The Challenge of Muhammad Iqbal’s Philosophy of Khudi to Ibn ‘Arabi’s Metaphysical Anthropology

Abstract

The period between the publication of Asrār-i Khūdī (Secrets of the Self) in 1915 and The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam in 1930 marked the consolidation of the philosophy of khūdī (self) from the perspective of the Indian philosopher Muhammad Iqbal. A philosophical project for the contemporary Islamic world that sought to overcome, from the acceptance of science and few elements of Western philosophy, the limitations of the Islamic tradition and, above all, of Sufism, which the author labels as pantheism. Among the deep dialogues he maintains with Islamic tradition, Iqbal carried out a very special one with Muḥyī l-Dīn Ibn ʻArabī (1165–1240), who was one of the most notorious mystics and philosophers of Islam. A metahistorical dialogue, in the form of a critique, that invites us to see the convergences and divergences in metaphysical and anthropological aspects of both authors.