‘Iqbal fought fatalist mindset through his poetry’

The decline of Muslims in the Sub-continent was the biggest pain in Allama Iqbal’s soul and the entire corpus of his poetry reflects that. Poet and literary scholar Farasat Rizvi said this while speaking at a discussion on Iqbal at the Arts Council of Pakistan’s library on Thursday evening.

He added that Iqbal considered fatalism one of the biggest reasons for the decline of Muslims in South Asia and believed that if fatalism was accepted, there could be concept of the Day of Judgment.

The speaker went on to say that the Iqbal’s views on art, nation, God and humanity shine through Iqbal's poetry. The idea of Ishq, he said, was the fundamental driving force behind Iqbal's poetry.

Dr Rauf Parekh, Urdu lexicographer, linguist, and humourist, said Iqbal stressed the need for popularising what the Islamic history taught. He said Iqbal used to say that education was what propelled the nations forward.

Iqbal, according to Dr Parekh, was not content with traditional education and nor he was in favour of the Western system of education. He said Iqbal was also against the concept of Western democracy and explained how even Socrates had written that democracy allowed demagogues to become rulers if they succeeded in getting public support through their highly emotional speeches.

Poet Dr Fatima Hasan discussed Iqbal’s poem Masjid-e-Qurtaba that many consider to be his magnum opus. She said Iqbal was fond of Islamic architecture and he had called architecture a hallmark of Muslim civilisation in his preface to the Muraqqa Chughtai.

She said there was a profound impression on Iqbal when he visited the Cordoba Mosque, which led to the creation of his masterpiece poem that dealt with art and its appreciation. "To Iqbal, beauty and truth are the same,” she said. The talk was moderated by poet Rukhsana Saba.