance west of the indus, thank the British that you have some identity, before that you know very well. Mind you, i can share your pain of no identity now either, rejected, not accepted as one of the own.

lol, are you that uneducated? Pakistan had an identity before British occupation.

The Indus river valley civilization and Gandhara was in Pakistan.

Besides everyone in Pakistan wants Sharia. Insh'Allah we will get it, don't worry.

I respect Jinnah and Iqbal, but believe both the men had failings.

but you dont belong to east of indus river bhai, go back to KPK from karachi, lahore, rawalpindi, faisalabad etc go to kabul, jalalabad, kandahar, tehran, tashkant etc, im not more outsider, you guys dont even have cultural similarity with sindh and punjab, but atleast we share some, you guys are genetically iran, afghanistan, go there, dont come here

who us heading to peshawar, nobody, nothing is there, you guys are coming to east of indus river, go back



which land east of indus river or the west of the indus river?

hotaki is probably just a false flag.

Most Pathans in Pakistan love Karachi and Multan as much as they love Peshawar.

 

[W.11]

I don't live east of indus, i live in a land of kohs , but you i feel sorry for a crow amongst peacocks, rejected by every ethnic group of Pakistan, no where to go i understand , even a Palestinian can call something his home but its very difficult in your case, i can see the frustration neck i sympathize with it.

its your frustration not mine, that you have brought the urdu speakers here, i was arguing with you about the east of indus river, and every body knows that pashtun's largest city is karachi not even peshawar, kabul, tehran, so merey bhai, very simple question

are you ready to move back from karachi to kabul, peshawar, jalalabad, kandhar, batakhshan, mazar sharif and other pathan genetic city etc?

i dont really hope persians will welcome pathans into their city of tehran in the first place, but anyways, the genetic brotherhood, tehran, if it comes to play any possible way