Iqbal’s philosophy offers remedy for Ummah’s problems

Islamabad

Poet and philosopher Allama Iqbal is a role model for youth. At the age of 30, he had developed command over seven languages and had received three degrees from renowned universities. Youth will have to follow the path of Iqbal in order to acquire knowledge and to lead a better life.

The chairman of Muslim Institute Sahibzada Sultan Ahmad Ali expressed these views while delivering a lecture on ‘Message of Allama Iqbal for Youth.’ here at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML) Tuesday. He said, Iqbal’s philosophy contains the remedy for Muslim Ummah’s problems.

Quoting the Quaid-i-Azam, Sultan Ahmad stated that the father of the nation, while paying tribute to Iqbal, had said that “If I have to choose between empire and Iqbal, then I will choose Iqbal.” Iqbal’s thinking laid the foundation to revolutionary and freedom movements in many states, he said, adding that Imam Khomeini himself use to read Iqbal. Similarly, the people of Tajikistan also enlightened themselves with Iqbal’s poem ‘Az Khoabay Giran Khaiz’ and then got freedom.

Sultan Ahmad stressed the need to introduce youth with our heritage of knowledge. “Mirza Abdul Qadir Baydil is a great name; his poetry is extremely great, but unfortunately today, you cannot find anyone who understands Baydil. Maulana Rumi, the one Iqbal considered as his mentor, is one the most read poets in the West and unfortunately, we are being introduced to Rumi through the West. Likewise, Iqbal’s work has been translated into 21 languages and many nations, except us, are reaping benefit from Iqbal’s thinking, he added.

The speaker called for greater efforts to project the philosophy of Iqbal so that the Muslim Ummah is able to shun short-sightedness and prejudice, and can adopt its own Islamic identity. The lecture was organised by the Department of Persian. Dr. Muhammad Safeer, Dr. Maher Noor Khan, Dr. Amtil Hafeez, other faculty members and a large number of students attended the lecture.

In the end, Dr. Safeer Ahmed, head of the Persian department, presented a memento Sultan Ahmad on behalf of NUML.