Download Modernity, modernism and reconstruction in the

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This article, abridged here, appeared in Turkish in the
literary journal, Sabah Ulkesi, in October 2014
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Modernity, Modernism and Reconstruction in the
Light of Muhammad Iqbal’s Thought
Edward Hulmes
Faith and Reason
Eighty years ago, not long after the end of World War I, the future of religion was in
question.
‘How is belief in a Merciful and Compassionate God to be reasonably
sustained after the horrors of the bitter conflict in Europe between the years 1914-18?’
Iqbal provided a coherent and reasoned answer intended primarily, but not exclusively,
for Muslims.
In his book, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam,
Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) explores the link between religious faith and reason.
Published in the West in 1934 by Oxford University Press, the text includes a final
lecture with the title, ‘Is Religion Possible?’
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This question still requires an answer at a
time when irreligion and unbelief are not only possible but fashionable.
The book is
supplemented with copious explanatory notes and references.
One of the more bizarre developments associated with ‘modernity’ is the assertion that
there is no absolute truth, that relativism is the only attitude we can take to diversity.
This is not merely delusory, a denial of religious truth, but the denial of what may truly
be known by means of all intellectual endeavour. Iqbal rejects relativism. His book is
an eclectic work of stunning virtuosity, illuminated by the author’s erudition.
He draws
on his intimate knowledge of Islamic history, European philosophy and psychology,
other religious traditions and atheistic belief.
He was a scholar, a master of classical
Urdu and Persian poetic forms, a philosopher and a political activist. He was one of the
intellectual mentors of Pakistan. The book appeared when India was still the ‘Jewel in
the Crown’ of the British Empire.
During the first half of the twentieth century support
for independence from colonial rule in India was rising.
Riots and sectarian violence
between Hindus, Muslims and members of other ethnic groups accompanied the
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months up to and after independence, which came for India on 15 August 1947 and for
the Islamic Republic of Pakistan one day earlier.
transition to independence.
Thousands were killed during the
Recognising the challenges partition would bring after
years of British colonial rule, Iqbal sought to encourage his fellow Muslims to reexamine their Islamic cultural roots, but his aim was to transcend the limited boundaries
of national identity and culture.
Mutual respect is to be extended to everyone, whether believers in a revealed religion
or not.
Muslims are specifically summoned to extend this respect to all ‘People of the
Book’ (Arabic, ahl al-kitāb)2, notably to Jews and Christians, but Iqbal was not directly
concerned with what has become known in the West as dialogue between members of
different religions.
His purpose is stated clearly in the short Introduction to the book.
He wrote, ‘I have tried…, even though partially, …to reconstruct Muslim religious
philosophy with due regard to the philosophical traditions of Islam and the more recent
developments in the various domains of human knowledge’.
one of several equally valid world views.
For him Islam was not
Islam was the key to all human aspirations.
It was the belief system that makes human existence uniquely intelligible.
of human progress, he asserted, is not religion but materialism.
The enemy
‘As knowledge
advances and fresh avenues of thought are opened, other views, and probably sounder
views than those set forth in these lectures, are possible. Our duty is carefully to watch
the progress of human thought and to maintain an independent critical attitude towards
it’. (pp. xlv-xlvi).
Modernity: A Flight from the Past?
The problems and needs of the modern world always need to be addressed in terms
that speak about the human predicament as it now is, but the concept of ‘modernity’
resists definition. Conveniently vague, it can serve to promote an uncritical acceptance
of what is rather than a critical exploration of what might (and ought) to be.
In his
exploration of what ought to be, Iqbal was very much concerned with the needs of the
modern world.
In religious terms ‘modernity’ can be the fatal deception from which
those who believe in the creative and re-creative fiat of God (cf. Arabic, kun fayakun)
are mercifully delivered.
In place of a complaisant preoccupation with the inevitability
of human ‘progress’, Jews, Muslims and Christians bear witness—admittedly in different
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ways—to a timeless divine revelation that sets out the way to human freedom and
fulfilment, owing nothing to changing shifts in human opinion.
Engaging with
‘modernity’ does not necessarily involve the religious believer with inter-faith dialogue,
But what does ‘modernity’ mean to a Muslim today?
however.
To judge from the
recent pronouncements of many who claim as Muslims to be acting ‘in the cause of
God’ (Arabic, fi sabīl 'llāh) ‘modernity’ means everything that stands in the way of
Islamic belief and practice.
In specific terms it means everything that emanates from
the West, from Western religion, philosophy, law, education, economics, entertainment
and social theory.
The comprehensive veto on all things ‘Western’ destroys the
possibility that Muslims can engage in reasoned discourse on the basis of mutual
respect with adherents of other religious convictions.
The rejection of Western values
was no part of Iqbal’s vision of Islam.
There is a distinction to be made between ‘modernity’ and ‘Modernism’. The ambiguity
of the former word has been noted above.
meaning in Theology in the West.
The latter word has assumed a technical
Applied to Christianity, for instance, ‘Modernism’
reflects post-Enlightenment moves to make Christian belief more acceptable to ‘modern
men and women’, for whom the existence of the supernatural and the miraculous is
illusory.
Muslims consider this rejection to be a radical departure from revealed truth,
about which there can be no compromise.
Nothing could be more natural than the
continuing incidence of miracle, but how is the timeless message of revealed religion
that is predicated on the mystery of miracle to be communicated, not merely adapted, in
succeeding ages? These are questions to which Iqbal devoted much attention. In his
analysis of the human predicament he commended the re-expression of ancient Islamic
truth by means of ‘Reconstruction’.
This called for a re-appraisal of the past, an
acknowledgment of excesses that betray the message originally delivered to the
Prophet Muḥammad, and a reinterpretation of Islam’s basic principles in the light of
modern scientific discoveries and the widest possible study cultural diversity. He could
see that Christian belief and practice were beginning to decline through the growth of
‘Modernism’.
professed.
He did not wish to see the same thing happening to the religion he
But was the Islam he advocated no more than a syncretistic—indeed an
unislamic— reconstruction of his own making?
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Reconstruction
The word ‘reconstruction’ does not appear in the book’s Index, but the concept is
implicit in each of the seven lectures. In the first six Iqbal presents his argument about
the reasonableness, coherence, profundity and universal principles of Islam.
The
seventh lecture, included to answer the question, ‘Is Religion Possible?’ appears as a
lengthy afterthought. There is insufficient space here to consider the author’s argument
in detail, but the topics he considers can be mentioned in order to give an idea of its
range.
First, Iqbal considers religious experience as a reliable source of human
knowledge. The notion that it contributes a valid understanding of the human condition
was being vigorously challenged at the time by positivism.
Iqbal calls on Western as
well as Eastern intellectual traditions to refute the negative challenge.
He described
the capacity of religion to rise higher than poetic expression religion, as it ‘moves from
individual to society’, giving us ‘a direct vision of Reality’ (page 1).
respect, he called Islam ‘a higher religion’.
Islam, in this
He noted the importance that Greek
philosophy has contributed to the development of Islamic thought, but new European
discoveries in the natural sciences influence the thinking of young Asian and African
Muslims.
Young and thoughtful people quite reasonably call for the development of
Islamic thought, belief and action. This is why a contemporary philosophical test of the
revelations of religious experience is so important for understanding the problems of
human freedom and immortality. It calls for openness to all the unfolding complexities
of the universe, which Iqbal believes could unite Muslims and Christians in a common
search for Truth.
This empirical testing of personal experience, he insists, is the
guiding principle of Islam.
Muslims are co-workers with God in repairing the world.
Iqbal repeatedly cites mystical experience as the deepest source of religious faith.
‘A
purely psychological method cannot explain religious passion as a form of knowledge’,
(page 21). Yet Ultimate Reality is to be experienced in a rationally directed life. Iqbal
moves on to a discussion of the Qur’anic concept of God, holding firmly to the strict
Oneness (Arabic, tawḥīd) of God. The word tawḥīd also suggests the dynamic unifying
work of the Creator.
Iqbal next considers the reality of prayer and its necessity, using
examples from other religions as well as Islam. But he states that it is the Islamic form
of prayer that aspires ‘to realise this essential unity of mankind as a fact in life by
demolishing all barriers which stand between man and man’, (page 75).
Iqbal
proceeds to expose the baleful influence of the human Ego, which resists any religious
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system that calls for submission to the revealed Will of the Creator.
The Ego makes
human beings slaves to themselves, putting their freedom and destiny at risk.
The prospect of dis-covering (sic) common ground for affirming beliefs despite
outwardly different expressions of name and form, without compromising one’s personal
religious convictions remains an aspiration, however.
Iqbal is a model, not only for
Muslims, who cherish the particularity of the faith they profess, without denying the
equally held convictions of others.
The affirmation of religious convictions is a human
right, but the denial of the religious convictions of others is all too common in the
modern world. Iqbal does not deal directly with religious freedom as a universal human
right.
The freedom for a Muslim to convert to another religion, to apostatise, is a
human right that still carries dire penalties in Islam.
Iqbal appeals to reason (Arabic,
ʻaql), which he holds to be a universal and culture transcending human attribute. On
this basis he continued to affirm that Islam is the ultimate ‘religion with God’, without
denying the religious beliefs of others. He believed nonetheless, that Islam is uniquely
and demonstrably capable of satisfying the deepest needs of the human heart and
head.
Iqbal proposed a systematic reconstruction of Islamic principles of belief, thought and
action, which could serve the needs of all peoples. This would involve no radical flight
from the past traditions and glories of Islam, no accommodation of Islamic belief to the
irreligious values of secular modernity, nor yet an advocacy of intolerance towards
those of different beliefs.
Iqbal considered the intellectual foundations of Islam and
their universal religious significance.
To some extent his purpose has been achieved
over the years, but many Muslims today do not share his eirenic approach to cultural
and religious diversity. The aims and the violent acts associated with a resurgent Islam
(and not only in Islamic societies) are being vigorously promoted in ways of which he
would not have approved. The task to which he devoted his talents was to find a basis
for reasoned discourse, which would enable constructive discussion to take place in the
modern world, not just about religious belief.
How does Iqbal answer the question ‘Is Religion Possible?’ He leaves his answer until
the final part of the book. Cautiously, subtly and at length, he replies with a conditional
Yes, in the lecture he gave at a meeting of the Aristotelian Society in London in 1932.
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He divides the religious life into three evolutionary phases, Faith, Thought and
Discovery. Always assuming that personal effort, discipline and rational understanding
lead individuals to a position in which they acquire ‘a logically consistent view of the
world with God as a part of that view’, he proceeds to state that in the third phase
‘religious life develops the ambition to come into direct contact with the Ultimate Reality’.
(page 143).
Iqbal assumes rather than argues these points, but this is not a criticism
of his style and intentions.
At times he moves into an eclectic mystical mode, quoting
Carl Jung and poets such as Rūmī, Javīd Nāmah and some Ṣūfi masters.
This is not
surprising because religion is mystery, especially in those aspects that are believed to
be revealed.
In the end Iqbal’s Islamic universe is self-contained and complete.
His
reconstruction of Islamic thought as the basis for a renewed proclamation of Islam as
the universal religion is sophisticated and clearly presented.
Islamic faith and belief,
which Muslims take to be the unchangeable measure of Islam, are mentioned almost
incidentally, but is Islam in its classical form possible in the modern world?
answers the question in the affirmative, but the affirmation is conditional.
that Islam presents a dynamic not a static view of the universe.
Iqbal
He affirms
This allows for the
development of doctrine, faith and belief in the light of modern discoveries.
But as we
have seen in the last few decades his tolerant approach to religious and cultural
diversity has not found favour with many Muslims
Coercion or Persuasion?
The injunction against coercion in the pursuit of Islamic mission to the world is found in
the Qur’ān, verse 2.256: ‘Let there be no compulsion in religion’.
This often quoted
verse suggests that compulsion (Arabic, ikrāh) is incompatible with the propagation of
Islam.
The meaning of the word ikrāh seems to be clear enough, in that it suggests
that any kind of compulsion and forceful conversion is loathsome, whether to Islam or
another religion, although many Muslims today take a different view.
It would seem
that there is considerable latitude among Muslims in the interpretation of this Qur’anic
verse. Careful study of Iqbal’s book might contribute to a more eirenic interpretation of
the verse and to a deeper reappraisal of his understanding of the Spirit of Islam, which
calls for persuasion, not compulsion.
The peaceful and non-coercive advocacy of
Islam as the universal religion for mankind is at the heart of the legacy for which Iqbal
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deserves to be remembered and honoured.
Recent events in the Middle East, Africa
and elsewhere make this remembrance timely.
1
A new edition of the book, edited and annotated by M. Saeed Sheikh, and with a new Introduction by Javed
Majeed, was published by Stanford University Press, in 2012, in the Encountering Traditions series, (paperback, pp.
277). It is from this edition that the quotations are cited.
2
On this summons to obedience Christians and Muslims alike can look at the work of a Catholic pioneer of
Christian-Muslim understanding, Louis Massignon (1883-1962), including his Les Trois Prières d'Abraham.