Allama Muhammad Iqbal was a distinguished poet, a brilliant scholar and a gifted philosopher, but,

above all else, he was a true visionary. Pakistan was fortunate to have him as its ideological founder. It
was at the Allahabad session of the Muslim League in 1930 that Iqbal became the first politician to
articulate the two-nation theory that ultimately led to the creation of Pakistan on August 14, 1947.

The way Pakistan thinks and believes has changed over time. Even the great poet-philosopher, Allama
Muhammad Iqbal, has been interpreted differently to fit this changing worldview. Some people see him
as an old-fashioned thinker, while others think he was modern. However, there is evidence from his life
that contradicts both of these ideas.

In 1986, a national seminar was held to discuss the biggest problem facing Pakistan. The son of Allama
Iqbal was there and spoke about his father's opposition to Hudood (Quranic punishments) that General
Ziaul Haq had made into law. Allama Iqbal had said that these punishments were specific to a certain
group of people and shouldn't be strictly enforced for future generations.

Gen Zia didn't agree with Allama Iqbal and wasn't happy with the idea of changing Hudood. But it turns
out that Pakistan has hardly ever used Hudood as a punishment, even though it's still part of the law. In
fact, Iran, which is more strict about these things, gave up the practice in 2014.

Now, Pakistan is struggling with the idea of bank interest. The Federal Shariat Court banned it in 1991,
saying it's a form of usury that's forbidden in the Quran. But many people still use it, and even Islamic
banking uses complicated ways to get around the rules.

Allama Iqbal, in his book about how modern economies work, accepted that bank interest was
important for commerce, even though many clerics thought it was wrong. He agreed with Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan that interest-banking was different from usury.

HUDOOD AND IJTIHAD:

Iqbal couldn’t have found approval in the Pakistan of today, Allama Iqbal was a political and
philosophical figure in the history of Pakistan. He shared a similar view to Jinnah on the concept of a
Lockean state, which emphasizes the importance of individual rights and liberties. Iqbal was also against
the Law of Evidence, which was biased against women and non-Muslim citizens of the state. He
disagreed with traditionalist Ulema, who were opposed to his liberal interpretation of Islam in the new
state.

At the end of his life, Iqbal was studying Fiqh and had been in contact with traditionalist Ulema to
discuss points that he wanted to include in his work. Although he was not a trained scholar, he believed
he was qualified to produce a work of Ijtihad, which is a reinterpretation of Islamic law. In his
correspondence with Jinnah, they discussed the establishment of a state based on Islamic welfare
legislation, but it did not include laws such as cutting off hands for theft or stoning to death for
fornication.

In 1924, Allama Iqbal presented his thesis on Ijtihad at Islamia College in Lahore. The traditionalist
Ulema immediately rejected his new ideas and declared him a non-believer. Maulavi Abu Muhammad
Didar Ali even issued a Fatwa (edict) of his apostasy. In a letter to a friend, Iqbal expressed his
disappointment that the Ulema had abandoned the movement started by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and
were now influenced by the Khilafat Committee from which he had resigned.

Iqbal's intention in reinterpreting Hudood, or Islamic punishments, was to consider the habits of society
when deciding punishments so that future generations would not be treated harshly. He quoted
Maulana Shibli Numani, who wrote a biography of the Holy Prophet, to support his argument.

LIKE NO OTHER:
Allama Iqbal was a gifted student from an early age. He showed his academic prowess by coming first in
his class at the Scotch Mission School in Sialkot in 1885. He began to learn Persian and Arabic in a
mosque and started writing Urdu poetry as a teenager while in ninth grade. He completed his
matriculation in first division, and even won a medal with a scholarship. During his first year at Scotch
Mission College, he began to write poetry under the pen name Iqbal and his work was published in
literary journals.

He passed his BA exam in first division and earned medals in Arabic and English. Although he passed his
MA Philosophy exam in third division, he was the only one who passed and received the gold medal. He
was appointed as a professor of Philosophy at Government College in Lahore, and was chosen by
Professor Thomas Arnold – a British orientalist who wrote a book proving that Islam was spread in the
subcontinent not by the sword but by humanist preaching – who became his patron.

In addition, Iqbal was appointed as the Macleod Arabic Reader at Oriental College in Lahore, with a
monthly salary of 72 rupees and one anna. Later, he took a break from Oriental College to teach English
at Government College. His poems began to show influence from various philosophers and poets
including Spinoza, Hegel, Goethe, Ghalib, Bedil, Emerson, Longfellow, and Wordsworth.

Iqbal agreed with Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, whom he regarded as the Baruch Spinoza (d.1677) of Islam, for
rationalising and demystifying the scriptures. His job at Oriental College included teaching Economics to
the students of the Bachelor of Oriental Learning in Urdu, as well as translating works from English and
Arabic into Urdu.

PIONEER OF SEPARATION:
Iqbal was greatly admired in Lahore as a poet and intellectual who could mesmerize audiences with his
poetry and also publish scholarly papers on mystics such as al-Jili. He was inspired by Nietzsche's ideas of
the "superman" and "will to power" but did not share Nietzsche's rejection of morality. Before his time
in Europe, where he completed his Master's and Bar at Cambridge and earned his PhD from Munich
University with a thesis titled "The Evolution of Metaphysics in Iran," Iqbal was highly productive in
Lahore between 1908-1925, producing some of his most notable Urdu works while also practicing law at
the Lahore High Court.

In response to Hindu revivalist movements, Iqbal moved away from his earlier pluralistic views of India
and advocated for separate electorates, creating the first geographical map of the Muslim community's
separation within the subcontinfent. His ideas were presented at the Allahabad session of the All-India
Muslim League in 1930 and he was highly regarded by the league as a leading Muslim genius. Iqbal's
idea of an autonomous Muslim state was not original, as he himself acknowledged its origin in the Arya
Samaj Hindu revivalist vision of Lala Lajpat Rai of Punjab.

Jinnah, who shared Iqbal's Nietzschean yearning for self-empowerment, became the practical
embodiment of this idea. At the 1937 Lucknow session of the league, Jinnah emphasized the importance
of power in politics and backed up his argument with examples of political settlements that were
nothing more than scraps of paper. Iqbal disagreed with the Deobandi scholar Husain Ahmad Madani
over the idea of India as a nation-state where Muslims and Hindus would coexist. Like Lala Lajpat Rai
and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of India's constitution, Iqbal supported the creation of a separate
state for Muslims. Jinnah welcomed Ambedkar's book "Thoughts on Pakistan" (1941) and used it to
legitimize the League's campaign for Pakistan. Despite his support for a separate Muslim state, Iqbal
remained pluralistic in his views and believed that Hindus need not fear the creation of such a state
would mean the introduction of religious rule.

ON THE SAME PAGE WITH JINNAH:

Iqbal's legal education and scholarly writing skills made him a suitable representative of the Muslim
community at the three Round Table Conferences in London. In his Allahabad address at the All-India
Muslim League conference in 1930, he presented a scholarly analysis of the concept of modern state,
drawing on Western philosophers such as Rousseau, which many Muslim Leaguers did not fully
comprehend due to their preoccupation with the failed Khilafat Movement.

Pakistan's non-Muslims celebrate Independence Day on August 14, the August 11, 1947 message of
Quaid-i-Azam at the Constituent Assembly has been suppressed and ignored. The message emphasised
the freedom of all citizens to practice their religion without state interference. However, seventy years
after its founding, Pakistan is struggling with non-state actors and a coercive interpretation of religion
that has led to the violation of human rights for minorities and women. The unexamined constitutional
provisions in Articles 62/63 have resulted in conflicts between state institutions, further destabilising
governance. In rejecting the ideas of both Jinnah and Iqbal, Pakistan has failed to live up to its founding
principles.