324 chapter eight
Reformers from the Indian Subcontinent
Muœammad Iqbal
An Indian by upbringing, Muœammad Iqbal (1876–1938) is an exam-
ple of a reformer who was educated in the West but still identified
himself with Islam and Islamic traditions. He studied in Germany,
where he earned a doctorate degree in philosophy, and in England
where he got a degree in law from London (Armstrong, 2000). Like
al-Afghànìand Abdou before him, he was keen on modernism but
still believed that modernism should be achieved not at the expense
of casting out Islam and Islamic heritage. In linking modernism with
religion, he advocated that Islam was the most suitable of all reli-
gions to accommodate movements of modernism as it is the religion
that always urges Muslims to observe God’s creation, think and reflect
deeply, learn from observation and thinking, and transfer what is
learned through teaching, which leads to increasing the stock of
knowledge. Islam, Iqbal asserted, is the most rational of all religions,
which encourages scientific thinking through God’s commands of
thinking and learning. There is no contradiction, in Iqbal’s mind,
between Islam, as a religion and culture, and scientific and socio-
political development. The advancement of the West, Iqbal ascer-
tained, was not because of the superiority of Christianity over Islam,
rather, it was because Muslims did not utilize fully the potential of
their religion, a reassuring thought which would help, perhaps, restore
Muslims self-confidence and reaffirm further their belief in their faith
and past. flùfìsm and mystical rituals had no place in Iqbal’s agenda
for reform. Moreover, they are in conflict with the basic ingredient
of scientific development that reaches conclusion through observa-
tion and reflection, not superstitious beliefs or mystical rituals. Iqbal
criticized individualism, which was to him a side product of the
European modernism, and was instead in favour of a benevolent
society. Not that Iqbal was unfamiliar with the social aspects of life
in the European society, he lived in Germany and England to earn
his degrees, but he must have come to this conclusion, through his
most advocated approach to learning: observation and reflection. Iqbal
tried to bring the best of the West, science, Western philosophy and
social-political ideals, and the best of the East, Islamic heritage and
ideals, together. And, once more, like modernist reformers before
him, he asserted that Sharì"ah would need to adopt an innovative
approach to religio-political issues if it was to keep pace with mod-