Iqbal, the Sufi Epistemology and The End of History
Articles - Islamic Spirituality
Wednesday, 10 Rajab 1428
We attempt in
this essay to examine the appearance of an epistemological paradox in the
thought of Dr. Muhammad Iqbal.
There was that
knowledge which he imparted to his native people, Indian Muslims who were
subjected to brutal anti-Muslim British colonial rule, which touched their very
souls and fired them with a scorching reaffirmation of commitment to Islam the
religion. It was communicated in their native languages - Urdu and Persian. Had
it been communicated in English, the European world of scholarship that was
waging war on Islam would have rejected and sneered at it. Iqbal would have
suffered a loss of prestige amongst his European peers.
And then there
was that other knowledge which he communicated in English, and which included
his views concerning the ‘End of History’. It impressed European scholarship,
as well as his western-educated countrymen. Had some of it been communicated in
Urdu or Persian, such as his rejection of belief in the advent of Imam
al-Mahdi, of Dajjal the false Messiah or Anti-Christ, and in the return of the
true Messiah, Jesus the son of the Virgin Mary (peace and blessings of Allah
Most High be upon them both), it would have created serious and abiding
problems for him amongst the Muslim masses. To this day, there are many Muslims
who are inspired by Iqbal, but remain blissfully ignorant of his real views
concerning the ‘End of History’.
The dualism in
Iqbal’s thought and works is compounded by the fact that he sometimes says one
thing in English, and then proceeds to say something quite different in Urdu or
Persian.
For example, he
agrees with the Turkish Ijtihad (if it may be called such) to the effect that
the Imamate or Caliphate (which was abolished by Mustafa Kamal’s Turkish Grand
National Assembly in 1924) can be vested in a body of persons or an elected
Assembly. Provided that a modern Parliament can be constituted of good Muslims,
Iqbal would be willing to accept it as a valid substitute for the Caliphate.
Yet Iqbal, in verse, urges the restoration of the Caliphate, and seeks that
mobilization of the Islamic spirit that would make it possible:
“Taa Khilafat
kee bina dunyah main ho phir ustawaar,
Laa kahein say dhoond kar aslaaf ka
qalb-o-jigar.”
(In order to strengthen or vitalize the cause of (the restoration of) the Caliphate in this world, It is imperative that we locate and rebuild the heart and liver, i.e., the courage, faith and mettle of the first Muslims.)
Iqbal is fairly
explicit in his rejection of belief in the advent of Imam Al-Mahdi and in the
return of the true Messiah, Jesus the son of the Virgin Mary. This is what he
says:
“The doctrine
of the finality of prophethood may further be regarded as a psychological cure
for the Magian attitude of constant expectation which tends to give a false
view of history. Ibn Khaldun, seeing the spirit of his own view of history, has
fully criticized and, I believe, finally demolished the alleged revelational
basis in Islam of an idea similar, at least in its psychological effects, to
the original Magian idea which had reappeared in Islam under the pressure of
Magian thought.”
(Iqbal, Dr. Muhammad., Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam,
ed. by M. Saeed Shaikh, Lahore, Institute of Islamic Culture, 1986) p. 115
Indeed, in his
letter to Muhammad Ahsan he adds belief in the advent of Dajjal the false
Messiah to the list of Magian ideas which, he claims, have infiltrated into
Islamic thought. This is clear from his use of the word masihiyat. (Iqbalnama,
Vol. II, p. 231. Quoted in M. Saeed Sheikh, “Editor’s Introduction” to Iqbal’s Reconstruction,
op. cit., p. xi).
Yet Iqbal, in
verse, is fairly explicit in the affirmation of belief in the advent of Imam
Al-Mahdi:
“Out of the
seclusion of the desert of Hejaz,
The Guide of the Time (Khidr-e-Waqt) is to come.
And from that far, far away valley,
The Caravan is to make its appearance.”
The Guide of the Time (Khidr-e-Waqt) is to come.
And from that far, far away valley,
The Caravan is to make its appearance.”
The view has
been expressed that Iqbal’s Khidr-e-Waqt was none other than the founder of
Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah. We disagree. By no stretch of the imagination can
Jinnah be conceived of having emerged from a distant valley in the Hejaz. Nor
could Sultan Abdul Aziz bin Saud, who placed the Hejaz under Anglo-American
clientage, be conceived as Khidr-e-Waqt. Who then, other than Imam al-Mahdi,
was Iqbal referring to?
We trace this
apparently disturbing dualism in Iqbal’s thought and works and suggest that it
resulted from an epistemological ambivalence in his thought. Different epistemologies
function at different levels of consciousness. Iqbal’s theoretic consciousness,
operating with the English language, appears to have functioned with one
epistemology. His aesthetic and spiritual consciousness, operating with his
native languages, seems to have functioned with another. Unless one succeeds in
integrating all levels of consciousness in the personality, an epistemological
ambivalence and a dualism in thought can appear.
It would be a
disservice to Iqbal to suggest that he deliberately chose this duality of views
in order to mislead his European audience. Such would imply that he also, in
the process, mislead an entire generation of his native Muslim people who
readily absorbed his views expressed in English. Iqbal is too great a scholar to
have used Islamic scholarship to mislead his reading audience, which included
so many of his own Muslim people.
SUFI EPISTEMOLOGY
The Sufis have
a consistent record of not only recognizing, but also of using the heart as a
vehicle for the acquisition of knowledge. That experience of the heart, through
which it “sees” and penetrates “truth,” is frequently referred to as “religious
experience.” In its wider sense, religious experience also includes that
intuitive grasp which delivers to the believer the “substance” or “reality” of
things. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon him)
referred to it when he warned: “Fear the firasah (i.e., intuitive capacity for
penetrating the substance of things) of the believer, for surely he sees with
the light of Allah.” And Iqbal himself directed attention to it in his famous
couplet:
“Hazaron saal
Nargis apni baynuri pay roti hai,
Bari mushkil say hota hai,chaman main,
deedawar paida.”
“For thousands of years, The narcissus (flower) has bemoaned its blindness; It is with great difficulty that a discerning sage (i.e. one who sees what others cannot see), Appears in the garden (of life).”
Iqbal’s
deedawar—i.e., the discerning sage—is clearly he who sees with an inner light.
Iqbal is, himself, a true expression of a deedawar.
The
epistemology that recognizes ‘religious experience’ as a source of knowledge is
herein referred to as the Sufi epistemology. The knowledge itself that comes
from such a source is known as ‘Ilm al-Batin.
All through
history, it was always important for the seeker of knowledge to be able to
penetrate the ‘substance’ or ‘reality’ of things. But that would become
absolutely essential in an age in which ‘appearance’ and ‘reality’ would be in
total conflict with each other. ‘Appearance’ would be so dangerous that, if
accepted, would lead to the destruction of faith. And so, in that age, survival
would depend upon the capacity to penetrate beyond external form to reach
internal substance, and thus be saved from being deceived and destroyed. Islam
has declared that such an age would appear before the end of the world. And
this reconfirms the abiding importance of the Sufi epistemology.
Prophet
Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon him) advised that
Surah al-Kahf (Chapter 18) of the Qur’an be recited every day of Juma’ah (i.e.,
Friday) for protection from the Fitnah (deception, trial) of Dajjal whose modus
operandi is to deceive. The story in Surah al-Kahf of Moses (‘alaihi al-Salam)
and Khidr (‘alaihi al-Salam) reveals the inadequacy of that epistemology which
admits of knowledge only through observation. Moses is mistaken on all three
occasions. Khidr on the other hand, who sees with the light of Allah Most High,
corrects the mistakes which Moses made.
The story also
indirectly points an ominous finger at the misguided community of Moses, i.e.,
the Jews, as the people who would experience the greatest deception, would be
deceived and would then fail to read accurately the historical process. In
consequence of being deceived they would blindly follow the most dangerous of
all Pied Pipers, i.e., Dajjal the false Messiah or Anti-Christ, to their final
destruction in history. My view is that this deception has already taken place,
and the final destruction of the Euro-Jewish State of Israel is now certain.
Iqbal is
himself an excallent example of a scholar with a matchless capacity to
penetrate beyond appearances to grasp the reality of things. He made a thorough
and penetrating study of modern western civilization and came to the conclusion
that its appearance was quite different from its reality. Just three months
before his death he tore away the veil or appearance of “progress,” and
delivered a stinging denunciation of the modern West. Many, including the likes
of Shaikh Muhammad Abduh, as well as today’s secular liberals, have declared
that they have seen Islam itself in the modern West. Iqbal was not deceived:
“The modern age
prides itself on its progress in knowledge and its matchless scientific
development. No doubt, the pride is justified…. But in spite of all these
developments, tyranny of imperialism struts abroad, covering its face in the
masks of Democracy, Nationalism, Communism, Fascism, and heavens know what else
besides. Under these masks, in every corner of the earth, the spirit of freedom
and the dignity of man are being trampled underfoot in a way of which not even
the darkest period of human history presents a parallel.”
(Iqbal, Dr. Muhammad, New Year’s Message, Broadcast from All India
Radio, Lahore, Jan. 1, 1938. Quoted in Syed Abdul Vahid, Thoughts and
Reflections of Iqbal, Lahore, Ashraf, 1964. p. 373)
EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE MODERN WEST
Modern western
civilization emerged in consequence of sudden unprecedented change that
overtook Europe. A civilization which was previously based on faith (in
Christianity), and which had given collective and dramatic expression of that
faith in the Crusades, experienced a radical change which transformed it into a
civilization based on materialism. The new epistemology, which paved the way
for the collective acceptance of materialism, was one that specifically denied
the possibility of knowledge being acquired through religious experience, or
through revelations from the unseen. Observation and experimentation were the
only valid means through which knowledge could be acquired; hence that which
could not be observed could not be known. The new epistemology naturally paved
the way for a dramatic conclusion, to wit, a world which could not be observed
and known, did not exist. Hence there is no reality beyond material reality.
IQBAL’S EPISTEMOLOGICAL RESPONSE
Iqbal realized
that the acceptance of this western epistemology would result in the complete
destruction of religion in the world of Islam. Knowledge would be secularized,
and the secularized mind would be cut off from the unseen world — the world of
the sacred. The heart would then lose that sacred light without which its sight
is, at best, dim. Even the best scholars in the world of Islam would then be in
danger of being deceived by western Pied Pipers, and all of mankind would dance
to their tunes. Islam would be so secularized that a Protestant version of
Islam would emerge. An age, which had already experienced the total dominance
of western civilization over all of mankind, posed a great danger of precisely
such an epistemological penetration of the Muslim mind.
Iqbal’s
response was to devote two of the seven lectures that were subsequently
compiled in a book as “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”, to a
vigorous defense of the Sufi epistemology, and to place these two lectures at
the very beginning of the series of lectures. They occupy the same prominent
position as the first two chapters of the book.
(http://www.allamaiqbal.com/works/prose /english/reconstruction)
In “Knowledge
and Religious Experience” and “The Philosophical Test of the Revelations of
Religious Experience”, Iqbal presented the most well-reasoned and persuasive
challenge to the new western epistemology ever penned by a Muslim. These first
two chapters of the Reconstruction were produced and prominently placed for
precisely this purpose, i.e., to stimulate Islamic scholarship to probe with
Allah’s light, and to penetrate beyond the seductive appearances presented by
the modern age, in order to reach its poisonous reality.
More than sixty
years have passed since that challenge (in the first two chapters of
Reconstruction), and neither has western scholarship condescended to respond to
it nor has Islamic scholarship cared to follow in the epistemological trail
which he blazed. Indeed, this failure on the part of Islamic scholarship is
partly responsible for the terrible plight in which the world of Islam now
finds itself. The western world, with its secularized system of education, its
politics of power-lust, greed and polarization of society, and its economics of
exploitation, has enjoyed almost total success in deceiving the world of Islam
and in thus leading it down the road of impotence, anarchy, intellectual
confusion, and the ruination of faith.
IQBAL’S AMBIVALENCE
From his
adolescent days as a college student in Lahore to his university education in
Europe, Iqbal’s exposure to western thought was continuously intimate. He also
lived in an age that was forced to observe the literal explosion of western
scholarship on the stage of the world. History had never witnessed anything
comparable to that scholarship which dramatically extended the frontiers of
knowledge in nearly every conceivable branch of knowledge. The scientific
revolution of the West was something unique in the world of knowledge. More
often than not Iqbal’s respect for western scholarship grew into outright
admiration. Our view is that this admiration for western scholarship provoked a
corollary. It revealed itself in the startling accusation that “…during the
last five hundred years religious thought in Islam has been practically
stationary” (Iqbal, Reconstruction, op. cit., p.6).
And the
consequence of that profound admiration was found in the Reconstruction, which
is littered with references to, and quotations from, his peers in the world of
western scholarship. There was no such peer within his own community, and so
there is not a single reference in the Reconstruction to a contemporary Muslim
scholar in the huge and intellectually influential Indian Muslim community.
This
ambivalence, this love-hate relationship which found expression in the first
two chapters of the Reconstruction, as in the endless references to Western
scholars, was also revealed in Iqbal’s choice of language for addressing
Muslims on as important a subject as the reconstruction of their religious
thought. He chose to address the Western-educated Muslim intelligentsia in
English. It must have been an absolutely amazing spectacle to behold Iqbal, seventy
years ago, addressing his largely uncomprehending Muslim audience (one needs to
have some knowledge of philosophy in order to comprehend these lectures) in
chaste English and in a manner which conformed to Western linguistic etiquette
and sensibilities. It must have been an equally amazing sight to behold the
same Iqbal using the native Urdu and Persian languages to convey through poetry
a message whose form and substance was quite alien to the Western mind.
We believe that
Iqbal was not, himself, immune from the negative influence of the very Western
epistemology of which he warned so strongly. His poetry, which came directly
from the heart, witnessed the unsurpassed use of the Sufi epistemology and was
uncluttered by any Western logical or epistemological restraints. The same
cannot always be said of his thought when expressed in English. Our purpose in
this paper is to direct attention to a subject which, more than any other,
illustrates Iqbal’s epistemological ambivalence. That subject is “the end of
history.”
to be continued . . . .
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