Sects and Iqbal

The lecture 'Islam as a Moral and Political Ideal' was delivered at the annual session of Anjuman Himayat-e-Islam in 1909 and published in The Observer, Lahore, and the Hindustan Review, Deccan, in April and December that year respectively.

"The eternal proposition regulating the structure of Islam is that there is a fear in nature and the human being must be liberated from fear and thus become conscious of himself or herself as a source of power; there's no mediator since God is the "birthright" of every human being.

"A strong will in a strong body" is the ethical ideal of Islam, completely missing in the Indian Muslim; a great personality is needed for ethical revival of a people. An educational system reflecting its national ideals is the next best option. 

Democracy is the most important political value in Islam while two fundamental principles regulating its political structures are that (1) the law of God is supreme, since the authority of the human being except as an interpreter of law is "inimical to the unfoldment of human individuality." and (2) all humans are equal. 

Historically, the democracy of Muslims lasted only thirty years and disappeared with their political expansion; the task of liberating Asia of despotism was therefore left to the British Empire - which is "the greatest Muhammadan Empire in the world" not because so many Muslims live in it but also by its own spirit. 

Unfortunately the Muslims in India have "out-Hindued the Hindu" in adhering to castes and sub-castes. Religious and Social sectarianism must be condemned if the Muslim Community is to fulfill its mission of freeing the humanity of superstition."

(An excerpt from Illustrated Biography of Iqbal by Khurram Ali Shafique)