Allama Muhammad Iqbal

(Born on 9th November 1877 and Died on 21st April 1938.)

Biography

Iqbal was born in Sialkot, a province of Punjab in British India (now Pakistan). The ancestors of Iqbal were the Kashmiri Pandits, the Brahmins of Kashmir who converted to Islam. In the 19th century, when Sikh took power in Kashmir, his grandfather's family moved to the Punjab. Iqbal was always talking and remembering his genealogy of Kashmiri Pandit Brahmin in his writings.

Iqbal's father, Shaikh Noor Mohammad, was a seamstress, was illiterate but was a believer. Iqbal’s mother Imam Bibi was a respectable and humble woman who helped the poor and solved the problems of the neighbors. She died on November 9, 1914 in Sialkot. Iqbal loved his mother, and at his death he expressed his feelings of illness in a poetic way.

"Who could have waited for me in my hometown?

Who can show instability if my letter fails to arrive?

I will visit your grave with this complaint:

Who will think of me now in the middle of the night?

Your whole love has served me all your life—

When I am ready to serve you, go. "

When Iqbal was four years old, he was sent to a mosque to study the Quran. Later, Syed Mir Hassan, head of Madrassa in Sialkot, became his teacher. Iqbal received a diploma from the Faculty of Arts from Scotch Mission College in 1895, when his teacher Hassan was a professor of Arabic. That same year Iqbal married Karim Bibi, the daughter of Gujrati doctor Khan Bahadur Ata Muhammad Khan, in his first arranged marriage. They had a daughter Miraj Begum and a son Aftab Iqbal. Later Iqbal's second marriage consisted of Sardar Begum the mother of Javid Iqbal and the third marriage to Mukhtar Begum in December 1914.

During her first marriage at the same time, Iqbal also began studying philosophy, English and Arabic literature at Lahore State College. She graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Muhammad Iqbal education

Higher Education in Europe

Iqbal was close to Sir Thomas Arnold, a philosophy teacher at the college. Iqbal was influenced by Arnold's teachings and went to Europe with his higher education. Iqbal trained for a Trinity College scholarship in Cambrige in 1907, and was called to the bar as a lawyer for Lincoln's Inn in 1908.

While studying in Europe, Iqbal began writing poetry in Persian. He put it first because he believed that he had found an easy way to express his thoughts. He would write continuously in Persian throughout his life.

Iqbal went to Heidelberg Germany in 1907. His German teacher, Emma Wegenast, taught him about Goethe, Heine and Nietzsche's "Faust". Iqbal had feelings for him, but no relationship developed.

Continuing with her PhD degree, she was admitted to the Faculty of Philosophy of Ludwig Maximilian University in 1907 in Munich. Working under the leadership of Friedrich Hommel, Iqbal published his medical dissertation in 1908 entitled: The Development of Metaphysics in Persia.

Education Work

Iqbal took an assistant professor at Government College, Lahore, on his return to India, but for financial reasons he quit within a year to work as a lawmaker. While maintaining his legal practice, Iqbal began to focus on spiritual and religious studies, and published poetry and literary works. He worked on Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam, a conference of Islamic scholars, writers and poets and politicians. In 1919, he became the general secretary of the organization. Iqbal's ideas in his work focus mainly on spiritual guidance and the development of human society, focusing on the experience of his travels and living in Western Europe and the Middle East. He was greatly influenced by Western philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, and Goethe.

Mawlana Rumi's poetry and philosophy had a profound effect on Iqbal's mind. Steeped in religion from an early age, Iqbal began to focus more heavily on Islamic studies, culture and history of Islamic civilization and its political future, while accepting Rumi as "his guide." Iqbal would play Rumi in the lead role in many of his poems. Iqbal’s work focuses on reminding his readers of the splendor of the past of Islamic civilization, and conveys a message of pure, spiritual focus to Muslims as a source of social and political freedom and greatness. Iqbal criticized the political divisions within and between the Muslim nations, and he often referred to him and spoke of the international Muslim community, or Ummah.

Allama Iqbal's poems have also been translated into several European languages where his works were popular in the early half of the 20th century. Iqbal’s Asrar-i-Khudi and Javed Nama were translated into English by R A Nicholson and A J Arberry respectively.

Political Life

While dividing his time between law and poetry, Iqbal was always active in the Muslim League. He did not support the involvement of the Indians in World War I, as well as the Khilafat movement and had close contact with Muslim political leaders such as Maulana Mohammad Ali and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He was a staunch opponent of the Indian National Congress, which he considered to be Hindu-dominated and disillusioned with the Society when in the mid-1920s, it became more and more divisive between the British-backed party led by Sir Muhammad Shafi and the Jinnah-led centrist.

In November 1926, with the encouragement of friends and supporters, Iqbal ran for office in the Phalab Assembly Legislative Assembly from the Islamic region of Lahore, and defeated his rival by 3,177 votes. [22] Aga Khan and other Muslim leaders to resolve factional conflicts and achieve unity in the Muslim League.

Allama Muhamamd Iqbal Books

• Asrar-e-Khudi

• Zabur-i-Ajam

• Zarb-i-Mashriq

• Ilm ul Iqtisad in 1903

• Rumuz-i-Bekhudi in 1917

• Payam-i-Mashriq in 1923

• Javid Nama in 1832

• Pas Cheh Bayed Kard ai Aqwam-e-Sharq in 1936

• Armughan-e-Hijaz in 1938 • Bang-i-Dara in 1924

• Bal-i-Jibril in 1935

• Zarb-i Kalim in 1936