Dr Muhammad Iqbal got his early education at home, after which he was admitted to school, college, university, for all his qualifications, like matriculation, intermediate, graduation, postgraduation and doctorate. He not only dressed in Western clothes, but obtained all his education on the Western pattern. But surprisingly, despite adopting Western culture, education and literature, Iqbal in his poetry is totally opposite and against the Western thought, culture, education, liberty, tradition and belief.
From the depth of his heart and mind, Iqbal never agreed, especially in his poetry, to take the Western civilization as perfect. He even forecast that Western civilization would soon suicide. And the time came, as all the world saw, when one of the two superpowers, the USSR, was damaged, nd disappeared, while half a dozen new Muslim countries got their existence of the globe. It was the truth that Iqbal had told in his poem ‘March 1907’.
Diyar-i-Maghrib ke rehne walo! Khuda ki basti dukaan nahi hai
Khara jisay tum samajh rahe ho ayaar hoga
Tumhari tehzib apne khanjar se aap hi khudkushi karega
Jo shakh-i naazuk pe ashiana banega, napaidar hoga
(People of the lands of the West! God’s land is not a shop
What you consider good will regarded as a counterfeit
Your civilization will commit suicide with its own dagger
The nest built with weak branches, won’t last
Iqbal not only denigrated Western thought and thinkers, but also criticized those prominent Easterners who favoured the Western thought and civilization. Once he found (perhaps in imagination) at the last resting-place of the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) a Muslim who asked about the Ummah’s bad condition, Iqbal says to him:
Kal aik shorida khwabgah-i Nabi pe ro ro ke keh raha tha
Ke Misr-o-Hindustan ke musulman banai millat mita rahe hain
Ye zaireen-i Maghrib hazaar rehbar bane huaiy hain
Hamain bhala inse wasta kya jo tujhse na-ashna rahe
Ghazab hai yeh murshidaan-i khud been, khuda teri qaum ko bachaye
Bigarh kar musulmano ko yeh apni izzat banaa rahe hain
(Yesterday a young man was weeping at the resting place of the Prophet (PBUH)
That the Muslims of Egypt and India were wiping out a built-up Millat
Votaries of the West became our leaders in thousands
What do we have to do with those who don’t know us?
The disciples of navel-gazers are amazing, may the Almighty save your nation
By spoiling the Muslims they are winning respect for themselves.
With the same flow of thought, Iqbal further wrote in the tribute to the classic poet Bedil:
Taalim Falsafa Maghribi ye Nadan hain jinko hasti ghaib ki talaash
Paikar air nazar se ho ashna Hai Sheikh bhi Brahmin sanam taraash
Mahsoos par bana hai uloom jadid ki Is daur main hai sheesha aqeeda pash pash
Mazhab hai jis ja naamwoh hai ik junoon-i khaam Hai jis ko takhayyul is ko inta’ash
(The teaching of the Sage of Western Philosophy
The teaching of Western philosophy is Ignornant are those who seek an Unseen Being
If the form is unfamiliar to sight, would the shape zlso be an idolmaker like the Brahmin
Modern knowledge is built on sense In this era the mirror of belief has been shattered
So-called religion is just a raw dream Which ends a man’s imagination
Democracy, especially the Western and modern democratic socio-poilitical system, is unjust, inhuman and immoral.This is imbued in Iqbal’s poetry. Iqbal condemned democracy in its entirety. He said:
Hai wahi saaz-i kahan Maghrib ka jamhuri nizam Jiske pardon mein nahin ghair az nur-i qaisari
Dar-i istabrad jamhuri qabaa main pa-i kot To samajhna hai ye azadi ki hai neelam pari
Majlis-i Ain-o-Islah-o-riayat-o-huqooq Tibb-i Maghrib main mazay meethay asar khwab awari
(The West’s demoocratic system is the same old instrument Whose strings lack any tunes but imperialism
So understand that this is the demon of autocracy dancing in freedom’s garb And you think it is the fairy queen of liberty
Legislation, reform, concessions and right In the Western medicine are but sweet narcotics
About who got a Western basis for their thought,because of whom the Muslim Ummah was suffering a lot, Iqbal declared:
Leh rha hai meh faroshan-i Fargistan se Paris
Woh meh sarkash, hararat jiski hai meena guraaz
Hikmat-i Maghrib sa yeh kaifeeyat hui
Tukre tukre jis tarah sonay ko kar deta hai gaaz
(Persia is buying from the vintners of Paris,
That heady wine, whose heat is enough to melt the jar
The wisdom of the West is as if
It is in pieces the way scissors cut gold into tiny pieces)
(Don’t compare your millat with the nations of the West. the People of the Hashemite Prophet (PBUH) have a special composition
Their party depends on country or race, your party is stabilized by the power of religion
If the grasp of religion lets slip where is the party? And if the party goes, so does the millat)
Iqbal criticized the artificiality of modernization. He presents it thus:
Nazr ko khira karti hai chamak tehzib-i-hazir ki
Yeh sanai magar jhoote naggon ki rezakari hai
Woh hikmat naaz tha jis par khird mandan-i Maghrib ko
Hawas panja-i khanin mein tegh-i karzari hai.
(The glitter of present-day civilization dazzles the eye
But this manufacture is a mosaic of fake stones
That science of which the scholars of the West were so proud
Is merely a sword in the bloody talons of greed
