Excerpts from "Reconstruction of Religious Thought" of Iqbal

Also see relevant post in this thread:

https://sunniport.com/index.php?threads/ibn-taymiyyah-on-hellfire.15211/page-2

See the last paragraph of lecture 4:

http://www.allamaiqbal.com/works/prose/english/reconstruction/index.htm

Iqbal says the following: However, according to the teachings of the Qur’an the ego’s re-emergence brings him a “sharp sight” (50: 22) whereby he clearly sees his self-built “fate fastened round his neck.” Heaven and Hell are states, not localities. Their descriptions in the Qur’an are visual representations of an inner fact, i.e. character. Hell, in the words of the Qur’an, is “God’s kindled fire which mounts above the hearts” – the painful realization of one’s failure as a man. Heaven is the joy of triumph over the forces of disintegration. There is no such thing as eternal damnation in Islam. The word “eternity” used in certain verses, relating to Hell, is explained by the Qur’an itself to mean only a period of time (78: 23). Time cannot be wholly irrelevant to the development of personality. Character tends to become permanent; its reshaping must require time. Hell, therefore, as conceived by the Qur’an, is not a pit of everlasting torture inflicted by a revengeful God; it is a corrective experience which may make a hardened ego once more sensitive to the living breeze of Divine Grace. Nor is Heaven a holiday. Life is one and continuous. Man marches always onward to receive ever fresh illuminations from an Infinite Reality which “every moment appears in a new glory”. And the recipient of Divine illumination is not merely a passive recipient. Every act of a free ego creates a new situation, and thus offers further opportunities of creative unfolding.

 

Mufti Rashid Mahmood's refutation of "Allama" Iqbal and Dr Jalali's blind/open support for the former:





Iqbal's liberal/intellectual mindset led him to support Sir SAK Aligarhi, Mirza Qadiani, Ismail Dehlwi, Ibn Taymiyya, Abdul Wahhab Najdi, Nadwi, Nomani, Ram, Nanak etc.

All sunni iqbal fans have nowhere to hide now.

 

here is a document i had collected from the internet (nafseislam as it is apparent).

Allah ta'ala knows best.

 

from javidnama

 

from javidnama

 

he says something plausible here:

http://www.allamaiqbal.com/poet/prose/english/stray.pdf

by iqbal's own declaration, no blind follower or admirer of his should be allowed to look for scientific and logical truth in his poetry, and that would by extension certainly also apply to religious and political matters.

 

So the only thing Iqbal had over contemporary U'lama was his command of English.

This is how so many judge knowledge that unfortunately they consider anyone with a good command of English as being knowledgeable.

If Iqbal had written all that in Arabic or Urdu he would have been refuted like the way Abduh, Afghani and others were refuted.

 

lo ji. ulum e mujtahid sahib ke jalwe; concerning hadith, iqbal says:

For our present purposes, however, we must distinguish traditions of a purely legal import from those which are of a non-legal character. With regard to the former, there arises a very important question as to how far they embody the pre-Islamic usages of Arabia which were in some cases left intact, and in others modified by the Prophet. It is difficult to make this discovery, for our early writers do not always refer to pre-Islamic usages. Nor is it possible to discover that usages, left intact by express or tacit approval of the Prophet, were intended to be universal in their application.

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only knowledge could have made the difference. these are 'wise sayings' of blind men in a dark pit.

iqbal says further:

It was perhaps in view of this that Abū Hanīfah, who had a keen insight into the universal character of Islam, made practically no use of these traditions. The fact that he introduced the principle of Istihsān, i.e. juristic preference, which necessitates a careful study of actual conditions in legal thinking, throws further light on the motives which determined his attitude towards this source of Muhammadan Law.

It is said that Abū Hanīfah made no use of traditions because there were no regular collections in his day.

In the first place, it is not true to say that there were no collections in his day, as the collections of ‘Abd al-Mālik and Zuhrī were made not less than thirty years before the death of Abū Hanīfah. But even if we suppose that these collections never reached him, or that they did not contain traditions of a legal import, Abū Hanīfah, like Mālik and Ahmad Ibn Hanbal after him, could have easily made his own collection if he had deemed such a thing necessary.

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aH: as i said, knowledge can do wonders. sometimes a little light can help a man differentiate between pebbles and rubies.

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talking about ijma'a he says lamenting why "ijma'a was not used by muslims":

It was, I think, favourable to the interest of the Umayyad and the Abbaside Caliphs to leave the power of Ijtihād to individual Mujtahids rather than encourage the formation of a permanent assembly which might become too powerful for them. It is, however, extremely satisfactory to note that the pressure of new world-forces and the political experience of European nations are impressing on the mind of modern Islam the value and possibilities of the idea of Ijmā‘.

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yeah, ijma'a. right.

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on qiyas, he believes in practising before learning:

(d) The Qiyās. The fourth basis of Fiqh is Qiyās, i.e. the use of analogical reasoning in legislation. In view of different social and agricultural conditions prevailing in the countries conquered by Islam, the school of Abū Hanīfah seem to have found, on the whole, little or no guidance from the precedents recorded in the literature of traditions. The only alternative open to them was to resort to speculative reason in their interpretations. The application of Aristotelian logic, however, though suggested by the discovery of new conditions in Iraq, was likely to prove exceedingly harmful in the preliminary stages of legal development. The intricate behaviour of life cannot be subjected to hard and fast rules logically deducible from certain general notions.

 

The Law of Islam, says the great Spanish jurist Imām Shātibī in his Al-Muwāfaqāt, aims at protecting five things– Dīn, Nafs, ‘Aql, Māl, and Nasl.Applying this test I venture to ask: “Does the working of the rule relating to apostasy, as laid down in the Hidāya, tend to protect the interests of the Faith in this country?”

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ooooh! shatibi SHATIBI!

yeah. this is like saying: american constitutions says X concerning rainforests. now, you tell me is it permissible for the empty quarter to be without trees?

d-uh.

why didn't iqbal just go back to muwafaqat and check it? in fact, the book has a whole fifth section dedicated to ijtihad/taqlid. if iqbal could have just translated major portions of it, instead of scurrying up to "gora-sab-knows-better" citations, his screed would have a modicum of self-respect.

 

this is like a taxi driver i met years ago, who was incapable of even naming the books of hadith nor knew their authors, or knew the definition of "SaHiH" but wanted to do ijtihad and rejected taqlid of schools. iqbal blabbers putting his jahalat on public display:

But with all their comprehensiveness these systems are after all individual interpretations, and as such cannot claim any finality. I know the Ulema of Islam claim finality for the popular schools of Muhammadan Law, though they never found it possible to deny the theoretical possibility of a complete Ijtihād.

I have tried to explain the causes which, in my opinion, determined this attitude of the Ulema; but since things have changed and the world of Islam is confronted and affected today by new forces set free by the extraordinary development of human thought in all its directions, I see no reason why this attitude should be maintained any longer.

Did the founders of our schools ever claim finality for their reasoning’s and interpretations? Never. The claim of the present generation of Muslim liberals to reinterpret the foundational legal principles, in the light of their own experience and the altered conditions of modern life is, in my opinion, perfectly justified.

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you sir, are an idiot.

 

more jahalat:

1.In the first place, we should bear in mind that from the earliest times, practically up to the rise of the Abbasids, there was no written law of Islam apart from the Qur’an.

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[aH: if i use dashes for separation, it indicates a non contiguous block of text]

A careful study of the various schools of legal opinion, in the light of contemporary social and political history, reveals that they gradually passed from the deductive to the inductive attitude in their efforts at interpretation.

aH:except that iqbal is being intellectually dishonest. let alone careful, he doesn't seem to have studied it even in a generic manner (apart from cursory browsing, as it appears, information from which he uses as props). alas! from the cordova that he so admired, came many jurists and ibn rushd's "bidayatu'l mujtahid wa nihayatu'l muqtaSid" is one such fine works of comparative fiqh.

you can find english translation here: vol.1 and vol.2 :: PDF:vol.1 () and PDF:vol.2]

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sub-standard journalism:

The Qur’an. The primary source of the Law of Islam is the Qur’an. The Qur’an, however, is not a legal code. Its main purpose, as I have said before, is to awaken in man the higher consciousness of his relation with God and the universe.No doubt, the Qur’an does lay down a few general principles and rules of a legal nature, especially relating to the family– the ultimate basis of social life. But why are these rules made part of a revelation the ultimate aim of which is man’s higher life? The answer to this question is furnished by the history of Christianity which appeared as a powerful reaction against the spirit of legality manifested in Judaism.

By setting up an ideal of other-worldliness it no doubt did succeed in spiritualizing life, but its individualism could see no spiritual value in the complexity of human social relations. “Primitive Christianity”, says Naumann in his Briefe über Religion, “attached no value to the preservation of the State, law, organization, production. It simply does not reflect on the conditions of human society.” And Naumann concludes: “Hence we either dare to aim at being without a state, and thus throwing ourselves deliberately into the arms of anarchy, or we decide to possess, alongside of our religious creed, a political creed as well.”Thus the Qur’an considers it necessary to unite religion and state, ethics and politics in a single revelation much in the same way as Plato does in his Republic.

The important point to note in this connexion, however, is the dynamic outlook of the Qur’an. I have fully discussed its origin and history. It is obvious that with such an outlook the Holy Book of Islam cannot be inimical to the idea of evolution

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aH:
anyone who has seriously studied qur'an and tafsir - even the simplest, easiest ones - will not make such a moronic statement. the commentaries of the qur'an are extensive and books on associated sciences, the critical review of opinions, examination of objections and explanations - only those who have been at sea can appreciate the depth and breadth of an ocean. myopic and ignorant critics will look at a picture of the beach and confidently write that "ocean is after all, ankle deep. i have myself seen a small child who has stood in an ocean with water reaching his shins"

and because he might have never heard of books by imam zarkashi or qurTubi on qur'anic sciences, he resorts to judeo-christian problems and solutions.

 

it is obvious that iqbal had never seen a proper book of fiqh in islam, let alone read a book on usul al-fiqh.

I have given you some idea of the history and working of Ijtihād in modern Islam. I now proceed to see whether the history and structure of the Law of Islam indicate the possibility of any fresh interpretation of its principles. In other words, the question that I want to raise is– Is the Law of Islam capable of evolution? Horten, Professor of Semitic Philology at the University of Bonn, raises the same question in connexion with the Philosophy and Theology of Islam.

 

shameless kowtowing to the turkish model which in hindsight is a failed model. at least people can now see how iqbal was wrong and his idiotic cheering of the scoundrel ita-turk's model. may the kamalists be wiped off the face of this earth.

The truth is that among the Muslim nations of today, Turkey alone has shaken off its dogmatic slumber, and attained to self-consciousness. She alone has claimed her right of intellectual freedom; she alone has passed from the ideal to the real– a transition which entails keen intellectual and moral struggle. To her the growing complexities of a mobile and broadening life are sure to bring new situations suggesting new points of view, and necessitating fresh interpretations of principles which are only of an academic interest to a people who have never experienced the joy of spiritual expansion.

 

more:

It is clear from these lines how beautifully the poet has adopted the Comtian idea of the three stages of man’s intellectual development, i.e. theological, metaphysical, and scientific– to the religious outlook of Islam.

 

intellectual slavery:

Let us now see how the Grand National Assembly has exercised this power of Ijtihād in regard to the institution of Khilāfat. According to Sunni Law, the appointment of an Imām or Khalīfah is absolutely indispensable. The first question that arises in this connexion is this– Should the Caliphate be vested in a single person?

Turkey’s Ijtihād is that according to the spirit of Islam the Caliphate or Imāmate can be vested in a body of persons, or an elected Assembly. The religious doctors of Islam in Egypt and India, as far as I know, have not yet expressed themselves on this point.

Personally, I believe the Turkish view is perfectly sound. It is hardly necessary to argue this point. The republican form of government is not only thoroughly consistent with the spirit of Islam, but has also become a necessity in view of the new forces that are set free in the world of Islam.

 

more jahalat:

Centuries ago Ibn Khaldūn, who personally believed in the condition of Qarshīyat in the Khalīfah, argued much in the same way. Since the power of the Quraysh, he says, has gone, there is no alternative but to accept the most powerful man as Imām in the country where he happens to be powerful.

Thus Ibn Khaldūn, realizing the hard logic of facts, suggests a view which may be regarded as the first dim vision of an International Islam fairly in sight today. Such is the attitude of the modern Turk, inspired as he is by the realities of experience, and not by the scholastic reasoning of jurists who lived and thought under different conditions of life.

 

so-called 'great' work of iqbal on islam reads like a google powered essay.

 

http://www.allamaiqbal.com/poet/prose/english/stray.pdf

on pg 24 of pdf, "sir" "allama" says:

on pg 60, the usual inferiority complex-infested apologia of colonials who look up to saab

polygamy is not an evil. it is a Sunnah of the Beloved of Allah.

his apologetic "justifications" for it are nothing other than begging and pleading to saab. we don't need to "justify" Islam to the kuffar. we don't need to tell them if pork causes tape worm. we will not eat it even if it is the healthiest food available.

in these times, this Sunnah needs to be revived, if only with the intention that it is not demonized and called "evil" by maghreb-nawaz juhalaa and that the Muslim culture and traditions are not called as "backwards" and so on. i am not ashamed to say i'm a very fiery advocate for it, yes despite all our societal problems worldwide, be it in the east or the west.

i forget now, but in one risalah of Ala Hazrat, wherein he proves the tafdil of Sayyidina Ghawth Al-A3zdham over Shaykh Ahmad Ar-Rifa3i, Ala Hazrat has cited a saying of the blessed Ghawth where he himself says that he has married 4 pious ladies at different times in life in accordance to Sunnah, and therefore he has completed one Sunnah more than Shaykh Ar-Rifa3i

i admit i don't know much about his life and works, but this "sir" character seems to be very similar to the jamaluddin afghani, and rashed rida types. yes, i don't pay respects to anyone crowned as "sir" by the kafirs. my guards go up.

 

http://www.allamaiqbal.com/works/prose/english/reconstruction/