Abstract
Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), one of the 20th century's most influential Muslim thinkers, theorized a radically new understanding of Islamic selfhood. For Iqbal, the self (khudi) was marked by an individuality that made it distinct and inherently equipped to overcome colonial incursions. Iqbal put this down to Ibn ‘Arabi's (1165–1240) “Neo-Platonist doctrine of sheep” of wahdat-al-wujud. This article examines the ways in which Iqbal's ideas of the self derive from a specifically modern, Western notion of the self that has its history in Rene Descartes' cogito ergo sum — a modern selfhood entailing independence and uniqueness, and which became the standard in Europe after the 18th century. It is a self whose worth is measured by what it produces, and by its relationship to the world as a creator. When Iqbal writes that “man becomes unique by becoming more and more like the most unique individual [God],”1 this paper investigates how Iqbal's approach to the Muslim self is thought through Western categories — beginning with the self, but extending to the pan-Islamic nation (the ummah), and nationalism — and how such an imagining delimits his very (re)construction of Islam, thereby further imbricating “Islam” within Eurocentric power-knowledge. The article reflects on the importance of examining perhaps the foundational theoretical assumption of the modern Muslim experience — Muslim selfhood — and how such an examination is essential for the process of decolonial thinking to begin.
Highlights
Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) was perhaps the greatest of all Islamic modernists, not least because his level of mastery of Western philosophy, in addition to his deep familiarity with the Islamic tradition, was unparalleled by other great Islamic modernists such as Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-1898), Jamal al-Din Afghani (1838-1897), Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905) and Syed Ameer Ali (1849-1928).[3]
For Iqbal, as was the case for all Muslim reformers, there was a deep sense of disquiet regarding the political and economic ascendancy of the West over the Muslim world, manifested in the colonization of vast swathes of Muslim lands beginning in the 18th century
Iqbal criticizes pantheistic Sufism because of its failure to recognize this creative, active and destiny-fashioning role of man. Regarding this state of mind, Iqbal writes, “We find a strange similarity in Hindu and some of the Muslim thinkers who thought over [the] problem of the self
Summary
ISLAMOPHOBIA STUDIES JOURNAL VOLUME 2, NO. 2, FALL 2014, PP. 14-28. Published by: Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project, Center for Race and Gender, University of California, Berkeley. In the Islamophobia Studies Journal are those of the respective authors and contributors. They are not the expression of the editorial or advisory board and staff. Either expressed or implied, is made of the accuracy of the material in this journal and ISJ cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. The reader must make his or her own evaluation of the accuracy and appropriateness of those materials
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