“ Iqbal, a man of Islamic renaissance: his ideological transactions with Rumi and Syed Jamal al-Din Afghani

CPS, CUI held seminar titled “ Iqbal, a man of Islamic renaissance: his ideological transactions with Rumi and Syed Jamal al-Din Afghani” on December 1^st, 2022. Head CPS Dr. Ghulam Shabbir said our view of Iqbal, is more often partial and parochial. Understanding Iqbal in the full context of entirety of Islamic thought is essential to get his holistic “intellectual portrait.” History of Islam like general history, or human mind itself, is not a series of unconnected jumps, but a continuous organic process. First phase of Islamic history might be termed “A Period of Inception” starting from the exit of the Prophet from the cave of Hira to his death that constitutes the search of the Truth, announcement of the Truth and implementation of the truth. From Abu Bakr to Ali is “A Period of Collection and Application. From Umayyad to Seljuk is “A Period of Challenges and Responses” wherein Islam being a master of its own destiny showed the world its genius of how and to what extent assimilate, reject and amend the civilizational and cultural currents and cross currents coming its way. All Islamic disciplines, schools of philosophy and law developed in this period. In fourth phase al-Ghazali emerges on the scene who integrated theology, law and Sufism as a complex organic whole i.e. Period of standardization. So gigantic and broad-gauged was his scholarship that after him a long period of “Stagnation and Blind Imitation” ensues and looms larger on the plane of Islamic thought till Western colonization of Muslim Asia and Africa dynamites the castles of medieval Islam invoking three reactions of traditionalism, revivalism and modernism. Afghani was the first genuine Muslim modernist who emphasized the elevation of intellectual and moral standards of the Muslim world to withstand Western imperialism. Iqbal is an heir to Afghani’s legacy which found fuller expression in Zia Gokalp, father of modern Turkey, Ali Shriati , Father of modern Iran, last but not least  in Dr. Fazlur Rahman who bestowed new heights on Islamic modernism.

Dr. Feroze Shah established Iqbal’s ideological links with Rumi on the realm of eternal moral epistemology which raises man from his biological existence to moral one, a sine qua non and raison detre of his being. Professor Jalil Aali emphasized the dynamic impulse of Islam as a continuous social movement which sought genius adjustability with the cultures, civilizations and societies it conquered. Professor Aali forcefully established that Pakistan the dream of Iqbal was the second significant achievement of Islam during the fourteen centuries career of Islam.