Q:Iqbal is critical of Mullah but eulogises ‘Mujahid’. Is Iqbal’s Mujahid any better compared to mullah when it comes to women question?
Nadeem F. Paracha: Iqbal’s mullah that he criticises is the guy who is illiterate, superstitious and usually found in a small mosque in a small village. Iqbal’s eulogised ‘Mujahid’ is someone like Abul Ala Mawddudi – Islam’s very own Platonian ‘philosopher king.’ A learned scholar, a lucid thinker, prolific writer, but at the same time, single-minded, if not entirely myopic, conservative, patriarchal, anti-pluralistic and someone geared to inspire a Muslim elite to lead a cultural and political jihad against secular nationalism and those strands of Islam that Iqbal thought were adulterated and too pacifistic.
So, yes, there’s a difference between Iqbal’s mullah and his mujahid. However, on the question of women both are conservative, but one’s conservatism is cruder than the other.
Q:Iqbal himself practiced what we can call Halala in case of his second wife. However, he was in love with a liberal women Atia Faizi. He opposes women education but employs a German nanny for his own daughter. He is Pan Islamist but wants a Kashmiri husband for his daughter. What explains these contradictions. And how do these contradictions reflect in his works?
NFP: Such contradictions can be found in a number of conservative thinkers in the region. They are conservative and yet flex their tongues and muscles like revolutionaries. They can be secular and liberal in their habits, but think that the masses would not be able to handle indulging in such habits. This has bred hypocrisy and confusion and a society riddled with some rather warped notions about all things ‘liberal.’ Even those who, unlike Iqbal, were not liberal in their habits suffer from contradictions.
Take the example of Mawddudi again. A great advocate of jihad in Kashmir, someone whose party helped ship a number of young men to wage jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan, but Mawddudi himself did not allow his own son to go to Kashmir.
There is no doubt about Iqbal’s prowess as a philosopher and poet, but I sometimes feel, a non-critical stance towards his work in this country has actually damaged his standing. He was a product of his time and well suited to compliment what was going in the minds of Indian Muslim men in the first half of the 20th century. But was he a visionary? I don’t think his work is as relevant today as it is made out to be. Certainly not in a post-modern world where the notions of universalism based on certain singular concepts of faith and progress have long crumbled and given way to a healthy respect and need for democracy, pluralism and diversity. Iqbal’s mullah is a dying breed but then so is his Mujahid whose fast becoming outdated.
Q:Iqbal’s role model is Shaheen (Falcon). In an interview with Viewpoint, Manzur Ejaz said Taliban were Iqbal’s Shaheen. One may not fully agree with him but Iqbal’s Sheheen is hardly feminist. His Shaheen, many will find, as patriarchal. Your comments?
NFP: Iqbal’s Shaheen is a Muslim adoption, rather mutation of Nietzsche’s Superman. And I think he acknowledges that. When Iqbal talks about the Shaheen in the context of the Muslim ummah, the impression one gets is that the ummah is first and foremost a macho, all-male fraternity. At least that’s the initial impression.
(Taken from ViewPoint magazine April 2011 issue)