Status Updates From Muhammad Iqbal: Essays on t...

The more universalized and consistent with Reality a religion is the more successful its ability to inspire socio-political flourishing. Islam is the foundation for a pan-human society. The goal for Muslims is the establishment of a Caliphate, but Iqbal concedes that nationalism dominates, so Muslims should establish powerful modern states, which will be temporary until they form a family of republics

Inspiration is the metaphysical source of human civilisation, intuitive human knowledge, creative change, etc and the human mystical experience of it epitomised in the prophet inspires creative and transformative change. The prophet and the mystic insert themselves into the movement of time (duration) with a view to control the forces of history. Prophet-mystic = source of civilisation

Islam affirms the fundamental goodness of humans, what promotes natural freedom promotes their goodness. To Iqbal, society is driven by force and conflict, force being a spiritual power that drives the evolution of the universe, these evolved forms are unstable, so achieve higher forms of evolution by overcoming conflict. The greatest threat to the development of this individuality is exclusion of the other.

Modern political philosophy is based upon a separation between state and religion, Iqbal disagrees with this. Human experience contains a unity that cannot be divided. The socio-political ideal is the development of human individuality and creative freedoms, society should be composed of ideal individuals.

Iqbal believes in personal revelation when reading the Qur'an, where one is free to discover their own interpretation and the ultimate source of the law within his own consciousness, thus being masters of their own spiritual development. Islam and its laws aren't immutable, but open to individual interpretation. This is how religion may guide its adherents in a post-metaphysical age

There are three stages of history according to Iqbal, 'Faith', 'Thought', and 'Discovery'. Man was ruled by visions of prophets giving ready-made judgements, then closes himself off to non-rational knowledge. Fresh vision is possible through tension of the ego and personal revelation. The finality of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is in no more prophecy needed, since man will be able to think on his own

Iqbal criticises Sufism for its stagnation and ascetism, which moves one to withdraw from active life. Sufism is correct in claiming there are spiritual stages to ascend, but wrong in that there is an end, instead, immortality is continuous action. Heaven and hell are visual representations of an inner fact, hell being man realising his failure to ascend. The nature of thought is purposive.

Key to immortality for Iqbal is that one frees themselves from earlier interpretations of time as serial time, immortality is a matter of intensity not extension which Iqbal calls pure duration. This cannot be expressed in words, for language is shaped on the serial time of our efficient self. The appreciative self perceives this time as duration, correcting the efficient self. This is the religious experience.

Iqbal sees immortality/afterlife in a post-Einsteinian (non-metaphysical) and teleological way, ambiguous enough for individual open interpretation. His interpretation is non-literal, resurrection isn't an external event, but the consummation of a life-process within the ego. Time and space are interpretations which thought has put on the creative activity of the Ultimate Ego, the Qur'an = against abstract universals

Iqbal uses Rumi to privilege love over reason as the human attribute imitating the divine. God, as goal, is the true Neo-Platonic beloved. Love motivates the human to act in search of the beloved. The goal of love in unitive experience remains inarticulate, this self-realised being can ascend to the viceregency of the divine. Hegel fails to find love through reason, Nietzsche is egoism.

Iqbal disliked what he called 'Persianism' and its metaphysics, which was mysticism in pantheism and denial of human agency, preferring instead the "brilliant desert sunshine of Arabia", which is an anti-colonial and pristine space of identity. He dislikes the determinism of Greek thought, and sets aside the monism of the Sufi tradition in favour of affirmation of selfhood

Habit is a creative and unifying development, creating and bringing things into harmony. It is an example of tawhid. Iqbal naturalises teleology, mental life has no far-off distant goal, but is a progressive formation of fresh ends. Creative possibilities for new directions of being are numerous. We must facilitate the emergence of the emergent, creative activity (God's ultimate ideal), finding our own personality.

Author sees a link between Islam/American pragmatism, both are ultimately metaphysical. Iqbal's quoting of William James, who wanted to distinguish between fake/real inspiration, ends in an empirical view of their actions (NT Matthew 7:20) to do so. The 'emergent emerging' by Ultimate Ego is the ontology of nature as a continuum in process, which is evolutionary, similar to thought, where we become a unifying centre

Mind drives change, Pierce and Iqbal have a metaphysical theory of mind that naturalise mind, finding signs of mind in nature. Mind is the principle by which change in nature occurs. There is an understanding of the cosmos as greater than the sum of its parts that science cannot explain. Tawhid is important to understand Iqbal's concept of mind, and how we can 'see' diversity in unity, or out of many, a one

Charles Pierce sees science as physical explanation of phenomena or common sense knowledge of human nature. It all comes down to common sense logically in 2 branches. All science is an outgrowth of the instinct about physical forces for our feeding impulsion, and instinct about our fellows for the reproductive. Science and religion share commonalities, both are rooted in sentiment/instinct & logical presuppositions

Iqbal gives a spiritual meaning to physical science. Nature is the habit of God, so knowledge of Nature is knowledge of God's behaviour. In our observation of it we are seeking a kind of intimacy with the Absolute Ego, which is another form of worship. A religion of science produces concreteness, and reconciles its progressive spirit with a conservative one.

Natural science is sectional, and cannot give a coherent account of how matter, life, and mind are related to one another. It cannot set up its theory as a complete view of Reality. Science must turn to religion in order to overcome its limitations, because religion demands the whole of Reality. Self-conscious relational understanding overcomes its fragmentary nature.

Iqbal's understanding of the nature of reality is in the idea that Ultimate Reality is an Ego, and that all the details of the world are an ego, with man being the perfection of this ego. The ontological problem, from ideal/real dualism into a person-universe-consciousness relationship. Everything in the universe is a conscious 'self'.

Iqbal identifies 2 types of consciousness = efficient self, & appreciative self, & 2 types of time = serial time & pure duration. With time, imagine you can sense frequency of the colour red, whose wave motion is 400 b/sec. Now if you could see this from the outside, at a rate of 2,000/sec, it'd take you 6000 years to complete the enumeration. This transformation is the appreciative self moving from the centre out

The dualism of teleology in its designer/designed can help us understand the relationship between humans and machines, but it is inadequate in helping us to understand the relationship between human beings and their natural environment, and the relationship between God and the universe. Designer/designed becomes a person-universe-purpose relationship.

To Iqbal it is only through non-mechanistic/deterministic conception of behaviour that an explanation is give for the ability of organisms to pursue an 'ought' in the face of an 'is'. The evolution of life is the conscious and wilful action of organisms to modify the actual 'is', and bring it closer to the 'ought'. An attentive consciousness involves memory of one's past, and imagination of this 'ought' for action

Nature is a systematic mode of behaviour organic to the Ultimate Self. Nature is to the Divine Self as character is to the human self. Cause/effect dualism has become a person-universe-habit relationship between God and Nature. Newtonian/Darwinian mechanism is problematic as it leaves no space for human freedom, it is deterministic. Cause/effect is to be replaced by end/purpose. Life is too creative for mechanism

Overcoming drawbacks of philosophy means combining scientific knowledge which examines experience with the wisdom gleaned from revelation. We must replace dualisms by interpreting the world as a symbol of a Reality relational - 'the First and the Last'. The scientific three regions of experience, matter, life and consciousness, are this symbol.

Iqbal believes that cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments for the existence of God are deficient. They are fraught with internal contradictions. They divide reality into the irreconcilable opposites of cause/effect, designer/designed, and ideal/real, thereby dividing experience into an irreconcilable dualism of thought and being.

Whittemore believes that Iqbal's philosophy is directly relevant to secular knowledge. Rafiuddin echoes this by noting that philosophy and prophecy have been integrated. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ gave a perfect concept of Reality to mankind. He was the first philosopher who made Reality the basis of his prophethood. This philosophy which organizes the scientific data according to Reality is the philosophy of the 'Self'

A problem for modernity, or philosophy as a whole throughout history has been how to understand a plurality that also contains a unity, or a reconciliation of the Many and the One. The teaching of the Quran for Iqbal is that it is the Reality of God that underpins the unity of the universe which transforms its multiplicity into Oneness.

Charles Taylor is adamant on Iqbal's relevancy, because the modern self constructs itself on a deep mistrust of an 'alien' other, which comes from our own uncertainty regarding our identities. We should define ourselves instead through gazing at others traditions as a source of self-discovery. Iqbal calls upon a 'renewed self' that accepts the alien other.