Tuesday 8 November 2011

Iqbal creator of new paradigms


I was simply shocked when an Iqbal scholar who also happened to hold a senior position at Iqbal academy said in a published interview that Iqbal is a great poet but not a great philosopher.

I always thought like multitudes that Iqbal was a great poet philosopher, and my conviction grew more when I read along with Javidnama, The Reconstruction of Religious Thoughts in Islam. But after that shocking revelation of Iqbal scholar I started rereading the Reconstruction again and this time I found that calling Iqbal a philosopher was extremely unfair.


Like Iqbal scholar I have my own perception about all this, I think Iqbal cannot be termed only as a Poet, Philosopher, Mystic or a Sufi, to me he is an Artist. To me poet means an imaginative person, Philosopher the one who thinks he is imaginative but is one who contemplates, Mystic is the one who sees what can be imagined and Sufi is one who lives like what a Mystic imagines. But to me an Artist is one who creates from imagination a new world and Iqbal was one of those few artists who were par excellence and who is a creator of a new world, a world that did not explode at the time of creation when God pronounced Kun ( کن ) and it was, but God also wanted from His creation some creative souls who would answer the Kun with Faukoun ( فیکون ) and Artists like Iqbal took that challenge and responsibility, and the result is 9 glorious books or nine new paradigm that are nine new ways of understanding the past, the present but more importantly the future.

10 comments:

  1. Everyone knows Iqbal as a great philosopher as well.

    Herat hai... :/

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  2. hmmm...the world is full of wonderful people...and they never cease to amaze us to death....

    I always take these kind of comments and people amusing and smiled on their ignorance...

    hmmm....Sir Muhammad Iqbal is a great philosopher...indeed.

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  3. Iqbal_an artist! A beautiful thought and i agree with that though I also think that an artist is always a philosopher, a mystic, a sufi, and a scientist as well. To create, whatever it is, one has to bear the pains of all a mind could.
    Good comment anyway I like it!

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  4. Yes Thinking everyone has a right to give his mind.

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  5. Thanks muzzamila for your comments.

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  6. we usually do not value our treasures and so we lose them...not accepting him as a philospher for me is equal to disowning this great man and because of such acts of carelessness we have lost our sights

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  7. @t, Iqbal's greatness lies in his vision for tomorrow, and that is beyond doubt unique and inspiring.

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  8. Greetings,

    Thank you very much for this.

    I remember (in the MLC courses) it being mentioned that art (literature, painting, etc.) is often mis-labeled, often by the educated few, and so gold is still gold, but, by being mis-labeled, it's strewn on the floor and goes largely unnoticed by the masses (because the opinion of some are given hyper-credibility). And so True Gold is obscured by the so-called informed opinions of a few educated persons.

    I notice in the world that complicated contrivances of thought (often embedded in some so-called philosophy) are often elevated as superior while, at the same time, anything connected with sacro-religious thought is subtly belittled as if not able to stand next to, or above, this philosophical thought.

    All good wishes,

    robert

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    Replies
    1. Yes this seems so and it seems fashionable and trendy to go against everything that has any trace of religious inclination.

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