A NEXUS BETWEEN RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE With special reference to “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”

Abstract

Dr. Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) (Iqbal, D. J. 1979) is a well-known Muslim theologian, philosopher, mystic, political theorist, politician, and wisdom poet of the 20th century. He is also known as the architect of Pakistan. He contributed in both the mediums of prose and poetry. His poetry is in both the languages Urdu and Persian. Similarly, he wrote and delivered lectures in both Urdu and English. His major philosophical work is in English. The magnum opus of his philosophical work is ‘The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’. This book consists of seven lectures. In the beginning, in 1924, he wrote an article on the concept of Ijtihad. He delivered it as a lecture on 13th December 1924 in Habibia Hall, Islamia College Lahore. Sheikh Abdul Qadir presided over the address. This lecture was warmly welcomed by Muslim intellectuals all over the subcontinent. The representative of the Madras Muslim Association Saith Jamal Ahmad invited Iqbal to deliver a series of lectures under the above-said title. He wrote and delivered six lectures in Madras in January 1929 and later at Hyderabad and Aligarh University. The 1st edition of this book was published in 1930 with six lectures. In 1932/1933 he visited England to participate in the second round table conference. During his stay in England at the request of Aristotelian Society London, he delivered a lecture under the title ‘Is Religion Possible?’ Later on, he included the above-mentioned lecture in the second edition of this book. The 2nd edition was published in 1934 by Oxford University Press. The problem of the relationship between religion, philosophy, and science was a subject of special interest to him. Although he discussed this issue in his wisdom poetry also but he systematically addressed it in this book which is his major philosophical contribution. This article is an effort to critically appreciate Allama Iqbal’s views on religion, philosophy, and science from the perspective of his philosophical discourse. Key Words: Religion, Philosophy, Science, Civilization, Reconstruction, Revelation, Reason