Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam by Allama Muhammad Iqbal

Author:Allama Muhammad Iqbal [Iqbal, Allama Muhammad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2018-04-01T07:00:00+00:00

37. Alexander’s metaphor that time is mind of space is to be found in statements such as this: ‘It is that Time as a whole and in its parts bears to space as a whole and its corresponding parts a relation analogous to the relation of mind . . . or to put the matter shortly that Time is the mind of Space and Space the body of Time’ (Space, Time and Deity, II, 38). Allama Iqbal’s references to Alexander’s Space, Time and Deity, in the sufistic account of space and time in the present Lecture as also in his address earlier: ‘A Plea for Deeper Study of Muslim Scientists’ (Speeches, Writings and Statements, p. 142) coupled with his commendatory observations on Alexander’s work in his letter dated 24 January 1921 addressed to R. A. Nicholson (Letters of Iqbal, p. 141) are suggestive of Allama’s keen interest in the metaphysical views of Alexander.

Of all the British philosophers, contemporaries of Allama Iqbal, Alexander can be singled out for laying equal emphasis on space and time as central to all philosophy. ‘All the vital problems of philosophy’, says Alexander, ‘depend for their solution on the solution of the problem what Space and Time are and, more particularly, in how they are related to each other’. According to Allama Iqbal, ‘In [Muslim] . . . culture the problem of space and time becomes a question of life and death’ (p. 105). ‘Space and Time in Muslim Thought’ was the subject selected by Allama for his proposed Rhodes Memorial Lectures at Oxford (1934-1935) (cf. Letters of Iqbal, pp.135-36 and 183; also Relics of Allama Iqbal: Catalogue, Letter II, 70 dated 27 May 1935 from Secretary, Rhodes Trust) which very unfortunately he could not deliver owing to his increasing ill health. A letter dated 6 May 1937 addressed to Dr Syed Zafarul Hasan of Aligarh Muslim University (author of the well-known Realism, 1928), discovered only recently, shows that Allama Iqbal had already gathered ‘material’ for his Rhodes Memorial Lectures; cf. Rafâal-Dân Ha`shimi`, ‘Allamah Iqbal ke Chand Ghair Mudawwan KhuÇëÇ’, Iqbal Review, XXIII/iv (January 1983), 41-43.

Attention may be called here also to an obviously unfinished two-page draft on ‘The Problem of Time in Muslim Philosophy’ in Allama’s own hand preserved in the Allama Iqbal Museum, Lahore; cf. Dr Ahmad Nabi Khan, Relics of Allama Iqbal: Catalogue, I, 37.

38. Cf. Gh«yat al-Imk«n fi Dir«yat al-Mak«n, pp. 16-17; English trans., p. 13.

39. Ibid., p. 50; English trans., p. 36.

40. This is a reference to the Quranic verses: 6:6; 9:39; 17:16-17; 18:59; 21:11; 22:45; 36:31. God’s judgment on nations, also called ‘judgment in history’, according to the Qur’«n is said to be more relentless than God’s judgment on individuals - in the latter case God is forgiving and compassionate. Nations are destroyed only for their transgression and evil doings. And when a nation perishes, its good members meet the same doom as its bad ones for the former failed to check the spread of evil (11:116), cf. F. Rahman, Major Themes of the Qur’«n, p.

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