People

Lady Evelyn Cobbold

Lady Evelyn Cobbold, a Scottish convert to Islam, died in Inverness. Specifically, on her estate in Glencarron, Wester Ross, in...

Bengali Muslim migration had reached its peak during the 1970s with the influx of people coming from the Sylhet region...

Iqbal Geoffrey

Iqbal Geoffrey was a man of Pakistani origin who travelled to London after being accepted as a legal professional in...

Bahadur Sher

Bahadur Sher was born in Northern Pakistan in 1930 and arrived in the UK in 1961 with the aspiration to...

Gladys Milton Palmer

Gladys Milton Palmer was a well known and respected British socialite and heiress who converted to the religion of Islam...

Khurshid Ahmed

Khurshid Ahmed was a member of the Pakistan navy and in 1964, he arrived in the UK as part of...

Zia Mohyeddin

Zia was a British-Pakistani thespian and truly a jack of all trades as he juggled acting, direction and broadcasting. Having...

Abdal Hakim Murad

Abdal Hakim Murad is an English academic, theologian and Islamic scholar. His work includes publications on Islamic theology, modernity, and...

Samuel Fyzee-Rahamin

Born on 19th December 1880, in Poona, Samuel Rahamin's family were part of the Bene Israel, a cultivated Jewish community...

Atiya Fyzee-Rahamin

Author, social reformer, and patron of the arts, she was born in Constantinople on 1 August 1877 into the prominent...

Aisha Abdurrahman Bewley

Aisha Bewley has been – and continues to be – a world-renowned and accomplished translator of classical Islamic literature. After...

Dr Muhammad Isa Waley

Muhammad Isa Waley is a British editor, translator, and researcher specializing in the literature of Muslim spirituality in Arabic, Persian,...

Ziauddin Sardar

Ziauddin Sardar is a British-Pakistani scholar, award-winning writer, cultural critic and public intellectual who specialises in Muslim thought, the future...

Gai Eaton

Gai Eaton, born Charles Le Gai Eaton, also known as Hasan le Gai Eaton or Hassan Abdul Hakeem, was born...

Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Abdullah Yusuf Ali, born on April 14, 1872, in Bombay, British India (present-day Mumbai, India), was a renowned Islamic scholar,...

Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi born 2nd of October 1869, more commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was born in Porbandar, Kanthiawar, India....

Allama Iqbal

Allama Iqbal is widely considered one of the ideological founding figures of Pakistan and also holds the status of national...

Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), also revered as Quaid-i-Azam (Great Leader), was a barrister and politician who played a pivotal role...

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)

Abd Ar Rahman bin Muhammed ibn Khaldun (1332 – 1406) is considered the Muslim father of Sociology. His contributions to...

Azeezat Johnson

Dr Azeezat Johnson was a brilliant mind. She was a lecturer at Queen Mary University and a member of the...

Jack Ward

John Ward or Birdy, also known as Jack Ward or later as Yusuf Reis, was born in Faversham he originally...

Catalina Motril

Catalina of Motril was an enslaved servant to Queen Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife. She might have held...

Asif Shakoor

Asif Shakoor is an independent researcher. He grew up in Manor Park and studied at the University of East London....

Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud

Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud was the ambassador to the court of Queen Elizabeth I and was responsible for establishing trade...

Fatima Manji

Fatima Manji is a British television journalist and newsreader who became Britain's first hijab-wearing TV newsreader in March 2016. Her...

Akbar The Great

Akbar the Great was the third and most powerful Mughal Emperor of India, ruling from 1556 to 1605. Queen Elizabeth...

Aura Sultana

Aura Sultana was a young Central Asian Slave girl of Tatar origin. She had been purchased by English explorer, Anthony...

Francis Levett

This portrait depicts Francis Levett a "Turkey Merchant", (Member of the Levant Company) of the city of London. In partnership...

Abdul Qayyum Sher

Abdul Qayyum Sher was born in Kohat in 1921. This city is now in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan,...

Colonel Mohammad Ghani

Colonel Mohammad Ghani joined the British Indian Army in 1940. He was in a Punjab Regiment and after finishing his...

Chanan and the Goat

Chanan was born in 1926 in a village near Hoshiarpur. His family owned and farmed the land. He was the...

Imam Al-Ghazali

Imam al-Ghazali (1057-1111), honoured with the title of "Hujjatul Islam" or "Proof of Islam," was a renowned Islamic scholar and...

Noor Inayat Khan GC

Noor served in the military during World War II who served as a wireless operator for the Special Operations Executive,...

1905

Allama Iqbal

Posted in:

People

Author:

EMHAI

Allama Iqbal is widely considered one of the ideological founding figures of Pakistan and also holds the status of national poet of the neighbouring country.

Allama Muhammad Iqbal’s travels in Europe and his exposure to various western thinkers arguably had a profound impact on his philosophical thought and understanding of the world. His writings often cite European philosophers, thinkers, writers and poets as he read widely from the works of Plato, Aristotle, Goethe, Hegel and Wordsworth, who he says saved him from atheism in his student days. 

Iqbal was influenced by the teachings of Sir Thomas Arnold, his philosophy teacher at Government College Lahore, to pursue higher education in the West. In 1905, he travelled to England for that purpose. While already acquainted with Friedrich Nietzsche and Henri Bergson, Iqbal would discover Rumi slightly before his departure to England, and he would teach the Masnavi to his friend Swami Rama Tirtha, who in return would teach him Sanskrit.

Iqbal qualified for a scholarship from Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in 1906. 

Iqbal was, according to Muhammad Ali Jinnah “a personal friend, philosopher and guide and as such the main source of my inspiration and spiritual support” as well as fellow barrister and political ally.

Jinnah had left the struggle in India for Britain, and Jaswant Singh deems Jinnah's time in Britain as a break or sabbatical from the Indian struggle. Hector Bolitho, Jinnah’s early biographer, called this period "Jinnah's years of order and contemplation, wedged in between the time of early struggle, and the final storm of conquest".

It was Allama Iqbal who began convincing Jinnah to come back from London to lead the Muslim League and demand a separate country for Muslims. 

His dream that “nations are born in the hearts of poets” was realised in 1947 with the formation of Pakistan. 

Perhaps fittingly the last words on Sir Muhammad Iqbal should be those of Jinnah who after his death described him as “undoubtedly one of the greatest poets, philosophers and seers of humanity of all times. He took a prominent part in the politics of the country and in the intellectual and cultural reconstruction of the Islamic world. His contribution to the literature and thought of the world will live forever.”

Sources and Attribution

Author: Afzal Khan Jinnah Plaque in Kensington - https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/quaid-i-azam/ 

India Cabinet Mission, Correspondence with the Congress Party & Muslim League - https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/parliament-and-empire/collections1/collections2/jinnah-and-the-muslim-league/ 

Two letters from Iqbal to Jinnah (1937) - http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_iqbal_tojinnah_1937.html 

The Spiritual Father of Pakistan - https://www.lincolnsinn.org.uk/library-archives/tales-from-the-archive/january-2019-the-spiritual-father-of-pakistan/

Spotted an issue Report this record

Loading please wait