Sebelum saya meneruskan dengan bab yang seterusnya, saya ingin menyentuh tentang matlamat buku ini ditulis seperti yang dinyatakan oleh al-Marhum Ismai’il Raji al-Faruqi. Menurut beliau, buku ini adalah bukan satu kritik Islamik ke atas nilai atau etika Kristianiti, tetapi satu kritik yang ringkas dan benar. Maksudnya, al-Marhum tidaklah mengkritik etika Kristianiti itu dengan apa-apa tanggapan awal atau kedudukannya sebagai seorang Muslim. Kritiknya mudah, tidak ada prejudis dan menghakimi sesuatu berdasarkan sesuatu itu.
Menurut saya, kritiknya saintifik, rasional, bersih daripada tanggapan bersifat dogmatik, dangkal, kering, literalistik, berbaur emosi keagamaan seperti ceramah-ceramah yang diberikan paderi di gereja-gereja, dan manipulasi kaedah pemikiran ‘akrobatik’ dan ‘gimnastik’ seperti yang digunakan golongan Pharisees (golongan agamawan Yahudi pada zaman Nabi Isa a.s.) seperti ‘ijtihad’ mereka mengharamkan mengenakan riba’ ke atas kaum Yahudi tetapi ‘halal’, ‘mubah’, mustahab’, dan berdasarkan ‘Maslahah Mursalah’ untuk mengenakan riba’ ke atas kaum Ummiyyun, Goyim, Gentile atau kaum bukan Yahudi.
Oleh kerana itu, Nabi Isa a.s. sangat tidak suka sikap golongan Pharisees (bukan semua) yang berlakon menjadi baik, tetapi hati mereka seperti serigala, seperti cerita kartun serigala yang menyamar menjadi nenek kepada seorang budak untuk memakan budak itu.
Ketika itu, terdapat dua golongan utama agamawan yang cuba mendapat tempat di hati golongan awam. Keadaan ini menyebabkan berlakunya konflik dan perpecahan di kalangan mereka dan orang awam. Dua golongan agamawan itu adalah Pharisee dan Sadducee. Menurut W. F. Albright, “sejak c. 130 BC ke AD 10, kehidupan agama kaum Yahudi disifatkan sebagai konflik parti di mana golongan Pharisees lebih mendapat tempat daripada saudara mereka yang lebih berketurunan aristokratik.” (Golongan yang terkemudian itu merujuk kepada golongan Sadducee).
Golongan Pharisees adalah bersifat ultra-konservatif nasionalis, atau lebih tepat dikatakan golongan bersifat perkauman Yahudi, yang menghabiskan hidup mereka dengan ‘satu harapan, satu tujuan’ - iaitu untuk menghidupkan kembali tanah pemerintahan Yahudi dan kemewahan material seperti yang berlaku pada era kegemilangan Nabi Sulaiman a.s.
Pola pemikiran, world view, buah fikiran, ijtihad, konsepsi, ideologi, ragam fikiran, Weltanschauung mereka adalah bahawa Hukum Taurat adalah satu perlembagaan yang perlu difahami dan dilaksanakan secara absolut dan kepatuhan yang bersifat literal ataupun dangkal. Oleh kerana itu mereka tidak segan silu untuk menyalahgunakan hukum-hukum ini untuk kepentingan mereka sebagaimana mereka menghalalkan riba’ ke atas golongan bukan Yahudi kerana mereka beranggapan nilai etika Taurat itu tidaklah bersifat universal, tetapi hanyalah untuk mereka sahaja, untuk mereka kaum yang terpilih.
Oleh kerana konflik yang mencengkam ini, golongan awam berasa berputus asa, tetapi mereka masih mengharapkan kedatangan al-Masih, ataupun Penyelamat yang akan membawa mereka ke jalan yang benar dan menuntut kembali kegemilangan yang telah hilang. Mereka berasa putus asa dengan konflik ini dua golongan ini yang lebih mementingkan ‘bertih jagung’, mengambil ajaran-ajaran Taurat secara dangkal tanpa memahami ajaran-ajaran itu sebagai satu jalan untuk mendekatkan diri kepada Tuhan. Kefahaman moral sudah tidak dapat lagi menanggapi tujuan, dan sebarang nilai daripada hukum-hukum tersebut hanyalah atas dasar kepatuhan sahaja tanpa nilai ikhlas, cinta kepada Tuhan.
Kepatuhan kepada Hukum-Hukum, sama ada mematuhinya atau tidak hanya sekadar sebagai satu obsesi. Obsesi inilah yang menjadi penentu hukum; yang menyebabkan berlakunya kejatuhan fakulti-fakulti moral.
Nabi Isa a.s. apabila menghadapi kedua-dua golongan ini, tidak menyebelahi mana-mana pihak tetapi memarahi kedua-dua golongan ini. Nabi Isa berkata: ‘: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites… (Matthew 23: 1-39). “Ye make clean the outside cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.” (23:25). “ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have omitted the weighteir matters of the law, judgement, mercy and faith; these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone ” (23:23). “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed sepulchers (kubur-kubur), which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean” . (23:27). Al-Marhum Isma’il Raji al-Faruqi berkata untuk menerangkan keadaan itu: “Not surprsingly, their ethic was external obedience, lacking in attention to nuances, to meanings, to final ends.”
Enam abad selepas itu, menurut Isma’il Raji al-Faruqi, Rasulullah tetap menghadapi keadaan yang sama daripada kaum Yahudi seperti yang tercatat di dalam al-Qur’an:
“Perumpamaan orang-orang yang dipikulkan kepadanya Taurat, kemudian mereka tiada memikulnya adalah seperti keledai yang membawa kitab-kitab yang tebal. Amatlah buruknya perumpamaan kaum yang mendustakan ayat-ayat Allah itu. Dan Allah tiada memberi petunjuk kepada kaum yang zalim.” (Al-Jumu’ah, 62:5).
‘those who have received the Scripture turn away from it when its substance is made the judge of their differences.’ (Ali ‘Imran, 3:23).
‘those unto whom the Scripture hath been given rather take misguidance than guidance’ (An-Nissa’, 4:44).
‘such as say with their mouths ‘We believe, but their hearts believe not…listeners to falsehood…pulling words out of their context and meaning…greedy for illicit gain… O People of the scripture! Stress not in your religion anything but truth and meaning [therein].’ (Al-Ma’idah, 41-42,77).
Apakah tujuan saya membawakan isu ini? Tidak lain untuk memberi peringatan kepada saya. Ini kerana Nabi Muhammad s.a.w. telah mengingatkan saya dan umat Islam dengan sabdanya:
Hadis riwayat Abu Said Al-Khudri رضي الله عنه, ia berkata:Rasulullah صلی الله عليه وسلم bersabda: “Sungguh kamu sekalian akan mengikuti sunnah orang-orang sebelum kamu sejengkal demi sejengkal dan sehasta demi sehasta, sehingga walaupun mereka memasuk ke dalam sarang biawak kamu sekalian pun akan mengikuti mereka. Kami bertanya: Wahai Rasulullah! Orang-orang Yahudi dan orang-orang Nasrani? Beliau menjawab: Lalu siapa lagi selain mereka.” (Hadith Riwayat Muslim).
Insya Allah, saya akan menyentuh beberapa tajuk buku ini lagi selepas ini.
Video Shaykh Imran N. Hosein yang sudah saya muat turun:
1. Islam and International Monetary System (muat turun dari youtube, format flv, 12 bahagian)
2. Dajjal: The False Messiah
3. Signs of the Last Day: Dialog dengan paderi Geof Qinlan
4. The Strategic Importance of Islamic Sprituality
5. Islamic Sprituality - The Forgotten Path
6. The Gold Dinar: Islam and the Future of Money.
Sesiapa yang mempunyai masalah untuk memuat turun video-video di atas di laman web Imran N. Hosein, sila hubungi saya di al-malakian@hotmail.com. Saya harap anda faham apa yang saya ingin tawarkan tanpa memerlukan wang kertas. Boleh berikan nama samaran dan alamat atau cara lain. Terhad.
“I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? …All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is ape to man? A laughing stock or painful embarrassment. And man shall be that to overman: a laughingstock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape…The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth…Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman–a rope over an abyss…what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end…” -Nietzsche
“Wherefore there are three things that thou shalt consider in doctrine - namely, love towards God, pity towards one’s neighbour, and hatred towards thyself, who hast offended God, and offendest him every day.”
“They have eyes but they cannot see. They have ears but they cannot hear. They have hearts but they cannot understand. They are just like cattle. No! They are worse than that. They are more misguided than cattle.” (7:179)
“Freedom is the only way.If I speak, people will not listen to me because I’m nothing in this world. I don’t have any title of honourship. But at least, I am a precursor.”
Malakian says: Najmuddin al-Razi tried to make a distinction between the qualities of the Jesus a.s and the Antichrist (Dajjal) through parables. He said:
…”And the Antichrist is represented in you as your ‘demanding ego.’ The Antichrist is one-eyed, just like your ego (nafs), seeing only the world and being blind to the hereafter. Whatever the Antichrist presents as heaven is actually hell, and what he presents as hell is really heaven; by the same token, the ego presents carnal passions and pleasures as paradisical, though they are actually infernal, and it presents one’s spritual devotion and worship as hellish, though they are really heavenly in nature.”…
Nurbkhsh, J. Jesus in the eyes of the Sufis.
Credit to wakeupproject.com team and hashemsfilms.com for the idea of woman in red with one-eyed expression. What is the significant of this picture? Read ‘One Jama’at One Ameer: The Organization of a Muslim Community in the Age of Fitan‘ which is written by Shaykh Imran Nazar Hosein.
Saya baru habis mendengar dua ceramah yang disampaikan oleh Shaykh Imran Nazar Hosein. Saya bersyukur kerana Allah telah menemukan saya kepada kepada beliau. Oleh itu saya ingin berterima kasih kepada team Wakeupproject.com yang menjadi wasilah untuk saya mengenal Shaykh Imran Nazar Hosein. Seakan baru semalam saya merindukan untuk mendapat jawapan kepada persoalan saya.
Ketika saya mendengar ceramah beliau yang pertama, terus terang saya katakan saya mengeluarkan air mata. Saya seolah-olah telah menerima huraian khabar gembira dan peringatan yang ingin disampaikan Allah dan RasulNya. Kemudian di akhir ceramahnya, Shaykh Imran mengatakan pulanglah ke rumah dengan linangan air mata tetapi dengan perasaan gembira di dalam hati kerana satu hari nanti masanya akan tiba untuk kita umat Islam.
Dalam video yang kedua, Shaykh Imran Hosein menerangkan kepentingan spritualiti Islam iaitu Ihsan ataupun Tasawwuf dalam memahami keadaan dunia akhir ini yang penuh dengan ranjau dan duri. Imran Hosein menerangkannya dengan Hadith Jibrail dan signifikasi hadith tersebut terutamanya dalam menerangkan maksud Ihsan dan implikasinya; sebuah kejadian yang berlaku selepas turunnya ayat Allah yang menyebut “bahawa pada hari ini Allah telah melengkapkan agama Islam”.
Imran Hosein juga menerangkan tentang kepentingan mata hati untuk memahami ayat-ayat Allah dan hadith-hadith Rasulullah serta untuk memahami realiti sebenar di sebalik kejadian yang berlaku akhir zaman ini.
Beliau juga ada menerangkan tentang konsep murabaha dan pinjaman serta pandangannya dalam konteks pinjaman bank Islam sekarang ini.
Terdapat juga beberapa video lain di laman webnya dan selebihnya di ceramahislam.com seperti yang tertera di laman web Imran Hosein.
Video ini merupakan sebahagian daripada filem ‘When Nietzsche Wept.’ Nietzsche digambarkan dalam filem ini memberi pendapat/idea kepada seorang ahli akademik yang menghadapi krisis dalam dirinya. Saya teringat bekas pensyarah saya memberi idea kepada saya untuk membaca tulisan Nietzsche dan pandangan Iqbal tentang Nietzsche. Saya tidak terdaya untuk membaca tulisan Nietzsche, tapi saya membaca dan mengkaji pandangan Iqbal tentang Nietzsche. Bekas pensyarah saya juga menggalakkan saya membaca Munqidh min al-Dhalal oleh Imam al-Ghazali dan saya menurutinya. Saya kemudian membaca tulisan Imam al-Ghazali yang lain, tulisan Jalaluddin al-Rumi, Mansur al-Hallaj dan Ibn Arabi. Dan saya dapat melihat perkaitannya.
Saya akan muatkan di sini beberapa pandangan Iqbal dan huraian ahli akademik dalam hal ini. Tujuan saya bukan untuk meyakinkan sesiapa, tetapi ingin menunjukkan bahawa di dalam Imam al-Ghazali, Mansur al-Hallaj, Jalaludin al-Rumi, Nietzsche Goethe bahkan semua manusia termasuk anda sebenarnya mempunyai keinginan semulajadi yang sama iaitu untuk mencapai sesuatu yang indah, kebenaran iaitu al-Haq. Ia cuma terpulang sama ada anda menyedari potensi diri anda atau tidak, dan yang penting sekali ialah hidayah daripada Allah. “Sesungguhnya Allah tidak akan mengubah nasib suatu kaum hingga mereka berusaha mengubahnya sendiri.” (al-Ra’d : 11)
The life and thought of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) intrigued Iqbal, who, in many places in his prose and poetry, cites and discusses the German philosopher’s views. Iqbal’s interest in Nietzsche has been the subject of several studies. We are grateful to Professor Bernd Manuel Weischer for the permission to reprint the following article, which originally appeared as a contribution in H. R. Roemer and A. North, eds., Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Vorderen Oriens. Festschrift B. Spuler (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981). Iqbal’s well-known observation about Nietzsche, namely, that his heart believes but his mind disbelieves (quoted in the beginning of this article), occurs in “Nietzche, “a poem in Payām-i Mashriq (in Kulliyyat-i Iqbal-Fārsī, 329), the original Persian being: qalb-i ū mu’min dimāghash kāfar ast. Here, following, is a translation of Iqbal’s Urdu note to the observation (see the Ghulam ‘Alī and Sons edition of Kulliyyāt-i Iqbal-Fārs-i, Lahore, 1970, p. 371).
Nietzsche subjects Christian ethical philosophy to severe criticism. His mind is a disbeliever in God since he denies God, though his ideas are, in respect of some of their implications, very close to the religion of Islam. “His mind is a disbeliever, but his heart is a believer”-the Noble Prophet [Muḥammad]. made a similar remark about Umayyah b. Abī ṣ-Ṣalṭ (an Arab poet).- A mana lisānuhū wa-kafara qalbuhū (”His tongue believes, but his heart disbelieves”).
The word Allama, “Great Scholar,” which occurs before Iqbal’s name more than once in the following piece, is often used as an appellation for Iqbal.
In this reprint, the footnotes of the original article have been converted to endnotes, and one or two minor typographical errors have been corrected; otherwise, the format of the original has been retained.]
When I discussed some time ago with a leading German philosopher some aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophy and quoted to him Allama Mohammed Iqbal’s statement on Nietzsche, expressed in one of the poems in the ‘Payām-i mashriq’: the ‘Message of the East’: “His brain is unbelieving, but his heart believing”1, he said to me: “Never did I hear a more concise and appropriate judgment on the life and work of Nietzsche! “-That the tragic figure of Nietzsche occupied Iqbal’s mind more than any other Western philosopher is widely known. And as we know Iqbal planned to write a book in the style of ‘Thus spoke Zarathustra’ under the title of ‘The Book of a Forgotten Prophet’, but unfortunately this plan was never carried out. A contemporary of Allama Iqbal and a religious poet like him was the Libanese Jibran Khalil Jibran who among other poems and novels wrote a book with the title ‘The Prophet’. He admired Nietzsche deeply, but the influence of Nietzsche’s work on him originated more from its style than from its content. Jibran Khalil Jibran, not being a philosopher, rejected the main ideas of Nietzsche and was shocked by his atheism.2 Allama Iqbal on the other hand, while also not agreeing with Nietzsche’s atheism and many of his ideas, yet, as a philosopher, poet and mystic had a much deeper insight into the personal experience as well as the philosophical system of Nietzsche, its suppositions and consequences. Thus he discovered common ideas and attitudes of mind.
If we now speak about the ‘Nietzsche-conception’ of Allama Iqbal, it must be made clear that we cannot expect from him a dry philosophical treatise about the development of metaphysics in Europe and the decisive role Nietzsche played in it. But his often aphoristic remarks on Nietzsche in the context of very different writings are so striking, fundamental, and comprehensive-because Iqbal as an Oriental thinker did not separate the tragic life from the intellectual achievements of the German philosopher as many Western philosophers do-that we can rightly call it a ‘Nietzscheconception’. Iqbal was already strongly influenced by the vitalistic current of Western philosophy, by R. Eucken and especially H. Bergson, although he criticizes them sometimes. The dynamic concept of this philosophy, involving the gradual development of the self in the reality of this world,-a kind of prophetic outlook-was very close to Iqbal’s intentions in his philosophy of personality and the rediscovery of the dynamic concept of Islam. L. Massignon made the remarkable statement on the relationship of M. Iqbal with H. Bergson: “Une affinite spirituelle semitique!”3
But Allama Iqbal drew much more support for his dynamic philosophy from Nietzsche, who in one sense can be seen as the culmination of the vitalist movement. Some thoughts, allusions, and symbols (e.g. diamond and coal) in the ‘Asrār-i Knudī’ may be traced to Nietzsche’s ‘Thus spoke Zarathustra’, and the whole set of Iqbal’s book and his main idea of the ‘Perfect Man, which of course stems from Islamic mysticism, can be compared in a certain way with Nietzsche’s Superman. The idea of the ‘Superman’ perhaps acted as a catalyst in the formulation of Iqbal’s ideas. The great difference between the ‘Perfect Man’ and the ‘Superman’ is the following: In Nietzsche’s system the exaggerated affirmation of this world and the intellectual self-realisation of the human being to the highest and most independent degree-to a quasi-divine existence-is conditioned by the negation of God, of the transcendental world, and immortality. The will to power Per Wille zur Macht) explains being as a continuous becoming or development to a higher state, the eternal recurrence Pie ewige Wiederkehr) being the existential basis of the liberty and independence of the individual in a world which becomes quasi-eternal, a kind of secularisation of eternity. Allama Iqbal, as a religious genius, immediately and intuitively realized the ‘punctum saliens’ for the failure of Nietzsche, namely his Luciferian basis: I will not serve! This is where the great difference lies between Nietzsche and Iqbal, who had a certain sympathy with this brilliant Western thinker in his quest for the absolute. So he contrasts the Superman (Ubermensch) independent from God with the idea of the ‘Perfect Man’ in Islamic Mysticism whom he describes in his Bāl-i Jibrīl as follows: “The perfect man’s arm is really God’s arm, dominant, creative, resourceful, efficient, human, but angel-like in disposition, a servant with the Master’s attributes”. And in his Jāvīdnāme Iqbal describes how Nietzsche is flying between the heaven of Saturn and Paradise in eternal circles-a symbol of the eternal recurrence, which Iqbal strictly rejected-and he says about him:
“In his inebriation he broke every glass,
separated himself from God and at the same time from the Self”
and some lines further on he says about Nietzsche in an Islamic way of expression:
“He did not come from ‘1ā ilāh’ to ‘i11ā ilāh’ (i.e. from the negation to the affirmation of God)
and he did not know the meaning of the word ‘abduhu’ (his servant)”4
This brilliant statement touches again on the point of difference described above.
Another time Iqbal wrote in a letter: “Poor Nietzsche thought that his vision of the ultimate Ego could be realized in the world of space and time”.5 In the ‘Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’ he describes and rejects Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal recurrence in a very enlightened way, first in the lecture ‘The Human Ego, his freedom and immortality’ and then in the lecture ‘Is Religion Possible?’. Rightly he points to Schopenshauer’s influence on Nietzsche in this respect, through his main work ‘The World as Will and Imagination’. He says 6 : “In modern Europe Nietzsche, whose life and activity form, at least to us Easterns, an exceedingly interesting problem in religious psychology, was endowed with some sort of a constitutional equipment for such an undertaking. His mental history is not without a parallel in the history of Eastern Sufism. That a really ‘Imperative’ Vision of the Divine in man did come to him cannot be denied. I call his vision ‘Imperative’ because it appears to have given him a kind of prophetic mentality which, by some kind of technique, aims at turning its visions into permanent life-forces. Yet Nietzsche was a failure; and his failure was mainly due to his intellectual progenitors such as Schopenhauer, Darwin, and Lange, whose influence completely blinded him to the real significance of his vision. Instead of looking for a spiritual rule which would develop the Divine even in a plebeian and thus open up before him an infinite future, Nietzsche was driven to seek the realisation of his vision in such schemes as aristocratic radicalism. As I have said of him elsewhere:.
The ‘I am’ which he seeketh,
lieth beyond philosophy, beyond knowledge,
The plant that groweth only from the invisible soil of the heart of man,
Groweth not from a mere heap of clay!
Thus failed a genius whose vision was solely determined by his internal forces, and remained unproductive for want of external guidance in his spiritual life”: I do not want to discuss the second text of Iqbal on Nietzsche because it would lead us to the complicated question of time problems found also in the work of H. Bergson.7
But let us come back to some aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophy which are near to Iqbal’s concept. I mean the fight of Nietzsche against Platonism and its wrong interpretation, especially in the Christian theology of the last centuries: i.e. the concept of God as a pure ‘causa prima’ supported by philosophical terms and concepts, a concept of God which is quite the opposite of the notion of God in the prophetic religions and in the Semitic way of thinking. In this context Iqbal said in his Jāvīdnāme about Nietzsche8 :
“Had he ever lived in the times of Ahmad,
he would have entered into the eternal joy”.
That is to say: Had Nietzsche known the prophetic notion of God, as found in the Islamic tradition, he would not have failed. Thus Nietzsche in his first period was not just an atheist and nihilist who preached the complete revolution and conversion of all values, and his sentence ‘God is dead’ is not to be understood in this simple way: it rather means that occidental metaphysics with its Greek and Platonic heritage in Nietzsche’s philosophy came to an end. He once said: “The greatest recent event-that God has died, that the belief in the Christian God has become untrustworthy, begins to throw its first shadows over Europe”.
The leading philosopher of this century, M. Heidegger, in his profound studies on Nietzsche, his phrase ‘God is dead’ and its role in the movement of European nihilism, has something in common with Iqbal’s intuitive remarks on Nietzsche. He says that Nietzsche remained Platonist in spite of his sarcastic fight against Platonism, because he remained on the same basis, the belief in an intellectual truth. Nietzsche himself was of course not conscious of it. The conversion of all values or the negation of known values is for Nietzsche only the starting point for the affirmation, of the ‘will to power’, according to him the most intrinsic essence of all beings. After giving up the belief in the divine essence as the inmost essence of all beings, Nietzsche had intellectually to fill up this emptiness.
If we now once again look at Iqbal’s statement “His brain is unbelieving, but his heart believing”, we see how rightly it describes the case of the German philosopher. That Allama’s philosophy of personality differs basically from the system of Nietzsche is evident. In Iqbal’s concept the ultimate Ego is God himself, and the highest development of man consists in his gradual growth in self-possession and self-realisation, in the uniqueness and intensity of his activity as an ego. But the emphasis on will and activity in the higher and real ego of man and mankind in general-this dynamic concept of life and development-is very near to Nietzsche’s Superman and is a prototype of developed and perfect humanity. The difference is that Allama Iqbal develops his philosophy clearly on the ground of the Islamic faith, on the basis of the principle of the submission to the Divine, the ultimate Ego of the whole cosmos.
Notes
1 Kulliyyāt p. 371.
2 St. Wild, Friedrich Nietzsche and Gibran Kahlil Gibran, in: Abhath XXII, no. 3 & 4 (Beirut 1969) 47-57.
German thinker and writer, Nietzsche, was a multi-faceted genius who initiated the idea of ontological post-modernism. His conception of Superman is a declaration of a post-modern age and the end of the era of Man. His theory of “will to power” influenced philosophers and writers such as Heidegger, Jasper, Jean-Paul Sartre and the poet Rilke. He was not only influential in Western culture; his impact is visible on Eastern culture as well.
Allama Iqbal was basically an Eastern poet-philosopher but he was inspired by the idea of Superman presented by Nietzsche.[1] According to him, man is not the ultimate goal of history and his value cannot be determined without the meaning of Superman. Superman is a guiding star of the entire world. The centrality of Man was challenged by him and the highest achievement is Superman.
Iqbal’s conception of the perfect man was an idea of history and culture. He was inspired by Rumi and Nietzsche, and presented his idea of the perfect man. Iqbal was not satisfied by the status of Man. He was moving towards the idea of Superman and his idea was extremely limited. The transcendental element is absent from Nietzsche’s idea of Superman. Iqbal admires Nietzsche and his powerful Superman, but he adds spirituality to the idea.
In his famous book Thus Spake Zaratustara, Nietzsche says “Be faithful to Earth”. But Iqbal’s view is the unification of Eastern and Western values. In the East, Man’s spirituality is as important as his material being and Superman is Man plus the spiritual and transcendental elements. His Superman goes beyond the earthly bounds and touches the highest peak of perfection that is known as Insan-i-Kamil. Iqbal’s famous line is as under:
اے سوار اشہب دوراں بیا
اے فروغ دیدهء امکاں بیا
Iqbal’s Superman is the realization of the highest possibility of being, and the spiritual elements make him the crown of the universe.
This very conception of Superman inspired Derrida, Heidegger and Foucalt. The post-modern era is basically the era of the Superman. The centrality of Man was challenged by post-modernists and they presented a philosophy of the new cultural phenomena, Literature, anthropology, aesthetics and all other important disciplines deviated from the idea of Man. Post-modern’s include other topics such as legendary figures, myth and other areas of imagination.
Insan-i-Kamil or perfect man is basically a concept of the Muslim thinker, Al-Jili, According to him, the perfect man revealed himself in prophetic grace and Iqbal’s view of Superman was a combination of Nietzsche and Al-Jili, and according to Iqbal, the Prophet of Islam (Peace be upon him) was a complete and perfect being who inspired history, culture and the entire humanity. He is an exemplary perfect man for the entire humanity, as he writes:
آدمی یا جوہرے اندر وجود
آں کہ آید گاہے گاہے در وجود
Apart from his Islamic view of Man, Iqbal’s Superman is the conqueror of time and space. The rider on the horse of time and the light of possibility who makes Iqbal conscious of his absolute necessity for the evolution of history and Man. It is omega point for the spiritual evolution of Man.
Post-modern thinkers such as Derrida and Foucalt believe in the superiority of coming Man or post-modern Man, as he is the ultimate goal of history and culture, and post-modern culture is basically a culture of Superman. Iqbal’s thought is partly post-modern, but he does not agree with the post-modernists who deny the spiritual element and transcendental reality as the guiding star for humanity.
According to post-modern philosophers, the idea of Man presented by the Renaissance thinkers cannot be a model for historical development and the cultural evolutionary process. Man was their basic concern, and not the entire universe, including all beings. Iqbal and his philosophical message of selfhood or khudi is not limited to Man and his mode of existence. Khudi is universal and all the beings are moving towards perfect khudi, according to their different status of being, as Iqbal says:
خودی کی زد میں ہے ساری خدائی
Iqbal’s post-modernism is basically spiritual, ontological and contains an idealistic element. The objectives of khudi are not limited. They are as infinite as the ideal Man who never realizes and dose not take the objective form, but moving towards the infinity or the absolute being, as Iqbal says:
خودی کا سر نہاں لا الہ اللہ
خودی ہے تیغ فساں لا الہ اللہ
According to Iqbal, the birth of Khudi is the first ontological event and this ontological process in the universe makes all things move. And this process does not terminate in the being of Man, but moves on and on. Life and death are just passing phases, and not the objectives of Khudi.
حیات و موت نہیں التفات کے لائق
فقط خودی ہے خودی کی نگاہ کا مقصود
Idealism of the self is the shining star of the creation and is a permanent incentive to human imagination. The literary and creative process is inspired by his ideal of Khudi, and human imagination realizes the essence hidden in human imagination.
Note
[1] This assertion, often encountered in the facile writings in Iqbal Studies, can hardly stand the test of verification through Iqbal’s works and a deeper study of Nietzsche’s own ideas. Facing a similar objection, Iqbal himself dismissed the possibility by pointing out to the critic that he had not read Nietzsche when he wrote the verses that are usually interpreted as harbouring a concept of man that, apparently, resembled Nietzsche’s idea of the superman. (Editor’s Note)
The problem of evil has baffled many thinkers. Evil is not mere darkness that vanishes when light arrives. In other words, evil does not have a negative existence. This darkness has as positive an existence as light. The problem is how to account for evil in a world created by an all‑good God? Rumi’s answer is that the existence of evil is necessary for the fulfilment of the divine plan. Goethe thinks that evil is the reverse of good. Without evil, it would not be possible to identify good. Iqbal is of the view that the running parallel lines of good and evil meet in infinity. He points out in one of his quatrains:
How may I describe good & evil?
The problem is complex, the tongue falters,
Upon the bough you see flowers and thorns,
Inside it there is neither flower nor thorn.
(Payām i Mashriq)
Rumi’s long poem titled “Mu‘awiyah & Iblis”, Goethe’s Faust and Iqbal’s verses dedicated to Satan can be considered as great diabolical apologies in the world literature. The three poets blend the “classical” with the “romantic”, and despite the gaps in the times of their lives, their ideas on the role of evil in the spiritual and material development of man are similar.
In Iqbal’s poetic vision, Rumi and Goethe meet in paradise. Goethe reads out to him the tale of the pact between the Doctor and the Devil, and Rumi pays tribute to him in these words:
O portrayer of the inmost soul
Of poetry, whose efforts goal
Is to trap an angel in his net
And to hunt even God.
You from sharp observations know,
How in their shell pearls form & grow,
All this you know, but there is more.
Not all can learn love’s secret lore,
Not all can enter its high shrine,
One only knows by grace divine,
That reason is from the Devil,
While love is from Adam.
(“Jalal and Goethe”–Payām i Mashriq)
When Goethe became acquainted with Rumi’s Mathnavi through German translations, he found it too complicated and confusing as he initially failed to fathom the depths of Rumi’s thought. Iqbal had an identical experience of lack of comprehension and in his early stage of life mistakenly believed that Rumi was a pantheistic Sufi.
In the revealed scriptures, evil is connected with the story of the creation of Adam or, in Rumi’s words, when man in the process of evolution, had passed through the stages of plant & animal life and arrived at the stage from where he was to develop into superior forms of life.
When God informed the angels that he was about to place Adam on Earth in His stead, and that Adam would be granted freedom of choice, they expressed apprehensions that Adam would do ill therein. But God admonished them that they knew not what he knew. Since disobedience of Adam by partaking the forbidden fruit was his first act in exercise of freedom of choice, he had to choose between good and that which is reverse of it. Therefore it was necessary to introduce evil by deputing a “tempter” to mislead Adam before he was to exercise the freedom. It is probably in this background that Iqbal is prompted in one of his verses to blame God for conspiring with Satan against man. He wonders suspiciously:
How could he (Satan) have the courage to
refuse on the day of creation?
Who knows whether he is your confidant or mine?
(Bāl i Jibrīl)
Goethe’s view of evil is Pelagian when he claims that evil is merely the reverse of good. The forces, good and evil, apparently working in opposite directions, in fact work in cooperation in order to carry out the divine plan. The action and reaction of good and evil or the succumbing before temptation and the resulting remorse in the course of conflict between the Devil and man, according to Goethe, brings out the best in man.
Iqbal supplements Goethe when he affirms “evil has an educative value of its own. Virtuous people are usually very stupid”. (Stray Reflections)
He says:
I asked a sage: “What is life”?
He replied: “It is wine whose bitterness is the best.”
I said: “They have put evil in its raw nature.”
He answered: “Its good is in this very evil.”
(Payām i Mashriq)
While the positive existence of evil is acknowledged by Rumi, Goethe and Iqbal, the nature of evil can only be poetically illustrated through a reference to the Devil. Therefore, Iblis in Rumi, Mephisto in Goethe and Shayṭān in Iqbal represent different aspects of the same “cobweb” personality.
Rumi’s Iblis wakes up Mu‘āwiyah at dawn reminding him to offer the morning prayers before the time runs out. A dialogue ensues, in the course of which Iblis tries to convince Mu‘āwiyah that he adores God. It was the hand of God’s bounty that sowed his seed and brought him into being from nothingness. God procured milk during his infancy. God rocked his cradle. Therefore God’s wrath is only temporary like a mother’s anger. The doors of His grace are not permanently shut on anyone.
“My refusal to bow before Adam”, Iblis argues, “did not amount to disobedience of God’s command. On the contrary, it resulted from my extreme love of God. Has he not himself commanded ‘do not bow before any other except Me?’ This forehead which has always bowed only before God cannot bow before anyone else even at His bidding.”
Iblis contends, “This was a game between lover and beloved. He commanded me to play and I played the predetermined hand of lover. Thus I did what I was destined to do and was made to accept His wrath. But I still remain His companion, friend and comrade.”
Iblis advances the argument that although virtue and vice are opposed to each other, their operation is complementary. He asks: “How can I be held responsible for transforming good into evil. I am not the Creator. The Creator makes man good or bad. I am only expected to hold a mirror through which virtuous and vicious can see their faces and identify themselves.” According to Iblis’s reasoning evil circulates in every drop of human blood and yet man blames. Iblis for his own frailties.
Rumi’s Iblis is equipped only with reason, like a snake who attacks with his head. None can controvert his arguments, and no one can get out of his snare except through divine grace. However Mu‘āwiyah is not persuaded by Iblis’ articulate apology. He finds it deceitful and consisting of a pack of lies. When Iblis sarcastically claims that man is incapable of distinguishing between truth & falsehood, Rumi steps in and points out that falsehood always agitates the heart whereas truth provides solace and satisfaction.
Eventually Mu‘āwiyah overpowers Iblis who confesses that he woke up Mu‘āwiyah because had he missed the morning prayers his remorse would have earned him more grace. Iblis remains a liar until the end when he defends his act as based on envy, i.e. as a lover of God he is envious of man.
Rumi’s portrayal of Iblis depicts him as a lover of God. But a heartless being is incapable of loving, and here lies his deceit. Therefore when Iblis claims that all envy arises from love, for fear lest another becomes the chosen of the beloved, he is lying. In fact Rumi’s Iblis is nothing but reason (‘aql), the reverse of love (‘ishq). According to him Adam lapsed because of his stomach and sexual passion whereas Iblis was accursed because of pride and ambition engendered in him by reason. Rumi also shows to us that Iblis not only instigates man to commit sin, he sometimes persuades man to perform a virtuous act in order to deprive him from earning a higher reward.
In Goethe’s Faust the role of Mephisto is not that which is usually attributed to the Devil. He represents a spirit of nihilism, negation and contradictions, which is inimical to all life and higher forms of existence. Goethe first takes up the conflict of good and evil on a subjective plane and thereafter at the cosmic level. It is only when Faust rejects all pretensions of knowledge that Mephisto appears at Faust’s own craving. The events that follow take the reader through the problems of human innocence, suffering, love, hate, desire, appetite and ‑sin. It is the unique quality of Goethe’s genius that he picked up an ordinary legend and filled it with the experiences of the entire human race. According to Goethe, evil is a stepping-stone to virtue in a mysterious way, and this is conveyed through the words of Mephisto in Faust:
Part of that power, not understood,
Which always wills the Bad,
And always promotes the Good.
The pact that Mephisto made with Faust was to dissuade him from striving in life. He offered Faust all forbidden worldly pleasures that Faust readily accepted but his nature did, not change. He was only temporarily lulled to sleep. According to Goethe it is in the nature of man to move from lower to ever higher plane and from there to still higher planes, and it is only by constant striving that man can carve out his destiny. Faust went on striving Without regard to good and evil as, in the eyes of Goethe, to strive is an act of willing and an act of willing does not fall in the realm of freedom, but to that of nature. Mephisto used all his devices to lure Faust into accepting conditions which were not conducive to the fulfilment of the divine plan. It was not only striving for a virtuous life that ultimately won Faust the divine grace. But it were fear and hope which elevated him to forgiveness. He was delivered in the end and God’s faith in man was vindicated. Mephisto did not succeed in dragging Faust down to nihilistic depths of hell.
Thus restless activity in the nature of Faust did not hinder him in any manner even to wager his soul to the Devil:
To hear the woe of earth & all its joys,
To tussle, struggle, scuffle with its storms,
And not fearful in the crash of shipwreck.
In Goethe’s words, God himself has provided an explanation for the creation of the Devil. In the “Prologue in Heaven” He declares:
Of all the spirits that deny,
The Rogue (Devil) is to me least burdensome,
Man’s activity too easily run slack,
He loves to sink into unlimited repose
And so I am glad to give him,
A companion like the Devil, who excites,
And works and goads him on to create.
On the other hand, when the Devil confronts God in the “Prologue in Heaven”, he complains that Adam is not his match, but is only a “long‑legged grasshopper.” Mephisto sarcastically affirms:
My Lord! I find things there (on earth),
Still bad as they can be,
Man’s misery even to pity moves my nature,
I’ve scarce the heart to plague the wretched creature.
…………….
When a corpse approaches, close my house,
It goes with me as with the cat the mouse.
It is interesting to note that Goethe refrained from describing the nature of God. Faust only explains that He is All‑embracing and All‑preserving and therefore cannot be named. Faust says:
Call it Bliss! Heart! Love! God!,
I have no name thereof, feeling is everything,
The name is sound & smoke, only to obscure celestial fire
When Eckermann asked Goethe about the nature of relationship of the Divine with the Daemonic and the incompatibly of one with the other, he answered:
“Dear boy! What do we know of the idea of the Divine, and what can our narrow conceptions presume to tell of the Supreme Being? If I call him by a hundred names, like a Turk (Muslim), I should yet fall short & have said nothing in comparison to the boundlessness of his attributes.”
Iqbal was profoundly influenced by Rumi who is his spiritual guide. On the other hand he was also a great admirer of Goethe. Yet Goethe’s spirit, like the Urdu poet Ghalib’s, is that of a poet, whereas Iqbal’s spirit, following in the footsteps of Rumi, is more of a prophetic nature.
Iqbal is acknowledged as the poet of “Khudi” (Self/Ego). “Khudi” has many dimensions and forms. Therefore, Iqbal’s Satan is one of the forms of “Khudi”. Since Iqbal believed in the greatness of human ego and was a poet of action, he could not resist being attracted by the dynamic personality of the Devil.
Iqbalian Satan is a gigantic five dimensional figure. His first dimension is that no one can surpass his deceit, cunning, remarkable planning and constant striving for the realization of his objective. He is not evil incarnate. His self‑confidence, determination, pride and ambition are the qualities that make him a model of self‑hood (Khudi).
Like Rumi and Goethe, Iqbal believes in restless & feverish activity for attaining the goal. The goal itself has no significance to Iqbal. It is the striving for the goal, the energy for tireless effort, and the strength to always continue to remain a wayfarer that matters. Life is a chase after a goal, which must go on changing. Iqbal says:
In a spark 1 crave a star,
And in a star a sun.
My journey has no bourn,
No place of halting, it is death for me to linger.
In the same strain there is another verse:
‘When my eye comes to rest on the loveliness of a beauty,
My heart at that moment yearns for a beauty lovelier still.
Iqbal, like Rumi and Goethe, believes that evil is necessary for the development of man. Had there been no evil, there would have been no conflict, no struggle and no striving. Therefore, Iqbal emphasizes:
Waste not your life in a world devoid of taste,
Which contains God but not the Devil.
(Payām i Mashriq)
Iqbal does not want man to get involved in the controversy of virtue & vice or good and evil, but must only concentrate on striving for better destinations. Life which leads to paradise is a life of passivity, inactivity and of eternal death.
The second dimension of Iqbal’s Devil is his cheeky confrontation with God. Addressing God, he claims that he is no less than Him:
You bring stars into being,
I make them revolve,
The motion in your immobile
Universe is as I breathe my spirit into it.
You only put soul in the body
But the warmth of tumultuous activity
In life is from me.
You show the way to eternal rest,
I direct towards feverish activity and constant striving.
Man who is short‑sighted, clueless and ignorant,
Takes birth in your lap
Attains maturity only in my care.
The third dimension of Iqbal’s Devil is that he is the first lover (of God’s Unity). He unhesitatingly accepted God’s wrath and separation by his disobedience. But even in the state of negation he fulfilled the inner will of God. While introducing Iqbal to Satan in Javīd Nāmah, the crucified Sufi Manṣūr Ḥallāj says:
Since Satan is the first lover,
Preceding all others,
Adam is not familiar with his secrets.
Tear off the garb of imitation,
So that you may learn the lesson
Of “Tawīd ” (God’s Unity) from him.
The fourth dimension of Satan that fascinated Iqbal is his pride and rivalry with his adversary, man. Here Iqbal follows Rumi by affirming that satanic reason is the basis of the Devil’s entire activity. Therefore, Iqbal says:
If reason remains under the command of heart, it is Godly.
If it releases itself, it is Satanic.
Iqbal’s Satan mocks at Gabriel’s cloistered piety and declares proudly:
In man’s pinch of dust my daring spirit
Has breathed ambition,
The Warp and Woof of mind and reason,
Are woven of my sedition.
The deeps of good & evil you only see from land’s verge,
Which of us it is, you or 1, that dares tempest’s scourge?
Ask this of God, when next you stand alone within his sight,
Whose blood is it has painted Man’s long history so bright?
In the heart of Almighty like a pricking thorn I live
You only cry forever God, Oh God, Oh God, most high!
Iqbal’s Devil like Goethe’s, shows his disgust for the weakness of his rival. His Satan’s complaint to God in Javīd Nāmah sounds very much like that of Mephisto:
O Lord of good & bad! Man’s company
And commerce has degraded me. Not once
My bidding dares he to deny; his “self’
He realizes not. And never feels
His dust the thrill of disobedience,
His nature is effeminate
And feeble his resolve, he lacks the strength
To stand a single stroke of mine.
A riper rival I deserve. Reclaim
From me this game of chaff and dust,
For pranks and impish play
Suit not an aged one.
Confront me with a single real man
May I perchance gain bliss in my defeat!
The fifth dimension of Iqbalian Devil is political i.e., how he, on national and international planes, carves out earthly devils in the form of political leaders who through their strategies lead to war, decease, misery and destruction of mankind. In his poem, “Satan’s Parliament” (Armaghan i Hijaz) Iqbal’s Devil prophesises that since he himself is the founder and protector of capitalism, he is not afraid of the communist revolution of tomorrow.
But Iqbal’s Devil is as miserable as man in this world full of complexities. In one of his quatrains Iqbal says:
From me convey the message to Iblis,
How long he intends to flutter,
Twist and scuffle under its net?
I have never been happy with this world,
Its morning is nothing but a prelude of the evening.
On another occasion Iqbal entreats the Devil for cooperation. If divine help is not forth coming, why not ask the Devil:
Come! Let us cooperate and lead the life of harmony.
Our mutual skills can transform
This wretched planet into a paradise
Under the skies, if we together
Disseminate love and healing,
And banish jealousy, hatred, disease & misery.
To sum up, good without evil amounts to the passivity of paradisal rest. Therefore it is disapproved by the three poets as against the divine plan. Man’s destiny lies in constant creative activity. Iqbal is categorical when he asserts:
When act performed is creative,
It’s virtuous, even if sinful.
The crux of the message of the three poets is that the creation of Adam is not a “‘wasteful effort. It must be clearly understood that under the divine plan man is still in the state of becoming. Rumi says man has taken millions and millions of centuries to evolve, from insect to plant, from plant to animal, and from animal to man. The evolution continues and through man’s ceaseless efforts he is bound to cross higher stages of life and presumably go beyond angels. Goethe also lays emphasis on the achievement of higher forms of life by man. Iqbal through the constant strengthening of “ego” expects man to become a co‑worker or rather a counsellor of the Divine Being in creating a more perfect universe. He hints that man would perhaps eventually democratize the arbitrary divine system, so much so that if a destiny is to be changed, action would be taken by God in consultation with and according to the will of man.
However, this indeed would be the man of distant tomorrow, the aspiration of the triangular poets, who, with the assistance of the Devil, could go beyond good and evil. But he justifiably cannot be found today, as Rumi in his famous quatrain asserts:
If one were to reconstruct the form of Islam, which has been made to degenerate over the course of history, re-assemble it in such a way that its spirit could return to a complete body, and transform the present disorientated elements of Islam into that spirit, as if the trumpet of Israfil were to blow in the 20th century over a dead society and awaken its movement, power, spirit, and meaning, it is then that exemplary Muslim personalities like Muhammad Iqbal would be reconstructed and reborn.
Muhammad Iqbal is not just a Muslim mystic who is solely concerned with mysticism or gnosis as were Ghazzali, Muhyi Din ibn Arabi, and Rumi. They emphasized individual evolution, purification of the soul, and the inner illuminated ’self’. They only developed and trained a few people like themselves but, for the most part, remained oblivious to the outside world, having been almost unaware of the Mongol attack and the subsequent despotic rule and suppression of the people.
Iqbal is also not like Abu Muslim, Hasan Sabah or Saladin Ayyubi and personalities like them who, in the history of Islam, are simply men of the sword, power, war, and struggle and who consider the exercise of power and the defeat of the enemy enough to effect reform and revolution in the minds of the people and in their social relationships.
Nor is Iqbal similar to those learned individuals like the Indian, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, who imagined that no matter in what situation Islamic society is (even if it is under the domination of a British viceroy), it can be revived with modern scholarly interpretations or with 20th century scientific and logical commentaries on Islamic tenets and Quranic verses, as well as through profound philosophical and scholarly research.
Iqbal is not among some Western people who consider science to be sufficient for human salvation, for evolution, and for curing anguish. He is not one of those philosophers who thinks meeting economic needs is tantamount to meeting all human needs. Nor is he like his fellow countrymen, that is, the great Hindu and Buddhist thinkers who consider peace of mind and spiritual salvation to be transmigration, or who consider the cycle of kanna to Nirvana to be the fulfillment of the mission of humanity, and who imagine that in a society where there is even one hungry person, where slavery, deprivation and disgrace exist, one can still develop pure, elevated spirits and disciplined, educated people who have attained well-being and even a sense of morality !
No. Iqbal demonstrates through his very being and through his School of Thought that thoughts which are related to Islam are thoughts which, while paying careful attention to this world and the material needs of humanity, also give the human being a heart. As he himself says, “I find the most beautiful states of life during the yearnings and meditations between daybreak and dawn.”
He is a great mystic, with a pure spirit, delivered from materialism and, at the same time, a man who respects and honors science, technological progress, and the advancement of human reason in our age. He is not a thinker who debases science, reason, and scientific advancement having had his emotions aroused by Sufism, Christianity, the religion of Lao Tzu, or Buddha. Neither is he a proponent of “dry” factual science like the science of Francis Bacon or Claude Bernard, which is limited to the discovery of the relationships between phenomena or material manifestations and the employment of natural forces for material life. At the same time, he is not a thinker who links philosophy, illumination, science, religion, reason, and revelation together in an incongruous way, as some have done. Rather, in his outlook and attitude towards this world, he regards reason and science in the very sense they are understood today as allies of love, emotion, and inspiration in the evolution of the human spirit, but he does not accept their goals.
The greatest advice of Iqbal to humanity is: Have a heart like Jesus, thought like Socrates, and a hand like the hand of a Caesar, but all in one human being, in one creature of humanity, based upon one spirit in order to attain one goal. That is, to be like Iqbal himself: A man who attains the height of political awareness in his time to the extent that some people believe him to be solely a political figure and a liberated, nationalist leader who is a 20th century anti-colonialist. A man who, in philosophical thought, rises to such a high level that he is considered to be a contemporary thinker and philosopher of the same rank as Bergson in the West today or of the same level as Ghazzali in Islamic history.
At the same time, he is a man we regard as being a reformer of Islamic society, who thinks about the conditions of human and Islamic society, a society in which he himself lives and for which he performs jihad (i.e. struggles nobly in the way of God) for the salvation, awareness, and liberation of Muslim people. His efforts are not just casual and scientific or of the kind that Sartre called “intellectual demonstrations of political, pseudo-leftists” but rather of the kind exhibited by responsible individuals. He struggles and strives and, at the same time, he is also a lover of Rumi. He journeys with him in his spiritual ascensions and burns from the lover’s flames, anguishes, and spiritual anxieties. This great man does not become one-dimensional, does not disintegrate, does not become a one-sided or one-dimensional Muslim. He is a complete Muslim. Even though he loves Rumi, he is not obliterated by him.
Iqbal goes to Europe and becomes a philosopher. He comes to know the European Schools of philosophy and makes them known to others. Everyone admits that he is a 20th-century philosopher, but he does not surrender to Western thinking. On the contrary, he conquers the West. He lives with a critical mind and the power of choice in the 20th century and in the Western civilization. He is devoted to and a disciple of Rumi to an extent that does not contradict and is not incompatible with the authentic dimensions of the Islamic spirit.
Sufism says “As our fate has been pre-determined in our absence, if it is not to your satisfaction, do not complain”. Or, “If the world does not agree with you or suit you, you should agree with the world”. But Iqbal, the mystic, says “If the world does not agree with you, arise against it!”. “The world” means the destiny and life of human beings. The human being is a wave, not a static shoreline. His or her being and becoming is in motion. What do I mean? It is to be in motion. In the mysticism of Iqbal, which is neither Hindu mysticism nor religious fanaticism, but Quranic mysticism, the human being must change the world. Quranic Islam has substituted “heavenly fate” in which the human being is nothing, with “human fate” in which the human being plays an important role. This is the greatest revolutionary, as well as progressive and constructive principle which Islam has created by its world view, philosophy of life, and ethics.
The greatest criticism that humanism and liberal intellectuals have leveled and continue to level against religion is that religious beliefs have been interpreted as being founded on absolute determinism or Divine Will, and thus the absolute subjugation of human will, so the human being is logically reduced to being weak in terms of free-choice in relation to the Absolute. If this were true, it would be a disgrace. It would be servitude and a means for the negation of power, freedom, and responsibility. It would be to submit to the status quo, to ‘whatever will be, will be’, to accept any fate which is imposed upon the human being in this world and to admit to the futility and uselessness of life. As past, present, and future events have been and will continue to be dictated by fate, in this view, any criticism or objection, then, or efforts to attain our hearts’ desires or to change the situation, must be subjugated to “whatever has been pre-destined for us”. In this way, the human being’s attempts to change, convert, and amend the status quo become impossible, unreasonable, and ill-advised.
But in the philosophy of Islam, although the One God has Absolute Power and is Almighty and although for Him is the Creation, Guidance, Expediency, and Rule over the universe, “His is the Creation and the Command.” (7:54), at the same time, the human being, in this extensive universe, is considered in such a way that while one cannot dissociate oneself from the rule of God and from Divine Sovereignty, one can live freely. A Muslim has free will and the power to rebel and surrender. Thus, he or she is responsible and the maker of his or her own image. “Every soul is held in pledge for what he earns” (74:38). “And the human being shall have nothing but what he strives for” (53:30).
In his mystic journey with the Quran, Iqbal described this principle, that is, the principle of authenticity of deed and responsibility towards human beings, that which humanists, existentialists, or radicals endeavor to help humanity achieve by negating religion and denying God. These people, quite rightly, see the religion and the God conceived by the minds of human beings to be incompatible with human freedom, esteem, authenticity, and responsibility, whereas Islam, without resorting to philosophical justification and interpretation, clearly declares “the day when the human being shall see what his two hands have sent before” (78:40).
With his outlook, his orientation to faith and his Islamic mysticism, Iqbal passed through all the philosophical and spiritual states of this age. It can be said that he was a Muslim migrant who appeared in the depths of the Indian Ocean and rose to the highest peaks of honor of the majestic European mountains, but he did not remain there. He returned to us to offer his nation - that is, to offer us - whatever he had learned on his wondrous journey. Through his personality, I see that once again Islam in the 20th century presents a model, an example, for the anguished but confused new generation which has some degree of self-awareness. A shining spirit, full of Eastern inspiration, is selected from the land of the heart of spiritual culture and illumination. The great thoughts of the West, the land of civilization, intellect, and knowledge with the power of creativity and advancement are placed in his mind. Then, with all of this investment, he becomes knowledgeable of the 20th century. He is not one of those reactionaries and worshippers of the past who have enmity towards the West and whatever is new; who oppose new civilization without a sound reason. He is also not like those who imitate and are absorbed by the West without having the courage to criticize and to choose. On the one hand, he employs science and, on the other, he senses its inadequacies and shortcomings in meeting the spiritual needs and the evolutionary requirements of humanity. He offers solutions for its completion. Iqbal is a person who has a world view, and he has developed philosophical-spiritual interpretations based upon it which he offers to the world and its people. Iqbal is a person who bases his social teaching upon his world view, and then offers his spiritual and philosophical interpretations of it. Based upon the culture and history with which he is associated, he develops the concept of a person based on the standard of an “Ali”, to the extent that the material for developing such a human being in our century allows.
What does the “standard of Ali” mean? It means a human being with an Eastern heart and a Western mind. It means a person who thinks deeply and profoundly. It means a human being who expresses a beautiful and splendid love. It refers to a person who is well acquainted with the anguish of the spirit as well as with the sufferings of life. It means a human being who both knows God and the people. It is a devotee possessing the light of knowledge who burns with love and faith, and whose penetrating eyes never allow negligence and ignorance to prevail without questioning the fate of enslaved nations. It is a person who seeks reform, revolution, and a change of mental attitudes. As a thinker, he realizes that the spiritless eye of science (according to Francis Bacon) is incapable of seeing all the realities of the universe. He also feels that a lovesick heart attains nothing if it is only concerned with asceticism, self-abasement and purification, because a human being affiliated with society and affiliated to life and the material world cannot disentangle the “self” alone. An individual moves with the caravan of society and cannot choose a way separate from it.
This is why we wish to have a School of thought and action which both responds to our philosophical needs, and at the same time develops a thinking being who is accepted by the world, recognized by civilization and the new culture of the world, and not one alienated from us and our rich cultural resources. We wish for a School of thought and action which nurtures a human being who is closely aware of our culture and all of our good spiritual and religious assets, who is not alienated from the times, and who does not live in the 4th or 5th century. We long for it to develop a human being who can think, who has a scientific mind, yet who does not remain negligent of the anguish, life, captivity, and hardships of his people. We desire the development of a human being who, even if he thinks about the real and material anguish of humanity and about the present confusions and difficulties of human society or his own society, does not forget the ideal human being or the significance of the human being or the eternal mission of humanity in history, and does not lower all human ideals to the level of material consumption.
All that we seek in these various domains can be found in Iqbal, because the only thing that Iqbal did - and this is the greatest success of Iqbal as a Muslim in an Islamic society in the 20th century - was that, based upon the knowledge he had of the rich new and old cultures, he was able to develop himself, based on the model which his ideological School, - that is, Islam, - gave. This is the greatest success of Iqbal in an Islamic society in the 20th century. We do not say that he is a perfect human being. No. We do not say he is a symbolic person. No. He is a personality who, after his disintegration, had been reconstructed into a complete Muslim person and a perfect Islamic personality in the 20th century. This reconstruction is the starting point from which we Muslim intellectuals must ourselves begin. We must feel our greatest responsibility to be in reconstructing ourselves and our society. Sayyid Jamal was the first who produced such a feeling of re-awakening. Asking “Who are you? Who were you?”, Iqbal was the first fruit from the seed of the movement which Sayyid Jamal planted in this people. The first product is a great model, an example, and our very awaken- ing. As Easterners, we are affiliated to this part of the world. We are connected with this history. We are human beings confronted by nature and by the West.
But what do we mean when we say Iqbal was a reformer? Can reform really save a society from all of its misfortunes, anguish, and difficulties? Must not a sudden, severe, deep-rooted revolution take place in thought and in relation to society? When we say Iqbal was a reformer, those present who are familiar with the expressions prevalent among the educated class think “reform” means something which is the opposite of “revolution” in a socio-political sense. Most often when we say “reform”, we mean gradual change or change in the superstructure, and when we say “revolution”, we mean a sudden, abrupt change in the infrastructure, a total collapse and then total reconstruction. But when in these changes we say that Iqbal was a reformer, we are not referring to slow and gradual change in society. Our intention is not gradual change or external reform, but we use this word in its general sense which also includes the meaning of “revolution”.
When we say Iqbal was a reformer or that the great thinkers after Sayyid Jamal are known for being the greatest reformers of the century in the world, it is not in the sense that they supported gradual and external change in society. No! They were supporters of a deep-seated revolution, a revolution in thought, in views, in feelings; an ideological and cultural revolution. Iqbal, Sayyid Jamal, Kawakibi, Muhammad Abduh, Ibn Ibrahim and members of the Maqrib lJlama Association are great men who shook the East in the last one hundred years. Their reforms or, still better, “reforming revolutions”, stand upon this principle, for they believe that individual reform is no longer an answer. It is an altogether different matter if reform affects society. A person can no longer think and live in a way which he has chosen for himself, nor accept any influence from his age or his society, and still develop himself into a pure and real human being in a corrupt age and in a degenerate society, for if this were to be possible, then “social responsibility and commitment” would make no sense.
David Icke, Jordan Maxwell, dan Michael Tsarion adalah tiga personaliti yang membuat kajian yang mendalam tentang tiga perkara yang saya letak sebagai tajuk pada kali ini. Saya banyak merujuk kajian mereka tentang tiga isu ini dan mereka benar-benar membuat kajian yang mendalam tentang tajuk ini terutama tentang simbolisme-simbolisme yang digunakan.
Tetapi apa yang sering menggusarkan saya tentang ketiga-tiga personaliti ini dan dalam kes ini saya berikan perhatian kepada David Icke ialah pemahaman mereka tentang agama. Anda boleh merujuk video ketiga di mana David Icke menyentuh tentang agama. David Icke cuba menyampaikan agama hanyalah manipulasi golongan Elit untuk memenjarakan manusia daripada kesedaran yang sebenar dan Enlightenment. Saya memang bersetuju bahawa Kristianiti seperti yang difahami sekarang, iaitu satu agama yang terhasil daripada pencemaran ajaran Jesus mengandungi elemen-elemen agama pagan, termasuk mythology Greco-Roman contohnya Trinity, Sunday, Logos dan sebagainya. Tetapi apa perlu disedari bahawa pencemaran ini bukanlah manifestasi asal ajaran agama itu sendiri seperti yang diajar oleh Nabi yang mulia Isa a.s. Ia adalah satu konspirasi yang diketuai oleh ‘The Light Bearer’ dan pengikut-pengikutnya yang dinisbahkan sebagai the Elites. Ia satu konspirasi untuk memalukan Nabi Isa, mencemarkan ajaran dan perkataannya yang indah dan seterusnya cuba memutuskan Nabi Isa sebagai kesinambungan yang bakal membuka jalan untuk Nabi Muhammad yang ditunggu-tunggu, yang dianggap sebagai the Messiah yang lebih bermakna daripada dirinya sendiri, Nabi yang akan mengajar ajaran-ajaran yang indah, yang melengkapkan ajarannya sendiri, dan membersihkan dirinya iaitu Nabi Isa daripada tuduhan-tuduhan kotor seperti beliau anak Tuhan, the begotten son of God. Maka kerana itu Nabi Muhammad sangat dekat di hati Nabi Isa. Nabi Isa juga dekat di hati Nabi Muhammad.
Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, as saying, “I am the nearest of kin to Jesus, the son of Mary, in this world and the next. The prophets are brothers, sons of one father by co-wives. Their mothers are different, but their religion is one. There has been no prophet between us. (From Bukhari and Muslim).
Abd Allah bin Umar reported Allah’s messenger, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, as saying, “Last night I found myself in a vision at the Ka’ba and saw a ruddy man like the most good-looking of that type that you can see with the most beautiful lock of hair you can see. He had combed it out, and it was dripping with water. He was leaning on the shoulders of two men and going arounf the House. When I asked who he was, I was told that he was the Messiah, son of Mary…” (From Bukhari and Muslim).
Persepsi salah tentang Nabi Isa bukan sahaja berlaku di kalangan pengikut Kristianiti atau ajaran Gereja Pauline, tetapi berlaku juga kadang-kala di kalangan orang Islam. Saya pernah membawa kata-kata Imam Ghazali ini dalam posting saya yang bertajuk Qistas al-Mustaqim:
(Y)ou did not look at a saying for its own sake, but only look at its elegant construction or the good opinion you have of him who utters it. If its form is disagreeable to you, or the one who utters it is hateful in your estimation, you reject the saying, even though it may be true in itself. If, again, someone were were to say to you: “Say: There is no god but God, and Jesus is the Messenger of God,” you would be repelled by this and would reply: “This is a statement from the Christians. How could I say this?” You would not have the intelligence to know that in itself this statement is true and that the Christian is hateful not because of this statement, nor for others like it, but only because of two. The first of these that Muhammad is not the Messenger of God, and the second is that God is the third of three. All else that he says is true.
Jadi bagaimanakah untuk menelurusi kajian-kajian personaliti seperti David Icke dalam hal ini. Izinkan saya mengutip kata-kata Nabi Isa di dalam Gospel of Barnabas. Saya meminta maaf jika ada yang tersinggung kerana saya menggunakan Gospel of Barnabas dalam posting ini. Saya telah menyentuh tentang kedudukan Gospel of Barnabas dalam posting saya yang bertajuk “Kisah Seorang Pemuda Yang Bersifat Pemurah.” Terpulang kepada anda untuk menilai Gospel ini setelah anda membaca dan membuat kajian tentangnya. Anda juga boleh merujuk buku “Kedudukan injil Barnabas menurut pandangan Islam” oleh Anwar Musaddad. Kata-kata Nabi Isa ini saya berikan untuk menjawab dua persoalan ini, iaitu bagaimana sikap kita dalam menerima sesuatu pandangan dan kajian dan dalam hal ini ialah kajian yang dilakukan David Icke dan jawapan kepada pandangan David Icke tentang agama:
James answered: “O Master, if perchance there shall come a false prophet and lying teacher pretending to instruct us, what ought we to do?
Jesus answered in parable: “A man goeth to fish with a net, and therein he catcheth many fishes, but those that are bad he throweth away.
“A man went forth to sow, but only the grain that falleth on good ground beareth seed.
“Even so ought ye to do, listening to all and receiving only the truth, seeing that the truth alone beareth fruit unto eternal life.”
Then answered Andrew: Now shall the truth be known?”
Jesus answered: “Everything that conformeth to the book of Moses, that receive ye for true; seeing that God is one, the truth is one; whence it followeth that doctrine is one meaning of the doctrine is one; and therefore the faith is one. Verily I say unto you that if the truth had not been erased from the book of Moses, God would not have given to David our father the second. And if the book of David has not been contaminated, God would not have committed the Gospel to me; seeing that the Lord our God is unchangeable, and hath spoken but one message to all men. Wherefore, when the messenger of God shall come, he shall come to cleanse away all wherewith the ungodly have contaminated my book.
Then answered he who writeth (Barnabas): “O Master, what shall a man do when the law shall be found contaminated and the false prophet shall speak?”
Jesus answered: “Great is thy question, O Barnabas; wherefore I tell thee that in such a time few are saved, seeing that men do not consider their end, which is God. As God liveth in whose presence my soul standeth, every doctrine that shall turn man aside from his end, which is God, is most evil doctrine. Wherefore there are three things that thou shalt consider in doctrine - namely, love towards God, pity towards one’s neighbour, and hatred towards thyself, who hast offended God, and offendest him every day. Wherefore every doctrine that is contrary to these three heads do thou avoid, because it is most evil.”
Disalin daripada: The Gospel of Barnabas. Publishers: Begum Aisha Bawany Waqf. English Edition: Oxford At The Clarendon Press, 1907.
