Presented By: Syeda Muzna Ali

• Full Name: Sir Muhammad Iqbal

• Date Of Birth: November 9, 1877
• Place of Birth: Sialkot, Punjab, India (now in Pakistan)
• Famous For: His poetry and philosophy and his influential efforts to
steer his fellow Muslims in colonial India towards the establishment of
a separate Muslim state- eventually Pakistan.
• Education: Early Education- Government College Lahore, Degree
of Philosophy from University of Cambridge (1905-1908), Degree
of Barrister from London, Doctorate from University of Munich.
• Theme of Poetry: Iqbal wrote about Self-actualization (Khudi),
Nationalism, Islam, Golden Islamic History and Self control.
• Laurels: George V decorated him with knighthood in 1922 and he was
called Sir Mohammad Iqbal thereafter.
• Death: April 21, 1938.
• Place Of Burial: Tomb of Allama Iqbal, Hazuri Bagh- Lahore,
Pakistan.
He has left behind his collections of poems
 Asraar-e Khudi (1915),-Persian
 Rumooz-e Bekhudi (1918), Persian
 Payam-e-Mashriq (1918), Persian
 Zaboor-e-Ajam (1927), Persian
 Baang-e Daraa (1924),
 Javed Naama (1932), Persian
 Baal-e Jibreel (1935),
 Zarb-e Kaleem(1936), and
 Armaghaan-e Hijaz (1938), Apart from his lectures collected in English as The Reconstruction
of Religious Thought in Islam, and other works on the Eastern worldview.
The Secrets of the Self (first published in 1915) known widely as Asrar-
I-khudi, poem is based on two principles:
(a) that the personality is the central fact of the universe
(b) that personality “I am” is the central fact in the constitution of
man.
Khudi- According to Iqbal is Self-actualization, Self-hood. selfhood as in both
individuation and wholeness Selfhood of a man is honed by going through and
growing from various struggles, hardships and determination.
The first principle is described in the Old Testament “as the great I am”.
The second principle of the smaller or dependent I-am is described in
Quran as weak or ignorant yet it is also described as the bearer of the
Divine trust---, it has the quality of growth as well as corruption, it has
the power to expand by absorbing the elements of the universe of which
it appears to be an insignificant part, it has also the power of absorbing
the attributes of God (Wahid Thoughts and Reflection of Iqbal243).
• Iqbal’s whole conception of the growth of the selfhood consists of three levels:
i- the self and I am ness (intrapersonal)
ii- the self and the other (interpersonal)
iii- the self and God (transpersonal)
• These levels have been wonderfully described by Iqbal in Javed Nama in an excerpt
that he himself placed at the end of his philosophic masterpiece The Reconstruction
of Religious Thought in Islam.
The chief factors that strengthen the self are:
1. Desire: Great stress is placed on desire throughout Iqbal's writing. It is the force from which
the self draws its power. A self that is lacking in desire is dead. Iqbal says:
Life means a passionate burning, an urge to make,
To cast in the dead clay of the seed a heart.
According to Iqbal life can be viewed as running and lively when it is filled with a burning desire to
achieve something. Desire is a creative power even when it remains unfulfilled. The fulfillment of
desire is extreme happiness and also the end of happiness simultaneously.
A hundred joys are to be found in our unrewarding quest.
2. Love: Love is actually the positive connotation of desire. For strengthening the self, great
emphasis is put on love. love according to Iqbal has a very deep and wide meaning. It means the
desire to assimilate, to absorb. Its highest form is the creation of values and ideals and the endeavor
to realize them.
 Love is Gabriel’s breath, Love is Mohamed’s strong heart,
Love is the envoy of God, Love is the utterance of God.
Even our mortal clay, touched by Love’s ecstasy, glows;
Love is a new-pressed wine, Love is the goblet of kings,
Love is the priest of the shrine, Love is the commander of hosts,
Love is the son of the road counting a thousand homes.
Love’s is the plectrum that draws music from life’s taut strings
Love's is the warmth of life, Love's is the radiance of life.'
3. Faqr: the concept of Faqr implies detachment from material possessions. It is a state of
mind and heart that does not reject the world by considering it inferior or something that
gives evil but only drawing good from it. Asceticism is also Faqr. Sometimes Iqbal looks
upon Faqr as the shield of the faithful:
In authority and in subjection for the pure persons of God if there is any protective shield
it is Faqr.
The “Faqir” undergoes all the trials and tribulations arising from a daily encounter with the
temptations his life is not calm like the green of the meadows but is always stormy like the
rough waves in mid ocean.
“Faqr” is also attributed to ‘Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in law, whose name has become, in
connection with the conquest of the fortress of Khyber, a synonym of the victory of true poverty
over worldly strength. A “Faqir” unlike a worldly king, needs no arms or armies for his
protection. God’s power is his sword and his shield.
My way lies not in wealth but in “Faqiri”, your Selfhood do not sell - in poverty make a
name.
4. Sayyadi: The literal meaning of Sayyadi is hunting and a Sayyad is a hunter. According to
Iqbal a sayyad is a kind of heroic idealism based on pride and honor. It is most often symbolized
by the lion and the Falcon- Shaheen- the emblems of royalty. Iqbal has said a number of times in
his poetry that a “Shahin” builds no nest. A Shaheen builds no nest because for it there is no rest.
It lives not in comfort and security but in the wildness of the skies or in the exposed windblown
mountain tops. That's why Shaheen is called the king of birds because it does not seek any ease
or rest or safety. To the younger generation Iqbal says:
When the spirit of the eagle is born in young men
it sees its goal in the openness of the skies
your home is not on the Dome of the palace
you are a shahin live on the mountain cliffs.
The sayyad lives hazardously for he believes as did Nietzsche that the secret of a joyful life is to
live dangerously.
5. Suffering: Iqbal relates suffering with the concept of Faqr and is associated with all the
factors strengthening the self but, it needs special emphasis as all the results of individuality of
separate self would involve pain or suffering. Iqbal observed that no religious system can ignore
moral value of suffering. Wisdom comes through suffering. According to Iqbal suffering is a gift
from the God in order to make men see the whole of life.
6. Forebearance: According to Iqbal, the principle through which an ego is maintained is
respect for the ego in myself as well as in others. Iqbal was a great believer in forbearance and
tolerance. What does tolerance means according to Iqbal? There is the tolerance of philosopher
to whom all religions are equally true. Of the historian to whom all are equally false and of the
politician to whom all are equally useful. There is tolerance of the man who tolerates others
modes of thought and behavior because he has himself grown absolutely indifferent to all modes
of thoughts and behavior. Associated to forbearance and tolerance there is the idea of
forgiveness.
7. Courtesy: On one side Iqbal propounds that one must always be hard with oneself however
Iqbal does not forget you say that a leader must be kind and courteous in speech and manner. The
full grown ego must possess beauty of disposition I.e Husn e Ikhlaq. This makes iqbal's perfect
man as worthy of affection as he is of obedience his heart winning ways adds beauty in his
personality. He is no Superman asserting his authority mercilessly, He is soft in speech and nice
with a chivalrous heart.
8. Obstructions: Obstructions are necessary for further development of Khudi.
Obstructions are essential as each hurdle that a person passes over in his long journey
brings him closer to his self and to God. These obstacles strengthens his resolve by
putting his mettle to the test. One cannot struggle if there is nothing to struggle against.
A human being during the long and arduous course of his evolution must face and
overcome many painful obstacles but Iqbal reminds him that "All that is in the universe
is God's and the seemingly destructive force of nature become sources of life if properly
understood by man who is endowed with the power to understand and to control them".
▪ Iqbal also expounded the issue on the ego's immortality. According to the Islamic belief the human
body of an individual disintegrates upon their death of an individual but his soul goes on to live on
a new dimension of life.
▪ Iqbal in his philosophy stated that the ego can reach a state of immortality. By saying that, Iqbal
also stressed that this state of immortality is not the Ego's right but it is a state that the ego has to
earn.
▪ Since the state of immortality of the ego is not a God given right to it and man is just a candidate
for reaching it, each individual has to work hard to attain it.
▪ The ego in its progress growth and development will be able to reach the status of immortality
when it undergoes actions that were termed by Iqbal as eco sustaining deeds.
▪ Among the ego sustaining deeds there are certain elements which also can be seen that can
strengthen the ego will be love, Faqr, courage, tolerance Kasb e halal performing creative and
original works.
▪ By performing the ego sustaining deeds one has to abstain from all the ego
dissolving acts.
▪ the Ego dissolving acts are:
1. acts of fear,
2. dependency,
3. slavery and
4. pride of ancestry.
▪ An Ego dissolving acts such as slavery is actually slavery of mind, of ideology,
personality or worldly things.
▪ Fear as an Ego dissolving act is in the nature of Human beings. Submission to
anything that is powerful and unreachable leads to fear. Human minds
unconsciously start worshipping things that fascinate them and develop a fear
for them such as material wealth, wordly things, influential personalities etc.
This fear leads to the suppression of Khudi.
▪ Dependency on other humans for your matters instead of leaving it to God, or trying to do it
yourself dissolve ones Khudi.
▪ A servant relying on his masters to feed him, cloth him and provide him shelter, the masses
relying on their Governments to protect them and establish law and order while blindly trusting
them, a person- in general- depended on another person, emotionally, monetarily or for
whatever reasons, has a damaged ego.
▪ Slavery can be categorized as either
1. Slaves from the mind: When a person becomes to absorbed and influnced by another person,
group, ideology, culture etc that they unconsciously start worshipping them or adopting
them. This act not only dissolves their Khudi but also leads to a blurred and damaged sense
of actualization.
2. Physically: They physically serve others either due to their low caste, social status or
powerlessness. They fear raising voice against the bad because they think they are powerless
and their voices won't matter.
▪ Another Ego dissolving act that supersedes all is the Pride of Ancestry.
▪ Pride itself is the worst characteristic of human personality, and it it becomes pride of ancestry
it blackens the soul.
▪ Taking pride in our history, heroes, forefathers is good but becoming vain and ignorant
because of it damages the Khudi. The person who does that loses his personal mirror of Self-
hood and self-actualization. He never finds error in his work and is always ignorant.
• Iqbal’s “Perfect Man” at the highest level of self-realization attains a spiritual power. The
absorption of the Divine attributes makes the Perfect Man closer to God. Dr. Anne Marrie
Schimmel rightly observes:
“The faithful who has realized in himself the Divine call, and who has consolidated ego
(self) so much that he is able to have a person to person encounter with his creator is, for
Iqbal, the Perfect Man, the Free Man” (Schimmel in Qaiser A Criticism of Western
Psychology and Psychotherapy and Iqbal’s Approach 117).
• Iqbal explains in Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam in detail:
"The mystic state brings us into contact with the total passage of Reality in which all the
diverse stimuli merge into one another and form a single unanalysable unity in which the
ordinary distinction of subject and object does not exist-the mystic state is a moment of
intimate association with a unique other self".
• In The Secrets of the Self, Iqbal formulates the hierarchic stages in which it can be
achieved. “In the poem he has defined what an individual life is, what is its motive,
in what way it should be developed, what is its goal, and how that goal is to be reached”
.
At the start of the poem, Iqbal calls for realization of the selfhood:
This bell calls other travelers to take the road,
No one hath told the secret which I will tell or threaded a pearl of thought like mine
come, if thou would’st know the secret of everlasting life!
Come, if thou would’st win both earth and heaven!
Heaven taught me this lore,
I cannot hide if from comrades.
• An aspect of ego can be summed up in the word Power which essentially belongs to the
realm of Politics. Power and politics are considered to be synonymous.
• Iqbal firmly believes that power in the life of man is as important as vision. Vision without
power is socially useless because vision left to itself cannot create anything.
• In his book he points out that there is an inherent urge for power which springs from the
basic instinct in man to dominate both truth and untruth .
• The possession of power is enough to get acceptance from others.
• The existence of power as important element of Khudi establishes the fact that the concept of
Khudi is essentially political in nature.
.Iqbal says: ‘Apney man men doob kar paajaa suragh-i zindagi.’ (Plunge into the inner depth
of yourself and get the secret of life).
God has given proportion and order to the human soul, He is constantly revealing right and
wrong to it. Surely he succeeds who purifies it, and he fails who corrupts it. For such an
individual the visible world is not the only place; but he can see far ahead to a new world, a
wonderful world. The movement of his self does not end anywhere, his journey goes on and
he becomes closer to Reality. Even death does not stop its movement. He is then an existent
individual and death is no more than a transit moment for him. He is not afraid of death but
welcomes it, as, when the death approaches him, he sees the glamour of the other world very
clearly through the mirror of his transparent heart.
Self actualization or Khudi is actually seeing oneself in the mirror of truth. Iqbal's idea of
Khudi was purely driven from the sense that Muslims are brave, independent, exalted
creatures on earth and they must not succumb before any worldly power. The factors that
degrade the self, such as corruption, lust, dependency, and recklessness must be discarded by
them.
Chughatai, M. I. (2003). In: Iqbal: new dimensions. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications.
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Iqbal, A. M. (1986). the reconstruction of religious thought in Islam. Lahore: Institute of
Islamic Culture.
Iqbal, M. (1978). the poet’s vision and magic of words; an approach to Iqbal. Islamic Book
Series.
Nicholson, R. A. (1920). trans. the secrets of the self. Lahore: Sheikh Muhammad Ashraf.