Muhammed Iqbal

CHAPTER ONE MUHAMMED IQBAL a) THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND That is my homeland, whence the cool breeze came to the Lord of Arabs sings Muhammad Iqbal proudly in his "National Song for Indian Children" (BD 87), alluding to a tradition according to which the Prophet Muhammad had said once: "I feel the cool and refreshing breeze coming from India". The relation between the Subhimalayan continent and Arabia during the approximately 1300 years which separate the Indo-Muslim poet philosopher from the Prophet of Islam, have been more intense than one would expect. Long before Islam, maritime transports had established close commercial relations between Arabia and India, "persons from Hind and Sind" 1) used to come to sorne of the annual fairs in Oman. Only a short while after Muhammad's death in 632, under the second caliph Umar, Muslim armies had occupied parts of Sind and Gujrat, as we are informed by Baladhurï and Ibn Qudama who affirms that the pressure on this frontier was relentlessly continued under ali the succeeding caliphs. In 711-the year when in Spain the Battle of Xerxes de la Frontera took place, and in the North-East the Muslims bad already entered Chinese territory-a lad of 17 years, Muhammad 1) Ibn }::labïb, Mtt~abbar, p. 265; about pre-Islamic commercial relations of Arabia with India, cf. Syed Sulayman Nadwi's articles in IC. There exist legends in Muslim India according to which the Raja of Malabar had witnessed the miracle of the splitting of the moon and travelled to Arabia to em brace Islam; they also mention tombs of two companions of the Prophet at Covelong and Porto Novo (Mahmood Bandar near Madras). Cf. Zainuddin al-MaCbarï, tul;fat ulmujahidïn fi bactj alilJ:biir ai-Purtügaliyin, ed. Lisbon (Information kindly supplied by M. Hamidullah). The historical facts are found in al-BaHidhori, k. futü~ la-bu/dan, p. 435 ff. About the early history of the Indus-valley cf. Chac.hniime, transi. together with other important sources in Eliot and Dowson, HiJtorians of Sind, 1955 2; For the whole problem vd. M. Hamidullah, Cultural and lntellectual History of lndian Islam, WI, NF III 3-4. I. H. Qureshi, The Muslim Community of the Indo-Pak Sub continent, 1962. 2 MUHAMMAD IQBAL ibn al-Qasim conquered the fortress of Daibul near the mouth of the Indus, and followed the river upwards to Multan. From this time onward, Sind has been part of the Islamic Empire; Buddhism-then still prevalent-disappeared from this province, and Hinduism, eut off from the main stream of Indian Brahmanism, developed in a less rigid and orthodox way than elsewhere. The Indus-valley became a centre of Islamic culture and learning whence a number of well-known scholars hailed. Yet, a larger impact of Islamic civilization on the continental North of India is visible only approximately 3 centuries later: with MaJ:lmüd of Ghazna, the Turkish Sultan of Afghanistan and Transoxiana the long list of rulers starts who entered the fertile lands of the Panjab through the Khaibar-Pass, and slowly extended the provinces belonging to Muslim princes. Ma.}:lmüd has become notorious in Indian history as the destroyer of the famous Hindu-temple in Somnath in Kathiawar, the most southward point his armies reached-and his name has there fore been used as a symbol of idol-destroying power of Islam in Mus lim poetry. With him came al-Bïrünï, 2) one of the greatest scholars that Medieval Islam has produced, and whose book on India, based on a sound knowledge of Sanscrit, is still of great use for our know ledge of Indian customs and religions. Ma.}:lmüd laid the foundations for the Indo-Turkish dynasties which were to follow him during the centuries to come. Under his heirs, the city of Lahore became a great cultural centre-" a second Ghazna" and still the tomb of the great mystic Hujwïrï, commonly known as Data Ganj BaJsbsh, is venerated by the population; Hujwïrï was one of the first authors in Persian language of a systematic treatise on Sufism, Islamic mysticism, and bas exerted wide influence in the Panjab through his persona! saintliness. 3) This is a phenomenon typical of Indian Islam: though the kings bad military and political authority, the islamization of the country is due almost completely to the Sufi saints who wandered throughout the country, and who, far away from the methods of hairsplitting scholastic theologians, tried to teach people the simple practical faith of Islam and the ardent love 2) ai·Birüni's India, ed. and transi. by E. Sachau; cf. H. Ritter, AI-Birünï's Ober setzung des Y ogamtra dej Pataniali, Oriens IX 2, 1956. 3) Hujwiri's important treatise on mysticism was translated by R. A. Nicholson, GMS, 19522. .

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