Iqbal’s love for Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)

Though Iqbal, our great poet and philosopher, had striven earnestly to reconcile pure Islamic thought with the modern Western scientific thinking, the allegations laid upon him by some for being an advocate of liberal and secular ideals are false. The fact that Iqbal’s philosophical journey returned him to spiritual Islam proves that he was at heart nothing but a humbled Muslim in love with Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the God that Muhammad (PBUH) talked of.

Sadly, there is a sector in the society that finds mirth in the character assassination of the poet-philosopher, a sector that strives to mar a national symbol. This attitude bears a negativity that aims to blur the lines between good and bad, make everything relative and snatch away absolute belief from the society. This commentary of a poem from Asrar e Khudi is meant to reestablish the absoluteness of faith in the thought of Iqbal.

It seems that on one side of his experience, Iqbal has tried to rationalise intuitive realities within the diction of the sciences and philosophy of his time. But on the other side, in his Urdu and Persian poetic work, he takes the full liberty of expressing unquestioning and unbounded love for the ragged Prince of Medina, the dusty tracks he treaded upon, and his excellent, non-duplicable exemplar of being the beholder of the deepest meaning of khudi.

The poem titled ‘showing that the Self is strengthened by Love’, explains how Love is the basic driving force that empowers and cultures man and takes him from his frail position in the Universe, to a point where he becomes the centre of attention for everything in the Universe. The poem focuses on the love of the beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as the essence of true love, and that in this love is hidden the possibility for our weak undirected egos, to find the clues that could connect them with the Ultimate Ego.

This love has the ability to integrate man with the hidden secrets of the universe and beyond. Saving him from tumbling upon the inconceivability faced by mere sense-data, it enables him to grab the very essence of creation. The love of this Finest Man (PBUH) who possessed the ultimate khudi is what opens the possibilities, for common people like you and me, of breaking through into worlds beyond matter. Reynold Nicholson has translated the poem, it says:

‘By love of him the heart is made strong

And earth rubs shoulders with the Pleiades

The soil of Najd was quickened by his grace

And fell into a rapture and rose to the skies’

For Iqbal, the love of Muhammad (PBUH) is the very essence of religion, he takes Muhammad (PBUH) and his effects to be the highest markings in temporal reality, adherence to whom will prove to be the gateway to non-temporal realms too:

‘In the Muslim’s heart is the home of Muhammad

All our glory is from the name of Muhammad

Sinai is but an eddy of the dust of his house

His dwelling-place is a sanctuary to the Kaaba itself’

Iqbal sees the Prophet (PBUH) in relation to the Creator, putting human ego (khudi) face to face with that of the Creator’s. The Ultimate Ego is independent of the time-space paradigm and the Prophet’s ego, the human ego at its fullest, can in essence cross the space-time crossline too. In pursuit and love of the Ultimate Ego, the Prophet’s ego starts imitating His, though only to a limit allowed by His grace, therefore rendering the personality of the Prophet (PBUH) a similitude to that of the Creator — allowing him a presence that encompasses all times till eternity:

‘Eternity is less than a moment of his time

Eternity receives increase from his essence’

Iqbal, harbouring great respect for the Prophet (PBUH), deems him to be of most extraordinary accomplishment; psychically in control of realms within matters that are not disclosed to ordinary sight; a personality bestowed with extreme possibilities and yet one who is balancing all things in his person:

‘In the hour of battle, iron was melted by the flash of his sword

In the hour of prayer, tears fell like rain from his eye

When he prayed for Divine help, his sword answered “Amen”!’

Only with the power of khudi, which is realised by harbouring the two-way relation between the Lover and the Beloved, could a man of such simple circumstances as the Prophet (PBUH) become the pivotal point in the history of humanity; delivering it from darkness into a permanent light of freedom of thought; enabling man to explore nature like never done before. Upholding the faith of piety, justice and equality, he closed the doors of unquestioned tyranny behind him:

‘And extirpated the race of kings

He instituted new laws in the world

He brought the empires of antiquity to an end

With the key of religion, he opened the door of this world’

Eventually, Iqbal envisions the Prophet (PBUH) to be the one uniting force that binds a people from one end of the world to another; unity with the Prophet of Mecca (PBUH) is not unity with a soil, but unity with the whole machine of the Universe and beyond that with the Hands that bear the threads of all control:

‘We belong to the Hijaz and China and Persia

Yet we are the dew of one smiling dawn

We are all under the spell of the eye of the

cup-bearer from Makkah

We are united as wine and cup’

Iqbal’s love for Muhammad (PBUH) is as pure as any devotion can be. Iqbal does not choose to question the authenticity of the Man’s words who has said them standing on the verge of many realisations. Iqbal knows that we are to only question what we can know, but for all other realms that we are unaware of, we can only question with the beggar’s bowl in our hands:

‘The soil of Medina is sweeter than both worlds

Oh, happy the town where dwell the Beloved

Muhammad is the preface to the book of the universe

All the worlds are slaves and he is the Master’

The message of Iqbal is for humanity to seek the love of Muhammad (PBUH) who purely sought the love of Allah, for between the love of these too is the place where the light of Allah is to be found.

‘Many a Sinai springs from the dust on his path

My image was created by his mirror…

It sowed mine eye in the field of Love

And reaped a harvest of vision’

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2023.

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