Iqbal, Muhammad
Iqbal, Muhammad (Muhammad Iqbal) (November 9, 1877, Sialkot – April 21, 1938, Lahore). Indian poet and philosopher who Pakistanis revere as a founding father of their nation. Writing in English, Persian and Urdu, he taught the Muslims how to regain strength by developing their personality, be it as individuals or as nations. He also insisted on the necessity of forming a separate Muslim state in Northwest India, which eventually was realized in the nation of Pakistan in 1947.
Muhammad Iqbal was born in Sialkot, in the Indian province of Punjab. He was born after the Great Mutiny of 1857 and grew up at a time when Muslim power was on the decline before the rise of British colonialism. Throughout his life, Iqbal grappled with the religious, social and political implications of the occlusion of Islam in his homeland. His rich literary and philosophical corpus was unique in its time -- it introduced a most serious effort directed at both understanding this development and charting a way for restoring Islam to its due place in the temporal order and the modern world.
Iqbal received his early education in Sialkot and Lahore in the religious sciences, Arabic, Persian, and English. It was at Lahore’s Oriental College, where he studied with Edwin Arnold between 1893 and 1897, that Iqbal first studied modern thought. In 1899, he received a master in philosophy degree from the college, and began to teach Arabic, compose poetry, and write on social and economic issues. His poetry was in the classical Perso-Urdu style, but also showed the influence of European literature, esepcially Wordsworth and Coleridge.
In 1905, he left India to study law at the University of Cambridge, but it was philosophy that soon consumed his intellectual passion. At Trinity College, he studied Hegel and Kant and became familiar with the main trends in European philosophy. His interest in philosophy took him to Heidelberg and Munich in 1907, where Nietzsche strongly influenced him. It was there that he received his doctorate in philosophy, writing a dissertation entitled The Development of Metaphysics in Persia. A year later, in 1908, he was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in England. A lawyer and a philosopher, he returned to India in that year.
Soon after his return he began teaching philosophy at Lahore’s Government College. In addition, he also took a keen interest in the unfolding plight of Indian Muslims under British rule. Before leaving for Europe Iqbal had been a liberal nationalist, sympathetic to the Indian National Congress Party. After his return, he became communalist in his outlook, supporting Muslim separatism and its chief advocate, the All-India Muslim League. Nevertheless, the British saw no danger in Iqbal’s politics -- for it was always subsumed in his more potent philosophical message -- and knighted him in 1922.
Four years later, in 1926, Iqbal was elected to the Punjab Legislative Council, and grew closer to the All-India Muslim League. He showed more and more support for a separate Muslim homeland in lieu of submitting to Hindu rule which was to follow independence. In fact, the very idea of a separate Muslim homeland, consisting of the Muslim majority provinces in northwest India, was first proposed by Iqbal in 1930, after Iqbal had become president of the Muslim League. Still, he never ceased to be first and foremost an intellectual force, and it is his impact on Muslim thought more than his political leanings that have secured his place in Muslim cultural life.
Iqbal’s poetry and philosophy, written in Urdu and Persian, stress the rebirth of Islamic and spiritual redemption through self-development, moral integrity, and individual freedom. His many works include The Secrets of the Self (1915), a long poem; A Message from the East (1923); and The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1934). Although Iqbal did not live to see the creation of an independent Pakistan in 1947, he is nevertheless regarded as the symbolic father of that nation, where the date of his death, April 27, is a national holiday.
From his childhood, Iqbal had written poetry with facility. Iqbal’s earliest verse shows many influences -- of classical Persian and Urdu, of the English romantics, and of contemporary Muslim Indian thought -- of the Aligarth movement, with its emphasis on the need to embrace the learning and the values of the West, of that movement’s more socially conservative critics, of the Muslim revivalism common to both trends, and of Indian nationalism, with its stress on harmony between the different Indian communities. Criticism of modern Western civilization becomes more pronounced from the time of his visit to England.
About 1910, Iqbal resigned his lectureship because he did not feel free to speak his mind in government service. Though he took no part in political activities, Iqbal was deeply affected by the rising feeling against the West amongst Indian Muslims, and by the consequent growth of Pan-Islamic feeling culminating in the Khilafat movement of the early 1920‘s. The influence of socialist ideas also became discernible. His first Urdu collection, The Call of the Road, was published during this period, in 1924. Despite his socialist leanings, Iqbal, in 1922 accepted a knighthood.
Iqbal’s positive theories were elaborated more fully in long poems in Persian. All of his long poems represent a revived and revitalized Islam as being the salvation of the world. The first of these works, The Secrets of the Self, was published in 1915. In it Iqbal attacked Islam’s long tradition of contemplative passivity and other worldliness, declaring that man’s destiny is to be God’s vice-regent on earth, and that instead of seeking the annihilation of self, this requires man to develop all the potentialities of self and to struggle to change the world.
In 1917, Iqbal completed The Mysteries of Selflessness. In The Mysteries of Selflessness, Iqbal sought to show how man’s individual role harmonizes with his social role in a dynamic society. Two volumes of shorter poems which are considered to be the best of Iqbal’s work in Persian were The Message of the East, which was published in 1923, and Psalms of the East, which was published in 1927. In these poems, Iqbal continued with the theme begun in The Mysteries of Selflessness. Iqbal asserts that a true interpretation of Islam compels the conclusions he sets forth. However, this imposes the task of “the reconstruction of religious thought in Islam.”
The last of Iqbal’s major Persian works, The Pilgrimage of Eternity was published in 1932. It tells of the poet’s journey through the universe with the great Persian poet Jalal al-Din as his guide.
Within India most people’s acquaintaince with Persian was too slight for them to read Iqbal's works, and they continued to look to his Urdu for their inspiration. A second (probably his best) Urdu collection, Gabriel’s Wing, appeared in 1935. The Rod of Moses followed in 1936, and The Gift of Hejaz, containing both Urdu and Persian poems, appeared posthumously in 1938, the year of his death.
From 1930 onwards Iqbal’s political writings foreshadow many of the ideas which were subsequently to find expression in the formation of Pakistan. His appeal was enormous, and gave rise to a voluminous literature, mostly in Urdu. Pakistanis claim Iqbal with justification as their national poet. However, his popularity has always extended far beyond their ranks. Although Iqbal’s message is expressed in Islamic terms, not only Muslims, but Indian nationalists, socialists, and Communists have acknowledged Iqbal’s poetry as being inspirational.
Iqbal is unique among contemporary Muslim philosophers in utilizing theology, mysticism, philosophy -- of the East along with that of the West -- and the potent emotional appeal and nuanced style of Perso-Urdu poetry to understand and explain the destiny of humanity. It is Iqbal’s ability to traverse the expanse that separates philosophy from socio-cultural concerns that has made him both a philosopher and a cultural hero.
Iqbal argued that it is in the realization of their destiny that the spiritual salvation and political emancipation of Muslims can be realized. Islam holds the key to the realization of that destiny, for faith is central to a Muslim's life. It is religion that defines human existence, and it is through religion that man may rise to greater heights.
Much like other Islamic modernists, Iqbal idealized the early history of Islam. It was in the Muhammadan community that Muslims had reached the pinnacle of their spiritual and worldly power -- the full realization of human destiny. It was that vision of the past that guided his prescriptions for the future. He became convinced that man was able to realize the full potential of his destiny only in the context of the revival of Islam, in an order wherein the perfection of the soul would be reflected in the excellence of social relations. However, Iqbal’s formulation was not a jejune (barren) call to atavism -- a reversion to an ancestral type.
While Iqbal idealized early Islamic history, Iqbal also incorporated modern values and precepts into that ideal, such that the Muhammadan community and the fundamental tenets of the Muslim faith embodied all that he believed to be good in the modern West. The impact of the West on Iqbal was deep seated and is clearly evident in the fabricof his worldview. His criticisms of many aspects of the Western civilization, especially its secularism, in some of his works such as Payam-i Mashriq (Message of the East) only thinly disguise his extensive borrowing from Western thought.
Idealization of Islam went hand-in-hand with advocating religious reform. Iqbal argued that Islam can serve humanity only if it is reformed and reinterpreted in the image of its Muhammadan ideal -- and Iqbal’s understanding of the West -- while using the tools of philosophical analysis and mystical wisdom. Iqbal did not view this exercise as innovation or reformation, but as rediscovery and the reconstruction of Islam. He believed that the inner truth of Islam had over the centuries been hidden by obscurantist practices and cultural accretions promoted by Sufi (Islamic mysticism) masters (mashayakh), religious divines (‘ulama), and wayward monarchs. It was they who had produced a view of Islam that had led the faithful astray and sapped that religion of its power, ending its glorious reign.
To reverse their fall from power and to realize their destiny, Muslims must find access to the truth of their religion. They must become aware of the fact that Islam, as it stood before them, was impure. Only then would they look beyond popular impressions of Islam -- passionate and devotional attachments to the religion -- to find its hidden truth. Iqbal’s early works, Asrar-i Khudi (Secrets of the Self) and Rumuz-i Bukhudi (Mysteries of Selflessness), encouraged Muslims to adopt such an approach by harping on the themes of love and freedom; not romantic love or political freedom per se, but love of the truth and freedom from that view of Islam which had been vouchsafed through cultural transmission.
Still, Iqbal's most complex philosophical views were argued emotionally in his poetry. He caught the attention of Muslims using the very language and sensibility which he believed they had to abandon if they were to aspire to greater heights. Iqbal is just as towering a figure in Persian and Urdu poetry as he is in contemporary Islamic philosophy.
Iqbal rejected fatalism (taqdir). He did not view history as the arena for the Divine will to unfold in, as Muslims generally do, but for humans to realize their potential. He encouraged Muslims to take charge of their own lives and destinies, to shape history rather than serve as pawns in it. To him history was not sacred, and hence was easily changeable. This was a modernist conception that showed the influence of the Kantian notion of “Divine aloofness.” It was at odds with the time-honored ‘Ash‘arite tradition in Islamic theology and philosophy, which teaches that history is the manifestation of the Divine will and is therefore sacred. Man cannot hope to understand the Divine wisdom and hence should not reject the writ of history, nor seek to interfere with it.
In encouraging Muslims to redirect history and to assume responsibility for its unfolding through a rational interpretation of their faith, Iqbal also echoed the beliefs of Mu‘tazalite philosophers who had centuries earlier taken the Ash‘arites to task but had failed to shape the subsequent development of Islamic thought.
Iqbal understood that there could be no systematic rationalization of Islam unless there was a single definition of a Muslim. As a result, he sought to reduce the diversity of the Islamic faith in the hope of underlining the fundamental unity that has bound the various sects, denominations, and schools of thought constituting the Islamic faith. As the eloquent poetry of Zubur-i ‘Ajam (Persian Hymns) shows, Iqbal was less concerned with the various expressions of Islam and more with the basic tenets of the faith, the lowest common denominator among Muslims. It was also to this end that he idealized early Islamic history, the period when there were no divisions in the body of the faith. His vision of Islam was a simple and pristine one, albeit inaccurate and not quite matching historical reality.
For Iqbal, the principal aim of the reformation and rationalization of the Islamic faith was to recreate the ideal Muhammadan society -- the perfect order in which humanity would attain its highest ideals. This is a task which begins with the perfection of the self -- best exemplified in the example of the Prophet Muhammad himself -- and culminates in the creation of the ideal social order. This meant that the political fortunes of Muslims would once again rise in India only pursuant to a revival of Islam.
Iqbal’s perspective, however, was not so much political -- although it had great impact on Muslim politics -- but philosophical. He combined the Nietzschean concept of “Superman” with the Sufi doctrine of Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil), devising an all-encompassing view of human development and social change. He saw God as the perfect ego, but an ego nevertheless, more near and tangible than the God of old. As outlined in the Javid Namah (Book of Eternity), God is the supreme ideal in which Iqbal’s scheme of human development would culminate. This conception of the Divine closely resembles the Sufi notion of al-insan al-kamil, and no doubt parallels Nietzche’s Superman.
In describing his views, Iqbal used the doctrine -- proposed by the Sufi saint, Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) -- of the ascent of the human self. Rumi had explained the Sufi experience in terms of an alchemical process which would transform the base metal of the human soul into the gold of Divine perfection. Iqbal echoed Rumi in Bal-i Jibril (Gabriel’s Wing), where he argues that life continues despite death, for the soul is immortal and life continues as death and later as resurrection. Through this death and becoming human life would perfect itself. Since the rise of humanity was closely tied to the reconstruction of the temporal order. Iqbal relied on Rumi to sanction the passing of the old Muslim order to pave the way for the rise of a new and triumphant one. Human and social development, as such, will continue until they attain the state of perfection as understood by Sufis and pondered upon by Nietzche. Iqbal defined that perfection as a state where love and science -- symbolizing essence of East and the West -- happily occupy the same intellectual space.
With every birth man can attain a higher spiritual state in a more perfect society, for man has the essence (jawhar) that can be transformed into perfection. That process can only occur through the intermediary of true of Islam, for Islam has the blueprint. Just as meditation and asceticism would prepare the soul of the Sufi for spiritual ascent, activism -- abandoning fatalism in favor of an engaged approach to individual and social life -- would perform the same function in Iqbal’s scheme. That activism would culminate in the “Islamic state,” which Iqbal equated with the Sufi conception of spiritual bliss.
The imprint of Sufism on Iqbal is unmistakable and quite interesting. Iqbal generally rejected Sufism, arguing that it had always been concerned only with the spiritual salvation of the individual, whereas he believed individual salvation could not be divorced from the reconstruction of the temporal order. However, his criticism of Sufism was not tantamount to rejecting those aspects of its teachings and beliefs that he had found quite persuasive. The titles of Iqbal’s various divans attest to the influence of Sufi imagery and symbolisms on his thought.
In many ways Iqbal’s vision was a modernization of Sufism using the tools of Western philosophy. His innovation lay in introducing social development as a necessary condition for attainment of perfection and spiritual salvation. It is this aspect of his thought that was of relevance to Muslim political activisim in India at the twilight of the Raj, and later influenced many revivalist thinkers who have since looked to politics as the medium for effecting individual spiritual salvation.
Iqbal was without doubt a most creative and original thinker, one who sought to bring together many strains of Islamic life and thought together and to reform the Muslim faith, imbue it with modern precepts, and reconstruct it anew. He related Islamic thought to Western philosophy, and linked spiritual salvation to intellectual change and social development. As a poet of exceptional abilities he conveyed these ideas to his audience most forcefully. Although there is no distinct school of thought associated with Iqbal, there is no doubt that many across the spectrum of Islamic thought have been swayed by the wisdom of his agenda and the logic of his method, and have sought to emulate him in reviving their faith and reforming their societies.
At his best, Iqbal is one of the great Urdu poets and a great Indo-Persian poet as well. However, his widespread reputation is based not only on his poetic gifts but also on his philosophy, which is forcefully -- and even at times a bit heavy-handedly -- expressed in all his works. His philosophy is radically activist, vitalist, and voluntaristic. Iqbal rejects all forms of fatalism, passivity, resignation, and materialism. He demands that the human will and spirit transcend all barriers, soaring beyond them into a God-like closeness to God. In Western terms, if poetically he is indebted to Goethe, Dante, and Milton, philosophically he is the heir of Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer, Bergson, and above all Nietzche. However, Iqbal is by no means intellectually subservient to Western culture. He in fact provides a strong critique of its materialistic self-complacency. Although he addresses himself particularly to Muslims, his real concern is with the restless dynamism and self-transcendent upward struggle of the human spirit.
Always interested in political questions, Iqbal spoke against mere “nationalism,” with its attendant risk of “atheistic materialism.” He valued “a man’s faith, his culture, his historical traditions” far more highly than “the piece of earth with which the spirit of man happens to be temporarily associated.” Ultimately, Iqbal came to believe that the partition of India was the only feasible way to secure the rights of self-development for all the various cultural groups in India, and he was the first influential person to say so publicly (in the 1930s). This foresight undoubtedly cemented Iqbal's status as a founding father of Pakistan.
Muhammad Iqbal see Iqbal, Muhammad
Founding Father of Pakistan see Iqbal, Muhammad
Father of Pakistan see Iqbal, Muhammad
Muhammad Iqbal was born in Sialkot, in the Indian province of Punjab. He was born after the Great Mutiny of 1857 and grew up at a time when Muslim power was on the decline before the rise of British colonialism. Throughout his life, Iqbal grappled with the religious, social and political implications of the occlusion of Islam in his homeland. His rich literary and philosophical corpus was unique in its time -- it introduced a most serious effort directed at both understanding this development and charting a way for restoring Islam to its due place in the temporal order and the modern world.
Iqbal received his early education in Sialkot and Lahore in the religious sciences, Arabic, Persian, and English. It was at Lahore’s Oriental College, where he studied with Edwin Arnold between 1893 and 1897, that Iqbal first studied modern thought. In 1899, he received a master in philosophy degree from the college, and began to teach Arabic, compose poetry, and write on social and economic issues. His poetry was in the classical Perso-Urdu style, but also showed the influence of European literature, esepcially Wordsworth and Coleridge.
In 1905, he left India to study law at the University of Cambridge, but it was philosophy that soon consumed his intellectual passion. At Trinity College, he studied Hegel and Kant and became familiar with the main trends in European philosophy. His interest in philosophy took him to Heidelberg and Munich in 1907, where Nietzsche strongly influenced him. It was there that he received his doctorate in philosophy, writing a dissertation entitled The Development of Metaphysics in Persia. A year later, in 1908, he was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in England. A lawyer and a philosopher, he returned to India in that year.
Soon after his return he began teaching philosophy at Lahore’s Government College. In addition, he also took a keen interest in the unfolding plight of Indian Muslims under British rule. Before leaving for Europe Iqbal had been a liberal nationalist, sympathetic to the Indian National Congress Party. After his return, he became communalist in his outlook, supporting Muslim separatism and its chief advocate, the All-India Muslim League. Nevertheless, the British saw no danger in Iqbal’s politics -- for it was always subsumed in his more potent philosophical message -- and knighted him in 1922.
Four years later, in 1926, Iqbal was elected to the Punjab Legislative Council, and grew closer to the All-India Muslim League. He showed more and more support for a separate Muslim homeland in lieu of submitting to Hindu rule which was to follow independence. In fact, the very idea of a separate Muslim homeland, consisting of the Muslim majority provinces in northwest India, was first proposed by Iqbal in 1930, after Iqbal had become president of the Muslim League. Still, he never ceased to be first and foremost an intellectual force, and it is his impact on Muslim thought more than his political leanings that have secured his place in Muslim cultural life.
Iqbal’s poetry and philosophy, written in Urdu and Persian, stress the rebirth of Islamic and spiritual redemption through self-development, moral integrity, and individual freedom. His many works include The Secrets of the Self (1915), a long poem; A Message from the East (1923); and The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1934). Although Iqbal did not live to see the creation of an independent Pakistan in 1947, he is nevertheless regarded as the symbolic father of that nation, where the date of his death, April 27, is a national holiday.
From his childhood, Iqbal had written poetry with facility. Iqbal’s earliest verse shows many influences -- of classical Persian and Urdu, of the English romantics, and of contemporary Muslim Indian thought -- of the Aligarth movement, with its emphasis on the need to embrace the learning and the values of the West, of that movement’s more socially conservative critics, of the Muslim revivalism common to both trends, and of Indian nationalism, with its stress on harmony between the different Indian communities. Criticism of modern Western civilization becomes more pronounced from the time of his visit to England.
About 1910, Iqbal resigned his lectureship because he did not feel free to speak his mind in government service. Though he took no part in political activities, Iqbal was deeply affected by the rising feeling against the West amongst Indian Muslims, and by the consequent growth of Pan-Islamic feeling culminating in the Khilafat movement of the early 1920‘s. The influence of socialist ideas also became discernible. His first Urdu collection, The Call of the Road, was published during this period, in 1924. Despite his socialist leanings, Iqbal, in 1922 accepted a knighthood.
Iqbal’s positive theories were elaborated more fully in long poems in Persian. All of his long poems represent a revived and revitalized Islam as being the salvation of the world. The first of these works, The Secrets of the Self, was published in 1915. In it Iqbal attacked Islam’s long tradition of contemplative passivity and other worldliness, declaring that man’s destiny is to be God’s vice-regent on earth, and that instead of seeking the annihilation of self, this requires man to develop all the potentialities of self and to struggle to change the world.
In 1917, Iqbal completed The Mysteries of Selflessness. In The Mysteries of Selflessness, Iqbal sought to show how man’s individual role harmonizes with his social role in a dynamic society. Two volumes of shorter poems which are considered to be the best of Iqbal’s work in Persian were The Message of the East, which was published in 1923, and Psalms of the East, which was published in 1927. In these poems, Iqbal continued with the theme begun in The Mysteries of Selflessness. Iqbal asserts that a true interpretation of Islam compels the conclusions he sets forth. However, this imposes the task of “the reconstruction of religious thought in Islam.”
The last of Iqbal’s major Persian works, The Pilgrimage of Eternity was published in 1932. It tells of the poet’s journey through the universe with the great Persian poet Jalal al-Din as his guide.
Within India most people’s acquaintaince with Persian was too slight for them to read Iqbal's works, and they continued to look to his Urdu for their inspiration. A second (probably his best) Urdu collection, Gabriel’s Wing, appeared in 1935. The Rod of Moses followed in 1936, and The Gift of Hejaz, containing both Urdu and Persian poems, appeared posthumously in 1938, the year of his death.
From 1930 onwards Iqbal’s political writings foreshadow many of the ideas which were subsequently to find expression in the formation of Pakistan. His appeal was enormous, and gave rise to a voluminous literature, mostly in Urdu. Pakistanis claim Iqbal with justification as their national poet. However, his popularity has always extended far beyond their ranks. Although Iqbal’s message is expressed in Islamic terms, not only Muslims, but Indian nationalists, socialists, and Communists have acknowledged Iqbal’s poetry as being inspirational.
Iqbal is unique among contemporary Muslim philosophers in utilizing theology, mysticism, philosophy -- of the East along with that of the West -- and the potent emotional appeal and nuanced style of Perso-Urdu poetry to understand and explain the destiny of humanity. It is Iqbal’s ability to traverse the expanse that separates philosophy from socio-cultural concerns that has made him both a philosopher and a cultural hero.
Iqbal argued that it is in the realization of their destiny that the spiritual salvation and political emancipation of Muslims can be realized. Islam holds the key to the realization of that destiny, for faith is central to a Muslim's life. It is religion that defines human existence, and it is through religion that man may rise to greater heights.
Much like other Islamic modernists, Iqbal idealized the early history of Islam. It was in the Muhammadan community that Muslims had reached the pinnacle of their spiritual and worldly power -- the full realization of human destiny. It was that vision of the past that guided his prescriptions for the future. He became convinced that man was able to realize the full potential of his destiny only in the context of the revival of Islam, in an order wherein the perfection of the soul would be reflected in the excellence of social relations. However, Iqbal’s formulation was not a jejune (barren) call to atavism -- a reversion to an ancestral type.
While Iqbal idealized early Islamic history, Iqbal also incorporated modern values and precepts into that ideal, such that the Muhammadan community and the fundamental tenets of the Muslim faith embodied all that he believed to be good in the modern West. The impact of the West on Iqbal was deep seated and is clearly evident in the fabricof his worldview. His criticisms of many aspects of the Western civilization, especially its secularism, in some of his works such as Payam-i Mashriq (Message of the East) only thinly disguise his extensive borrowing from Western thought.
Idealization of Islam went hand-in-hand with advocating religious reform. Iqbal argued that Islam can serve humanity only if it is reformed and reinterpreted in the image of its Muhammadan ideal -- and Iqbal’s understanding of the West -- while using the tools of philosophical analysis and mystical wisdom. Iqbal did not view this exercise as innovation or reformation, but as rediscovery and the reconstruction of Islam. He believed that the inner truth of Islam had over the centuries been hidden by obscurantist practices and cultural accretions promoted by Sufi (Islamic mysticism) masters (mashayakh), religious divines (‘ulama), and wayward monarchs. It was they who had produced a view of Islam that had led the faithful astray and sapped that religion of its power, ending its glorious reign.
To reverse their fall from power and to realize their destiny, Muslims must find access to the truth of their religion. They must become aware of the fact that Islam, as it stood before them, was impure. Only then would they look beyond popular impressions of Islam -- passionate and devotional attachments to the religion -- to find its hidden truth. Iqbal’s early works, Asrar-i Khudi (Secrets of the Self) and Rumuz-i Bukhudi (Mysteries of Selflessness), encouraged Muslims to adopt such an approach by harping on the themes of love and freedom; not romantic love or political freedom per se, but love of the truth and freedom from that view of Islam which had been vouchsafed through cultural transmission.
Still, Iqbal's most complex philosophical views were argued emotionally in his poetry. He caught the attention of Muslims using the very language and sensibility which he believed they had to abandon if they were to aspire to greater heights. Iqbal is just as towering a figure in Persian and Urdu poetry as he is in contemporary Islamic philosophy.
Iqbal rejected fatalism (taqdir). He did not view history as the arena for the Divine will to unfold in, as Muslims generally do, but for humans to realize their potential. He encouraged Muslims to take charge of their own lives and destinies, to shape history rather than serve as pawns in it. To him history was not sacred, and hence was easily changeable. This was a modernist conception that showed the influence of the Kantian notion of “Divine aloofness.” It was at odds with the time-honored ‘Ash‘arite tradition in Islamic theology and philosophy, which teaches that history is the manifestation of the Divine will and is therefore sacred. Man cannot hope to understand the Divine wisdom and hence should not reject the writ of history, nor seek to interfere with it.
In encouraging Muslims to redirect history and to assume responsibility for its unfolding through a rational interpretation of their faith, Iqbal also echoed the beliefs of Mu‘tazalite philosophers who had centuries earlier taken the Ash‘arites to task but had failed to shape the subsequent development of Islamic thought.
Iqbal understood that there could be no systematic rationalization of Islam unless there was a single definition of a Muslim. As a result, he sought to reduce the diversity of the Islamic faith in the hope of underlining the fundamental unity that has bound the various sects, denominations, and schools of thought constituting the Islamic faith. As the eloquent poetry of Zubur-i ‘Ajam (Persian Hymns) shows, Iqbal was less concerned with the various expressions of Islam and more with the basic tenets of the faith, the lowest common denominator among Muslims. It was also to this end that he idealized early Islamic history, the period when there were no divisions in the body of the faith. His vision of Islam was a simple and pristine one, albeit inaccurate and not quite matching historical reality.
For Iqbal, the principal aim of the reformation and rationalization of the Islamic faith was to recreate the ideal Muhammadan society -- the perfect order in which humanity would attain its highest ideals. This is a task which begins with the perfection of the self -- best exemplified in the example of the Prophet Muhammad himself -- and culminates in the creation of the ideal social order. This meant that the political fortunes of Muslims would once again rise in India only pursuant to a revival of Islam.
Iqbal’s perspective, however, was not so much political -- although it had great impact on Muslim politics -- but philosophical. He combined the Nietzschean concept of “Superman” with the Sufi doctrine of Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil), devising an all-encompassing view of human development and social change. He saw God as the perfect ego, but an ego nevertheless, more near and tangible than the God of old. As outlined in the Javid Namah (Book of Eternity), God is the supreme ideal in which Iqbal’s scheme of human development would culminate. This conception of the Divine closely resembles the Sufi notion of al-insan al-kamil, and no doubt parallels Nietzche’s Superman.
In describing his views, Iqbal used the doctrine -- proposed by the Sufi saint, Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) -- of the ascent of the human self. Rumi had explained the Sufi experience in terms of an alchemical process which would transform the base metal of the human soul into the gold of Divine perfection. Iqbal echoed Rumi in Bal-i Jibril (Gabriel’s Wing), where he argues that life continues despite death, for the soul is immortal and life continues as death and later as resurrection. Through this death and becoming human life would perfect itself. Since the rise of humanity was closely tied to the reconstruction of the temporal order. Iqbal relied on Rumi to sanction the passing of the old Muslim order to pave the way for the rise of a new and triumphant one. Human and social development, as such, will continue until they attain the state of perfection as understood by Sufis and pondered upon by Nietzche. Iqbal defined that perfection as a state where love and science -- symbolizing essence of East and the West -- happily occupy the same intellectual space.
With every birth man can attain a higher spiritual state in a more perfect society, for man has the essence (jawhar) that can be transformed into perfection. That process can only occur through the intermediary of true of Islam, for Islam has the blueprint. Just as meditation and asceticism would prepare the soul of the Sufi for spiritual ascent, activism -- abandoning fatalism in favor of an engaged approach to individual and social life -- would perform the same function in Iqbal’s scheme. That activism would culminate in the “Islamic state,” which Iqbal equated with the Sufi conception of spiritual bliss.
The imprint of Sufism on Iqbal is unmistakable and quite interesting. Iqbal generally rejected Sufism, arguing that it had always been concerned only with the spiritual salvation of the individual, whereas he believed individual salvation could not be divorced from the reconstruction of the temporal order. However, his criticism of Sufism was not tantamount to rejecting those aspects of its teachings and beliefs that he had found quite persuasive. The titles of Iqbal’s various divans attest to the influence of Sufi imagery and symbolisms on his thought.
In many ways Iqbal’s vision was a modernization of Sufism using the tools of Western philosophy. His innovation lay in introducing social development as a necessary condition for attainment of perfection and spiritual salvation. It is this aspect of his thought that was of relevance to Muslim political activisim in India at the twilight of the Raj, and later influenced many revivalist thinkers who have since looked to politics as the medium for effecting individual spiritual salvation.
Iqbal was without doubt a most creative and original thinker, one who sought to bring together many strains of Islamic life and thought together and to reform the Muslim faith, imbue it with modern precepts, and reconstruct it anew. He related Islamic thought to Western philosophy, and linked spiritual salvation to intellectual change and social development. As a poet of exceptional abilities he conveyed these ideas to his audience most forcefully. Although there is no distinct school of thought associated with Iqbal, there is no doubt that many across the spectrum of Islamic thought have been swayed by the wisdom of his agenda and the logic of his method, and have sought to emulate him in reviving their faith and reforming their societies.
At his best, Iqbal is one of the great Urdu poets and a great Indo-Persian poet as well. However, his widespread reputation is based not only on his poetic gifts but also on his philosophy, which is forcefully -- and even at times a bit heavy-handedly -- expressed in all his works. His philosophy is radically activist, vitalist, and voluntaristic. Iqbal rejects all forms of fatalism, passivity, resignation, and materialism. He demands that the human will and spirit transcend all barriers, soaring beyond them into a God-like closeness to God. In Western terms, if poetically he is indebted to Goethe, Dante, and Milton, philosophically he is the heir of Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer, Bergson, and above all Nietzche. However, Iqbal is by no means intellectually subservient to Western culture. He in fact provides a strong critique of its materialistic self-complacency. Although he addresses himself particularly to Muslims, his real concern is with the restless dynamism and self-transcendent upward struggle of the human spirit.
Always interested in political questions, Iqbal spoke against mere “nationalism,” with its attendant risk of “atheistic materialism.” He valued “a man’s faith, his culture, his historical traditions” far more highly than “the piece of earth with which the spirit of man happens to be temporarily associated.” Ultimately, Iqbal came to believe that the partition of India was the only feasible way to secure the rights of self-development for all the various cultural groups in India, and he was the first influential person to say so publicly (in the 1930s). This foresight undoubtedly cemented Iqbal's status as a founding father of Pakistan.
Muhammad Iqbal see Iqbal, Muhammad
Founding Father of Pakistan see Iqbal, Muhammad
Father of Pakistan see Iqbal, Muhammad
‘Isa
‘Isa. Arabic equivalent of the name “Jesus.”
In Islam, Jesus is considered a Messenger of God who had been sent to guide the People of Israel (banī isrā'īl) with a new scripture, the Injīl (gospel). The Qur'an, believed by Muslims to be God's final revelation, mentions Jesus 25 times. It states that Jesus was born to Mary (Arabic: Maryam) as the result of virginal conception, a miraculous event which occurred by the decree of God (Arabic: Allah). To aid him in his quest, Jesus was given the ability to perform miracles, all by the permission of God. According to Islamic texts, Jesus was neither killed nor crucified, but rather he was raised alive up to heaven. Islamic traditions (but not Qur’an) narrate that Jesus will return to Earth near the day of judgment to restore justice and defeat al-Masīḥ ad-Dajjāl (lit. "the false messiah", also known as the Antichrist). Like all prophets in Islam, Jesus is considered to have been a Muslim, as he preached for people to adopt the straight path in submission to God's will. Islam rejects that Jesus was God incarnate or the son of God, stating that he was a mortal man who, like other prophets, had been divinely chosen to spread God's message. Islamic texts forbid the association of partners with God (shirk), emphasizing the notion of God's divine oneness (tawhīd). Numerous titles are given to Jesus in the Qur'an, such as al-Masīḥ ("the messiah; the anointed one" i.e. by means of blessings), although it does not correspond with the meaning accrued in Christian belief. Jesus is seen in Islam as a precursor to Muhammad, and is believed by Muslims to have foretold the latter's coming.
The Qur'an describes virginal conception of Jesus by Mary (Arabic: Maryam), which is recounted throughout several passages in the Qur'an. According to the Qur'anic narrations, Mary had withdrawn into a temple and was visited by angel Gabriel (Arabic: Jibreel) to give the glad tidings of a holy son. The Qur'an states that God (Allah) sent the message through the angel Gabriel to Mary that God had honoured Mary among the women of all nations as she will give birth to a holy son, named Isa' (Jesus), the Messiah (translated Christ) and he (Jesus) will be a great prophet, to whom God will give the Injil (the original Gospel) and he (Jesus) will speak in infancy and maturity and will be a companion to the most righteous. When this good news was given to Mary, she asked the angel how she can have a baby when no man has touched (sexually) her. This same question of Mary is confirmed in the Bible. But, in the answer to this question, the Qur'an differs from the Christian faith; the Christians believe that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, but the Qur'an denies it and states that the reply of the angel to Mary was "Even though when God wants to create a matter, he merely wills (Kun-fa-yakun) it and the things come into being". So, the Qur'anic version is, Jesus was created from the act of God's will. The Qur'an compares this miraculous creation of Jesus with the creation of Adam where God created Adam by His act of will (kun-fa-yakun). According to the Holy Qur'an, the same answer was given to the question of Zechariah (in Qur'an Zakariyah), when he asked how could his wife conceive the baby while she was old.
After delivering Jesus, Mary was overtaken by the pangs of childbirth, resting near the trunk of a palm tree. Jesus then addressed her from the cradle, to instruct her to shake the tree and obtain its fruits and also to allay Mary's fears of a scandal surrounding his conception. She then showed the new-born to her family, and in silencing immodest rumors he declared: "Lo, I am God's servant; God has given me the Book, and made me a Prophet. Blessed He has made me, wherever I may be; and He has enjoined me to pray, and to give alms, so long as I live and likewise to cherish my mother."
According to Islamic texts, Jesus was divinely chosen to preach the message of monotheism and submission to the will of God to the Children of Israel (banī isrā'īl). Muslims believe that God revealed to Jesus a new scripture, the Injīl (gospel), while also declaring the truth of the previous revelations - the Tawrat (Torah) and the Zabur (Psalms). It is unclear or unknown whether Jesus declared the truth of the other holy book of Islam at that time, the Suhuf Ibrahim. Descended 600 years after Jesus' life on earth, the Qur'an speaks favorably of the Injīl, which it describes as a scripture that fills the hearts of its followers with meekness and pity. It was not Muslims who first said that the Bible is misled, but some Christian scholars who have said that Biblical manuscripts (both the Torah and the Injīl) have become distorted over time in text, interpretation, or both.
The Qur'an states that Jesus was aided by a group of disciples (hawāriyūn) who believed in Jesus' message, and termed themselves the ansār ("helpers") of God. Jesus is also depicted in Islam as having been given miracles as evidence of his prophetic mission. Such miracles, all performed by the leave of God, include: speaking while still in the cradle; breathing life into clay models of birds; curing a leper and a life-long blind man; raising the dead; and requesting the descent of a table from heaven upon which was a feast, upon petition of his disciples. Some Muslim accounts also relate that the Islamic prophet Yahya ibn Zakariyya (known otherwise as John the Baptist) traveled to Palestine and met Jesus at the Jordan river.
Islamic texts categorically deny the crucifixion and death of Jesus at the hands of the Jews. The Qur'an states that the Jews sought to kill Jesus, but they did not kill or crucify him, although a likeness of it was shown to them. Traditionalists believe that Jesus was not crucified but instead, he was raised alive unto the heavens. This raising is understood by them to mean bodily ascension.
“ “That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of God";- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not:- Nay, God raised him up unto the himself; and God is Exalted in Power, Wise.”[Qur'an 4:157–158] ”
According to most Muslim traditions, Jesus was replaced by a double, one of the people that was about to crucify him; others suggest it was Simon of Cyrene, or one of the disciples such as Judas Iscariot. The crucifixion interpretation was rejected, and according to the Encyclopedia of Islam, there was unanimous agreement amongst the scholars in denying the crucifixion. Modern commentators interpret the verse to say that the crucifixion "seemed thus to them" [i.e. the Jews].
Traditonal Muslims believe that Jesus will return at a time close to the end of the world. The Qur'anic verse they allude to as an indicator to Jesus' future return is as follows:
“ “And (Jesus) shall be a Sign (for the coming of) the Hour (of Judgment): therefore have no doubt about the (Hour), but follow ye Me: this is a Straight Way.”[Qur'an 43:61] "
According to Islamic tradition which describes this graphically, Jesus' descent will be in the midst of wars fought by the Mahdi (lit. "the rightly guided one"), known in Islamic eschatology as the redeemer of Islam, against the Antichrist (al-Masīkh ad-Dajjāl, "false messiah") and his followers. Jesus will descend at the point of a white arcade, east of Damascus, dressed in yellow robes - his head anointed. He will then join the Mahdi in his war against the Dajjal. Jesus, considered in Islam as a Muslim, will abide by the Islamic teachings. Eventually, Jesus will slay the Dajjal, and then everyone from the people of the book (ahl al-kitāb, referring to Jews and Christians) will believe in him. Thus, there will be one community, that of Islam.
After the death of the Mahdi, Jesus will assume leadership. This is a time associated in Islamic narrative with universal peace and justice. Islamic texts also allude to the appearance of Ya'juj and Ma'juj (known also as Gog and Magog), ancient tribes which will disperse and cause disturbance on earth. God, in response to Jesus' prayers, will kill them by sending a type of worm in the napes of their necks. Jesus' rule is said to be around forty years, after which he will die. Muslims will then perform the funeral prayer for him and then bury him in the city of Medina in a grave left vacant beside Muhammad, Abu Bakr, and Umar (companions of Muhammad and the first and second Muslim caliphs respectively).
Jesus is described by various means in the Qur'an. The most common reference to Jesus occurs in the form of "Ibn Maryam" (son of Mary), sometimes preceded with another title. Jesus is also recognized as a prophet (nabī) and messenger (rasūl) of God. The terms wadjih ("worthy of esteem in this world and the next"), mubārak ("blessed", or "a source of benefit for others"), `abd-Allāh (servant of God) are all used in the Qur'an in reference to Jesus.
Another title frequently mentioned is al-Masīḥ, which translates to "the Messiah". This does not correspond to the Christian concept of Messiah, as Islam regards all prophets, including Jesus, to be mortal and without any share in divinity. Muslim exegetes explain the use of the word masīh in the Qur'an as referring to Jesus' status as the one anointed by means of blessings and honors; or as the one who helped cure the sick, by anointing the eyes of the blind, for example. Qur'anic verses also employ the term "kalimat allah" (meaning the "word of God") as a descriptor of Jesus, which is interpreted as a reference to the creating word of God, uttered at the moment of Jesus' conception; or as recognition of Jesus' status as a messenger of God, speaking on God's behalf.
Islamic texts regard Jesus as a righteous messenger of God, and reject him as being God or the begotten Son of God. This belief, that Jesus is God or Son of God according to Islam, is tantamount to shirk, or the association of partners with God; and thereby a rejection of God's divine oneness (tawhid). A verse from the Qur'an reads:
“ “In blasphemy indeed are those that say that God is Christ the son of Mary. Say: "Who then hath the least power against God, if His will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, his mother, and all every - one that is on the earth? For to God belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all that is between. He createth what He pleaseth. For God hath power over all things.”[Qur'an 5:17][28] ”
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is similarly rejected in Islam. Such notions of the divinity of Jesus, Muslims state, resulted from human interpolations of God's revelation. The Muslims give the evidence of these interpolations as they say even the Chrsitian scholars nowadays have discovered that the doctrine of trinity was an interpolation, so thus, the verse on trinity (I John, Chapter 5, Verse 7) in all modern versions of Bible except KJV has been removed. Islam views Jesus as an ordinary human like all other prophets, who preached that salvation came through submission to God's will and worshiping God alone. Thus, Jesus is considered in Islam to have been a Muslim, as with all prophets in Islam.
Muslims believe that Jesus was a precursor to Muhammad, and that he announced the latter's coming. They base this on a verse of the Qur'an wherein Jesus speaks of a messenger to appear after him named Ahmad. Islam associates Ahmad with Muhammad, both words deriving from the h-m-d tri-consonantal root which refers to praiseworthiness. Muslims also assert that evidence of Jesus' pronouncement is present in the New Testament, citing the mention of the Paraclete whose coming is foretold in the Gospel of John. Muslim commentators claim that the original Greek word used was periklutos, meaning famed, illustrious, or praiseworthy - rendered in Arabic as Ahmad; and that this was substituted by Christians with parakletos.
Jesus is widely venerated in Muslim ascetic and mystic literature, such as in Muslim mystic Al-Ghazzali's Ihya `ulum ad-Din ("The revival of the religious sciences"). These works lay stress upon Jesus' poverty, his preoccupation with worship, his detachment from worldly life and his miracles. Such depictions also include advice and sermons which are attributed to him. Later Sufic commentaries adapted material from Christian gospels which were consistent with their ascetic portrayal. Sufi philosopher Ibn Arabi described Jesus as "the seal of universal holiness" due to the quality of his faith and "because he holds in his hands the keys of living breath and because he is at present in a state of deprivation and journeying."
References to Jesus in the Qur'an
Meccan period
The widespread consensus is that the following verses were revealed in Mecca:
* Qur'an 19:16–40
* Qur'an 19:88–95
* Qur'an 43:57–65
* Qur'an 43:81–82
* Qur'an 23:50
* Qur'an 21:91–93
* Qur'an 42:13–14
* Qur'an 6:83–90
Medinan period
The list of verses revealed in Medina is as follows:
* Qur'an 2:87
* Qur'an 2:135–141
* Qur'an 2:252–253
* Qur'an 3:42–64
Jesus see ‘Isa.
Messiah see ‘Isa.
Messenger of God see ‘Isa.
‘Isa. Arabic equivalent of the name “Jesus.”
In Islam, Jesus is considered a Messenger of God who had been sent to guide the People of Israel (banī isrā'īl) with a new scripture, the Injīl (gospel). The Qur'an, believed by Muslims to be God's final revelation, mentions Jesus 25 times. It states that Jesus was born to Mary (Arabic: Maryam) as the result of virginal conception, a miraculous event which occurred by the decree of God (Arabic: Allah). To aid him in his quest, Jesus was given the ability to perform miracles, all by the permission of God. According to Islamic texts, Jesus was neither killed nor crucified, but rather he was raised alive up to heaven. Islamic traditions (but not Qur’an) narrate that Jesus will return to Earth near the day of judgment to restore justice and defeat al-Masīḥ ad-Dajjāl (lit. "the false messiah", also known as the Antichrist). Like all prophets in Islam, Jesus is considered to have been a Muslim, as he preached for people to adopt the straight path in submission to God's will. Islam rejects that Jesus was God incarnate or the son of God, stating that he was a mortal man who, like other prophets, had been divinely chosen to spread God's message. Islamic texts forbid the association of partners with God (shirk), emphasizing the notion of God's divine oneness (tawhīd). Numerous titles are given to Jesus in the Qur'an, such as al-Masīḥ ("the messiah; the anointed one" i.e. by means of blessings), although it does not correspond with the meaning accrued in Christian belief. Jesus is seen in Islam as a precursor to Muhammad, and is believed by Muslims to have foretold the latter's coming.
The Qur'an describes virginal conception of Jesus by Mary (Arabic: Maryam), which is recounted throughout several passages in the Qur'an. According to the Qur'anic narrations, Mary had withdrawn into a temple and was visited by angel Gabriel (Arabic: Jibreel) to give the glad tidings of a holy son. The Qur'an states that God (Allah) sent the message through the angel Gabriel to Mary that God had honoured Mary among the women of all nations as she will give birth to a holy son, named Isa' (Jesus), the Messiah (translated Christ) and he (Jesus) will be a great prophet, to whom God will give the Injil (the original Gospel) and he (Jesus) will speak in infancy and maturity and will be a companion to the most righteous. When this good news was given to Mary, she asked the angel how she can have a baby when no man has touched (sexually) her. This same question of Mary is confirmed in the Bible. But, in the answer to this question, the Qur'an differs from the Christian faith; the Christians believe that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, but the Qur'an denies it and states that the reply of the angel to Mary was "Even though when God wants to create a matter, he merely wills (Kun-fa-yakun) it and the things come into being". So, the Qur'anic version is, Jesus was created from the act of God's will. The Qur'an compares this miraculous creation of Jesus with the creation of Adam where God created Adam by His act of will (kun-fa-yakun). According to the Holy Qur'an, the same answer was given to the question of Zechariah (in Qur'an Zakariyah), when he asked how could his wife conceive the baby while she was old.
After delivering Jesus, Mary was overtaken by the pangs of childbirth, resting near the trunk of a palm tree. Jesus then addressed her from the cradle, to instruct her to shake the tree and obtain its fruits and also to allay Mary's fears of a scandal surrounding his conception. She then showed the new-born to her family, and in silencing immodest rumors he declared: "Lo, I am God's servant; God has given me the Book, and made me a Prophet. Blessed He has made me, wherever I may be; and He has enjoined me to pray, and to give alms, so long as I live and likewise to cherish my mother."
According to Islamic texts, Jesus was divinely chosen to preach the message of monotheism and submission to the will of God to the Children of Israel (banī isrā'īl). Muslims believe that God revealed to Jesus a new scripture, the Injīl (gospel), while also declaring the truth of the previous revelations - the Tawrat (Torah) and the Zabur (Psalms). It is unclear or unknown whether Jesus declared the truth of the other holy book of Islam at that time, the Suhuf Ibrahim. Descended 600 years after Jesus' life on earth, the Qur'an speaks favorably of the Injīl, which it describes as a scripture that fills the hearts of its followers with meekness and pity. It was not Muslims who first said that the Bible is misled, but some Christian scholars who have said that Biblical manuscripts (both the Torah and the Injīl) have become distorted over time in text, interpretation, or both.
The Qur'an states that Jesus was aided by a group of disciples (hawāriyūn) who believed in Jesus' message, and termed themselves the ansār ("helpers") of God. Jesus is also depicted in Islam as having been given miracles as evidence of his prophetic mission. Such miracles, all performed by the leave of God, include: speaking while still in the cradle; breathing life into clay models of birds; curing a leper and a life-long blind man; raising the dead; and requesting the descent of a table from heaven upon which was a feast, upon petition of his disciples. Some Muslim accounts also relate that the Islamic prophet Yahya ibn Zakariyya (known otherwise as John the Baptist) traveled to Palestine and met Jesus at the Jordan river.
Islamic texts categorically deny the crucifixion and death of Jesus at the hands of the Jews. The Qur'an states that the Jews sought to kill Jesus, but they did not kill or crucify him, although a likeness of it was shown to them. Traditionalists believe that Jesus was not crucified but instead, he was raised alive unto the heavens. This raising is understood by them to mean bodily ascension.
“ “That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of God";- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not:- Nay, God raised him up unto the himself; and God is Exalted in Power, Wise.”[Qur'an 4:157–158] ”
According to most Muslim traditions, Jesus was replaced by a double, one of the people that was about to crucify him; others suggest it was Simon of Cyrene, or one of the disciples such as Judas Iscariot. The crucifixion interpretation was rejected, and according to the Encyclopedia of Islam, there was unanimous agreement amongst the scholars in denying the crucifixion. Modern commentators interpret the verse to say that the crucifixion "seemed thus to them" [i.e. the Jews].
Traditonal Muslims believe that Jesus will return at a time close to the end of the world. The Qur'anic verse they allude to as an indicator to Jesus' future return is as follows:
“ “And (Jesus) shall be a Sign (for the coming of) the Hour (of Judgment): therefore have no doubt about the (Hour), but follow ye Me: this is a Straight Way.”[Qur'an 43:61] "
According to Islamic tradition which describes this graphically, Jesus' descent will be in the midst of wars fought by the Mahdi (lit. "the rightly guided one"), known in Islamic eschatology as the redeemer of Islam, against the Antichrist (al-Masīkh ad-Dajjāl, "false messiah") and his followers. Jesus will descend at the point of a white arcade, east of Damascus, dressed in yellow robes - his head anointed. He will then join the Mahdi in his war against the Dajjal. Jesus, considered in Islam as a Muslim, will abide by the Islamic teachings. Eventually, Jesus will slay the Dajjal, and then everyone from the people of the book (ahl al-kitāb, referring to Jews and Christians) will believe in him. Thus, there will be one community, that of Islam.
After the death of the Mahdi, Jesus will assume leadership. This is a time associated in Islamic narrative with universal peace and justice. Islamic texts also allude to the appearance of Ya'juj and Ma'juj (known also as Gog and Magog), ancient tribes which will disperse and cause disturbance on earth. God, in response to Jesus' prayers, will kill them by sending a type of worm in the napes of their necks. Jesus' rule is said to be around forty years, after which he will die. Muslims will then perform the funeral prayer for him and then bury him in the city of Medina in a grave left vacant beside Muhammad, Abu Bakr, and Umar (companions of Muhammad and the first and second Muslim caliphs respectively).
Jesus is described by various means in the Qur'an. The most common reference to Jesus occurs in the form of "Ibn Maryam" (son of Mary), sometimes preceded with another title. Jesus is also recognized as a prophet (nabī) and messenger (rasūl) of God. The terms wadjih ("worthy of esteem in this world and the next"), mubārak ("blessed", or "a source of benefit for others"), `abd-Allāh (servant of God) are all used in the Qur'an in reference to Jesus.
Another title frequently mentioned is al-Masīḥ, which translates to "the Messiah". This does not correspond to the Christian concept of Messiah, as Islam regards all prophets, including Jesus, to be mortal and without any share in divinity. Muslim exegetes explain the use of the word masīh in the Qur'an as referring to Jesus' status as the one anointed by means of blessings and honors; or as the one who helped cure the sick, by anointing the eyes of the blind, for example. Qur'anic verses also employ the term "kalimat allah" (meaning the "word of God") as a descriptor of Jesus, which is interpreted as a reference to the creating word of God, uttered at the moment of Jesus' conception; or as recognition of Jesus' status as a messenger of God, speaking on God's behalf.
Islamic texts regard Jesus as a righteous messenger of God, and reject him as being God or the begotten Son of God. This belief, that Jesus is God or Son of God according to Islam, is tantamount to shirk, or the association of partners with God; and thereby a rejection of God's divine oneness (tawhid). A verse from the Qur'an reads:
“ “In blasphemy indeed are those that say that God is Christ the son of Mary. Say: "Who then hath the least power against God, if His will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, his mother, and all every - one that is on the earth? For to God belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all that is between. He createth what He pleaseth. For God hath power over all things.”[Qur'an 5:17][28] ”
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is similarly rejected in Islam. Such notions of the divinity of Jesus, Muslims state, resulted from human interpolations of God's revelation. The Muslims give the evidence of these interpolations as they say even the Chrsitian scholars nowadays have discovered that the doctrine of trinity was an interpolation, so thus, the verse on trinity (I John, Chapter 5, Verse 7) in all modern versions of Bible except KJV has been removed. Islam views Jesus as an ordinary human like all other prophets, who preached that salvation came through submission to God's will and worshiping God alone. Thus, Jesus is considered in Islam to have been a Muslim, as with all prophets in Islam.
Muslims believe that Jesus was a precursor to Muhammad, and that he announced the latter's coming. They base this on a verse of the Qur'an wherein Jesus speaks of a messenger to appear after him named Ahmad. Islam associates Ahmad with Muhammad, both words deriving from the h-m-d tri-consonantal root which refers to praiseworthiness. Muslims also assert that evidence of Jesus' pronouncement is present in the New Testament, citing the mention of the Paraclete whose coming is foretold in the Gospel of John. Muslim commentators claim that the original Greek word used was periklutos, meaning famed, illustrious, or praiseworthy - rendered in Arabic as Ahmad; and that this was substituted by Christians with parakletos.
Jesus is widely venerated in Muslim ascetic and mystic literature, such as in Muslim mystic Al-Ghazzali's Ihya `ulum ad-Din ("The revival of the religious sciences"). These works lay stress upon Jesus' poverty, his preoccupation with worship, his detachment from worldly life and his miracles. Such depictions also include advice and sermons which are attributed to him. Later Sufic commentaries adapted material from Christian gospels which were consistent with their ascetic portrayal. Sufi philosopher Ibn Arabi described Jesus as "the seal of universal holiness" due to the quality of his faith and "because he holds in his hands the keys of living breath and because he is at present in a state of deprivation and journeying."
References to Jesus in the Qur'an
Meccan period
The widespread consensus is that the following verses were revealed in Mecca:
* Qur'an 19:16–40
* Qur'an 19:88–95
* Qur'an 43:57–65
* Qur'an 43:81–82
* Qur'an 23:50
* Qur'an 21:91–93
* Qur'an 42:13–14
* Qur'an 6:83–90
Medinan period
The list of verses revealed in Medina is as follows:
* Qur'an 2:87
* Qur'an 2:135–141
* Qur'an 2:252–253
* Qur'an 3:42–64
Jesus see ‘Isa.
Messiah see ‘Isa.
Messenger of God see ‘Isa.
Isaac
Isaac (in Arabic, Ishaq). The name Isaac means “laughter” in Hebrew. Isaac was the Old Testament patriarch, the son of Abraham, half-brother of Ishmael, and father of Jacob and Esau. According to the Hebrew Bible, the birth of Isaac was promised {see Genesis 17: 19, 21} to Abraham and his wife Sarah, after a long and childless marriage, as a sign that the blessings originally bestowed by God upon Abraham would be continued in Isaac, heir of the Covenant. The events of Isaac’s life are recounted in Genesis, Chapters 21-28.
The dominant story in the narrative, and one of the most widely known stories in the Bible, is that of the projected sacrifice of Isaac {see Genesis 22}. According to this account, God tested Abraham’s faith by asking him to sacrifice his beloved son. At the last moment, after God was convinced of the perfect obedience of both father and son, he accepted a ram as a substitute for the young Isaac. This story is thought to express the Hebrew rejection of human sacrifice, commonly practiced by surrounding nations. The ram is recalled today in synagogue ritual at the solemn blowing of the the shofar, or ram’s horn, during the Jewish High Holy Days, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
The New Testament alludes to Isaac as a percursor of Christ and of the Church {see Galatians 3:16, 4:21-31}, and the obedience of his self-sacrifice is associated with that of Christ {see Hebrews 11:17-19}. These themes were developed by several of the patristic writers, and the figure of Isaac appears frequently in Christian art, particularly in association with the Eucharist.
Archaeologists and biblical scholars have drawn parallels between the biblical narrative of Isaac and the history of the Semitic tribes. Abraham is thought to represent the nomadic stock out of which the Hebrew and Edomite tribes evolved. Isaac is believed to represent the tribes that joined to form the Hebrew confederacy and to give allegiance to the God, Yahweh, or Jehovah, originally a tribal deity; and Ishmael is believed to represent the tribes of Edom. Isaac was a relatively minor figure compared to the other two great biblical patriarchs, Abraham (Isaac’s father) and Jacob (Isaac’s son). However, a number of the details of the biblical account are believed by scholars to have major symbolic importance. The story of his birth is believed to be a deliberate attempt by early Hebrew writers to alter the traditions of the Semitic tribes in order to strengthen adherence to the Hebrew confederacy, a military and political alliance, by suggesting that it had divine inspiration. In making Isaac the legitimate son, and Ishmael the illegitimate son, of their common ancestor, the Hebrews sought to claim superiority over the independent Edomite tribes. Finally, the rivalry between Isaac’s two sons (Esau and Jacob) is thought to reflect again the rivalry between Edom and the Hebrews.
The Biblical Isaac is mentioned several times in the Qur‘an. {See Suras 2:130-135; 3:75-80; 4:160-170; 6:80-90; 12:5-10; 12:35-40; 19:50-60; 29:25-30; 37:110-115; 38:45-50.}In Islam, Isaac/Ishaq (circa 1761 BC - 1638 BC?) Ishaq (Isaac) is known as an appointed prophet of God. He is the second son of Ibrahim (Abraham) from his wife Sarah and his birth occurred after Ibrahim (Abraham) and his wife left their pagan people who worshipped Idols.Ishaq (Isaac) was born after Ismail (Ishmael) a miraculous birth when Sarah was old and barren.Angels who came in human shape visited Ibrahim (Abraham) .He invited them inside his house and was very welcoming. Ibrahim (Abraham) offered them some food to eat but they refused to eat.They told him that they were Angels on their way to destroy the people of Lut (Lot). Ibrahim (Abraham) was worried for Lut (Lot) but the angels told him that Lot would be informed to run away before his people would receive their Judgment from God. Both Prophets are Praised and Respected by Muslims for their important roles.
The Qur'an states that Ibraham was commanded to sacrifice his son. The son is not, however, named in the Qur’an (37:102–113). In early Islam, there was a dispute over the identity of the son. However, some Muslim scholars came to endorse that it was Ishmael but some others notably Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari who was the most famous and most praised as well as one of the first exegesis writers of the Quran stated that it was clearly Isaac and not Ishmael. The argument of those early scholars who believed it was Isaac rather than Ishmael (notably Ibn Ḳutayba, and al-Ṭabarī) was that "God's perfecting his mercy on Abraham and Isaac” (12:16). Referred to his making Ibraham his friend and saving him from the burning bush, and to his rescuing Isaac.
The birth of Isaac happened after Ibraham left his people and asked for a child (37:99–113). Many might say it was Ishmael but in other verses and instances the Qur'an once again tells the story stating that after Ibraham left his people Isaac was given to him (37:99–113).
so it is that after Ibraham left his pagan people the birth of Isaac was said to him by three angels who were on their way to destroy the people of Lot and nowhere in the Qur'an or Islamic tradition does it say that the birth of Ishmael had a relation with the three angels nor was it miraculous like Isaac's and most importantly the Qur'an clearly explains that the birth of Isaac was when Ibraham left his pagan people and the Qur'an mentioned Isaac by name to prove so in (19:49–113). So the conclusion is according to the Qur'an the verses that talk about the sacrifice of Ibraham's son clearly says that Ibraham left his people and a un-named son was given to him (19:113–113). Later on, that son was to be sacrificed, so to prove that son was Isaac and not Ishmael are the verses mentioned earlier which talk about Ibraham given Isaac when Abraham left his pagan people to live alone (37:99–113).Another argument supporting that Isaac was the son to be sacrificed is the verses that state Abraham sacrificed his son after that son had grown with him (37:102–113).
The Qur'an portrays Isaac as a righteous prophet calling him (ghulam Aleem) as well as (ghulam Haleem) meaning a great smart son Qur'an also describes Isaac as a righteous servant of God. The Qur'an states that Isaac and his progeny are blessed as long as they uphold their covenant with God.
Ishaq see Isaac
Isaac (in Arabic, Ishaq). The name Isaac means “laughter” in Hebrew. Isaac was the Old Testament patriarch, the son of Abraham, half-brother of Ishmael, and father of Jacob and Esau. According to the Hebrew Bible, the birth of Isaac was promised {see Genesis 17: 19, 21} to Abraham and his wife Sarah, after a long and childless marriage, as a sign that the blessings originally bestowed by God upon Abraham would be continued in Isaac, heir of the Covenant. The events of Isaac’s life are recounted in Genesis, Chapters 21-28.
The dominant story in the narrative, and one of the most widely known stories in the Bible, is that of the projected sacrifice of Isaac {see Genesis 22}. According to this account, God tested Abraham’s faith by asking him to sacrifice his beloved son. At the last moment, after God was convinced of the perfect obedience of both father and son, he accepted a ram as a substitute for the young Isaac. This story is thought to express the Hebrew rejection of human sacrifice, commonly practiced by surrounding nations. The ram is recalled today in synagogue ritual at the solemn blowing of the the shofar, or ram’s horn, during the Jewish High Holy Days, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
The New Testament alludes to Isaac as a percursor of Christ and of the Church {see Galatians 3:16, 4:21-31}, and the obedience of his self-sacrifice is associated with that of Christ {see Hebrews 11:17-19}. These themes were developed by several of the patristic writers, and the figure of Isaac appears frequently in Christian art, particularly in association with the Eucharist.
Archaeologists and biblical scholars have drawn parallels between the biblical narrative of Isaac and the history of the Semitic tribes. Abraham is thought to represent the nomadic stock out of which the Hebrew and Edomite tribes evolved. Isaac is believed to represent the tribes that joined to form the Hebrew confederacy and to give allegiance to the God, Yahweh, or Jehovah, originally a tribal deity; and Ishmael is believed to represent the tribes of Edom. Isaac was a relatively minor figure compared to the other two great biblical patriarchs, Abraham (Isaac’s father) and Jacob (Isaac’s son). However, a number of the details of the biblical account are believed by scholars to have major symbolic importance. The story of his birth is believed to be a deliberate attempt by early Hebrew writers to alter the traditions of the Semitic tribes in order to strengthen adherence to the Hebrew confederacy, a military and political alliance, by suggesting that it had divine inspiration. In making Isaac the legitimate son, and Ishmael the illegitimate son, of their common ancestor, the Hebrews sought to claim superiority over the independent Edomite tribes. Finally, the rivalry between Isaac’s two sons (Esau and Jacob) is thought to reflect again the rivalry between Edom and the Hebrews.
The Biblical Isaac is mentioned several times in the Qur‘an. {See Suras 2:130-135; 3:75-80; 4:160-170; 6:80-90; 12:5-10; 12:35-40; 19:50-60; 29:25-30; 37:110-115; 38:45-50.}In Islam, Isaac/Ishaq (circa 1761 BC - 1638 BC?) Ishaq (Isaac) is known as an appointed prophet of God. He is the second son of Ibrahim (Abraham) from his wife Sarah and his birth occurred after Ibrahim (Abraham) and his wife left their pagan people who worshipped Idols.Ishaq (Isaac) was born after Ismail (Ishmael) a miraculous birth when Sarah was old and barren.Angels who came in human shape visited Ibrahim (Abraham) .He invited them inside his house and was very welcoming. Ibrahim (Abraham) offered them some food to eat but they refused to eat.They told him that they were Angels on their way to destroy the people of Lut (Lot). Ibrahim (Abraham) was worried for Lut (Lot) but the angels told him that Lot would be informed to run away before his people would receive their Judgment from God. Both Prophets are Praised and Respected by Muslims for their important roles.
The Qur'an states that Ibraham was commanded to sacrifice his son. The son is not, however, named in the Qur’an (37:102–113). In early Islam, there was a dispute over the identity of the son. However, some Muslim scholars came to endorse that it was Ishmael but some others notably Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari who was the most famous and most praised as well as one of the first exegesis writers of the Quran stated that it was clearly Isaac and not Ishmael. The argument of those early scholars who believed it was Isaac rather than Ishmael (notably Ibn Ḳutayba, and al-Ṭabarī) was that "God's perfecting his mercy on Abraham and Isaac” (12:16). Referred to his making Ibraham his friend and saving him from the burning bush, and to his rescuing Isaac.
The birth of Isaac happened after Ibraham left his people and asked for a child (37:99–113). Many might say it was Ishmael but in other verses and instances the Qur'an once again tells the story stating that after Ibraham left his people Isaac was given to him (37:99–113).
so it is that after Ibraham left his pagan people the birth of Isaac was said to him by three angels who were on their way to destroy the people of Lot and nowhere in the Qur'an or Islamic tradition does it say that the birth of Ishmael had a relation with the three angels nor was it miraculous like Isaac's and most importantly the Qur'an clearly explains that the birth of Isaac was when Ibraham left his pagan people and the Qur'an mentioned Isaac by name to prove so in (19:49–113). So the conclusion is according to the Qur'an the verses that talk about the sacrifice of Ibraham's son clearly says that Ibraham left his people and a un-named son was given to him (19:113–113). Later on, that son was to be sacrificed, so to prove that son was Isaac and not Ishmael are the verses mentioned earlier which talk about Ibraham given Isaac when Abraham left his pagan people to live alone (37:99–113).Another argument supporting that Isaac was the son to be sacrificed is the verses that state Abraham sacrificed his son after that son had grown with him (37:102–113).
The Qur'an portrays Isaac as a righteous prophet calling him (ghulam Aleem) as well as (ghulam Haleem) meaning a great smart son Qur'an also describes Isaac as a righteous servant of God. The Qur'an states that Isaac and his progeny are blessed as long as they uphold their covenant with God.
Ishaq see Isaac
Isaf wa-Na‘ila
Isaf wa-Na‘ila. Pair of gods worshipped at Mecca before Islam.
Isaf wa-Na‘ila. Pair of gods worshipped at Mecca before Islam.
‘Isa ibn Dinar
‘Isa ibn Dinar (771-827). One of the founders of Islamic theology in Spain. He wrote a large work on Maliki jurisprudence.
‘Isa ibn Dinar (771-827). One of the founders of Islamic theology in Spain. He wrote a large work on Maliki jurisprudence.
‘Isami
‘Isami. Persian poet in India during the fourteenth century. His fame rests on his Conquests of the Sultans, dedicated to ‘Ala‘ al-Din Hasan Bahman Shah (r. 1347-1358), the founder of the Bahmanid dynasty.
‘Isami. Persian poet in India during the fourteenth century. His fame rests on his Conquests of the Sultans, dedicated to ‘Ala‘ al-Din Hasan Bahman Shah (r. 1347-1358), the founder of the Bahmanid dynasty.
‘Isawa
‘Isawa (‘Isawiyya). Mystical order founded by the Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Isa (1467-1534), who became the patron saint of the town of Meknes.
The Isawiyya brotherhood, or Isawa, was founded in Meknes, Morocco, in the sixteenth century by Shaykh Muhammad bin Isa al-Sufyani al-Mukhtari, known as Shaykh al-Kamil (the perfect master). The brotherhood is found all over Morocco and Algeria and has extended its influence to other Muslim countries such as Libya, Syria, and Egypt. Each year during the three days following the Mulud, members hold a celebration in Meknes where music, ecstatic dances, and extravagant rituals are collectively performed. Because it preaches renouncement, Isawa recruit their disciples mostly among poor social categories.
'Isawiyya see ‘Isawa
‘Isawa (‘Isawiyya). Mystical order founded by the Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Isa (1467-1534), who became the patron saint of the town of Meknes.
The Isawiyya brotherhood, or Isawa, was founded in Meknes, Morocco, in the sixteenth century by Shaykh Muhammad bin Isa al-Sufyani al-Mukhtari, known as Shaykh al-Kamil (the perfect master). The brotherhood is found all over Morocco and Algeria and has extended its influence to other Muslim countries such as Libya, Syria, and Egypt. Each year during the three days following the Mulud, members hold a celebration in Meknes where music, ecstatic dances, and extravagant rituals are collectively performed. Because it preaches renouncement, Isawa recruit their disciples mostly among poor social categories.
'Isawiyya see ‘Isawa
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