Muhammad Iqbal

Abstract

There are few moments in human history where the forces of religion, culture and politics converge to produce some of the most significant philosophical ideas in the world. India, in the early 20th century, was the setting for one of these moments, which saw the rise of activist-thinkers like Nehru, Jinnah, and Gandhi. One of the most influential members of the group was the poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal. Commonly known as the “spiritual father of Pakistan,” the philosophical and political ideas of Iqbal not only shaped the face of Indian Muslim nationalism but also shaped the direction of modernist reformist Islam around the world. This book offers novel examinations of the philosophical ideas that laid at the heart of Iqbal's own. As such, by producing new developments in research on Iqbal's thought from a diversity of prominent and emerging voices within American and European Islamic studies, this book offers new and novel examinations of the ideas that lies at the heart of Iqbal's own thought: religion, science, metaphysics, nationalism and religious identity.