Adalberto Erazo Jr.
Dr. M. A. K. Khalil
Friday 15 November 2013 at 2:13 AM
Allama
Muhammad Iqbal was a man of great wisdom and foresight. This man was
given the external and internal knowledge to him by Allah and he used it
to predict the world we see today. It is unfortunate that this world
refuses to see the wisdom of Muslims from the subcontinent of Hindustan
who recognized early on the danger of organized jewish power and it's
take over of the west. This article and Iqbal's thoughts on this subject
are something that would be taboo for those who wish to ignore this
aspect but Iqbal was more than just a poet- he was a political analyst.
Unlike the west and the rest of the world for that matter which has
followed the idea of separating the religious from the political sphere
(i.e.called separation of Church and State in the west or Laicite in
French),
Islam has no such thing. The religion of Islam is a complete system not
only dealing with the spiritual world around us but it is also
economic, social, military, judicial and most importantly of all, it is
political in nature. When you separate yourself from God you end up
heading down the road of decadence as the west has done where
consumerism and materialism is rampant which is done at the point of the
secularist gun with the first target being the church. Once this is
done the women become the next target who are attacked through things
such as feminism where she is encouraged to become "liberated" by
displaying her body(women will be dressed and yet be naked) and
encouraged to become a whore and abort babies on demand which in turn
destroys the family unit(Mom, Dad and children) which is the basic
foundation of any country and civilization. The church is now in the
gutter to the point that now the jews openly select
which pope they want as we see today with Pope Francis Bergoglio.
Friday 15 November 2013 at 8:32 PM
Thank
you for the video by Sheikh Imran Hosein. Iqbal made a huge mistake as
had been pointed out in the video which had tremendous repercussions in
the world of Islam today. I hope God can forgive him for his mistake.
Iqbal and Pakistan's Moment of Truth - Full Essay
Iqbāl and Pakistan's Moment of Truth - FULL ESSAY
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| Articles - Islam and Politics |
Thursday, 12 Safar 1431
Introductory co
 mment
Time is running out for the republican State of Pakistan. Only those who see with one eye will fail to recognize the evil reality
that clients of Israel now control strategic decision-making both in
Pakistan’s government as well as in the Armed Forces. The writing
appears to be on the wall for Pakistan – unless Pakistani Muslims can
rid themselves of those clients of Israel. The best way to do so appears
to be through massive peaceful public demonstrations similar to those
which brought down the USSR with narry a nuclear risk, rather
than civil war which will automatically invite external military
intervention that will eventually dismember Pakistan.
Scholars of Islam have a duty to prepare
Muslims for destructive attacks that are soon to be launched which will
target not only Pakistan but perhaps, Turkey and Iran as well. The
situation is not entirely hopeless since at least the Iranian Armed
Forces do not appear to be under the control of Israel’s clients. In
fact Iran seems to have already succeeded in building a strategic
alliance with Russia. It is interesting to note that an authentic Hadīth has prophesied an end-time Muslim alliance with Rūm (i.e., Byzantine Christianity that was based in Constantinople), and Russia is part of Rūm.
The Saudi and Pakistani governments and Armed Forces on the other hand,
are allied with the Anglo-American-Israeli alliance which does not form
part of Rūm.
Those who control power in Britain, USA,
and Israel, and who now have a strategic ally in India, are already
waging unjust war on Islam and Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen,
Somalia and elsewhere, but most of all in the Holy Land (otherwise known
as Palestine). Their ruthlessness is such that they would wage war even
upon their own people if such were deemed to be necessary for achieving
their messianic goal. The 9/11 terrorist attack on America
which killed thousands of innocent people was an ominous example of what
they are capable of doing. The recent US military occupation of Haiti
in consequence of a massive earthquake for which the US Armed Forces
seem to have been mysteriously prepared (right down to drills conducted
on the very eve of the earthquake), displays for the umpteenth time the
extent to which they would commit monstrously evil deeds in
dogmatic pursuit of goals such as the overthrow of Venezuela’s
courageous government. Earthquakes have now become their mysterious new
weapon of war. Will Caracas and Islamabad soon be targeted with massive
earthquakes? Or will a nuclear device be exploded in USA or a very
prominent American assassinated, and Pakistani or Iranian Muslims be
held responsible, so that causus bellum can be created?
Their messianic goal is to deliver to Israel the rule over the whole world so that a false Messiah can rule
the world from Jerusalem with a fraudulent claim to be the true
Messiah. That goal cannot be achieved so long as Pakistan possesses
nuclear military power. Hence the most important attack that must now be
anticipated is on Pakistan’s nuclear installations.
When Muslims had the freedom to choose
their own rulers, the violation of the person of a single Muslim woman
would have been sufficient to rouse the whole world of Islam to wage war
in order to not only punish those guilty of such a despicable crime,
but also to uphold the honor of women. But at a time when Pakistan’s
political and military rulers are anointed by the enemies in London,
Washington and Jerusalem, a Pakistani Dr Aafia Siddiqui could be
subjected to barbaric utterly shameless violation of her body and
freedom for years (in a manner unheard of in the entire history of the Ummah),
and the clients of Israel who control power in Pakistan do absolutely
nothing in response – other than to seek, shamelessly so, to cover-up
the extent of the crime. Indeed Pakistan’s Armed Forces under its present pro-American/Israeli command
will certainly brutally suppress any popular peaceful Aafia Siddiqui
protests in Pakistan that threaten Israel’s Pakistani clients.
There are one-eyed Muslims who dare to
suggest that Pakistan’s Armed Forces can somehow conquer India and the
Holy Land! Then there are others, equally one-eyed, who would dare to
wage bloody civil war in order to extricate Pakistan’s government and
Armed Forces from the control of Israel’s clients. In the process of
doing so they walk into a trap set for them by those who hunger for causus bellum with which to attack and dismember Pakistan.
In order to prepare Muslims for the
coming days of unprecedented and unimaginable trials and tribulations,
Islamic scholarship must acquire a clear and firm grasp of the reality of
the modern age and of the ‘end of history’. It is lamentable that no
less a scholar than the intellectual and spiritual father of Pakistan,
Dr Muhammad Iqbal, appears to have been negatively influenced in his
views on the subject by secular European scholarship and, as a
consequence, failed to embrace authentic Ahadīth which combine
with the Qur’ān to clearly establish an Islamic conception of the ‘end
of history’. Iqbal’s failure to understand this subject has had enormous
negative consequences for legions of Iqbalian Pakistani intelligentsia
as well as for many others in the larger Muslim world. In some respects
it is now impossible to repair the damage done and we may just have to
accept to move on without them in our struggle to restore the authentic
Islamic public order.
There are many obstacles which will have
to be surmounted if contemporary Islamic scholarship is to explain the
grand evil design with which history now appears to be ending.
Not least of these are obstacles in respect of methodology for
recognizing and understanding the Quranic guidance (i.e., Usūl al-Tafsīr) that explains the reality of the modern age, as well as for assessing the authenticity of Ahadīth and of visions in relation to the end times. Maulānā
Dr Muhammad Fadlur Rahman Ansari’s greatest intellectual achievement
appears to be his exposition of the methodology for a ‘probe-level’
study of the Qur’ān (see chapter two on ‘methodology’ in An Islamic View of Gog and Magog in the Modern World).
I have made a very humble effort (while using that methodology) to address that subject in books such as Jerusalem in the Qur’ān, the first three books in my Surah al-Kahf quartet (the fourth is now being written) and my booklet entitled The Gold Dinar and Silver Dirham – Islam and the Future of Money, as well as in lectures such as ‘Islam and the End of History’.
Critics should note that events are already unfolding in the world
confirming my interpretation and explanation of the Qur’ān and Ahadīth
as they establish Islam’s conception of the end of history. Our
analysis of Pakistan’s moment of truth promises to further confirm that
explanation.
What methodology did Ibn Khaldūn and Iqbāl use with which to reject the Ahadīth concerning the advent of Imām a-Mahdi? The authenticity of these Ahadīth
has not only been universally accepted all through our history, but
they are also crucially important for recognizing (in Islam’s conception
of the end of history) the fate which awaits western political
secularism and its modern model of a state that spawned the States of
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, etc. The Ahadīth concerning the advent of Imām al-Mahdi are inseparably linked to the release of Gog and Magog into the world, the advent of Dajjāl the false Messiah, the return of Jesus the son of Mary (‘alaihi al-Salām), and the consequent restoration of both the Islamic Caliphate and Dār al-Islām. Iqbal’s rejection of these Ahadīth made him incapable of reading and understanding the reality of the world that had emerged before his very eyes.
Was the Prophet’s prophecy that “you will conquer Constantinople”
fulfilled in 1453, or has he also prophesied an end-time conquest of
that city that will result in its liberation from the present NATO
(hence Anglo-American-Israeli) military control? It seems fairly clear
that a Russian-Islamic alliance will inevitably have to challenge NATO
control over Constantinople (now renamed Istanbul in order to divert
attention from this prophecy) if the Russian navy is to gain access to
the Mediterranean Sea. But Russia may have other objectives as well in
mind, such as the restoration of Constantinople as the seat of Byzantine
Christianity.
What is the authenticity of Ghazwah-e-Hind Ahadīth prophesying an end-time Muslim conquest of India? In my previous essay on Obama’s Afghan Surge I warned that the long-planned attack on Pakistan will soon occur. In A Muslim Response to the 9/11 Attack on America
written in 2001 I suggested that if the enemies do not succeed in
provoking civil war in Pakistan they will search for some other causus bellum. I have not made a study that would allow me to determine the authenticity of these Ghazwah-e-Hind Ahadīth, but it is already clear to me that there is a sinister plan at work, exploiting these Ahadīth, to create causus bellum; and
that will be a very interesting subject of legal inquiry in The Hague
or the UN Security Council if and when an attack to truncate Pakistan is
launched and India seeks post facto justification for launching the attack.
Dreamy Pakistani Muslims who are now sleep-walking to their round-the-corner prophesied conquest of Hind must be awakened to reality. In Jerusalem in the Qur’an I have interpreted the Hadīth of Tamīm al-Dāri in such wise that I expect Israel to soon replace USA as the ruling State in the world, and that Israel will then rule the world overtly for 'a day like a week'
(Israel is already ruling the world by virtue of the Zionist control of
the US Government and Armed Forces). When that rule for a day like a week is accomplished, Dajjāl
will then appear in person to proclaim himself the Messiah. His mission
of impersonation of the true Messiah would then be completed. It is at
that time (and not a moment before) that Imam al-Mahdi will emerge, Nabi 'Isa ('alaihi al-Salaam)
will return, and a Muslim army coming out of Khorasan will liberate the
Holy Land. That army has already begun its struggle and, Alhamdu lillah,
has survived despite nine years of murderous attacks from an
Anglo-American-Israeli alliance that has been (and still is)
disgracefully and treasonously supported by the Pakistani Armed Forces.
My only other response to the present preoccupation with the Hadīth
prophesying an alleged round-the-corner Muslim conquest of Hind is to
suggest that those who see with two eyes and who also understand Islam’s
conception of the end of history would recognize a skillfully contrived
ISI-blessed round-the-corner diversion when they see one.
Finally, how do we respond to the news which has been widely spread that someone saw Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) in a dream warning that Pakistan’s end was near – but that the recitation of Sūrah al-Shams
of the Qur’ān can in some mysterious way, save Pakistan? To which
Pakistan did the dream direct attention? Was it the ‘American’ republic
of Pakistan whose political and military leaders have been shamelessly
dancing for the longest while (and are still dancing to this day) to
every fraudulent tune that came out of Washington? Was it the Pakistan
which has consistently deceived the devoted Pakistani Muslim masses with
its claim to be an Islamic Republic, while sinfully banning at
Washington’s behest non-Pakistani Muslim students from studying Islam in
Pakistan? (This writer, who is non-Pakistani, got his Islamic
education at the Aleemiyah Institute of Islamic Studies in Karachi,
Pakistan.) Or was it the other Pakistan which, since 1947, has remained
but a distant dream in the hearts of the sincere followers of Prophet
Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) and will continue to remain a dream until Islamic scholarship succeeds in grasping the reality of the modern age and in responding to its challenges appropriately.
This essay asks: can the recitation of Surah al-Shams of the blessed Qur’ān, or the ISI-blessed passionate beating of Iqbalian
drums, save that ‘American’ Republic of Pakistan from a fate that was
long-scripted for it in London, Washington, Jerusalem and New Delhi?
But most importantly of all, this essay asks whether the modern
republican State as envisaged by Iqbal can ever be a substitute for the
Islamic Caliphate (Khilāfah)?
I wrote the first text of this essay 12
years ago in 1998 when I left New York to reside for a few months in
Lahore, Pakistan. Since then the essay was published several times with a
previous title. I have now included in it an appendix to Jerusalem in the Qur’an as well as a brief essay on Islam and Constitutional Democracy.
I am grateful to Dr Burhan Ahmad Faruqi
who taught me the Islamic philosophy of history at the Aleemiyah
Institute of Islamic Studies in 1965-66. May Allah have mercy on his
soul. Amīn! I am also grateful to Muhammad Alamgir in Sydney,
my classmate in that fascinating class in the philosophy of history, who
kindly assisted me in editing the present text of the essay.
True scholarship must subject all knowledge - including Iqbāl’s thought - to critical evaluation
Let me begin by recognizing Dr Muhammad
Iqbāl to be one of the great scholars and poets of Islam of the modern
age. That is my opinion after having spent a lifetime (I am now 68 years
old) devoted to the pursuit of knowledge of Islam. I pray, and I urge
my gentle readers to join me in the prayer, that Allah Most Kind might
bless him, forgive him his sins and grant him the reward of the highest
heaven. Amīn.
We are not concerned in this essay with Iqbal the Poet and Sufi
since his thoughts as expressed in poetry do not appear to have
contributed in any way whatsoever to Pakistan’s present predicament. If
anything, Iqbal the poet may have helped to keep Pakistan alive up to
this day. Rather it is Iqbal’s scholarship as expressed in the English
language which has created a significant problem for those in Pakistan
and elsewhere who have been led to believe that Muslims can create their
own modern republican state which can somehow function as a valid
replacement for the Islamic Caliphate (Khilāfah) and Dār al-Islām.
True scholarship must subject all
knowledge, including Iqbāl’s thought, to critical evaluation. Even the
Qur’ān invites mankind to critically examine its credentials as divine
revelation and goes on to challenge doubters to find any inconsistency
or contradiction in the book:
﴿ أ َفَلاَ يَتَدَبَّرُونَ الْقُرْآنَ وَلَوْ كَانَ مِنْ عِندِ غَيْرِ اللّهِ لَوَجَدُواْ فِيهِ اخْتِلاَفًا كَثِيرًا ﴾
“Will they not then ponder
over (the phenomenon of) this Qur’an; for had it issued from any but
Allah (Most High) they would surely have found in it many contradictions
(internal as well as external)!”
(Qur’ān, al-Nisā, 4:82)
This writer is disturbed and dismayed to
discover a strangely intolerant Muslim mind in Pakistan in particular,
that brooks no critical Islamic assessment of either Iqbāl’s or Muhammad
Ali Jinnah’s thought. Pain in this respect is compounded by the fact
that both Iqbāl and Jinnah themselves displayed a marvelous intellectual
integrity that was completely alien to and different from those who
mindlessly ascribe infallibility to them.
In the passage quoted below Iqbāl
commended that attitude towards knowledge which made it possible for
this essay to be written: “It must, however, be remembered that there is
no such thing as finality in philosophical thinking. As knowledge
advances and fresh avenues of thought are opened, other views, and
probably sounder views than those set forth in these Lectures, are
possible. Our duty is carefully to watch the progress of human thought,
and to maintain an independent critical attitude towards it.” (Muhammad
Iqbāl, Preface to Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam).
We can do no more than to commend the above to those who would raise
holy objections to this essay – while showing little or no regard for
the validity of the arguments raised therein.
Iqbal (1877-1938) had the good fortune
to live at the tail-end of British colonial rule over Hind and he died
just nine years before Britain finally decolonized while transferring
power to the Republics of India and Pakistan. One would have expected an
outstanding Islamic scholar to so penetrate the reality that
confronted the world at that time that he would have recognized in it
Signs of the Last Day. We have not found such recognition in Iqbal’s
thought.
Dajjal the false Messiah has a mission to accomplish of ruling the world from Jerusalem, and hence from a Holy State of Israel. Only at that time when he rules the
world from Jerusalem can he declare himself to be the Messiah. In order
to accomplish that mission he not only has to establish his political
economic and military control over all of mankind but, in addition, he
has to do the following:
The emergence of modern secular western
civilization as the dominant civilization in the world, the emergence of
the island of Britain as the ruling State in the world, and
consequent British colonial rule over every strategically important part
of the non-European world, did not occur by chance. Rather they were
designed to play a crucially important role in creating one unified
global society and in thus advancing Dajjāl’s mission of ruling the world from Jerusalem. That mission has reached such an advanced stage that Dajjāl
is now poised to reach his goal. Neither did Iqbal recognize this, nor
have the latter-day Iqbalian drum-beaters recognized it. Yet a British
historian who was Iqbal’s contemporary had the intellectual courage to
recognize that “Europeans have regarded themselves as the Chosen People. . .” in consequence of which non-European humanity was considered to be gentile. Arnold Toynbee showed at least some insight into the subject of the emergence of a global society and a world government. His ‘Civilization on Trial’ was published in 1946 and in it he recognized that “. . . since
AD1500 . . . mankind has been gathered into a single world-wide
society. From the dawn of history to about that date, the earthly home
of man had been divided into many isolated mansions; since about AD1500,
the human race has been brought under one roof.” He recognized the actor who was bringing all of mankind under one roof “Western
civilization is aiming at nothing less than the incorporation of all of
mankind in a single great society and the control of everything in the
earth, air and sea . . .” He recognized globalization to have a political agenda “. . . the world is now on the eve of being unified politically by one means or another . . .” He even ventured to muse “If
the United Nations organization could grow into an effective system of
world government, that would be much the best solution of our political
crux.” Toynbee even discerned the coming trial of strength between
Russia and the West that is located in Islam’s conception of the end of
history: “In the Islamic world it had come to seem likely that the
people’s vote would be cast for westernization in so far as the question
of cultural allegiance remained a matter of free choice, but it was
clear that the issue would depend , not entirely on the people directly
concerned but partly also on a trial of strength between a Western and a
Russian world which encircled the Islamic world between them.” All these quotes are taken from Toynbee’s Civilization on Trial, Oxford University Press, 1946.
Iqbal witnessed Britain’s infamous
Balfour Declaration in 1917, and also the British conquest of Jerusalem
in the same year. He was acutely aware of significant Euro-Jewish
immigration into Palestine which followed, and which eventually provoked
the Wailing Wall riots of 1929. He participated as a member of a
high-powered Indian Muslim delegation to the Al-Aqsa Islamic
Conference held in Jerusalem in 1930. That conference was convened for
the specific purpose of identifying and articulating the
Islamic response to the fast-developing crisis in the Holy Land. A
review of the proceedings of that conference reveals no evidence of any
recognition by delegates, including Iqbal, of the reality of events that were unfolding in the Holy Land (see my book The Caliphate the Hejaz and the Saudi-Wahhabi Nation-State for a brief review of the proceedings of that conference).
Britain, the ruling State, was a
part of a greater whole, to wit, modern western civilization. This
civilization emerged full-blown before Iqbal’s very eyes, bringing in
its wake the greatest test of religious faith ever witnessed in human
history. Western colonization of non-European humanity and subsequent
decolonization, which were absolutely unique events in human history,
were also designed to put institutions in place that would pave the way
for one world government to eventually emerge; and thus would Dajjāl establish his political economic and military control over all of mankind. Iqbal did not penetrate the reality of Dajjāl’s finest achievement.
Iqbal was a keen observer who monitored
the progress of Europe’s scientific and technological revolutions that
delivered to Europe that unprecedented military power with which to
conquer the world. Indeed the Crusades reached their climax in his
lifetime with that British conquest of Jerusalem. Iqbal witnessed the
destruction of the Islamic Caliphate and the dismemberment of the
Ottoman Islamic State and its replacement by the secular made-in-Europe
Republic of Turkey. The significantly (and therefore suspiciously)
Jewish Bolshevik revolution in Russia broke the back of Christian
Czarist Russia, and an essentially godless Soviet Russia replaced it.
The world moved significantly before Iqbal’s very eyes towards a messianic end of history which Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) had described in great detail, yet Iqbal failed to read that movement of history towards its climax.
If our critical comments and conclusions
in this essay are valid, they do not diminish either Iqbal’s status as a
great scholar, or our recognition of the resplendent inner light that
Allah Most High bestowed on him. He still remains my teacher’s teacher –
and hence my own teacher. Rather they clearly reveal the inadequacy of a
policy of clinging to Iqbal for theoretical guidance (rather than
motivational fire) with which to respond to Pakistan’s moment of truth.
Unless Muslim Pakistan fixes its gaze firmly on the restoration of the
Islamic Khilafah as its supreme political goal, even while
recognizing that the struggle which has already commenced in Khorasan
(Afghanistan and North-West Pakistan are parts of ancient Khorasan) to
achieve that goal cannot reach its final success for perhaps another
20-30 years, Pakistani Muslims will remain woefully unprepared to face
that moment of truth which has now arrived.
There are two Pakistans
This essay directs attention to two
divergent dimensions in Iqbāl’s thought, and goes on to suggest that as a
consequence, Pakistan has two divergent faces. Islamic scholarship has
an obligation to explain this disturbing duality in order that Pakistani
Muslims might better be able to recognize the inadequacy of a policy of
clinging to Iqbal for theoretical guidance with which to respond to the
specific challenges of the moment.
The first Pakistan, which is the one
which has prevailed throughout that country’s tortured history (with
continuous generous help from Washington in particular), is western and
secular and is nurtured by a curious Islamic modernism which has sought
for the longest while to so reconstruct Islamic religious thought as to deliver a so-called progressive
reinterpretation of Islam. That new modernist version of Islam was
required in order to meet the demands of a secular (and hence
essentially godless) modern western civilization that came into being in
consequence of a mysterious alliance of European Christians and Jews.
The Qur’ān has firmly prohibited Muslim friendship and alliance with a
Jewish-Christian alliance, and this seems to have escaped Iqbal’s
attention (see our essay entitled “Neither Friends nor Allies”
on our website). That European Judeo-Christian alliance has
consistently stolen or exploited Muslim resources, oppressed and
occupied Muslim territories, and colonized and humiliated Muslims who
refused to worship them and to adopt their way of life, dress, customs
and behavior. It also enslaved the African people for slave labor with
which to build a new heaven in America. It committed genocide of
indigenous peoples resident in the Americas, Australia, Southern Africa
etc. It is still waging holy wars or crusades on Islam and Muslims to
this day.
The modern secular state which emerged from modern western civilization has long claimed that it offers the only
model of a state in which people belonging to different religions can
live together in peace. In fact the harsh reality is that the modern
secular state has functioned as a vehicle through which Dajjāl
has been dismantling the religious way of life around the world. It has
trampled on religious freedom and religious rights to such an extent
that liberté in the French Republic does not extend to freedom for Muslim women to cover their heads (Hijāb), and the hapless 100-million-strong Muslim community in the secular republic of India now fears for its very existence.
Modern western civilization also
delivered to the world a secular feminist revolution that sought to
overturn the status and role of women in society that was established by
true religion. That secular feminist revolution succeeded in Pakistan
in installing a woman as Prime Minister and head of government in
manifest violation of the Qur’anic guidance as well as the Sunnah
of Prophet Muhammad and of his companions. What is even more important
is that it deceived Muslim Pakistan to support a previous struggle (in
the 1960’s), which did not succeed, in having a woman elected as
President and head of government. (See my essay entitled Can Muslims choose a woman to rule over them?)
The second Pakistan is so adamantly
Islamic and religious that many Pakistani Muslims still long, more than
fifty years after the birth of the modern republican Pakistan,
for the restoration of indigenous Muslim political culture. At the
heart of that political culture is the Islamic Caliphate (Khilāfah) and Dār al-Islām
that was destroyed by the modern secular west and by their clients in
Turkey and Arabia. It was that sacred Islamic model of a state which,
for more than a thousand years, successfully maintained peace and
harmony between Christians, Jews and Muslims resident in the Holy Land,
while the dismal failure of its secular successor and rival has created a
dangerous threat for the whole world.
When the Tanzeem-e-Islami, headed by the learned and respected Islamic scholar Dr Israr Ahmad, organized a Khilafat Conference in Lahore, Pakistan, more than a decade ago, the very large Diwan-e-Iqbāl
(Iqbāl Hall) where the Conference was held was packed to capacity. This
writer, who traveled from New York to participate in that conference,
noticed that every square inch of floor space, including sitting on the
floor of the aisles, was occupied by those who voted with their very
presence in that hall for the restoration of the Caliphate (Khilafah). If such a conference could be reconvened in Pakistan today, attendance would be certainly multiplied many times over.
It is therefore clear that there are two
Pakistans, one that is modern and secular and the other that clings to
Islam for the establishment of a public order. We argue in this essay
that an understanding of Iqbāl’s duality of thought would assist in
responding to Pakistan’s ‘duality’ predicament described above.
There is duality in Iqbāl’s thought
There was that knowledge which Iqbāl
imparted to his native people – Indian Muslims who were subjected to
brutal and humiliating anti-Muslim and anti-Islam British colonial rule.
It touched their very souls and fired them with a scorching
reaffirmation of commitment to Islam the religion as well as to
indigenous Muslim political culture. It was communicated in verse in
their native languages – Urdu and Persian. Had it been communicated in
English prose, the European world of scholarship that was waging
relentless war on Islam would have rejected it, sneered at it, and
viciously opposed it. Iqbāl would have suffered irreparable loss of
prestige amongst his Judeo-Christian European peers. He would eventually
have been castigated by the west, as well as by those who worship the
west, as obscurantist, fundamentalist, jihadist, terrorist, and all the rest of such pathetic epithets. He would never have become Sir Muhammad Iqbal.
And then there was that other knowledge which he communicated in English prose, and which included his views concerning the end of history in his philosophy of history. The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam
is far and away his most important work in English and it appeared at
the very end of his life and therefore represented the fully mature
final expression of his thought. Some of it qualifies as the finest
expression of Islamic scholarship in the modern age. It impressed
European scholarship, as well as his western-educated countrymen.
However it revealed beyond any doubt whatsoever that Iqbal had no proper
understanding of Islam’s conception of the end of history and
as a consequence he could not discern the architect of modern western
civilization. Nor could Iqbal penetrate the grand design for European
colonization of non-European humanity and for the offer of
decolonization that appeared on the horizon in the last years of his
life.
There seems to be a possibility that
western civilization’s new secularized eschatology influenced Iqbal’s
thought concerning end-time personalities and events, in consequence of
which he expressed views clearly implying rejection of belief in the
advent of Imām al-Mahdi, of Dajjāl 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). This
is indeed an interesting subject for research. Had these views been
expressed in Urdu or Persian they would have created serious and abiding
problems for him amongst the Muslim masses. He may not have been
honored with the title of Allama. To this day, there are
Muslims who are inspired by Iqbāl but remain blissfully ignorant of the
above, and who would respond to this essay with great anger. As a result
of his failure to read history correctly he could not recognize
Europe’s strategy with which it was dismantling the indigenous Islamic
civilization and was replacing it with political, economic and
educational institutions which would ensure that Europe would continue
to rule the decolonized world by proxy and that non-Europeans would
slowly be absorbed into godless and decadent western civilization. Iqbal
most certainly did not realize their plan to rule the world from
Jerusalem on behalf of a false Messiah. As a consequence of this failure
on the part of Iqbal, succeeding generations of Muslim scholars and
thinkers were similarly affected. They are most likely to scornfully
dismiss this essay.
Iqbāl is wrong in his view that the modern republican State can replace the Caliphate
Iqbāl agreed with the bogus and fraudulent Turkish Ijtihād (it was he who used the term Ijtihād) to the effect that the Imāmate 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 the Parliament of a modern State was freely constituted of good
Muslims rather than paid illiterate political serfs of vested interests,
Iqbāl was prepared to accept it as a valid substitute for the
Caliphate. In promoting a brand new so-called modern Islamic republican
democracy that was supposed to replace medieval dictatorship in the
lands of Islam, Iqbal actually contributed to the acceptance, seemingly
once and for all, of a post-Caliphate Islam. The predictable result was
that Muslims were eventually either swallowed up in the system of modern
(secular) States which they accepted as an abiding reality of the
modern world of Islam, or they were transported on a futile journey of
creating something quite novel which they were wont to describe as an Islamic State. In doing so they unwittingly dug a grave in which to bury the sacred institution of the Caliphate (Khilāfah).
Iqbal supported the Turkish view to the extent of declaring: It is hardly necessary to argue this point.
Yet Iqbāl’s view expressed above was false. Regardless of what Iqbal
may have expressed elsewhere in his voluminous works, the view expressed
above was not only monumentally wrong and misguided, but also misguided
others. The Turkish view that the Caliphate can be vested in an elected
Assembly of a modern republican State is false. The Turkish view that
the Caliphate can be replaced by western civilization’s constitutional
democracy and secular model of a State is false.
Modern political democracy originated in
modern secular western civilization, and required the adoption of
political secularism as the basis for the establishment of polity and
State. Political secularism, however, like all other applications of
secularism, denied religion any significant role in the public order.
This, in turn, facilitated the decline of religion and of absolute moral
values, and around the world, has led to the emergence of ever-changing
secular values and eventually to an essentially godless way of life.
Let us recall that when the British
colonized countries such as India they found Muslims with a political
culture which, though corrupted, was derived structurally from Islam.
British colonial rule imposed European political secularism at the point of the sword
as the alternative to Islamic political culture. Both Hindus and
Muslims eventually challenged the new European ‘political secularism’,
and sought to restore and to preserve their own indigenous political
culture. This led eventually, and alarmingly so for the British, to an
ominous political alliance of Muslims and Hindus in what was called the Khilafat Movement – a struggle to preserve the institution of the Islamic Caliphate located at the very heart of Muslim political culture. Gandhi himself forged the alliance with the Muslim Khilafat Movement since he wanted to restore (for Hindus) indigenous Hindu political culture and a Hindu model of a State.
The Khilafat Movement
threatened to topple the entire system of European political secularism
and constitutional democracy that the colonial West was forcing upon the
colonized non-European world. A British strategy was devised, in
collaboration with Mustafa Kamal's newly emergent secular Republic of
Turkey, to abolish the Ottoman Turkish Caliphate, and in so doing to
sabotage and to bring about the collapse of the Indian Khilafat
Movement with its alarming Hindu-Muslim alliance. The strategy
succeeded. The Caliphate was abolished in Turkey in March 1924. By the
end of that same year the old Indian Muslim leadership, comprised of men
who knew and lived Islam, went into irreversible decline. They were
replaced at the helm of affairs by the secularly inclined ‘All
India Muslim League’, largely led by men with western education and
westernized thought. They presided over the cleverly disguised passage
from Islam as the basis of political culture, to a new European-inspired
political culture and conception of a modern state. It was deceptively
spirited in by way of religious nationalism, and emerged as a curious
creature named ‘Muslim nationalism’. The passage from the one to the
other was so cleverly disguised that it is still not discernible to many
Muslims in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The turbulent history of secular
European constitutional democracy in the Muslim world cannot be
understood without recognition of that effort at fundamental change in
political culture from Islam to the European model of political
secularism. Indeed the passage from the one to the other has not as yet
been accomplished in any final way even in Pakistan or Turkey. Time and
again the religious beliefs of the Muslim peoples in Africa, the Arab
world, South and South-East Asia, etc., have impacted on politics in
such wise that the West has been forced to continuously resort to
devious means, including brute force and barbarism in present-day Iraq,
Afghanistan and North-West Pakistan, to thwart the effort to restore
Islam’s model of State and of an international order (i.e., the Khilāfah and Dār al-Islām) as the basis of polity.
It would surely surprise some of our
readers to learn that Islam has never claimed to be a new religion.
Rather it has consistently proclaimed that it is the original religion
of Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon them all). It was therefore natural that Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam)
should have preserved in the Islamic State of Madina the essential
model of a polity and State that was established by the Prophet-Kings,
David and Solomon (‘alaihim al-Salām) in the Holy State of Israel. What was that model?
Firstly, political culture in Holy Israel tolerated no secular separation of politics from religion. In both David and Solomon (‘alaihim al-Salām) the religious/spiritual head of the community (i.e., the Prophet), was also himself, King or Head of State.
Secondly, the polity and State recognized the One God as Sovereign (al-Malik), and to Him belonged the Kingdom (al-Mulk), and hence Israel was the Kingdom of the One God on earth.
Thirdly, the One God’s authority and law were both supreme in this model of a State.
In the secular European model on the
other hand, sovereignty was taken away from the One God and vested in
the polity and republican state (even when it formally remained a
monarchy). That was blasphemy (Shirk). The One God was further
stripped of supreme authority and law and these also were vested in the
people and the republican state, and were institutionalized in secular
government (administration, judiciary and legislature). That, also, was
blasphemy (Shirk). The people not only assumed supreme
authority and installed their own man-made law as supreme law, they even
went on, and recklessly so, to make legally permissible that which the
One God had Himself prohibited. Such was the case, for example, with the
Divine prohibition of ‘lending money on interest’, gambling and
lottery, etc. The Qur’ān has described all these efforts to ‘play God’
as blasphemy (Shirk), which is the one sin that Allah Most High
has warned that He would never forgive. I guess that someone would
respond by accusing the One God of being fundamentalist.
When a people turn away from the One
God, as they most certainly do in political secularism and the secular
republican state, the Qur’ān has warned that they would eventually
forget Him and would pay the price of forgetting themselves (i.e.,
forget their human status or forget what it means to be a Muslim). Their
conduct would eventually become worse than that of wild beasts. Prophet
Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) prophesied that they
would eventually engage in sexual intercourse in public like donkeys.
There is an abundance of evidence that mainstream society in this
so-called progressive modern age is heading down that road and is already approaching the fulfillment of the prophecy of roadside sex.
The Islamic Khilāfah differs in
no way whatsoever from the model of the Holy State of Israel except
that Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet/Head of State, was recognized as
Servant of Allah rather than King! Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) has prophesied that the Islamic Khilāfah would be restored at that time when Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salām) returns.
“How will you be (at that time) when the Son of Mary descends amongst you and your Imām would be from within your ownselves.”
(Sahih Bukhari)
I believe that historic moment is now so close that children now at school will live to see the return of the Islamic Caliphate (Khilāfah).
It will surely come as quite a surprise
to our readers to learn that the same Iqbāl who provided the theoretical
foundations for the emergence of the modern republican Pakistan
after the model of Mustafa Kamal’s modern secular Turkey, is also the
hero of those Pakistani Muslims who fervently long for the restoration
of the Islamic Caliphate (Khilāfah) and Dar al-Islam that the modern secular republican state was specifically designed to supersede and permanently replace. Iqbāl, in verse, urged the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate (Khilāfah), and sought (eloquently and passionately) that mobilization of the Islamic spirit that would make it possible:
Iqbāl rejects belief in the advent of Imam al-Mahdi
Iqbāl is explicit in his rejection of belief in the advent of Imām Al-Mahdi and in the return of the true Messiah, Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salām) the son of the Virgin Mary which he criticized as being Magian in attitude. He argued that since Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam)
was the final Prophet the implication was that belief in the advent of
these end-time personalities could have no basis in the Qur’an and
authentic Ahadīth. Indeed he felt that such beliefs in Islam had been finally demolished by Ibn Khaldun who rejected the Ahadīth pertaining to the advent of Imām al-Mahdi (‘alaihi al-Salaam) as fabrications. This is what Iqbāl 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.”
(Iqbāl, 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, Iqbāl is explicit in adding the belief in the advent of Dajjāl the false Messiah and in the return of Jesus (‘alahi al-Salaam)
the true Messiah to the list of so-called Magian ideas which, he
claims, had infiltrated Islamic thought. This is clear from his use of
the word masihiyāt. (Iqbālnama, Vol. II, p. 231..Quoted in M. Saeed Sheikh, ‘Editor’s Introduction’ to Iqbāl’s Reconstruction, op. cit., p. xi).
Iqbal’s views expressed above are
manifestly and dangerously false. He committed a mountain of a mistake
which permanently corrupted his capacity of ever understanding Islam’s
conception of the end of history. There was no way that he could have
understood, in view of the above declaration, the eschatological
implications of the emergence of a modern western secular civilization
that triumphantly took center-stage even though it had hardly ever
previously appeared on the stage of history. He could not have read the
implications of the abolition of the Islamic Caliphate, and hence could
not formulate a proper response to it. He could not realize the
implications of the final triumph of the European crusades in
‘liberating’ Jerusalem in 1917 and in then allowing the Jews to return
to the Holy Land 2000 years after they had been expelled by divine
decree. In fact his followers who today constitute a significant part of
the Pakistani intelligentsia also cannot understand why Pakistan’s
nuclear installations are threatened with demolition, and why Pakistan
has to be denuclearized and further dismembered. It is clear that
Toynbee the British philosopher of history had a superior understanding
of the historical process in the modern age than Iqbal the Muslim
philosopher.
We recognize that Ibn Khaldūn
and Iqbāl are both scholars of such eminence that one must hesitate
again and again before offering a critical comment concerning their
thought. But a proper understanding of the nature of the historical
process as it pertained to the advent of the Messiah would have saved
them from committing the mistake that they unfortunately made. What was
the nature of that historical process? It was one in which the question
of positive identification of the Messiah (when he was to appear) was
solved by way of a special person who was raised by Allah Most High, and
was commissioned to make that positive identification. John the Baptist (‘alaihi as-Salām) not only kept on declaring to all and sundry that the Messiah was coming but, additionally, it was before John (‘alaihi as-Salām) that Jesus (‘alaihi as-Salām) appeared when he returned to the Holy Land as an adult. John then faced him and publicly declared: “This is the man you have been waiting for; this is the Messiah!” This was the divine method of ensuring ‘positive identification’ of the Messiah!
Similarly, when the Messiah is to return, Allah would raise another man whose function would be the same as that of John’s. The historical process thus maintains consistency. Imām al-Mahdi’s role is identical to that of John the Baptist’s.
When the Imām emerges and publicly declares that he is the Mahdi, this will be the sign that the return of the true Messiah is nigh. When Jesus (‘alaihi as-Salām) returns he will descend in front of the Imām who will then declare: “This is the son of Mary!” (see Sahīh Muslim).
Thus the positive identification of the Messiah would be accomplished
on both occasions that he appears in the world, the first and the
second, and it would be done through the same method, to wit, through
someone raised by Allah Most High for that specific purpose. A proper
understanding of the crucial role of John the Baptist (‘alaihi as-Salām) in relation to Jesus the true Messiah (‘alaihi as-Salām) would have saved Ibn Khaldun from committing the serious and dangerous error of rejecting all the Ahādīth pertaining to the advent of Imām al-Mahdi, and would have saved Iqbāl from repeating and compounding the error of Ibn Khaldun.
We may note in passing that the belief in Imām al-Mahdi whose advent will be contemporaneous with the return of the Messiah, the son of Mary, appears to parallel a Jewish belief in two persons who will appear in the End Time,
the first is described as a ‘royal’ Messiah and the other, a ‘priestly’
Messiah. Haim Zafrani made this important comment concerning the Dead
Sea Scrolls:
In addition to those two there was to be a third person who could not have been any other than Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam):
Yet Iqbal’s Khidr-e-Waqt appears to be Imam al-Mahdi
Iqbāl in verse seems to affirm belief in the advent of Imām Al-Mahdi:
“Out of the seclusion of the desert of Hejaz,
The Divinely-illumined Guide of the Time (Khidr-e-Waqt) is to come.
And from that far, far away valley,
The Caravan is to make its appearance.”
Khidr is a divinely-illumined guide who appears in the Qur’anic Surah of the End-time, i.e., Surah al-Kahf. In directing attention to a divinely-illumined Khidr who is to appear from the Hejaz
in Arabia, Iqbal affirmed his belief in some form of divine
intervention at the end of history. This is in direct contradiction with
Iqbal’s views pertaining to the end of history expressed above.
The view has been expressed that Iqbāl’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 the Saudi King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud who placed the Hejaz under Anglo-American-Israeli clientage, possibly be recognized as the Khidr-e-Waqt. Who then, other than Imām al-Mahdi, was Iqbāl referring to?
This essay directs attention to this
divergent dualism in Iqbāl and suggests that it may have resulted from
an epistemological ambivalence in his thought. Different epistemologies
function at different levels of human consciousness. Iqbāl’s theoretic
consciousness, operating with the vehicle of the English language,
appears to have functioned with one epistemology which he derived from
western civilization. His aesthetic and spiritual consciousness,
operating with the vehicle of his native languages, functioned with
another which we identify as the Sufi epistemology. Unless one
succeeds in integrating all levels of consciousness in the personality,
an epistemological ambivalence and a dualism in thought can appear.
Indeed dualism in the external form of personality (e.g., choice of
language, clothing, a clean-shaven face, manners, etc., can betray the
existence of duality and internal contradiction in the very substance of
personality. The pursuit of Tazkiyah in the Islamic spiritual quest (Tasawwuf or al-Ihsan)
facilitates harmonious integration of different levels of consciousness
in the personality. This in turn delivers the epistemological capacity
to subject all knowledge wherever located, to critical evaluation and
assimilation without falling prey to any dualism or contradiction in
thought.
Pakistan’s dualism was cast in concrete
when Iqbāl, the spiritual father, anointed Muhammad Ali Jinnah to lead a
(Muslim) nationalist struggle for Pakistan. Jinnah’s scholarship was
firmly established on the secular foundations of western legal thought
and he had no hesitancy in embracing and leading an essentially nationalist struggle.
He neither displayed, nor claimed to possess, any such Islamic
scholarship that could have recognized the illegitimacy of a nationalist
struggle; nor could he anticipate the immense damage that it would
inflict on the Ummah of Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam). There is no place for nationalist struggles in Muslim political culture.
The Sufi epistemology
The authentic Sufis such as Imām al-Ghazzali and Maulānā
Jalaluddin Rumi 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 directly
experiences ‘truth’, is frequently referred to in philosophy as
‘religious experience’. In its wider sense, ‘religious experience’ also
includes that internal intuitive spiritual 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
spiritual capacity for penetrating the substance of things) of the
believer, for surely he sees with the light of Allah.” (Tirmidhi) And
Iqbāl himself directed attention to it in his famous couplet:
“Hazaaron saal
Nargis apni bénûri pé rôti hè,
Bari mushkil sé hôta hè,
chaman mein, deedawar
païda.”
Iqbāl’s deedawar (i.e., the discerning sage) is clearly one who sees with an inner light, and this is the defining quality of a Khidr. Iqbāl is himself, an example of a deedawar, and so too was his distinguished student and my dear teacher, Maulānā Dr Muhammad Fadlur Rahmān Ansārī (rahimahullah) (1914-1974).
The epistemology which embraces ‘religious experience’ as a source of knowledge is herein referred to as the Sufi epistemology. The inner knowledge 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 at the end of history, and this reconfirms the
abiding importance of not only the Sufi epistemology but also the capacity to use it to penetrate reality in the last age.
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon him) advised that Sūrah al-Kahf (Chapter 18) of the Qur’ān be recited every day of Jumu‘ah (i.e., Friday) for protection from the Fitnah (deception, trial) of Dajjāl whose modus operandi is to deceive. The story in Surah al-Kahf of Musa (i.e., Moses ‘alaihi al-Salām) and Khidr (‘alaihi al-Salām)
delivers a dire warning of the dangerous inadequacy of the western
epistemology which admits of knowledge only through observation. Moses (‘alaihi al-Salām) 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 so-called Mosaic community of Christians
and Jews in the Zionist-created Judeo-Christian alliance, as a people
who would be subjected to the greatest deception and would 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., Dajjāl,
the false Messiah or Anti-Christ, to their final destruction in
history. (Readers may wish to look at the Chapter on ‘Moses and Khidr’
in my book entitled Surah al-Kahf and the Modern Age available on my website www.imranhosein.org.)
Iqbāl is himself an excellent example of
a scholar with a capacity to penetrate beyond appearances to grasp the
reality of things. He made a thorough and penetrating study of
Judeo-Christian 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 advocates of Islamic modernism, 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. Iqbāl was not deceived:
Yet the same Iqbāl unwittingly laid the foundations of Islamic Modernism with unfortunate comments such as this:
Iqbāl failed to recognize the Shirk that was embedded in the very foundation of the western secular model of a state (see Pt Two of Jerusalem in the Qur’ān).
As a result, he made the monumental error of accepting what he called a
republican model of a state as a substitute for the Caliphate. He thus
laid the theoretical foundation for Jinnah to bring into being a
Pakistan that eventually replicated Mustafa Kamal’s modern Turkey. Both
states have since been swallowed up into a western-created global
political order that has imprisoned both the Turkish and Pakistani
Muslim peoples.
The epistemology of the modern West
Modern western civilization emerged in
consequence of sudden unprecedented and hitherto inexplicable change
that overtook Europe. A civilization which was previously based on faith
in Euro-Christianity, and which had given mysterious expression of that
faith in the Euro Crusades, experienced a radical change which
mysteriously transformed it into an essentially godless and uniquely
decadent Judeo-Christian civilization based on materialism. The new
‘one-eyed’ epistemology, which paved the way for the collective embrace
of materialism, was one that specifically denied the possibility of
knowledge being acquired through religious experience, or through
revelations from the unseen, i.e., through the second (inner) eye.
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, that a world which could not be observed
and known, did not exist. Hence there is no reality beyond material
reality.
In so dismissing God from the conduct of
all worldly affairs the modern west made possible the creation of both
the secular godless model of a state as well as the secular Riba-based economy.
Iqbāl’s epistemological response to the modern West
Iqbāl realized that the acceptance of
this western epistemology would result in the complete destruction of
religion, including 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. Islamic thought would be so
secularized that a spiritually-blind Protestant so-called revivalist
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 and
corruption of the Muslim mind.
Iqbāl’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.
In Knowledge and Religious Experience and The Philosophical Test of the Revelations of Religious Experience,
Iqbāl 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. Such a penetration of reality would expose the Shirk that was located in the secular western model of a state and the Riba
that was located in the secular western model of an economy. It would
also expose the bogus and utterly fraudulent nature of European-created
paper currency.
More than seventy years have passed
since that epistemological response to the challenge of the West
appeared 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
Iqbāl had 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. The most embarrassing example of that western success is of
course the bogus, utterly fraudulent and Harām paper currencies that the whole world has been deceived into embracing.
Iqbāl not immune from negative western influence
From his adolescent days as a college
student in Lahore when he was exposed to Thomas Arnold, to his
university education in the leading universities of Britain and Germany,
Iqbāl’s exposure to western thought was daringly intimate. He lived in
an age that was forced to observe and to respond to the literal
explosion of a unique and amazing western scholarship that was extending
the frontiers of knowledge in almost every branch of knowledge. Western
civilization’s modern thought occupied center-stage in the
world of knowledge. History had never witnessed anything comparable to
that scholarship. It challenged the traditional world of scholarship
with a claim to surpass everything that preceded it. Indeed, the
scientific and technological revolution of the West was something unique
in the world of knowledge.
More often than not Iqbāl’s respect for
western scholarship grew into outright admiration. This culminated in
the closing years of his life in comments made in The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. That admiration for western scholarship provoked a disturbing corollary. It revealed itself in the startling claim that “ . . . during the last five hundred years religious thought in Islam has been practically stationary” (‘Knowledge and Religious Experience’ in Iqbāl, Reconstruction . . ) The evidence of that profound admiration for western scholarship was found in the Reconstruction, which is littered
with references to, and quotations from, his peers in that
European/western world of scholarship. In the first two chapters of the Reconstruction
for example, he quotes from or makes mention of British
philosopher/mathematician Professor Alfred North Whitehead, British
metaphysician Professor John McTaggart, Greek mathematician Euclid,
Scottish physiologist John Scott Haldane, British philosopher Herbert
Wildon Carr, German mathematician Georg Cantor, British
philosopher/mathematician Bertrand Russell, French philosopher Henri
Bergson, ancient Greek philosophers Democritus, Zeno, Socrates, Plato
and Aristotle, German philosopher Immanuel Kant, French
philosopher/mathematician René Descartes, Scottish philosopher/economist/
By comparison there was not a single
reference to, or mention of, any contemporary Muslim scholar. Rather he
went back in time to refer to the 11th century jurist/theologian/Sufi scholar Imām Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali who hailed from Nishapur in northern Iran, the 12th
century Andalusian philosopher/theologian and jurist Abul Waleed Ibn
Rushd, the secular Turkish poet Tevfik Fikret who was a nemesis of the
Ottoman Caliphate in its last days, the 17th century anti-establishment Indo-Afghan poet Mirza ‘Abd al-Qadir Bedil, his own mentor the 13th century Persian poet, jurist, theologian and Sufi Master, Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi, the 14th century historian/social scientist/philosopher Ibn Khaldun, the 11th century Andalusian Muslim theologian Abu Muhammad Ibn Hazm, the 17th century Persian poet Urfi Shirazi, the 17th century Indian poet Nasir Ali Sirhindi, etc.
Did Iqbāl have no peer within his own
world-wide Muslim community? Why was there not a single reference in
those pivotally important first two chapters of Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam
to Turkey’s Said Nursi or to a contemporary Muslim scholar in the huge
and intellectually influential Indian Muslim community? Had Islamic
thought really come to such a standstill, even amongst those who were
recognized as Allama, Shaikh al-Islam, Shams al-Ulama and Sufi Shaikh, that there was nothing that contemporary Islamic scholarship could contribute to the subject matter of those two chapters of Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam?
Was Iqbāl addressing the western world, or was he addressing the Muslim
world in this series of lectures he chose to publish under the title of
‘Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’? Why did he
choose to deliver his addresses on such an important subject in a
language that belonged to western civilization and was alien to Islamic
civilization?
It must have been an absolutely amazing
spectacle to behold Iqbāl, seventy-five 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 secular Western linguistic
etiquette and sensibilities.
It must have been an equally amazing
sight to behold the same Iqbāl using the native Urdu and Persian
languages to convey through poetry a message whose form and substance
was quite alien to the Western mind but which penetrated the very soul
of his people. It reawakened and re-energized them. It gave them hope
and caused them to respond with a ringing reaffirmation of faith in
Islam.
We believe that Iqbāl 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 Iqbāl’s duality of
thought. That subject is the end of history.
Islam and the end of history
Is there an Islamic view of the end of history? Did Iqbāl ever address it? We have explained in An Islamic View of Gog and Magog in the Modern World
the distinction between ‘end of history’ and ‘end of the world’. It is
appropriate in the context of the subject we are here examining, to note
that Islam has chosen terminology located in time for referring to the end of history. The Islamic word is “the Hour” (al-Sa‘ah).
The supreme importance of this subject of “the Hour,” i.e., the end of
history, was established in the famous visit of Archangel Gabriel (‘alaihi al-Salām) when he appeared before the Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) in the Masjid in the form of a man. He asked questions, the Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) answered them, and Gabriel (‘alaihi al-Salām) then confirmed that the answers were correct. Sometime after his departure the Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam)
informed the Muslims of the identity of the visitor, and of the fact
that he had come (at that very late stage in the life of the Prophet) to
instruct them in their religion.
The Archangel asked five questions and
the last two of them related to the end of history. The first of those
last two questions was: when will the end come? The Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam)
replied to the effect that the one who was being questioned had no more
knowledge of the subject than the questioner. The second question was: tell me of the signs by which we would know that the end is at hand (i.e., what are some of the signs by which we would recognize the age that would witness the end of history?) He replied that:
Here is the full text of the Hadīth:
`Umar ibn Khattab (Allah be well pleased with him) said:
“As we were sitting one day
before the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), a man
suddenly appeared. He wore pure white clothes and his hair was dark
black—yet there were no signs of travel on him, and none of us knew him.
He came and sat down in
front of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), placing his
knees against his, and his hands on his thighs. He said, “O Muhammad!
Tell me about Islam.”
The Messenger of Allah
(peace and blessings be upon him) replied, “Islam is to bear witness
that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God;
and to perform the prayer; pay Zakat; fast Ramadan; and to perform Hajj
to the House if you are able.”
The man said, “You have spoken the truth,” and we were surprised that he asked and then confirmed the answer.
Then, he asked, “Tell me about belief (Iman).”
The Prophet (peace and
blessings be upon him) replied, “It is to believe in Allah; His Angels;
His Books; His Messengers; the Last Day; and in destiny—its good and
bad.”
The man said, “You have spoken the truth. Now, tell me about spiritual excellence (Ihsan).”
The Prophet (peace and
blessings be upon him) replied, “It is to serve Allah as though you see
Him; and if you don’t see him, (know that) He surely sees you.”
“Now, tell me of the Last Hour,” asked the man.
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) replied, “The one asked knows no more of it than the one asking.”
“Then tell me about its signs,” said the man.
The Prophet (peace and
blessings be upon him) replied, “That a slave woman would give birth to
her mistress; and that you would see barefooted, naked shepherds
competing in the construction of tall buildings.”
Then the visitor left, and I
waited a long time. Then the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)
asked me, “Do you know, Umar, who the questioner was?”
I replied, “Allah and His
Messenger know best. .” He said (Allah bless him and give him peace),
“It was Jibril.(Gabriel) He came to you to teach you your religion.”
(Sahih Muslim)
One needs only a pair of eyes (in fact a
single eye would be sufficient) to recognize that the age of tall
buildings has arrived. Dubai’s naked barefooted shepherds will not be the last to faithfully follow Manhattan down into the lizard’s hole.
This extraordinary Hadīth amply demonstrated the supreme importance that Islam has attached to the subject of the end of history. It also clearly established that we now live in the last age.
The Islamic view of the last age is
quite comprehensive. It includes the belief that the earth would
function as habitat for a limited duration (al-Baqarah 2:36). The earth would one day be transformed into a dust bowl (al-Kahf 18:8).
This implies that the end-time, which witnesses the (temporary) death
of the earth ─ and hence of food production ─ would be preceded by an
age of a constantly diminishing supply of (fresh) water, leading,
eventually, to extreme scarcity of water. The Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) described that last age as the age of Fitan
(i.e., tests and trials), and the Qur’ān warned that all of mankind
would be targeted, and that Allah’s punishment would be terrible. (Qur’ān, al-Anfāl, 8:25).
The constantly diminishing supply of
water would take place in consequence of the release into the world by
Allah Most High of evil beings whom He created, namely Gog and Magog (Ya’jūj and Ma’jūj).
The last two chapters of the Qur’ān were specifically devoted to
warning the believers of the very great dangers which would emerge in
the world in consequence of the release of “evil created by Allah.” The
evil would appear as “evil beings” created by Allah Most High to test
and to punish. They also include Dajjāl, the false Messiah. The Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) described Gog and Magog as beings so thirsty that they would drink up all the water of the world. “They would pass by the Sea of Galilee in (the Holy Land) and drink it dry.” (Sahīh Muslim). “They would pass by a river”, he said, “and they would drink it dry”. (Kanz al-Ummāl, Vol. 7, Hadīth No. 2157).
The last age would thus be characterized by over-consumption, waste,
and disrespect for water. Mankind would witness, in the last age, riots
and wars fought over water.
When we look around us in the world, it
appears to be quite clear that the water countdown has already begun.
There is an ominous and growing shortage of water in nearly all parts of
the world today. The head of the UN Environment Program has recently
expressed his fear that the world is heading towards a “period of
water-wars between nations.” A Pakistani government minister warned of
the eventual likelihood of riots over water in the city of Karachi. The
Kalabagh Dam project threatens bloodshed. The Farrakha Dam, built by
India, threatens to drown Bangladesh. Turkey and Syria may one day wage
war over water which is one of the gravest issues that divide them.
Israel, the Palestinian Arabs, and the neighboring Arab Sates
(particularly Jordan) have serious and growing differences over the
sharing of dwindling water supplies. The Israelis are actually waging a
water-war on the Palestinian Arabs, Muslims as well as Christians. The
source of most Middle East water is located in Turkey, hence we can
expect perhaps a 2012 bonanza of Israeli fireworks which will include an
attempt to topple Turkey’s pro-Islam government in order to restore the
pro-Israeli Turkish military command to power. Such an event could well
provoke a Russian military intervention on behalf of the legitimate
Turkish government that can fulfill a prophecy concerning the conquest
of Constantinople.
The constantly increasing evidence
clearly confirms that the release of Gog and Magog has already taken
place. Iqbāl agrees. Indeed, he appears to be one of the very few
scholars of Islam to have ever had the vision and the courage to make a
formal declaration that the release has taken place. It seems
inexplicable that Iqbal did not recognize that we consequently now live
in the last age or the age that will witness the ‘end of history’.
Despite this failure on his part we nevertheless dedicated our recent
book entitled An Islamic View of Gog and Magog in the Modern World to Iqbāl.
This important declaration was made by
Iqbāl in Urdu verse, and, predictably, there is not even a hint of it in
any of his writings or statements made in English. This is the verse:
The word yansilūn, which occurs at the end of the verse, and to the Tafsīr (explanation) of which Iqbāl has directed the attention of the Muslims, refers to a passage of the Qur’ān in Sūrah al-Anbiyāh in which Allah Most High declares that when Gog and Magog are released they will spread out in every direction (min kulli hadabin yansilūn). Here is the passage:
“And there is a ban on a town which We destroyed, that they shall not return (i.e., the people of the town are banned from returning to reclaim the town as their own), until Ya’jūj (Gog) and Ma’jūj (Magog) are released (from the barrier which Dhū al-Qarnain built in order to contain them), and they spread out in every direction.”
(Qut’an, al-Anbiyah, 21:95-96)
This indicates that Gog and Magog would
not only become the dominant force in the world, but that their power
would subdue all of mankind. Indeed, their power would be such that,
according to a Hadīth al-Qudsi, Allah Most High has Himself declared: “None but I can fight (and destroy) them.” (Sahih Muslim).
Our view is that Iqbāl arrived at this amazingly accurate conclusion some eighty years ago in consequence of his use of the Sufi
epistemology. He had the courage to make an intellectual leap for a
startling intuitive grasp which delivered to him, for one dazzling
moment in time, the very substance of the subject. The uneducated say
many things without knowledge. But when a scholar of the Qur’ān makes a
declaration such as this, it must rest on extraordinary foundations.
Conventional Islamic scholarship armed with impressive Ijāzahs,
yet unable or unwilling to reach out for that intuitive grasp of the
subject, is yet to pronounce on the release of Gog and Magog.
This writer met in Lahore with the late commentator of Iqbāl, Prof.
Muhammad Munawwar, who was of the view that Iqbāl considered the modern
Judeo-Christian west to be the civilization of Gog and Magog.
We believe that Iqbāl was absolutely correct. Consider the following:
The Caliphate is an institution central to the collective integrity of the Muslim Ummah. Although the seat of the Caliphate was oft-times filled in a manner which did not conform to the Shari‘ah of Islam, the institution of the Caliphate survived for some 1300 years. There is an indication in a famous Hadīth that the Caliphate would be lost but would be restored at the time of the advent of Imām Al-Mahdi and the return of Prophet Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salām):
“How will you be when the Son of Mary descends amongst you and your Imām will be from amongst yourselves.”
(Sahīh Bukhārī)
Within seven years of Iqbāl’s pronouncement concerning the release of Gog and Magog in
1917, the unprecedented power and influence of today’s dominant western
civilization led to the destruction of the Ottoman Islamic Empire and,
subsequently, to the collapse of the Caliphate.
Secondly, the Hajj is an
institution which is even more central in importance to Islam, and which
has survived for thousands of years. The Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) has prophesied the abandonment of the Hajj
in the context of the aftermath of the release of Gog and Magog. The
fulfillment of that prophecy appears to be imminent. When it does come
to pass it will confirm beyond any shadow of a doubt that Iqbāl was
absolutely correct in this pronouncement concerning the release of Gog
and Magog.
Thirdly, the basic characteristic of Gog and Magog is their Fasād (i.e., their conduct which corrupts, spoils and ruins) (Qur’ān, al-Kahf, 18:94).
The age of Gog and Magog would thus be one of immense and unprecedented
corruption and destruction. Everything will be corrupted and eventually
destroyed — religion and religious scholars; government and political
life; the market, the economy, and the world of finance or money; law
and justice; transportation, the environment, even the ecological system
of the earth; sex, marriage and family life; sports and entertainment;
education, youth, the role of women in society, and so on. When we look
around us in the world today we find ample evidence of this universal
corruption and destruction. The earth will soon become a dust bowl
incapable of producing food to sustain human life. This indicates that
Iqbāl was correct, and that the countdown has begun.
Fourthly, another basic characteristic of Gog and Magog is their godlessness and decadence (khabath). The godlessness was described in a Hadīth al-Qudsi
in which we were informed that only 1 of every 1000 of the end-time
would enter into heaven (and that person would be a follower of the true
religion of Abraham). The rest, 999 out of every 1000, would all be the
people of Gog and Magog and would all be sent to Hell (Sahīh Bukhārī, 4:567; 6:265; 8:537). The decadence was described in a Hadīth in which the Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) conveyed to his wife, Zainab (radiallahu ‘anha),
the news that the destruction of the Arabs would occur at that time
when Gog and Magog would have inundated the world with decadence. His
words were: “Woe unto the Arabs, because of an evil which is now
approaching” (Sahīh Bukhārī,, 4:797; 9:181; 9:249). In other
words, the release of Gog and Magog would result in great calamities and
suffering in the Arab world in particular. There is already a veritable
mountain of evidence of such calamities and suffering..
The Qur’anic use of the term Khabath
includes that sexual perversity which characterized Sodom and Gomorrah.
There is sufficient godlessness, immorality, and sexual perversity in
the world today to qualify for the description given by the Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam).
Hence we can now expect the destruction of the Arabs. When they are
decimated by epidemics (plagues) earthquakes and whatever else Gog and
Magog have in their arsenals, it will confirm that Iqbāl was correct.
A fifth characteristic of Gog and Magog,
and one which also follows from the above, is that they would transform
all of mankind into one single global society in which all would follow
essentially the same way of life. It would be godless and decadent.
Already that single godless, decadent society has embraced the elite
around the world. The process is now moving relentlessly to embrace the
masses as well. The actual Hadīth is that Gog would expand to
incorporate another four hundred communities and that Magog would do the
same. And so the world of Gog and Magog would be an
ever-expanding globalized world of information, communication,
entertainment, and culture, etc. It would culminate in one decadent
global society with the mental and spiritual illumination of Kentucky
Fried Chicken and Coca Cola. A world government will preside over it.
Television has played, and still plays, a crucial role in the relentless
pursuit of that goal — a goal that now appears to be quite within
reach. This confirms Iqbāl’s declaration.
Sixthly, perhaps the most significant clue of the release of Gog and Magog,
and ominous consequences of that release for the world of Islam, is
expressed quite explicitly in the Qur’ān. Allah Most High declared of a
town (or city) which He had destroyed, that its restoration would never
be possible until the release of Gog and Magog makes it possible (see
reference to verses 95 & 96 of Sūrah al-Anbiyāh above). I
recognized that town to be Jerusalem (i.e., the State of Israel) and
hence I interpreted the verse to the effect that the State of Israel,
destroyed by Allah Most High twice in history, would be restored when
Gog and Magog are released, and as a consequence, that restoration
formed part of the Divine Plan through which Dajjāl the false
Messiah or Anti-Christ would deceive the Jews and lead them to their
final destruction. Indeed, this is precisely why he is known as al-Masīh al-Dajjāl. The identification of the “town” with Jerusalem is not far-fetched at all. There is a Hadīth which links Gog and Magog with Jerusalem (i.e., the State of Israel). The Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) said that when Gog and Magog are released they would pass by the Sea of Galilee (which is in Israel) (Kanz Al-Ummal, Vol 7, Hadīth No. 3021). Then there is a very long Hadīth in Sahīh Muslim
in which we are told that Gog and Magog would attack the true Messiah,
Jesus the son of the virgin Mary (peace and blessings of Allah Most High
upon them both) in Jerusalem.
It should be noted that the
Jordan-Israeli Peace Treaty of October 1994 recognized Jordan’s
contractual rights to a certain amount of water from rivers shared by
both countries. Israel may fulfill treaty obligations by pumping water
from the Sea of Galilee. The water level in the Sea of Galilee had
reached so low in 1998 at the time when this essay was originally
written, that further pumping of water would have caused damage to its
capacity to store water. Consequently, Israel was forced to suspend its
fulfillment of its treaty obligation concerning the supply of water to
Jordan. The water scarcity predicament today, 12 years later, is so
desperate that Israeli attacks on both Lebanon and Turkey are now
expected.
The restoration of the State of Israel not only confirmed the release of Dajjāl
the false Messiah and of Gog and Magog, but it also constituted a
veritable dagger plunged into the very heart of the Arab Muslim world.
This, in turn, fulfilled the ominous prophecy: “Woe unto the Arabs.” We may add, in passing, that the feminist revolution of the modern age (in which night wants to become day) confirms that Dajjāl is now in the last stage of his mission.
It is indeed a pleasant surprise to find
Iqbāl coming to the conclusion that Gog and Magog were released into
the world and were spreading out in all directions for this had to be
the reason why he called for attention to be devoted to tafseer harf-e-yansilūn (i.e., the interpretation of verses 95 and 96 of Sūrah al-Anbiyāh of the Qur’ān).
For reasons which are yet to be explained we find no evidence that Iqbal himself devoted further attention to tafseer harf-e-yansilūn. Had he done so he would have understood the reality, in the context of Islam’s conception of the end of history,
of such events as the emergence of modern western secular civilization
with an obsession of liberating the Holy Land, the Euro-Christian
crusades, the birth of the Zionist Movement in 1897, the European
crusader ‘liberation’ of Jerusalem in 1917, the British government’s
mysterious Balfour Declaration of 1917, and emergence of an alliance
between the European Jewish Zionists and European Christian Zionists,
etc. He may even have anticipated the birth of an imposter State of
Israel in the Holy Land the way we now anticipate, more than 70 years
later, the rule of Israel replacing that of USA over the world.
Iqbāl’s epistemological ambivalence and the end of history
The major actors in the last stage of history, viz., Gog and Magog, Dajjāl, Imām al-Mahdi, and the return of the true Messiah, Jesus the son of the Virgin Mary (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon them both), and the respective roles which they play, all combine to form an integrated inseparable whole.
What is truly alarming is that despite Iqbāl’s confirmation of the release of Gog and Magog, he rejected belief in Dajjāl the false Messiah, Imām Al-Mahdi
and the return of the true Messiah, Jesus the son of the Virgin Mary
(peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon them both). What
possible explanation could there be for this truly unfortunate
situation? Also, how do we explain the surprising fact that apart from
that one absolutely amazing verse declaring the release of all the
hoards of Gog and Magog
Iqbāl is otherwise mysteriously and inexplicably silent on this
strategically important subject that lies at the very heart of Islam’s
conception of the end of history?
Whatever be the explanation, my view is
that if Iqbāl were alive today, the unfolding events in the world, and,
in particular, in the Holy Land, would have forced him to change his
views with respect to Dajjāl the false Messiah, Imām Al-Mahdi
and the return of Jesus the true Messiah as well as his view that that a
modern republican Islamic State could be a substitute for the Islamic
Caliphate (Khilafah). Did he not himself say: “Only stones do not change”!
Perhaps it was because the reality of
Gog and Magog was established by the Qur’ān, there was no way that Iqbāl
could have dismissed the subject. The corollary is that if belief in
Gog and Magog had not been established in the Qur’ān, and were dependent
on the Ahadīth, they might have suffered the same fate as belief in the advent of Imām al-Mahdi, Dajjāl, and the return of Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salām).
When Iqbāl turned to the study of these subjects he appears to have
experienced an epistemological transformation. The spiritual or
religious consciousness was used to recognize the release of Gog and
Magog into the world. The light of Allah Most High illumined for him the
path for a dazzling display of the intuitive embrace of truth. On the
other hand, it was the theoretic consciousness which was used to study
the other verities which were not established by the Qur’ān, and this
perhaps led to his incapacity to grasp the Islamic conception of the end
of history.
Conclusion
It is in the very nature of the
historical process, especially when it approaches the end of history,
that only truth can survive the awesome tests and trials that precede
the end. Our Islamic view is that the final countdown to the end of
history commenced with the creation of the Zionist Movement in 1897 (see
Jerusalem in the Qur’an) and is fast approaching its culmination when an imposter Messiah will rule the world from Jerusalem prior to the advent of Imam al-Mahdi and the return of the true Messiah, son of Mary.
Despite his greatness as a scholar of Islam Iqbāl misjudged Dajjāl’s
modern secular State and unwittingly laid the foundation for a modern
republican Pakistan to be born with a bogus claim to function as a valid
substitute for the institution of the Islamic Caliphate (Khilāfah). Hence there are significant limits to which we can turn to Iqbal for deriving an understanding of the reality
of this age, and for formulating an Islamic response to Pakistan’s hour
of ultimate peril. This constitutes a particularly painful predicament
for secular Pakistanis and Islamic modernists as well as for those whose
response to Pakistan’s moment of truth can rise no higher than the
passionate beating of Iqbalian drums.
Our hope is that this humble essay might
help in some small way to produce a studied and a theoretically firm
Islamic response to Pakistan’s hour of ultimate peril. Our gentle
readers (including Hizb al-Tahrīr) should carefully note that
such a response cannot emerge without a prior recognition of Signs of
the Last Day unfolding in the world as the historical process approaches
its culmination. Whatever the response that may emerge, and regardless
of what the immediate future holds in store, Muslim Pakistanis must
never waver in their conviction that the end of history will witness a
divinely-ordained triumph of Truth over all rivals regardless of the
Anglo-American-Indo-Israeli alliance’s unjust and barbaric war on Islam
and Muslims:
﴿هُوَ الَّذِي أَرْسَلَ رَسُولَهُ بِالْهُدَى وَدِينِ الْحَقِّ لِيُظْهِرَهُ عَلَى الدِّينِ كُلِّهِ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ الْمُشْرِكُونَ﴾
“He it is who has sent forth His
Messenger with the (task of spreading) guidance and the religion of
truth, to the end that He may cause it to prevail over all (false)
religion, however hateful this may be to those who ascribe divinity to
aught beside Allah.”
(Qur’an, Taubah, 9:33)
End
|
REFLECTIONS OF ALLAMAH DR.
MUHAMMAD IQBAL ON PALESTINE
Introduction
Islam and the
Muslim world constitute the central theme of all the works of Allamah Dr.
Muhammad Iqbal. The defeat and dismemberment of the Khilāfat‑i‑Uthmānia
hurt Allamah Iqbal’s heart most severely. The problem of Palestine constitutes
the greatest tragedy of this century for the Muslim world. This is a festering
wound which has continued in the body politic of the Muslim world till today. It
constituted the greatest stress to Allamah’s heart and its evidence exists
throughout his writings and lectures. As the Palestine problem is one of the
most important problems of the present day Muslim world I felt it appropriate to
present this topic to Muslim intelligentsia. Recently an article entitled
“lqbāl awr Masa’alah‑i‑Filasṭīn” written by Maulvi Shams Tabriz Khan passed
my eyes. It has been included in a book entitled, Nuqūsh‑i‑Iqbāl by
Sayyid Abul Ḥasan ‘Alī Nadvī published by Majlis‑e‑Nashriyaat‑e‑Islam,
Karachi, Pakistan in 1975. This book is an Urdu translation of an earlier Arabic
book entitled, Rawā’i‘ Iqbāl by the same author. Though the book
Rawā’i‘ Iqbāl, was written to acquaint the Arab world with the thought of
Allamah lqbal it did not have any paper on Palestine. This grave omission was
noticed by the translator of the book into Urdu and has been rectified by him
which is a very valuable addition. An English translation of this paper is
presented below for the benefit of English knowing Muslims.
Note. The material
within parentheses in what follows has been inserted by me for clarification.
Translation
Iqbal had a very
deep personal interest in the problem and future of Palestine and Arabs. His
personal letters, particularly those to Miss Farquharson, show his heart‑felt
intense dismay concerning the Palestine problem. In a letter to Mr. (Muhammad
Ali) Jinnah he writes.
The Palestine problem has long
kept Muslims in mental distress. The Palestinian Arabs perhaps may attain some
benefit through the Muslim League. Personally, I am prepared to go to jail for
any issue influencing both India and Islam. The forcible establishment of a
Western military cantonment at the gateway to Asia is fraught with dangers both
to Islam and India.
He writes to Miss
Farquharson:[1]
The Jews also have
no right over Palestine. They had bid farewell to Palestine willingly long
before its occupation by Arabs. Zionism also is not a religious movement in
addition to the absence of any interest among religious Jews in Zionism. The
Palestine Report has brought out this fact to broad daylight.
The advice and
sympathies of Iqbal with Palestine were part and parcel of every Palestine
conference held in India. The Allamah made a statement against The Palestine
Report in the Muslim Conference held at Lahore in which he said:
[2]
The injustice
meted out to Arabs has touched me intensively as it could touch any person who
is conversant with the conditions prevailing in the Near East. This problem
provides an opportunity to the world Muslims to declare with all the force at
their command that the problem, the solution of which is the aim of the British
politicians is not only the occupation of Palestine but is a problem which will
lead to the creation of intense influence on the whole Islamic world. If the
Palestine problem be viewed in its historical background it will be obvious that
this is a problem which is purely Islamic. If viewed in the light of the history
of Bani Israel, the Jewish problem in Israel had ceased to exist thirteen
centuries before the entry of Hazrat Umar in Jerusalem. The forcible expulsion
of Jews from Palestine never occurred (through) Muslims but, as is pointed out
by Professor Hocking. Jews had spread out of Palestine voluntarily and
intentionally and the larger part of their scriptures was written and organized
outside Palestine. The Palestine problem was never a Christian problem. The
recent historical discoveries have thrown a shroud of doubt over the existence
of Peter the Hermit himself.
The most tragic
result of the First World War was the infliction of severe damage on the Islamic
world. On the one hand, the Islamic Khilāfah of Turkey was disorganized
and on the other, the allies again freely used their old stratagem of
injudicious division of the booty. Consequently, the eastern part of Turkey was
given over to Russia and the western provinces of Balkan, Hungary and Bulgaria
etc. were declared completely independent. Iran and Syria were given over to
France and Britain occupied Egypt and Iraq. In this way the Islamic world was
dismembered and distributed among imperialist European nations. As the Palestine
problem had international dimensions it was placed under the guardianship of
Britain “to guide it to the path of progress and civilization”. Iqbal throws
light on this state of affairs and exposes the cunning stratagem of Europe. He
shows how Europe first makes the weak countries the target of its tyrannies,
then sheds crocodile tears over their misfortunes and shows sympathy, so as to
retain its acceptability in the world of Islam in addition to attaining its own
ends
All applause to
your compassionate heart, as for the sake of thawāb
You have come to
the funeral prayer of the one killed by your amorous glance
Europe designates
this diplomacy to be a combination of discipline and guardianship but it is
nothing short of blood sucking.
Iqbal has no
doubts in its apparent civility
Europe is the “guarantor” of every oppressed nation
However, Syria and Palestine break my heart
Prudence fails to uncover this complex enigma
After coming out of the influence of the “unjust Turks’
Europe is the “guarantor” of every oppressed nation
However, Syria and Palestine break my heart
Prudence fails to uncover this complex enigma
After coming out of the influence of the “unjust Turks’
These poor countries are now engulfed in “the whirlpool of
civilization
Even at that time
that the League of Nations (which was the predecessor of the present day United
Nations) had perpetrated discriminatory treatment against Arabs and Asians which
continues till today. This was due to the overpowering influence of Jews and
Western countries over it. For this very reason Iqbal sometimes called the
League of Nations “Dāshta‑i‑pīrak‑i‑Afrang” (a keep of the West) and
sometimes presents it with the similitude of shroud thieves who wanted to
designate the East as a grave yard whose graves they wanted to distribute among
themselves for stealing their shrouds.
I do not know more
than this that some shroud thieves)
Have formed an association for distributing the graves among
themselves
Iqbal had
understood the growing influence of Jews over Western politics. He had
considered it inevitable that Europe would some day fall a victim to their snare
of fraud.
The usurious Jews
are waiting since long
To whose deceit the prowess of the tiger is no match
The West is bound to fall by itself like a ripe fruit
Let us see in whose lap the West falls
To whose deceit the prowess of the tiger is no match
The West is bound to fall by itself like a ripe fruit
Let us see in whose lap the West falls
He expresses the
same thought in another poem titled, “Europe and Jews”
This prematurely dying
civilization is in the agony of death
The Jews will perhaps be the trustees of the Church
Since the
Arab‑Israeli war of June 5, 1967 opinion has been expressed by Jews and their
supporters that because Arabs had expelled Jews from their homeland Jews are not
to blame if they have wrested their homeland again and that this land is the
“Promised Land” where their return is inevitable, as the Zionists say.
Iqbal had
responded to this to the effect that Jews had emigrated from Palestine
voluntarily and that this “Diaspora” had occurred even before the Arab conquest
of Palestine. Accepting this claim of Jews, Iqbal raised a pertinent but
unwelcome question. This was that if Jews had their rights over Palestine why
could not Arabs have their rights over Spain, Sicily and other European lands
previously owned by them? This claim of Jews is equivalent to the launching of
their claim by the Red Indians over North America and that of the Hun, Goth and
Gaul nations over Britain or of the Aryans of India against Iran and Russia that
their homelands be returned to them.
In Iqbal’s view
this is an outrage and a joke on history and is a ridiculous attempt at its
wilful distortion. If Jews have to be rewarded with a homeland at all this
should be conferred upon them in Germany from where they have been really
expelled. This new claim of Jews over Palestine after a lapse of a thousand
years of its relinquishment, followed by silence about it is totally baseless
and is only the result of prompting by the West.
If the Jew has the right over the land of Palestine
Why is there no right of Arabs over Spain
The object of British imperialism is something very different
It is not concerned with orange orchards or “the Land of Milk and Honey
Why is there no right of Arabs over Spain
The object of British imperialism is something very different
It is not concerned with orange orchards or “the Land of Milk and Honey
Allamah Iqbal is
aware of the conceptions and potential of Palestinian Arabs as well as with
their capabilities. Consequently, he wants to stir them up for the development
of Khudī and excitement to the desire of being counted, and reminds them
of their spiritual elegance from which the world is still benefiting. It is well
known that in Iqbal’s message of Khudī the feelings of Arabs, their
Islamic sentiments, the pleasures of Īmān and Belief, spiritual
potentials and a stable determination alone are the basic components. Inviting
Arabs to the war of independence, after furnishing themselves with these very
arms, Iqbal says beside Faith in God and in Khudī any trust in Europe
and the League of Nations (or the United Nations) is nothing short of vain
imagination and self-deception.
I know that your
existence still has the fire
From the warmth of which the world is still benefiting
Your cure lies neither in Geneva nor in London
The jugular vein of the West is in the clutches of Jews
I have heard that freedom of nations from slavery
Lies in the development of Khudī and the joy for rising up so as to be counted
From the warmth of which the world is still benefiting
Your cure lies neither in Geneva nor in London
The jugular vein of the West is in the clutches of Jews
I have heard that freedom of nations from slavery
Lies in the development of Khudī and the joy for rising up so as to be counted
Discussion
Some discussion of
“the Promised Land” in the light of Jewish history appears necessary here. For a
complete understanding of the concept of “the Promised Land” and the behaviour
of Jews regarding it I shall restrict myself only to the Old and New Testaments
of the Holy Bible. The teachings of the Holy Qur’an on this subject are well
known to its readers and will not be included in this discussion for brevity.
According to the Holy Bible God promised “the Promised Land” of Cana‘ān to
Abraham and his progeny in 1900 B.C. (Genesis 12:1‑7). This land roughly
corresponds to the present day Palestine and Jordan. The progeny of Abraham
includes Banū Isrā’īl (Jews) as well as Banū Ismā‘īl (Arabs). So, both
branches of Abraham’s progeny have equal rights to “the Promised land”. This
promise is conditioned with the obligation of piety, as is general with every
promise of God. From 1900 B.C. to 1000 B.C. i.e. for a period of 800 years this
land was ruled by Egypt and Philistines, which gave it the name of Philistine,
now anglicised to Palestine. Moses brought Banū Isrā’īl to Palestine in about
1100 B.C. after their Exodus from Egypt and wandering about in the Sinai
Peninsula for 40 years. In spite of the promise of God, which should have given
strength to Banū Isrā’īl they refused to face the travails of a war with
Philistines (Numbers Chapters 13‑15). A summary of the history of Jews follows
721 B.C. ‑ 715
B.C. ‑ Assyrians, followed by Babylonians conquered Palestine with complete
destruction of Banū Isrā’īl and their cities.
530 B.C. ‑ Return
of Banū Isrā’īl to Palestine with the help of the Persian king Cyrus II.
332 B.C. ‑
Palestine conquered by Greeks under Alexander.
63 B.C. ‑ Conquest
of Palestine by Romans.
135 C.E. ‑ Revolt
of Banū Isrā’īl and its suppression by Romans with extremely heavy losses to
Banū Isrā’īl and destruction of the Temple of Solomon.
About 650 C.E. ‑
Muslim conquest and rule arrived, which continued till the end of World War 1.
in 1918.
Thus, “the
promised Land” was not given to Banū Isrā’īl for a period of 800 years from
1900 B.C. to 1100 B.C. During the Exodus when Moses, on command from God,
planned to invade Cana‘ān, Banū Isrā’īl flatly refused to go with him.
(Numbers Chapters 13‑15).
The Muslims
remained rulers in Palestine for about 1270 years which is four times longer
than the rule of Banū Isrā’īl. The expulsion of Banū Isrā’īl from
Palestine was completed in 715 B.C. after its conquest by Babylonia and
continued off and on for about 1400 years when the Muslims arrived in 650 C.E.
The emigration of Banū Isrā’īl since 715 B.C., technically known as
“Diaspora”, was either due to the atrocities of Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks
and Romans or occurred voluntarily in search of ‘greener pastures’ elsewhere. It
was not brought about by Muslims (or Arabs). In fact Banū Isrā’īl were
rehabilitated in Palestine by the Uthmanian Khalifah in the late 15th
Century and early 16th
Century, when they were expelled by the Christian kings of Spain during the
infamous “Inquisition”. These disasters were not brought on to Banū Isrā’īl
by Muslims but by their own backsliding from the Covenants with God on Mount
Sinai after the Exodus, followed by abandoning the straight path shown to them
by their own prophets and scriptures, which brought the wrath of God over them.
There are innumerable references to this in the scriptures of Banū Isrā’īl,
Christians and Muslims. The following is a very short list of such references in
the Old and New Testaments. References in the Holy Qur’an are omitted because
they are well known.
The Old Testament:
Psalms 106: 34‑43:
34. They did not
destroy the nations, concerning whom the LORD commanded them.
35. But were
mingled among the heathen and learned their works.
36. And they
served their idols: which were a snare unto them.
37. Yea, they
sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils.
38. And shed
innocent blood even the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they
sacrificed unto the idols of Cana‘ān and the land was polluted with blood.
39. Thus were they
defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions.
40. Therefore was
the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, in so much that he
abhorred his own inheritance.
41. And he gave
them into the hands of the heathen, and they that hated them ruled over them.
42. Their enemies
also oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their hand.
43. Many times did
he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low
for their inequity.
Isaiah 1: 3‑5 and
21‑24, and 3:16‑26;
Chapter 1: 3. The
ox knoweth his owner and the ass master’s crib: but Israel doth not know: my
people doth not consider.
4. Ah sinful
nation, a people laden with inequity, a seed of evil doers, children that are
corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the holy one of
Israel into anger, they have gone away backward.
5. Why should ye
be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more; the whole head is sick, and
the whole heart faint.
21. How is the
faithful city become as harlot! It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in
it, but now murderers.
22. Thy silver has
become dross, thy wine mixed with water.
23. Thy princes
are rebellious and companions of thieves: everyone loveth gifts and followeth
after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the
widow come unto them.
24. Therefore,
saith the LORD, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah I will ease me
of mine adversaries, and avenge of mine enemies.
Chapter 3:16‑26
16. Moreover the
LORD saith Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched
forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a
tinkling with their feet.
17. Therefore the
LORD will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion; and
the LORD will discover their secret parts.
18. 1n that day
the LORD will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about
their feet and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon.
19. The chains and
the bracelets and the mufflers.
20. The bonnets
and the ornaments of their legs, and the headbands and the tablets, and the
earrings.
21. The rings and
nose jewels.
22. The changeable
suits of apparel and the mantles and the wimples, and the chipping pins
23. The glasses
and the fine linen, and the hoods and the Vail.
24. And it shall
come to pass that instead of sweet smells there shall be stink; and
instead of girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of
a stomacher a girdling of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.
25, Thy men shall
fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war.
26. And her gates
shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit on the ground.
Jeremiah, Chapter
3:
6. The LORD also
said unto me in the days of Joshua the king. Hast thou seen that
backsliding Israel hath done? She is gone up upon every high mountain and under
every green tree, and there had played the harlot.
7. And I said
after she had done all those things, Turn thou unto me But she returned
not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8. And I saw, when
for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her
away and had given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah
feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
9. And it came to
pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land and
committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
St. Mathew,
Chapter 23:
35. That upon you
may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of
righteous Abel unto the blood of Zachariah son of Batrachia, whom ye slew
between the temple and the altar.
36. Verily, I say
unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.
37. 0 Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that calloused the prophets, and steepest them which are
sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a
hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.
38. Behold your
house is left unto you desolate.
Notes and References
[1]
This refers to the two letters of Allamah lqbal to Miss Farquharson, dated
July 30 and September 30, 1937 respectively, regarding Palestine, which are
included in Iqbāl Nāmah (Makātīb‑i‑Iqbāl) Vol. 1, pp. 446‑50.
Miss Farquharson was the President of the National League of England.
Perusal of these letters is urged to readers.
[2]
Ditto, pp. 451‑56 ‑ Statement of Allamah lqbal to the Lahore session of the
Muslim Conference in 1937 to protest against the Palestine Report.
Considering the context reference to “Peter the Hermit” in the statement of
Allamah lqbal in the reference cited and also appearing in the paper
translated appears to be a printing error.. In the New Testament Peter is
not referred to as “the Hermit “. However, in the Book of Revelation St.
John is referred to as “the Divine”. Moreover, neither of the two Epistles
of St. Peter deal with the subject of the text. The Book of Revelation does.
In this book St. John describes his dream in which he states to have seen
the shape of things to come at the end of the world. Chapter 21 describes
the ascent of the Jews in which they are shown to be in full possession of
Palestine and Jerusalem. Perhaps, this is also listed by Jews and their
supporters as an act of the inevitable Divine Will of making Jews masters
of Palestine.
The
authenticity and reliability of whole of the New Testament is held in doubt.
Reference is invited to Appendix III of Allamah Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s
“Text, Translation and Commentary of the Holy Qur’an” in which he discusses
this subject on the authority of world famous Christian scholars of
Christianity. He says that, “about the Gospel of St. John, there is much
controversy as to authorship, dates and even as to whether it was all
written by one and the same person”. The authenticity of the Book of
Revelation by St. John, the Divine is even more seriously disputed than his
Gospel. Allamah Yusuf Ali says, “The Apocalypse of St. John, which is the
part of the present canon in the West, forms no part of the Peshita (Syriac)
version of the Eastern Christians., which was produced in 411 C.E. , and
which was used by Nestorian Christians”. The text of “Revelation” is so
confusing that it verges on mythology. Perusal of the whole Appendix III is
urged for a complete understanding of the subject. The readers are also
urged to read Tafhīm‑ul‑Qur’an by Maulana Abul A’ala Mawdoodi, the
Tafseer
of Surah Ṣaff, verse 6. This discussion is also based on
world literature on Christianity. The ‘New Lexicon Webster’s Encyclopaedic
Dictionary of the English Language’ describes the Book of Revelation
as “the 27th”. or the last book (late 1st or early 2nd
Century) of the New Testament of uncertain authorship. It contains
apocalyptic visions of the victory of God over Satan and was apparently
written, “to strengthen the persecuted Christians” (p. 851). This is a
fallacious belief from the Islamic point of view. According to Islam, God
reigns supreme from eternity to eternity. Satan has been given the power of
misleading mankind temporarily, primarily to grant his desire of complete
freedom to mislead and as a system by which people can be tested for
different grades of their piety or lack of it. This is part of God’s
universal plan.
Allama Iqbal with his son Javed Iqbal in 1930
Great Collection Of Urdu And English Shayaris And Quotes. Latest Shayari And Poetry Collection Of Dr. Iqbal Sahab.
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