Muhammad Iqbal

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Muhammad Iqbal

Sir Muhammad Iqbal (also Ikbal , Urdu محمد اقبال DMG Muḥammad Iqbāl ; born on November 9, 1877 in Sialkot ; died on April 21, 1938 in Lahore , both then British India , now Pakistan ) was a Muslim poet, mystic, Islamic philosopher and political thinker of Indian descent. He wrote in Persian and Urdu and is now considered the national poet and “spiritual father” of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Muhammad Iqbal is also often called Allama Iqbal (علامہ اقبال, Iqbal the scholar (from Arabic علّامة, DMG ʿallāma meaning "highly learned ")), in Persian after his place of work Lahore also Iqbal Lahauri (اقبال لاهوری/ Iqbāl-i Lāhaurī ). Most of his works are written in the Persian language . He also wrote philosophical poetry in Urdu and some philosophical prose works in English. Iqbal is considered the most philosophically educated representative of the so-called modernist tendency in Islamic thought and is regarded as one of the most important Islamic philosophers of the modern age.

Life and influences

Iqbal was born on November 9, 1877 in Sialkot in the Punjab of what was then British India. His grandparents were Kashmiri Pandits, brahmins of the Sapru clan who had converted to Islam. From the age of four Iqbal learned the Koran, the Arabic language and later matriculated after graduating from Murray College (originally Scotch Mission College) in Lahore for a Master of Arts in philosophy . 1905–1908 he studied law and philosophy in Cambridge , Munich and Heidelberg and did his doctorate at the University of Munich under Fritz Hommel . His dissertation "The Development of Metaphysics in Persia" deals with the entire history of Iranian religion, which extends from Zarathustra to the Baha'i . The work is still pervaded by a new Hegelian view of the world and is thus partly in contrast to Iqbal's later views. His interest in interpreting oriental spiritual currents in modern philosophical language is already evident here.

As a child of Indian Islam, Iqbal was initially inclined to the all-unity theosophy of Muhyī d-Dīn Ibn ʿArabīs and processed it with influences from Neoplatonism , Aristotelianism , legal Islam and the Taqlīd -critical tendencies of Shāh Walīyullāh ad-Dihlawī . The encounter with the writings of Goethe , Heine , Nietzsche and William James influenced his works. He discovered his admiration and admiration for Goethe and also for Germany and German philosophy. Faust is a divine creative work and recognizes the highest value of life, creative love. After returning to his homeland in 1908, he called for stronger solidarity between Muslims , which should enable them to regain spiritual ascent after years of decline. His major works include Asrar-e-Khudi (dt. "The secrets of the self") in 1915 and Payam-e-Mashriq (dt. "The message of the East") in 1923, the response to Goethe's eastern West sofa is written . The "West-Eastern Divan" and the "Message of the East" are both divided into several books. Iqbal uses various Western forms of verse and rhyme in a number of Persian poems for his message.

The influence of Western philosophy from Goethe to Nietzsche and the French philosopher Bergson is evident in his dynamic view of the world by encouraging Muslims to reflect.

On February 15, 1923 he was ennobled by George V as a Knight Bachelor ("Sir").

In 1928 he gave a series of lectures at an Indian university on The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam . In this he pleads for a new interpretation of Islamic values. He himself was influenced by European philosophy and psychology.

Iqbal was married three times. He returned to India in 1933 from a trip from Spain and Afghanistan with a mysterious sore throat. After months of suffering from the disease, he died in Lahore in 1938, so that he did not see the founding of the state of Pakistan in 1947. One day before his death, the German landlord and private scholar Hans-Hasso von Veltheim met him .

Iqbal and Goethe

On a formal as well as intellectual level, Goethe occupies a special position in Iqbal's lyrical and philosophical work. This is already evident in an early poem written during his student days in Heidelberg:

An evening (In Heidelberg, on the banks of the Neckar)

Silence is the moonlight's dream

Every branch on the tree is silent,

Silence of the valley singers now

The green hills rest in silence.

Nature, quite unconsciously

Slumber on the breast of the evening.

Silence magic now wanders

Neckars Rauschen even in Ruhn.

Pulls the silent train of the stars

Without a bell to the distance,

Mountain and river and field in silence,

The eternal will rests in itself.

O my heart, be still - you too ...

Let go of grief - sleep in peace now.

The echo of Goethe's Wanderer's Night Song is obvious:

Wanderer's Nightsong

Above all peaks

Is calm

In all tops

Do you feel

Hardly a whiff;

The birds are silent in the forest.

wait, soon

You rest too.

But even in his self-image as a poet, Goethe is Iqbal's identification figure and embodiment of an ideal. According to Iqbal, the highest degree of creative power that appears in the creation of the world is echoed in Goethe's Faust. For Iqbal this is the “systematic expression of the ultimate ideal of man” and “is hardly less than a divine work. It is just as good as the creation of a universe out of the chaos of formless matter. "Far more than philosophy and psychology, Goethe offers" a real insight into human nature "

In the prologue of his Payam-i Mashriq ( Message of the East ), conceived as a response to Goethe's West-Östlchen Divan , identification with and reverence for Goethe emerged particularly clearly. At the beginning of the volume he programmatically pays homage to Goethe , in which he compares himself with his role model:

He is like lightning, young, from the roots of Europe -

The breath of old men from the east stirs up my flame.

In the garden he was born and grown -

I grew up out of dead dust.

[...]

We know where the secret of being is worth

Are messengers of life out of death,

Are both daggers as bright as the dawn -

But he's bare and I'm still in my sheath.

It is true that a preoccupation with Goethe can be assumed relatively early on, but Iqbal's study visit to Germany deepened his relationship with him in particular. In his - actually not intended for publication - Stray Reflections from 1910, shortly after his return from Europe, there is already the idea of ​​a necessary reference to Goethe, from whose perfection Iqbal, however, at the same time considers himself far removed: “Only as Once I had grasped the infinity of Goethe's imagination, I discovered the narrowness of my own. ”Iqbal's veneration of Goethe is part of his extensive engagement with German poets and philosophers of his time, which is a recurring theme in his work. In doing so, however, he also builds bridges to Islamic intellectual history, for example when he forms pairs such as Jalaleddin and Hegel or Jalal and Goethe in his volume of poems Image of the Franks . His spiritual horizon, which transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries, is also evident when he mentions "Hegel, Goethe, Mirza Ghalib, Mirza Abdul Qadir Bedil and Wordsworth" as the main spiritual influences in his Stray Reflections . With regard to Iqbal's relationship with Goethe, it should be noted that the latter, after being overshadowed by Schiller in particular for writers from Junge Deutschland, has experienced a renaissance since the founding of the Empire in 1871, which increased to a true Goethe cult. Iqbal's enthusiasm can therefore be regarded as typical of the reception of Goethe in Wilhelmine Germany.

philosophy

The central concept of Iqbal's philosophy is "self", Urdu and Persian خودی chudī , which is the meaning of life and the goal of the world to develop. By this, Iqbal means “individuality”, as henotedin a 1915 letter on the debate about the secrets of the self . However, this is not to be understood in a classical sense, because according to Iqbal, every thing in the world has its self. If something is composed of several parts, each of these parts has a lower order self again, and so on down to the atoms. Conversely, the selves of a family or a nation form a - higher - self, down to the self of humanity, the earth, the universe and finally God's self. Iqbal falls back on the wave-particle dualism of physics and claims that matter and spirit (or self) are the two aspects of every thing, and that the thing itself is an event and not a substance .

The aim of the individual life is to strengthen this self. Likewise, the aim of the story is to strengthen the self of humanity. Iqbal regards Islam as the avant-garde of this comprehensive self-realization of humanity. However, he does not mean what he understands by Islam, not the Islam that actually existed in India in the early 20th century, which he often ridiculed.

According to Iqbal, the strengthening of the self should take place through “love” . For Iqbal, however, “love” is a very abstract concept of the passionate appropriation of something. What is usually understood by love is just a special case of it. Also, Iqbal's “love” doesn't have to be mutual. Iqbal is based on the concept of love in Islamic mysticism , which in turn is influenced by the Neoplatonic concept of eros . For Iqbal, “love” therefore means in a very general sense that you make something part of yourself and thus grow. B. through eating or through learning. According to Iqbal, “love” is superior to reason because reason lacks the passionate energy of real “love”. According to Iqbal, “love” is indispensable for ethics and metaphysics, because knowledge in these areas cannot be gained rationally for him, but only through intuition . For his conception of intuition, Iqbal refers to the then very popular French philosopher Henri Bergson .

poetry

As a poet, Iqbal was the first to turn philosophical subjects into poems in Urdu , and the first to add metonymies he had created to the strict canon of the imagery of Urdu poetry . In doing so, he considerably expanded the possibilities of Urdu poetry and enabled the generation after him to find free rhythmic poems and self-chosen themes. Before Iqbal, poetry was largely committed to the themes of spiritual and worldly love, heroic epic, and rhyming moral anecdote. Iqbal also wrote the first children's poems in Urdu. According to his own statements, his poetry is divided into three phases: an early phase up to 1905, in which he was mainly influenced by the English romantics, a national romantic transition phase from 1905 to 1908 (i.e. roughly his stay in Europe), and a philosophical phase since 1908 This philosophy was fully developed after the publication of the secrets of the self in 1915. From the second phase he also wrote in Persian, as this language had a higher prestige than Urdu at that time and Iqbal considered it more suitable for philosophy. He also hoped to reach an international Islamic audience.

In his philosophical poetry, Iqbal primarily processes his philosophy of the “self”, which he opposes as a dynamic force both to the “overly rational” Western science and to the Indian Islam of that time “frozen in Greek mysticism of solitude”. Iqbal had to deal with the subject of love in order to be recognized as a poet. To this end, he adapted the theme of "love" to his philosophy and deals exclusively with spiritual love. (In some poems, the inspiration from a woman can be proven, even if they no longer refer to it in the final version.) In doing so, he also reinterprets traditional metaphors or finds counter-images to them. Well known here is the poem of the raindrop, which is not supposed to dissolve in the sea, as is traditionally understood, but is supposed to become a pearl in a shell. Or he contrasts the butterfly, which burns in the flame of eternal love, with the glow-worm that shines out of itself. Such counterconcepts seem trivial in Europe today, but they were revolutionary in Urdu poetry of the 1920s and 1930s and represented a completely changed worldview. The third main theme Iqbal treats, like all poets, is poetry. Here he stylizes himself as the proclaimer of his philosophy, which (according to him) is the true meaning of Islam.

Poem (selection)

شنيدم در عدم پروانه ميگفت
دمى از زندگى تاب و تبم بخش
پريشان كن سحر خاكسترم را
وليكن سوز و ساز يك شبم بخش

šanīdam dar 'adam parwāna mēguft
damī az zindigī tāb-u tabam baḫš
parīšān kun saḥar ḫākistaram-rā
walīkan sōz-u sāz-i yak šabam baḫš 

In nothing I hear what the butterfly said:
Give me a breath of life, heat and fever.
Scatter my ashes, you morning light
But give me sorrow and joy of one night.

Work and reception

In addition to his poetic legacy, Iqbal influenced politics and philosophy in a lasting way. The basic lines of Iqbal's theology enable a broad reception in Islam. The decline of Islam as a political and intellectual force had led people like the Iranian Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani and the Indian Sayyid Ahmad Khan to seek a re-evaluation and revisionist, individual interpretation of Islam since the beginning of the 19th century . In the discourse with western developments and as a reaction to new (natural and spiritual) scientific challenges and front positions, a new interpretation of the Koran based on rational considerations was called for. So Iqbal campaigned for Ijtihād (striving) against the legal schools of Islam. Ijtihâd is able to bring about a more dynamic Islam again, reason and revelation can be compatible here without contradiction and allow analogies to be drawn.

“The transfer of the authority of iğtihād from individual representatives of the schools of law to a Muslim legislative assembly, which is the only possible form of ijma in modern times in view of the growth of divided sects, ensures the contributions of lay people who have a deep understanding of the situation have to legal discussions. "

In his main theoretical work, The Revival of Religious Thought in Islam , Iqbal combines Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism into a comprehensive metaphysics. On the one hand, he wants to present authors such as Bergson , Whitehead , Leibniz and Nietzsche as compatible with Islam, on the other hand, criticize Kant's and al-Ghazālīs epistemological theories and establish the infinite, Tawheed, as a condition for the possibility of the limited. In doing so, Iqbal Diltheys applies the epistemological approach and combines natural sciences and humanities in the mutual interpretation of experience as a common object. Iqbal insists that the main insights of “Western” thinkers are implicit in the Koran and Hadith . Because of his explicit reception of these thinkers, he is part of the global discourse on religion.

Politically, Iqbal campaigned for the Muslims in India - around 1930 as President of the All-India-Muslim League Conference. Iqbal stood up for a Muslim state structure within India. In his speech before the conference, which has become known as the “Pakistan Speech”, he did not understand this self-government to be implemented in a separate nation-state. According to Iqbal's idea, the religious imprint of the state should consist of a very general, ethical influence. As the goal of Islam, the higher development of humanity, this leads to the establishment of an egalitarian society. In his volume of poems "Mysteries of Self-Loss" he speaks of a perfect individual in a perfect society. Iqbal's thoughts were later taken up and further developed by Muhammad Ali Jinnah .

Memorial plaque with Iqbal's poem "Greetings to the Neckar" (around 1907)
Stele in Munich-Schwabing (Habsburger Platz) in memory of the poet's doctorate in Munich in 1907

Iqbal's works were translated into German and commented on in particular by Annemarie Schimmel .

In Heidelberg , the Iqbal-Ufer, an approximately 1200-meter-long section of the B37 along the south bank of the Neckar , is a street named after the philosopher and poet. In Munich there is a monument on Habsburgerplatz dedicated to the poet, politician and philosopher.

In January 2017, the Muhammad Iqbal Research Center was founded at the Westphalian Wilhelms University of Münster under the direction of Ahmad Milad Karimi . The research center is dedicated to systematic research into the works and thought of Muhammad Iqbal.

literature

Works

  • The reconstruction of religious thought in Islam . London 1930
    • Excerpt: Charles Kurzman (Ed.), Liberal Islam. A sourcebook . Oxford 1998. pp. 255-269
  • The Book of Eternity (Javīdnāma), transl. Annemarie Schimmel. Munich 1957
  • Message from the East. Selected works (original title: Payāmi-i mašriq , translated and edited by Annemarie Schimmel). Edition Erdmann, Tübingen 1977, pp. 54-64, ISBN 3-7711-0268-5 .
  • Steppe in the dust grain . Texts from the Urdu poetry of Muhammad Iqbal, selected, translated and explained by Johann Christoph Bürgel. Freiburg im Üechtland 1982
  • The revival of religious thought in Islam . Translated from the English by Axel Monte and Thomas Stemmer. Hans Schiler Publishing House, Berlin 2004
  • Stray thoughts . Translated from English and annotated by Axel Monte. With an introduction by Javid Iqbal and an afterword by Christina Oesterheld. Books Ex Oriente, Munich 2012

Studies

Web links

Commons : Muhammad Iqbal  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence and notes

  1. ^ SM Iqbal: The development of metaphysics in Persia. (Philosophical dissertation Munich) Luzac & Co., London 1908.
  2. ↑ Muhammad Iqbal: Messages from the East. Selected Works. Edited by Annemarie Schimmel. Horst Erdmann Verlag 1977, p. 18
  3. ^ The London Gazette : No. 32782 (Supplement), p. 2 , December 29, 1922.
  4. ↑ Muhammad Iqbal, Annemarie Schimmel (trans.): Persischer Psalter. Selected and translated by Annemarie Schimmel . Verlag Jakob Hegner, Cologne 1968, p. 22 .
  5. ↑ Muhammad Iqbal, Annemarie Schimmel (trans.): Persischer Psalter. Selected and translated by Annemarie Schimmel . Verlag Jakob Hegner, Cologne 1968, p. 44 f .
  6. ↑ Muhammad Iqbal, Annemarie Schimmel (trans.): Persischer Psalter. Selected and translated by Annemarie Schimmel . Verlag Jakob Hegner, Cologne 1968, p. 47 .
  7. ↑ Muhamad Iqbal, Annemarie Schimmel (trans.): Persischer Psalter. Selected and translated by Annemarie Schimmel . Verlag Jakob Hegner, Cologne 1968, p. 65 .
  8. ↑ Anil Bhatti: Iqbal and Goethe. A grade . In: Yearbook of the Goethe Society of India . 1999, p. 184-201 .
  9. ↑ Muhammad Iqbal, Annemarie Schimmel (trans.): Persischer Psalter. Selected and translated by Annemarie Schimmel . Verlag Jakob Hegner, Cologne 1968, p. 35 .
  10. ↑ Muhammad Iqbal, Annemarie Schimmel (trans.): Persischer Psalter. Selected and translated by Annemarie Schimmel . Verlag Jakob Hegner, Cologne 1968, p. 42 .
  11. ^ Letter from Iqbal to Maharaja Kishen Pershad dated June 24, 1916, in: Kulliyāt-i makātīb-i Iqbāl (Collected Letters Iqbal), ed. Sayyid Muẓaffar Husain Barni, Delhi: Urdu Academy 1991, vol. 1, p. 505 f.
  12. ^ Iqbal, Muhammad: The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam , Oxford etc .: Oxford University Press, 1934, p. 68.
  13. ^ Ibid. P. 49
  14. ↑ Muhammad Iqbal: Asrār-i Chudī (The Secrets of the Self) , tr. Reynold Nicholson, chap. 3: "Showing that the Self is strengthened by Love", online at the Iqbal Academy Pakistan , www.allamaiqbal.com.
  15. ↑ Reconstruction , p. 152. In doing so, Iqbal Comtes adapts three stages of human development to his philosophy by making religion the final method of the third, scientific age.
  16. ↑ An example of this is his poem about the mulla in heaven, in which Iqbal claims that the mulla is wrong in heaven because he enjoys dogmatics and quarrels instead of peace and enjoyment. German in: Muhammad Iqbal: Steppe im Staubkorn, texts from the Urdu poetry of Muhammad Iqbal , selected, translated and explained by J. Christoph Bürgel, Freiburg / Switzerland: Universitätsverlag 1982, p. 42.
  17. ↑ Annemarie Schimmel: Gabriel's Wing, A Study into the Religious Ideas of Muḥammad Iqbāl , Leiden 1963, p. 128.
  18. ^ Ibid. P. 129 f.
  19. ↑ Reconstruction , p. 2 f.
  20. ↑ Cf. the division of the first collection of his Urdu poems, Bāng-i Darā ( The Call of the Caravan Bell ), in Muhammad Iqbal: Kulliyāt-i Iqbāl - Urdu . 4th edition. Iqbal Academy Pakistan, Lahore 1996, pp. 19-26
  21. ^ Transcription of this poem in Persian according to DMG according to the usual Indo-Persian vocalization.
  22. ↑ Muhammad Iqbal: The Revival of Religious Thought in Islam . 3. Edition. Hans Schiler Verlag, Berlin 2010, p. 202.
  23. ↑ See article Iqbal-Ufer in rhein-neckar-wiki.de . Retrieved September 30, 2019.
  24. ^ Muhammad Iqbal. Retrieved September 9, 2019 .
  25. ↑ complete table of contents of the anthology on the server Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
personal data
SURNAME Iqbal, Muhammad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Iqbal, Sir Muhammad (full name); Iqbāl, Muḥammad
BRIEF DESCRIPTION National poet and spiritual father of Pakistan
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Sialkot , Punjab , British India (now Pakistan)
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1938
Place of death Lahore , British India (now Pakistan)